>> Jen: Hey, good morning, friends and faithful listeners, and welcome to the Bible Explained podcast. Thank you so much for sharing a cup of coffee or a cup of tea with me this morning as we discuss one of the coolest stories in the Old Testament. Okay, so we're in 1 Kings 18 today, verses 22 through 46. And this is the battle between Yahweh and Baal. So grab your Bible out of the version that you prefer, but I'll be reading out, uh, of the web this morning.
Then Elijah said to the people, I even only I am left as a prophet of Yahweh. But baal's prophets are 450 men. Let them therefore give us two bulls, and let them choose one bull for themselves and cut it in pieces and lay it on the wood and put no fire under, and I will dress the other bull and. And lay it on the wood and put no fire under it. You call on the name of your God, and I will call on Yahweh's name. The God who answers by fire, let him be God. All the people answered,
what you say is good. Elijah, uh, said to the prophets of baal, choose a bull for yourselves and dress it first, for you are many. And call on the name of your god, but put no fire under it. They took the bull which was given to them and they dressed it and called on the name of baal from morning even until noon, saying, baal, hear us. But there was no voice and nobody answered. They leaped about the altar that was made at noon. Elijah mocked them and said, cry aloud. For he is a god.
Either he is deep in thought, or he has gone somewhere, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he sleeps and must be awakened. They cried aloud and cut themselves in their way with knives and lances until the blood gushed out on them. When midday was past, they prophesied until the time of the evening offering. But there was no voice, no answer, and nobody paid attention. Elijah said to the people, come near to me. And all the people came near to him.
He repaired Yahweh's altar that had been thrown down. Elijah took 12 stones according to the number of the tribes, of the sons of Jacob, to whom Yahweh's word came, saying, israel shall be your name. With the stones, he built an altar in Yahweh's name. He made a trench around the altar large enough to contain two seis of seed. He put the wood in order and cut the bowl in pieces and laid it on the wood. And he said, fill four jars with Water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the
wood. He said, do it a second time. And they did it a second time. He said, do it a third time. And they did it the third time. The water ran around the altar and also filled the trench with water. At the time of the evening offering, Elijah the prophet came near and said, Yahweh, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and that I have done all these things at your
word. Hear me, Yahweh. Hear me that this people may know that You Yahweh, are God and that You have turned their heart back again. Then Yahweh's fire fell and consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, and the dust and licked up the water that was in the trench. When all the people saw it, they fell on their faces. They said, Yahweh, He is God. Yahweh, He is God. Elijah said to them, seize the prophets of baal. Don't let one of them escape. They
seized them and. And Elijah brought them down to the brook, Kishon, and killed them there. Elijah said to Ahab, get up, eat and drink, for there is the sound of abundance of rain. So Ahab went up to eat and drink. Elijah went to the top of Carmel, and he bowed himself down to the earth and put his face between his knees. He said to his servant, go up now and look toward the sea. He went up and looked and said, there's nothing. He said, go again seven times.
On the seventh time, he said, behold, there's a small cloud like a man's hand rising up out of the sea. He said, go up and tell Ahab, get ready and go down so that the rain doesn't stop you. In a little while. The sky grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. Ahab rode and went to Jezreel. Yahweh's hand was on Elijah, and he tucked his cloak into his belt and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel.
So there hasn't been any rain in Israel for three whole years because the Israelites turned their backs on their promise that they made with God. And God sent this drought in order to bring the people back to him. Because the people started worshiping baal, who was supposedly the god of weather. And since baal obviously couldn't control the weather because he wasn't a real god God decided to prove his power to Israel by sending this
drought. So now after three years, Elijah goes back to Israel to King Ahab to basically propose this battle of gods. And this would have been, I'm sure, very entertaining to the people of Israel at the time, just as it's kind of entertaining to read this portion of Scripture. Like I said, I remember being a little kid, absolutely loving this story in Sunday school. This was one of my favorite Old Testament stories. So Elijah says in verse 22, I even I only am left as a prophet of Yahweh.
But baal's prophets are 450 men. So there were a lot of prophets of baal. And that's because Queen Jezebel, Ahab's wife, was a foreign woman who, who grew up worshiping baal. And so she comes into Israel after she marries Ahab and changes all the rules and changes the national religion. Jezebel was on a rampage, killing all of God's prophets. However, it turned out that King Ahab and Jezebel's top servant, who was named Obadiah, was actually an ardent Yahweh follower.
And Obadiah hid a hundred prophets of God in caves in the mountains. And Obadiah was doing this knowing that his life was on the line if he ever got found out doing this. But it's funny here that even though Elijah knew, knew that a hundred other prophets of God were alive that Obadiah had saved, he mentions here that he is the only prophet left of Yahweh. That's what he says in verse 22. Elijah said to the people, I, even I only am left as a prophet of Yahweh.
And Elijah really believed that. I truly believe Elijah thought he was the last person left. That is something that the enemy really likes to do to discourage Christians and to discourage people in general is to make them feel that they are the outliers and that nobody is on their side. And that's how Elijah felt here, even though he really was not the
only prophet of God. And he actually knew that because like I said on Monday, we talked about how Obadiah told Elijah to his face, there are a hundred other prophets other than you. And Elijah here is like, nope, I'm the only one left. And that's because, you know, the people weren't standing up for Yahweh. You know, the people here. Elijah had to convince the Israelites that Yahweh was the one true God. And so Elijah really was in the minority of people, but he was not the only
one. So that is something that the enemy likes to do to discourage you, is to make you believe that you are the only one, that you are all alone. And that is just not true. Jesus said that this generation will not pass away until he returns again. So there is always going to be Christians on the earth. It will never completely
die out. Even in the book of Daniel, if you've ever read it, it talks a lot about the prophecies to come, you know, when Jesus returns again, talks a lot about the Antichrist and the things that are going to go on during that time. And the one thing that Daniel mentions is that during the time of the Antichrist, Christians will be around. So Christians will never go away until Jesus fully comes back and reigns, uh, with his second coming. So if you feel like you're the only
one left, just know that that is not true. That is, that is something to discourage you. But continuing on, Elijah says, I'm the only one. But baal has 450 prophets. So let's do this battle of the gods. He says, let's have two bulls you baal prophets. You choose the one that looks better to you. I'll choose the other one. You go ahead and dress your bull and lay it on the altar. And then later on, I'll dress my bull, and lay it on the altar and we will see which God lights
the fire for us. So if baal lights the fire, then he is God, but if Yahweh lights the fire, then he is God. And the entire people of Israel agree to these terms. They say, that sounds good. You know what? We will go with what Elijah, uh, is saying, and we will worship the God that lights the fire for the bull. So Elijah says to the prophets, go ahead and choose your bull and dress it first, for you are many, and call on the name of your god
but put no fire under it. It's interesting that Elijah keeps mentioning that there's a lot of prophets. I think he really did feel extremely discouraged that he was the only one sticking up for Yahweh. I think the other thing though is Elijah was kind of using the fact that there were a lot of prophets of baal in his favor. Because if you think about it, human nature goes with what is the most popular thing.
Hence why Taylor Swift is popular. People go with whatever is the most popular and they will do what other people are doing. For example, when the whole Stanley, uh, cup craze happened last year, do you guys remember that? When the pink Stanley Cups were for sale and people were going like crazy over them. I had never known of a Stanley cup before that. I Didn't know. Well, I kind of knew about them, but I didn't care about a
Stanley Cup. But then when everybody else was saying, oh, Stanley Cups are the best, I'm like, you know what, I think I might need a Stanley Cup. I never got one, but I did get a fake one that, uh, my husband got for free at this like trade show he was at. He got me like a cup that looks exactly like the Stanley cup. And I actually do like it. I do like it quite a bit. And I use it pretty often
anyway though, people just do whatever is popular. And so possibly Elijah was using the fact that baal was more popular to really prove to the people that sometimes the most popular option is not the correct option. Everybody was worshiping baal. That doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. So the baal prophets, they, they dress their bull, they lay it on the altar and they begin dancing around and crying out and praying to
Baal. It says that they called on the name of Baal in verse 26 from morning until noon, saying, Baal hear us. But there was no voice and nobody answered. They leaped about the altar, which was made. So finally at noon. So it looks like there was several hours going by. So at noon, Elijah starts to get pretty bored and he's sitting there and he starts taunting these four hundred and 50 prophets of baal. So he's like, hey, why don't you guys
cry a little bit louder? You know, maybe your God is, you know, sleeping, maybe your God is traveling somewhere. And this is the best part, maybe your God is taking a dump. Oh, it's just so funny. Don't forget that baal worship included the worship of human feces. Okay? So people would, you know, they'd go to like this toilet shaped altar thing, they'd sit on it in public, lifting up their skirts and they
would poop in it. And then that poop would be worshipped and then used as fertilizer for the crops around Israel. The crop, the craps. Oh boy. All right, continuing on. It included feces worship. And so of course Elijah is making fun of that particular aspect of baal worship. He's just like, maybe your God is out crapping somewhere. And he was not pretty with his language when he said this either. If you read it in the Hebrew, he was actually somewhat vulgar in this.
And it's, it's pretty funny. So after Elijah's finished mocking them, it says they start crying aloud and cutting themselves in their way with knives and lances until the blood gushed out on them. Don't forget, these are Israelite men. You know, when you read this, it kind of seems like these are pagan men doing this. But no, these were Israelite men doing these pagan rituals.
And one thing I mentioned, uh, several episodes ago when I first talked about the horrors of baal worship, was that God doesn't like seeing his people disrespect themselves this way and hurt themselves this way. He doesn't like seeing his people pulling down their pants and pooping in public. It's disrespectful to oneself. And then, not to mention, they're cutting themselves so much that blood is gushing out
everywhere. So they're doing this as like a form of worship, saying that, oh, you know, baal isn't listening to us, so we must, you know, abase, uh, ourselves even more and cut our arms and our legs. And apparently this was their way. So these priests did this regularly to worship baal. So not only were they worshiping excrement, but they were also worshiping in a way that caused themselves harm. God loves his people.
You'll notice that when you read through the Old Testament laws, they're all about how to be well, how to be well spiritually, and how to be well mentally and physically. Also, that is the entirety of the Old Testament laws is being kind to your neighbors and also being kind to yourself. You won't find anything in Scripture where God demands worship in this way. In fact, God demands the opposite of this. He demands composure. He demands self respect. He demands respect
of other people. He demands kindness and love because God loves us. That is why he demands that type of worship. But these prophets of baal have no knowledge of God. And so they're just doing all this crazy stuff in order to get baal, who is a fake god, to listen to them. But of course, baal isn't going to listen because baal doesn't exist. It says when midday was past, they prophesied until the time of the evening offering, but there was no voice, no answer, and nobody paid them any
attention. In other words, baal was not there because baal does not exist. So after the priests literally wasted the entire day calling out to baal, jumping around the altar, abusing themselves, it is now Yahweh's turn. And man like, isn't God just so patient? He's so patient throughout all of this. So it's now God's turn. And Elijah says to the people, come near to me. And so the people listened to him. It says he repaired Yahweh's altar that had been thrown down.
And this makes me wonder, was this an altar that had been previously torn down when Jezebel went on her rampage against Yahweh? Or was this an altar that Elijah had actually built that very day that the people had protested and started ripping down while the prophets of baal were dancing around their altar? I do wonder that. It doesn't specifically say, but it says that he repaired Yahweh's altar that had been thrown down.
So I don't know if Elijah built that altar or not, and it was, you know, torn down by protesters or something, but it could have been. But Elijah takes 12 stones according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob. And this, of course, was Elijah doing an analogy of the twelve tribes of Israel. And it says he rebuilt the altar using those 12 stones. And he also made a trench around the altar large enough to contain two SEIs of seed. And a SE was approximately 1.9
gallons, or 7 liters. So these trenches would have fit just under 4 gallons of seed around them. It says he put the wood in order. He cut the bull into pieces, he laid it on the wood, and then he told the people, fill four jars with water, pour it on the burnt offerings and on the wood. So the people do it. Then he says, do it a second time, do it a third time, and they do
it three times. And these would have been very large containers of water because these would have been containers that held a water supply for a household. Don't forget that people didn't have running water. So the jars had to be very large in order to contain the water supply. But Elijah did this three times. And there was so much water drenched over the altar and over the wood that it actually ran down and completely filled up the trench that Elijah made around the
altar. Now, I should mention that Elijah didn't think this up all on his own. This was something that God commanded him to do, as it says at the very beginning of this chapter, by the way. So this was God's idea to completely drench the altar in water. Now, notice also that of course, the priests to baal did not do any of this. They just put the bull on their altar and started going, you know, started praying. But Elijah went above and beyond to show God's power to the people.
And I don't know if you know how hard it is too light a fire on wet wood. It is almost impossible to light a fire using wet wood. I had a girls event back in September at my House. And I decided I live in woods. And so my husband will sometimes, like, pull junk wood out of the woods. And he threw it all in the backyard, which drives me nuts, because every time I look out my window, there's just, like a big pile of dead wood sitting out
there. And so when the girls came over for my event, I decided to do a huge bonfire and burn that wood. Well, it turned out it had rained two days previous to that. And I was like, oh, it should be fine. You know, the wood should have dried out by this point. It did not. Two days previously, that wood was still so wet. Like the. The topmost wood, I guess, was kind of dry. But then, you know, the moisture got sucked in there, and there was so much wet wood
at the bottom of it. We literally fought with that fire for like an hour, and it did not catch. That wood is still out there right now. And I told my husband it has to be burned this year. It is so difficult to burn wet wood. And so that is why God chose to do this, to display his power in this way. And so God lights it on
fire. It says in verse 36, at the time of the evening offering, Elijah the prophet came near and said, Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant, and that I have done these things at your word. So there you go. Uh, Elijah did not think this up by himself. Hear me, Yahweh. Hear me that this people may know that you, Yahweh, are God and that you have turned their heart
back again. And immediately Yahweh's fire fell and consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. So God's fire was so hot that it literally destroyed everything it consumed, even the stones. Literally nothing was left of that altar. That is how hot this fire burned. And the people see this and they freak out and they say, Yahweh, he is God. Yahweh, he is God. They fell on their faces when they saw this, the entire crowd of people.
How could you not, when you see that display of power, how could you not just immediately fall down in complete terror, especially after, you know, worshiping a, ah, fake God for so many years. So Elijah sees that the people have a heart change, and he says, seize the prophets of baal, don't let one of them
escape. And they seize them. And so Elijah brings them down to the brook, Kishon, and kills them there And I don't know if Elijah specifically killed them or if the people killed them, but the prophets of baal all died that day. And honestly, this was probably retribution for what those prophets and what Jezebel and what Ahab had done to Yahweh's prophets. So Yahweh's prophets got the justice that they deserved from the years of persecution and torture and death that they
experienced. So Elijah says to Ahab, who apparently is still there watching all of this, he says, get up, eat and drink, for there is a sound of abundance of rain. To top it all off, after God completely shows his power to Israel, now he is going to send rain and end this terrible drought that's been going on for these three years. So Ahab listens to Elijah. He goes up to eat and drink. And Elijah went to
the top of Mount Carmel. It says he bowed himself down to the earth and put his face between his knees. So he's basically prostrating himself, sounds like in the fetal position, like, kind of like curled up a little bit. And he's praying. And he had a servant with him. And he asks his servant to go look out at the sea seven times. And the servant goes each time that Elijah asks him, and every single time he's coming back, he's like, no, there's nothing there. No, there's nothing there.
But then the seventh time, the servant comes back, and he's like, I saw a cloud that almost looks like a man's hand coming up out of the sea. And Elijah's like, that little cloud is going to produce the rain. So now Elijah tells the servant to go tell King Ahab that rain was coming. And then this part is the strangest part. Like, this little verse right here is just so wacky. It says that in a little while, verse 45, the sky grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a great
rain. Ahab rode and went to Jezreel. And it says in verse 46, Yahweh's hand was on Elijah. And Elijah tucked in his cloak into his belt and. And ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel. So for some reason, God granted Elijah supernatural speed. It's just kind of interesting, you know. I mean, God can do anything. So obviously he can grant somebody supernatural
speed if he wants to. But I don't really understand the reasoning for that, other than I imagine that traveling during the rain would have been especially difficult in these days, especially if you think about the amount of flash flooding that might happen, considering that the earth hadn't been rained on for three whole years. And soil that, um, hasn't had a lot of rain often, like, repels the rain, and then the water will just kind of like sit on top of that
soil. So that could have been why God granted Elijah like this supernatural speed was so that he could get to a safe location very quickly and protect Elijah's life. That's what I imagine the reason for that was. But I looked up some other commentaries, and their idea was that Elijah had to get to Jezreel first before Ahab, so that Elijah himself could tell Queen Jezebel what had happened before her husband, King Ahab, comes home and tells her his side of the
story. So that's another. Another idea as to why God granted Elijah supernatural speed. But, uh, yeah, pretty interesting story. One of my favorites for sure in the Old Testament. But I hope you guys enjoyed today's episode as well. We're going to be moving on in First Kings. We don't have very many chapters left of First Kings only. Let's see, four more chapters after today. So we'll probably be done with First Kings, I would guess at the
end of January. But. Faithful listeners, speaking of Yahweh, if you worship Yahweh, I encourage you to check out my Yahweh T shirt that I have listed in the shop. It is a very comfortable T shirt. I've never had a Single Person Return 1. Never had a single person complain about it. Pretty much everybody I've heard says that it is the most comfortable T shirt they have ever worn. And I actually agree. It is one of my most favorite T shirts as well in my
closet. So check out the Yahweh tee listed in the shop description of this episode. Faithful listeners, have a fantastic and wonderful rest of your day. Happy listening and God bless.