Our Old Testament reading in the passage from which Dr. Jones will be preaching from is 1 Kings 18 verses 7 through 39, and I'll be reading that passage. Before I read this, after I read this, Dr. Jones will come up and speak, and I just want to express my gratitude to Dr. Jones for literally pouring himself out physically and mentally this weekend for us. We've kept him busy, and we have benefited tremendously from your time with us. And we're anxious to hear the word of the Lord proclaimed this morning as well. 1 Kings 18 7-39 And as Obadiah was on the way, behold, Elijah met him. And Obadiah recognized him and fell on his face and said, Is it you, my Lord Elijah? And he answered him, It is I. Go tell your Lord. Behold, Elijah is here. And he said, How have I sinned that you would give your servant into the hand of Ahab to kill me? As the Lord your God lives, there is no nation or kingdom where my Lord has not sent to seek you. And when they would say, he is not here, he would take an oath of the kingdom or nation that they had not found you. And now you say, go tell your Lord. Behold, Elijah is here. And as soon as as soon as I have gone from you, the Spirit of the Lord will carry you. I know not where. And so when I come and tell Ahab and he cannot find you, he will kill me. Although I, your servant, have feared the Lord from my mouth, from my youth. Has it not been told my Lord what I did with Jezebel kid, the prophets of the Lord, how I hit 100 men of the Lord's prophets by 50s in a cave and fed them with bread and water. And now you say, go tell your Lord, behold, Elijah is here and he will kill me. And Elijah said, as the Lord of host lives before whom I stand, I will surely show myself to him today." So Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him, and Ahab went to meet Elijah. When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, is it you, you troubler of Israel? And he answered, I have not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father's house, because you have abandoned the commandments of the Lord and followed the Baals. Now therefore, send and gather all Israel to me at Mount Carmel and the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel's table." So Ahab sent all the people of Israel and gathered the prophets together at Mount Carmel. And Elijah came near to all the people and said, how long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him. But if Baal, then follow him. And the people did not answer him a word. Then Elijah said to the people, I, even I only, am left a prophet of the Lord. But Baal's prophets are 450 men. Let two bulls be given to us and let them choose one bull for themselves and cut in pieces and lay it on the wood, but put no fire to it. And I will prepare the other bull and lay it on the wood and put no fire to it. And you will call upon the name of your God and I will call upon the name of the Lord. And the God who answers by fire, He is God." And all the people answered, it is well spoken. Then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, choose for yourselves one bull and prepare it first, for you are many. And call upon the name of your God, but put no fire to it. And they took the bull that was given them, and they prepared it and called upon the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, O Baal, answer us. But there was no voice and no one answered. And they limped around the altar that they had made. And at noon, Elijah mocked them, saying, Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he's on a journey, or perhaps he's asleep and must be awakened. And they cried aloud and cut themselves after their custom with swords and lances until the blood gushed out upon them. And as midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation. But there was no voice. No one answered. No one paid attention. Then Elijah said to all the people, come near to me. And all the people came near to him. the altar of the Lord that had been thrown down. Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord came, saying, Israel shall be your name. And with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord. And he made a trench about the altar, as great as would contain two sieves of seed. And he put the wood in order and cut the bull in pieces and laid it on the wood. And he said, fill four jars with water. and poured on the burnt offering and on the wood. And he said, do it a second time. And they did it a second time. And he said, do it a third time. And they did it a third time. And the water ran around the altar and filled the trench also with water. And at the time of the offering of the oblation, Elijah the prophet came near and said, O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and that I have done all of these things at your word. Answer me, O Lord. Answer me that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God and that you have turned their hearts back. Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and 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 and said, the Lord, He is God. The Lord, He is God. This is the word of the Lord. It's been a great delight for me to minister among you. The Lord has strengthened me and I trust that this word from the Lord to us today will strengthen you as you consider your part in your witness to Christ through individual witness and through this great church. I've entitled my sermon Mount Carmel the antithesis in Technicolor. You probably don't know what I'm talking about, but anyway, hopefully it will make sense at the end. Mount Carmel, the antithesis in Technicolor. Speaking of Technicolor, there is a new movie being produced, appropriately called The Aquarian Gospel, which shows Jesus as a young man traveling to the east. in that period of silence in the Gospels that we know nothing about, which stops in India, Persia, and Egypt, meeting the world's great seers and sages. And the producer of the film says he hopes it will help unify Jesus' message and story with other religions by clearly presenting the underlying principles of truth they all share. Doesn't seem to fit with the passage of scripture we just read today, right? Certainly we live in a time that hates the antithesis, that notion of the either-or. We live in a time of synthesis where it's both-and, where everybody's right. And Newsweek hails this new moment of moderation. A mellowing, they say, is taking place as both sides seek to elevate the things they have in common, namely doubt. What is dangerous today, says Newsweek, is ruthless certainty. It's true that none of us need be nerds and jerks as we speak truth. But it's a cruel joke to think that we are in a world where people are longing for truth and there's no possibility of knowing it. Did God make us that way? It's time, I believe, that we got reacquainted with Elijah and the conflict between truth and error endemic to a fallen world. You see, God's revelation of himself in a fallen world necessarily produces conflict. If we were all like Adam before the fall, God's revelation would be accepted without any opposition. But as long as human beings are sinful, they will reject who God is because their very sin is to reject who God is. So, we need to look again at this wonderful biblical text of 1 Corinthians 18. The fact of the antithesis, if I were to identify one text in all of the verses that we read, it would be verse 16. Ahab went to meet Elijah. It's that inevitable meeting of these two notions of truth. And it is the conflict of this antithesis between truth and error that will inevitably bring these two men in a face-to-face face-off. It's one of the great confrontations of all time. Think of Luther and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. John Knox before Mary Queen of Scots. Moses before Pharaoh. And it takes place in a time of physical crisis, three years of drought. The nature gods are not looking good. But it's also a crisis of truth and faith. This physical drought is a symbolic expression of the drought of truth in the land. So there is an inevitable face-off between these two notions of truth. And, inevitably, the truth will incarnate itself in human beings. You cannot have a conflict of truth without persons being involved, and we have these two antithetical figures presented, indeed, in Technicolor before our eyes. There is Ahab, And there is Elijah. The words of Ahab are absolutely incredible. When he meets Elijah, he says, Is it you, you troubler? And that term can mean perverter or misleader of Israel. Ahab accuses Elijah of being a social misfit. bothering the interfaith peace that he and Jezebel had so carefully set up for the good of everybody, and especially themselves. Ahab has great goals for himself, probably thought of himself as the ideal king, but Unfortunately, as you read the book of Kings, you see that finally he is possibly the worst king of Israel. It begins with Solomon. Solomon, who amazingly amasses so much wealth and pomp and glory that the nations come and see the glory of God. And then the rest of Kings winds down from the sublime, you might say, to the ridiculous. Because, of course, you have Ahab here, doubtless regaled in royal robes, manicured fingernails, a curled and cropped beard, and gobs of aftershave, no doubt. A Solomonic wannabe, but doubtless looking a lot more like Herod. than Solomon. Herod, the last pagan king, syncretistic king of the Jews, well, he wasn't exactly the last, who aspired to be a Hellenistic potentate like all those little kings of the time of Jesus. Ahab, son of Amri, did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him. He married Jezebel, daughter of Ethbal, King of the Sidonians began to serve Baal and worship him. That's the description of Ahab in 1 Kings 16.30. Jezebel was a piece of work. Gender inversion is part of this bad scene. The name of Eth Baal means living under the favor of Baal. So her father was a priest of Baal and thus she, as the daughter of a priest, would have doubtless served as a priestess of Baal before coming to the land of Israel. It's odd, isn't it, that the state of the nation is so bad that a princess in Israel is actually a priestess of Baal. Can things get worse? I guess I should say to all you young people, be careful whom you marry. What is driving both Jezebel and Ahab? I believe that they are an ancient form of what we've been describing this weekend as monism, the notion of oneness. Can't we, as Rodney King said, all get along? And, doubtless, Jezebel is seen as an ambassadrice, I think, to unite these two lands, the Sidonians and the Israelis, in a notion of cultural pluralism, where, doubtless, the ideology, all is one, dominated. While all this sounds very ironic where peace is envisaged, Jezebel is not terribly ironic when it comes to the prophets of the Lord whom she kills, a hundred of them. And so this ideology of oneness, one should really know, is one way, our way, and not your way. Of course, Ahab is not the leader of his own household. He begins to sob and cry in his beard because he wants Naboth's vineyard. But Jezebel will take care of him. Exercising perhaps an expression of unknown cruelty in Israel, she has Naboth killed. Killing has become public policy. imbued with the notion of truth, she tramples over the laws of the Torah, the law of inheritance, against stealing, murder, and covetousness. But no problem. The fertility gods of earthly power gave her and her boy toy all the justification they needed. This was quite a royal court. 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets, it possibly can be translated as prophetesses, of Asherah, eating at Jezebel's table. And there was a lot more going on than eating. In 2 Kings 9.22 we read, there were many whorings and sorceries of Jezebel. This was a pagan cult at the center of the life of Israel. We're talking about the practice of witchcraft and the occult of sexual orgies and even the sacrifice of children. Indeed, some scholars have shown from archaeological remains the depth to which Israel fell in its rejection of its very establishing truths received from the Lord through Moses that actually At certain times, Israel worshipped this goddess Asherah as the consort of Yahweh, just the way Asherah was the consort of El, the Canaanite god. Perhaps Ahab and Jezebel saw themselves like Anthony and Cleopatra. who saw themselves as the personification of Isis and Osiris and thought of themselves as a personification of Yahweh and Asherah. This is a dynamic couple, obviously, promulgating fundamental error into the land of Israel and the people of God. I don't think you can imagine a more desperate situation. Into the picture comes Elijah. He's the embodiment of the very opposite. If we have the antithesis of two approaches, if Jezebel and Ahab represent one-ism, all getting together and doing well together, Elijah represents two-ism. that there are distinctions that must be maintained. Elijah appears as the true prophet of God. He looks like a prophet. His wearing of a camel hair ensemble brought together attractively with a leather accoutrement is not a fashion statement. It is actually to identify himself as a true prophet of the Lord, as indeed we find in Zechariah and in the case of John the Baptist. He has the authority of a prophet. The word of the Lord comes to him the way it came to all the prophets. As you notice in the books of the prophets, the word of the Lord came to Isaiah, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, and this is true of Elijah. His name means Yahweh is God, Elijah. And he incarnates that message of God as the transcendent Lord, the creator of heaven and earth. In his own person, then, he is an expression of biblical trueness, that there are two kinds of identity or existence One is the existence of God, the transcendent Lord, who has no beginning, who is the creator of everything else. And the other form of existence, which is to be a creature. Everything else is created. That's the amazing statement of the Bible from beginning to end, but especially at the beginning. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That's the God that Elijah serves. Elijah then looks like a prophet, has the authority of a prophet and the message of a prophet. He has the status of a prophet. It's interesting to see that his life is very parallel to that of Moses. Both brought down fire from heaven. Both parted the waters. Both actually were given an appearance of the Lord at Sinai. If you read in First Kings, you'll see that that actually happened on Sinai to Elijah. And finally, both were included in the history of redemption at the transfiguration of Jesus. And finally, of course, Elijah has the commitment of a prophet. He is fearless. You know, being a prophet was not a nine to five job, sort of ho hum, get on the bus and go to work and come back home. He was risking his life. As you remember, as we read, as Obadiah reminds him, it was dangerous to speak the truth in Israel. But he is fearless and without compromise, and when Ahab says to him, you are the troubler of Israel. Elijah says, I have not troubled Israel, but you have. You are the perverter of Israel's faith because you have abandoned the commandments of the Lord and followed the Baals. You see, this really is a theological confrontation between One-ism and two-ism between monism and theism. And it's sort of like the fundamental conflict in the history of humanity. Will you serve the Lord or will you serve the world? This is an accident bound to happen. Have you ever been in an accident? Have you ever had a really serious accident? I'm sure some of you have. I remember as a young boy, we had one in Liverpool. We were in a van, and I looked to my right as we crossed over some tram tracks, and I saw this 40-ton metal tram barreling down the tracks straight at us. My dad, who was driving, couldn't see it. to tell you the whole truth, we were driving a left-hand wheeled American truck in Liverpool. It doesn't make sense. And so he's turning to the right, if you can change your optic for a moment, and this tram is coming, and that tram hit us and knocked us with 50 yards. It was an amazing experience, I've never felt it. But, you know, you think afterwards as to how these two groups of people and things began a normal day. They get up and clean their teeth and so on. And slowly, the inevitable happens and these two forces meet. Well, this is a conflict that probably wasn't as accidental as all that. It sort of had to happen, the clash at Sinai. This was an accident really waiting to happen. So we've looked at the antithesis and then its expression within two individuals, Ahab and Elijah. Why must this antithesis or the conflict of truth and error take place? There are two reasons for it. One is God's honor and the other is for the salvation of God's people. Those are the two reasons, for God's honor, and for the salvation of God's people. Let's look at these two. This is an inevitable conflict between two views about reality. I mentioned one-ism. That's what Ahab and the 400 prophets of Baal are believing. First of all, it's obviously this one-ism is an expression of syncretism. You know what syncretism is. It's the bringing together of religions and to try to make them one. In Ahab's day, they are trying to maintain the fiction that Baal and Yahweh get along fine. That the pagan gods and Yahweh are actually interchangeable. Of course, they're not. But today we are seeing more and more theologians encourage us to see Christianity as just one expression of human religious faith reaching up to the God who is behind all religions. Of course, these two kinds of notions of God are not the same. Baal expresses the powers and forces within nature which then causes people to want to worship nature and of course brings them to deny that there is such a thing as a Creator. The kind of faith that Ahab and his prophets represent is not only syncretistic, it's an expression of pagan manipulation. Pagan spirituality that seeks to manipulate the notion of the divine They are not exercising faith the way Elijah was by a simple prayer, but they were trying to force the spiritual powers to act. They cried aloud and cut themselves, as was their custom. This is a typical pagan way of getting things done. And it depends ultimately upon altered states of consciousness. They raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice. You notice there's no praying here. There's raving. There's constant repetition of mantras, but there's no praying because in paganism, of course, there's no one above who can hear. There's no objective creative reality behind the creative reality, which is God himself. And of course, this religion is a self-created religion. The text of verse 26 is interesting. It says, they limped around the altar they had made. Pagan religion is of human fabrication. The worship of Asherah, of the poles and the green trees, reflects the deification of the natural world with no genuine transcendence. So, that's on the one side. This is the confrontation at Carmel now between Ahab and the prophets of Baal. On the other side is Elijah, who represents the faithful remnant. Sometimes we feel, don't we, like a faithful remnant, wish we were more powerful. Elijah reminds himself as to the basis of the true faith of Israel, and so should we. That's what we read, for instance, in Jeremiah, where the people ask, Are there any among the false gods of the nations that can bring rain, or can the heavens give showers? Are you not He, O Lord our God? We set our hope on You, for You do all these things. Now this business at Carmel, where there's the offering of a bull and the calling down of fire from heaven, really is not a spectacular miracle show of heavenly fireworks, which is what we tend to think as we read this passage. Elijah is asking for the God who is transcendent over nature to respond, and in a very specialized and specific way. Elijah's action is a work of national and theological reconstruction. It's not just some fancy miracle that happens and then it's all over and we go back to work. Elijah is known as he who restores all things, according to Jesus. His reconstruction of the life of Israel concerns both form and essence. In form, do you notice in the reading it says that he repaired the altar of the Lord that had been thrown down. That has been genuine apostasy in Israel, a rejection of who God is. And Elijah takes the time to rebuild that altar. with twelve stones according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob. He's reminding Israel of who she is. As I say, this is not just some spectacular miracle. He is seeking to bring a work of reformation to this fallen people. It's interesting, did you also notice a number of times the phrase, the time of the evening sacrifice. In other words, he really sees this moment as a time of the liturgy of Israel. It has to happen at the time of the oblation of the sacrifice in the temple in Jerusalem. Nothing is haphazard here, you see. I have done all these things at your word, says Elijah as he prays. He's following a script, scripture. And as you look into 1 Kings, one of the things that strikes is that there is no mention of priests, the priests of the Lord, after the time of Solomon. Somehow, that whole system of atonement and sacrifice seems to have fallen away. The last time you read about it is indeed at the time of Solomon. where you remember there's this incredible construction of things in the temple just the way God said they had to be. And then you read this, Solomon prays and fire came down from heaven and consumed the sacrifice and the glory of the Lord filled the temple. You see, this is a moment to reenact God's presence with his people. And with the absence, of course, of priests, there are devastating results. With no priests, there's no teaching of the law. Leviticus 10, 11 says, you are to teach the people of Israel, says the Lord to Aaron and his sons. So there's no teaching of the law. With no priesthood, there's no sacrifice for sin, and thus no sense of sin. The role of the Levitical priesthood is to make atonement for the people of Israel. And so there's no fundamental gospel of atonement being celebrated in Israel. What happens when there is no notion of sin, when there is no notion of sacrifice, Well, it's little wonder then that Ahab and Jezebel can get away with the stuff that they got away with. And of course, finally, there is no genuine witness to the nations. I told you the time of Solomon, the nations come and worship in Jerusalem. And of course, as soon as you have no priesthood, you have no genuine teaching and thus no genuine witness. But the second thing that Elijah does in his reconstruction is to insist on the theological content of what he was doing. And basically, he's putting back into Israel the answer to two questions. What is man and who is God? What is man? He reminds the people that they are God's creation and that they are the object of his redemption. The twelve stones remind them, Israel shall be your name. You see, God has revealed himself as the Savior and Elijah is seeking to remind Israel of its calling, reminding God's people who they are. And then who is God? Well, Elijah built or rebuilt the old altar in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. Verse 36, O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known this day that you are the God of Israel. You see, when Israel and her God are correctly named, then the antithesis is defined, the gospel is preached, and God sends fire to consume the offering. And in that picture of God sending fire to consume that bull, is the reminder to Israel that God, the God of holiness, will atone for Israel's sin via the blood of bulls and goats. Of course, that is simply a picture in Israel anticipating the real event. But I said I would ask with you why the antithesis Obviously, for the honor of God, but also for the salvation of God's limping people. Did you notice how confused the people are? Elijah asked them, how long will you go limping between two different opinions? Here's Elijah reminding them of the antithesis. If the Lord, He is God, then follow Him. But if Baal, then follow him. And the people didn't answer him a word, says the text of verse 21. They were speechless. They were voiceless. They had lost their voice in a world of synthesis, in a world of pagan monism. The people of God had lost the message. I can't help but reminds you that we seem to be living in a similar time. A world that doesn't want to hear the truth, multicultural syncretism produces theological cripples with one foot in paganism and one foot in theism. Sounds like a lot of people I see on the television these days like Al Gore, the Southern Baptist Buddhist. You can laugh. It's okay. But, you know, that kind of limping around with one foot in one worldview and one foot in the other worldview causes confusion. And the gospel message is lost, isn't it? In that world of synthesis, you cannot speak true truth, as Francis Schaeffer would say. This is why Elijah does what he does. And this is how it's said in verse 37, in order that this limping people may know that you, O Lord, are God, to turn their hearts back to you. He's working for spiritual and theological revival. And today we face the same problem. We're caught between these two opposing views where theism is not allowed to speak its name and we are in total confusion. Finally, what is the goal of the antithesis? Why, it's to bring reconciliation of the creation with the creator. That's the only way, you see. We can claim that we're bringing peace by affirming the both and, but there'll never be true reconciliation with the one with whom reconciliation means anything significant, namely the God who made the heavens and the earth. I'm glad to be reconciled to you folks in front of me, your wonderful people, but it doesn't solve my fundamental problem of my sin. I need to be reconciled to the God who made the heavens and the earth, against whom I have committed sin. That's the goal of proclaiming the antithesis. Oh, I know, we'd all like to do the fire from heaven gig, and if possible, on live television, with operators standing by to receive your gifts and faith promises. With, of course, a false sense of spiritual power, which we see a lot on television. How, indeed, are we involved in this story? I could leave you with a message of moralism. You should be like Elijah, not like Ahab. Come on! Let's get to work, folks. And, unfortunately, I would produce horrendous self-righteous snubs. I could leave you with a guilt complex that you're never going to be like Elijah. So, why bother? Well, you see, there's a reason why the Christian faith and those who belong to it are not called Elijahans. Elijah cannot save us. It's odd, but it's the bull on the altar that's the Savior. Some believe that Elijah was the Savior on the cross. They said, he's saying, come down Elijah and save us. Eli, Eli, lama, sabachthani. They thought Jesus was calling to Elijah. And some believe that Elijah was the coming Son of Man. But of course, Elijah knew he was not the Messiah. And the reincarnation of Elijah in the person of John the Baptist makes that very clear. It says, came in the spirit of Elijah. And he was wearing that same awful getup of camel's hair and a leather belt. His message, though, was a message of repentance and judgment. But he never accepted the fact that he brought salvation. And the reason is this, of course. Elijah, says James, was a man like us. He was tempted like us. He was tempted to discouragement. He said, only I am left and they seek to take my life. And he couldn't face that. John the Baptist, who comes in the spirit of Elijah, recognizes that he is not the Savior. I've got ties with water, he says. But among you stands one you do not know. Even he who comes after me, that is, behind me as a disciple really, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie. John knew that he was not the Messiah. He knew that he had to decrease. He knew that he taught only a baptism of repentance. That he was not bringing the final baptism of spirit and fire. You see, Jesus is the Savior. At Carmel, God's final dealing with sin is anticipated. The drama of the cross is prophesied in this moment of sacrifice. Listen, standing before Elijah and Moses on the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus The final revelation of God talks about his exodus, his leaving of this world in death. And you know what Jesus said? I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled. I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished. Jesus is prophesying in the few hours ahead that he is the one who will be consumed by God's fire from heaven. This lamb without spot becomes the sacrificial animal placed on the altar. And in being consumed by God's holiness, In the fire of judgment, He definitively deals with our sin and becomes our Savior. And you see, that's why we don't need to repeat the fire from heaven gig, because it's already been done definitively and finished. We can hold on to the fact that that sacrificial bull has now, in reality, become the atonement of our sins in the sacrifice of Jesus, the Lamb of God. This is the message that God's limping people need to hear. Where are God's limping people? You saw one today. in the mirror. I know every one of you looked in the mirror this morning. Some of you said, oh no. God's limping people are everywhere, and you are among those limping people. You have understood and begin every day at the foot of the cross, rejoicing in the grace of God your Creator and Redeemer, who has saved you, a mere creature, But you still walk with a limp. You walk knowing that you are unworthy of the grace of God and that you try as you may and you'll never be perfect. And yet you know that your perfection depends purely on the grace of God who died for wretched sinners like you. And that gospel you see is the only gospel for limping people. whether inside or outside of the church, for pagans who aren't even sure they have leg problems. Limping, ignorant, Baal-worshipping people now dominate large sections of our culture and are in many of our churches. May God, through His Spirit, in the power of Christ, give you the courage, both as a church and as individuals, to speak the message of the antithesis. It's the same message as the one spoken by Elijah. If the Lord is God, follow him. But if Baal, then follow him. Let's pray and work for a revival that more and more limping people will kneel before Jesus, confess their sins and embrace Him as Saviour and Lord, and say the way the people at Carmel finally understood. The Lord, He is God. The Lord, He is God. Because one day, Jesus will be recognized as the Lord. All flesh is grass, the grass withers, and the flower dies. But the Word of the Lord remains forever. Amen.