Elevate - The Story Pt 17 - Elijah - Neal DiQuattro

The main ideas from this information are that God gives people free will and choice, and He always presents them with a choice. The story of Elijah and the Mount Carmel showdown is important because it shows how God makes Himself known and why He does so. The split between the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel was due to Solomon's sin and led to years of ungodly kings and idol worship. The people became corrupted by the surrounding culture and were influenced by false idols. It is important to identify ourselves in this story and recognize if we are at risk of being polluted by the culture. People ask, why do some people die without God? Why do some people go to hell and some people go to heaven? Why? Because God didn't make us robots. He gave us choice. He gave us free will. God is always presenting us with a choice. Some of you this morning, as you hear this word, the choice is coming at you again. What will you do with it? Will you make the right decision? Will you walk out and not make the right decision? And then it's too late. But God is good, and he always gives us the choice. Welcome to Elevate, from Authentic Life Church in Mobile, Alabama, with Pastor John DeQuatro. We hope it builds your faith and helps you to live a life for God that you've always wanted to live. We hope it inspires you to be a fully devoted, authentic follower of Jesus Christ. Enjoy the message, and welcome to Elevate. Today's message is from Authentic Life Church youth minister and worship leader, Neil DeQuatro. All right, well, I'm just going to go ahead and dive in, because there's a lot to cover. We're doing chapters 14 and 15, and the reason for that is, if you read 14, you saw that it's really just this chronology of a bunch of kings of Israel who mostly weren't serving God, but some did. And it just sort of walks us through all of that, starting in chapter 10 and 1 Kings, all the way up to about chapter 16 or something. And then the story starts to pick up. And so what we're going to do is focus in on a very popular story in the Bible, and that's Elijah and the Mount Carmel showdown. You all familiar with that? All right. And if you're not, we're going to read a lot of Scripture to go through the whole story. It's the only way to do it, so bear with me. But here's why this story matters. And I want us to really be looking for these two things that I shared the Word this morning. One, that God will make Himself known. And two, why God will make Himself known. Because both of those together sort of form the equation of where we can see God moving in the way that we all just prayed for Him to move. And how many of you know, God reveals Himself. He does make Himself known. You have heard probably the many stories that are happening in Arab countries with the Muslims, who are, over the last maybe 5, 10 years reporting this, they're seeing this man in white. I see some of you shaking your head. You've heard the stories where it's Jesus visiting people in their dreams and sometimes personally on the way to Emmaus. And there's so many of these stories of people giving their life to Jesus. We know these are real accounts. And it's not lost on me that God is doing this among a people whose religious belief is such a strong stronghold, a very strong stronghold in their life that to witness to someone of the Muslim faith, it's so difficult. That's so difficult. So what does Jesus do? He makes Himself known. He cuts through all the noise. And so we know that He makes Himself known. So as we get ready to talk about Elijah and Mount Carmel, I want to sort of give you the background and set the stage for what's happening because part of this series is not only about being encouraged by God's Word, but it's about learning God's Word and being really biblically literate. So here's the background. You have the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel. And they're split. They're civil war. They're divided. And most of this is due to the sin of Solomon. Now, Pastor preached on Solomon last week. Awesome message, right? Awesome, awesome message. And we learn that for as much wisdom as Solomon had, he lost his way a little bit. And that led to some of what he wrote in Ecclesiastes. And so he walks away from God. He makes bad decisions that allow apostasy to seep into the nation. And his son, Rehoboam, takes the throne. And the people come to Rehoboam and they say, listen, your father has been causing us to do forced labor to build all these big projects that he has. And we're tired. It's too much. Please, will you consider lightening our load? Right? Fair request. Well, this young man who was very arrogant took some advice from some young people that wasn't good advice. And he shows up three days later with the answer that says, listen, what do you say, my waist or my pinky is bigger than my father's waist. And so, basically, you thought that was hard? You've seen nothing yet. And he decides to double down on his abuse of the people. So this is really where the split begins. This is really where we see this divide. And we end up with a northern kingdom of Israel and a southern kingdom of Israel. Now, the southern kingdom of Israel is known as Judah. So we've got Israel and Judah. But Judah actually comprises two of the tribes, which is Benjamin and Judah. So that's in the south where Jerusalem is. And then in the north, you have the other ten tribes. So this is where the split is. And they each have their own kings. And this kicks off years of godly, but mostly ungodly kings that lead the people into apostasy and worshiping the Baals and Asherah, some of the most detestable of all of the idols of their time, with some of the most detestable practices. This is God's people, and this is the condition they're in. They're split and they're divided. So I want to give you just a little bit of a flavor of what's happening at this time by reading three scriptures for you. And this will give you a quick overview, starting with 1 Kings 12, verse 28. Therefore the king of Israel, King Jeroboam at the time, asked advice, made two calves of gold, and said to the people, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up from the land of Egypt. Isn't that hard to even hear that? So wicked. And he set one in Bethel and the other he put in Dan. Now this thing became a sin. For the people went to worship before the one as far as Dan. He made shrines on the high places. These are the places of pagan worship. We call them high places, like High Holy Days, the high places. And made priests from every class of people who were not of the sons of Levi. 1 Kings 14, it doesn't get better. Now Judah did evil in the sight of the Lord, and they provoked him to jealousy with their sins, which they committed, more than all that their fathers had done. So they built for themselves high places, sacred pillars and wooden images on every high hill and under every green tree. And there were also perverted persons in the land. So you see the impact of this idolatry. They did according to all the abominations of the nations, which the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel. So they cast them out, and now they're being influenced by them. And that's a really key point for this morning. And then lastly, 1 Kings 16, and this sort of leads a little bit in our story. Now Ahab, the son of Omri, did evil in the sight of the Lord, more than all who were before him. And it came to pass as though it had been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, that he took as wife Jezebel, the daughter of Ephbaal, king of the Sidonians. And they went and served Baal and worshipped him. Then he set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal, which he had built in Samaria. And Ahab made a wooden image. And Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all of the kings of Israel who were before him. So, do you get the picture? Israel has walked away from God, and the kings have led them there. They've been influenced by the surrounding nations, and they become very wicked people. Now there was always a remnant, but most of them became very wicked. I want to point out that all of us can relate at some level to what's happening in Israel right now and their particular scenario that they're in. Well, why is that? Because remember, this isn't a pagan nation. This is God's people. How many of you know when you start worshipping idols, whatever their physical idols were, or whatever our sort of nondescript, nonphysical idols, like humanism and all those things, self, are today, it doesn't happen all at once, right? It was a slow slide into the place they found themselves in. And they were corrupted by the surrounding culture. And that's important to know. The surrounding culture. They were worshipping Baal and Asherah. Now when it says the Baals, that just refers to the idols, the god is Baal, and the Baals, it's all the individual idols that represent Baal. Then you have Asherah. And these particular idols were ones that throughout Scripture you see that God particularly detested them. They were evil. They went as far as saying that Asherah and Yahweh gave birth to Baal, right? So it's just this wicked mess of religion. So knowing that this was a slow slide into the culture around them, we can all relate and we can learn something here. Everyone in this room fits in one of three categories, and I'd like you to take a minute and identify yourself in one of these three categories. You are currently either a shadow of the Christian you once were, because you've allowed philosophies of this age to corrupt you. I hope there's no one here like that, but it's very possible there's someone who the philosophies of this age just sort of sounding so good that you've gone along with it and you're lost. Or number two, the attractiveness of the philosophy of this age is putting you at risk of becoming a shadow of the Christian you once were. Some of you are in this battle. Some of you are on Instagram and TikTok and hearing all these proofs why the Bible's not reliable and why any behavior should go and you've gotten confused and you're at risk and you need to identify yourself right now that you're at risk of being polluted by the culture. Or number three, praise God, not one of those categories, but you know someone who is. And you're believing and you're praying for them. So we've got to identify ourselves in this story so we can really pull out the truth. And listen, the Israelites thought this was a physical problem. If you asked anyone on that day, they would talk about the king they didn't like that made them work too hard. They'd talk about the surrounding nations. They'd talk about the civil war, but this was just the manifestation of a spiritual problem. Do we see that? It's a spiritual problem. It's manifesting physically and so it is with us. It's the same. And it's at this place in the story that Elijah enters the scene. Now, Elijah shows up earlier than this, but he had been in hiding because of the persecution from Jezebel. And so he comes on the scene at a time where there's an extended famine caused by an extended drought in the land. So let's pick up the story here at 1 Kings 18 and we'll read a good bit of this. And it came to pass after many days that the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year saying, go present yourself to Ahab and I will send rain on the earth. So Elijah went to present himself to Ahab and there was a severe famine in Samaria and Ahab had called Obadiah who was in charge of his house. Now Obadiah feared the Lord greatly for so it was why Jezebel massacred the prophets of the Lord that Obadiah had taken 100 prophets and hid them 50 to a cave and had fed them with bread and water. And Ahab said to Obadiah, go into the land to all the springs of water and all the brooks. Perhaps we may find grass to keep the horses and mules alive so that we will not have to kill any livestock. So they divided the land between them to explore it. Ahab went one way and Obadiah went the other. Now, as Obadiah was on his way, suddenly Elijah met him. And he recognized him and fell on his face. He said, is that you, my Lord, Elijah? Right, so like a little bit of light enters the scene in this dark place. And he answered him, it is. Go tell your master, Elijah is here. Now we're gonna skip to verse 16. Obadiah is nervous about that. But eventually he relaxed and says, so Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him, this wicked king, and Ahab went to meet Elijah. Verse 17, then it happened when Ahab saw Elijah that Ahab said to him, is that you, O troubler of Israel? Boy, isn't that a picture of our day today. Who has become the problem in our world now? Not that we, I think we were talking about this, that in the 50s, even if you didn't believe in God, the church was recognized as a moral place. And so there was a certain level of respect for the church, for the morality and the ethic that we supported. And now we're the enemy. We're haters, we're bigots, the list goes on. It's the same thing here that Ahab, he's got it backwards, he says, is that you, O troubler of Israel? Verse 18, and he answered, I have not troubled, but you and your father's house have, and that you have forsaken the commandments of the Lord and have followed the Baals. All right, so here's what's happening. Ahab is ruler of the northern kingdom and he's the husband of Jezebel. And we all know that name Jezebel from the Bible. Jezebel is really, really bad news. She persecuted the prophets. She introduced even further the worship of the Baals and Asherah. She was known for her sexual promiscuity or cunningness. She was just evil to the core and Ahab was evil right along with her. We've all heard of the phrase Jezebel spirit. Anyone heard that? There's a Jezebel spirit? Okay, so that comes from this story, from this section of scripture. So what does that mean? Because you may have heard that before and wondered. It comes from here where we say, okay, this person has a Jezebel spirit. And that basically just means one who uses seduction perhaps or cunning or craftiness to try to get in the way of what God is doing, right? So if you hear that, man, that's a Jezebel spirit came into that church. They're talking about someone coming in and just using seduction and craftiness to just mess up what God is doing. And so Elijah at this point is called by God to help restore Israel from the wreckage of Ahab and Jezebel. That's why Elijah is called. So this is the scene. This is what's happening. And so now at this moment is the setup for where the famous Mount Carmel showdown happens. So let's read our next portion of scripture. First Kings chapter 18, verses 19. Elijah says this to King Ahab to deal with this situation, to confront it. Now therefore send and gather all Israel to me on Mount Carmel. The 450 prophets of Baal. How many people here love Carmel candy? But it has nothing to do with what's happening here. But now we know who you are for birthday gifts and special events. Oh, Mount Carmel, sorry. I thought in the original Greek, all the vowels were silent. All right. So, all right, the 450 prophets of Baal. Call them together in the 400 prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel's table. So Ahab sent for all the children of Israel and gathered the peoples together on Mount Carmel. And Elijah came to all the people and said, how long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him. But if Baal, follow him. But the people answered him not a word. So again, let's paint the picture of what the scripture is telling us. You've got this large gathering of these, apparently the prophets of Asherah never came. We have the 450 prophets of Baal and all of Israel. Now, we don't know if that meant just thousands of commoners. Many commentators think that probably meant all of the leaders and a bunch of other people all gathered around. Certainly all people that should have known better. And Elijah doesn't play around. I love it. He immediately cuts through the noise and presents a simple question. How long will you falter between two opinions? Can you hear that being spoken to our culture? How long, church, will you falter between two opinions? Now, remember this. This is not the first time we've heard this. In Deuteronomy, you have all the tribes on one mount and another. And it says, I set before you life and death, choose life. Right? 400 years before this, you have Joshua getting ready to go into the promised land. And he gives his famous quote. Choose you this day who you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. We all know that scripture. But here they are, making the wrong choice. But God, see God, people ask, why do some people die without God? Why do some people go to hell and some people go to heaven? Why? And we say, because God didn't make us robots. He gave us choice. He gave us free will. God is always presenting us with a choice. Some of you this morning, as you hear this word, the choice is coming at you again. What will you do with it? Will you make the right decision? Will you walk out and not make the right decision? And then it's too late. But God is good and He always gives us the choice. But these people didn't respond. They didn't say a word. Did that catch your attention? They were just stuck. Just stuck. They had nothing to say. It's like they know of God, but they like the world. Like, hey, I'm with sort of the winning team right now. All the prophets and we're following Jezebel and we got a good thing going here. That's cool. But if God's real, okay, I'll go with that. But this seems pretty cool. The world, this is inviting. I got some friends here and I feel very much at home. So they don't know what to say. They say a word and God, they don't say a word. And I think as we get closer to the end times that we all know that we're in, that's why pastors teach it on Revelation, that the question is being put to us again and it's becoming even more polarizing. Like you can't have one foot in and one foot out. We need to make up in our heart, you know? And it can't be sort of this casual Christianity. Casual cultural Christianity doesn't work. The devil will take you out. I promise you. And none of us want to be that person. We don't want to be offensive. Well, we don't have to be offensive. Jesus tells us to love people, but the gospel is offensive. And that's what the Bible says. And if we're really preaching the gospel, we're going to be in a very polarized place. And if you're not in a polarized place, maybe you're not really grabbing a hold of the gospel. Is that fair? Right? Okay. So God always puts a choice to us. 1 Kings 18, let's keep going in the story. Then Elijah said to the people, I alone am left a prophet of the Lord, but Baal's prophets are 450 men. Therefore, let them give us two bulls, and let them choose one bull for themselves, cut it into pieces and lay it on the wood, and put no fire under it. And I will prepare the other bull and lay it on the wood, but put no fire under it. Then you call on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord. And the God who answers by fire, He is God. So all the people answered and said, It is well spoken. I guess that's their way of saying, Eh, sounds good. Right? That's sort of the attitude they brought into it. So now the stage is set for God to show that He is God alone. To make Himself known. Now this happened during the Exodus plagues. If you remember, last time I preached, or maybe the time before, we talked about all the plagues, and the fact that these plagues were not just designed to squeeze Pharaoh into letting the Israelites go, though that was part of the reason. It was a particular slam on all of the major gods of the Egyptians, starting with blotting out the sun. Their main god was Ra, the sun god. This was a slam on Ra, the sun god. God was taking the time to show all of the people who lived at that time, and all of history and the future, that He alone is God. He was silencing the false gods, which by the way, aren't just pieces of wood and stone. These idols represent real demonic forces. There's no doubt that these people were seeing real miracles at some point. Otherwise, that were evil, that were done by the devil, and demonic in nature. Why? Because they wouldn't say, that sounds good, let's see where the fire comes down from. They would have run from that test, right? So you know how real the supernatural world is. So the contest is in verse 23 and 24. He says, and the God who answers by fire, He is God. So this is the test that Elijah puts out to the people. So what's God's strategy here? It's not complicated, right? God makes it very simple. He's going to display His power to prove that He is God and make Himself known, period. That's it. We complicate things, but God really makes it simple. How many of you know we live in an age where we need God to show up and show out like this? More than ever. How do I know this? Here's what I'm watching happening with our young adult population and our teenagers as they get indoctrinated. And I'm not being mean because you've heard me say this in youth nights and all that. It's just a fact. We all got to be careful. Indoctrinated by like TikTok and Instagram. They're hearing truth from those unqualified sources more than their parents or their pastors could possibly get to them. This is what we're up against. And they're being so confused by hollow philosophy and dumb ideas that aren't even logically coherent. Right? But this is what's happening now. And they're getting bad information about God and His Word from unqualified sources that's circulating all around. And it's things like, well, God is not good because, you've probably heard this one, why would He commit genocide on the Canaanites? So now He's the perpetrator of genocide. If we hold to biblical foundations of not just sexuality and who should marry who, but what constitutes a man and a woman. If you believe that, you're now a hater and a bigot. And it's all built on because we need to love people. And listen, if you don't have the practice and the skill and the training to refute some of these things, it sounds really good. People aren't being confused for no good reason. Satan is very, very cunning. That's why we need God to cut through the noise. It feels impossible when you're arguing with someone like this to try to make any headway. Has anyone been there over the last five years in particular where you're like, oh my goodness, have you lost your... What you're saying is not even logical. Well, it all gets silenced when God shows up and shows out. And that's why we need God to move. Alright, let's keep it going. 1 Kings chapter 18, Now Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, Choose one built bull for yourselves and prepare it first. For you are many. And he's giving them a little dig. Like, there's just one of me. And you are many. And call on the name of your God, lowercase g, but put no fire under it. So they took the bull which was given them and they prepared it and called on the name of Baal. Does he even say that? It's like icky, right? They called on the name of Baal from morning to evening till noon saying, oh Baal, hear us. I mean, what foolishness. But there was no voice. No one answered. Then they leaped about the altar which they had made. And so it was at noon that Elijah mocked them. So by noon, nothing's happening and Elijah starts making fun of them. Which, this is great. Cry aloud for he is a god. Either he is meditating or he is busy or he is on a journey or perhaps he is sleeping and must be awakened. So they cried aloud and cut themselves as was their custom with knives and lances until the blood gushed out of them. And when midday was passed they prophesied until the time of the offering and the evening sacrifice. But there was no voice. No one answered. No one paid attention. Wow. Wow. Listen, this is a great visual of Satan's deception and what's happening now. There are people who are looking for something. They're looking for truth. And Satan has deceived them into thinking the answer to your problem is, I don't know, cutting. Because they see other people doing it so that seems like a thing that enters their mind. Like that's a way that I'll release my pain. I'm not making little mental health issues. I'm just saying this wasn't an idea God introduced as a way of dealing with hurt, right? And I'm not trying to pick on one thing, but it's just so much in the news I can't help it. The transgenderism and all this that's going on. I saw something recently they talked about. A lot of these ideas are being introduced to young people. Young people just have angst. That's just the way it is when you're a young person. And now we live in an evil world so you're confused and you feel different and you feel isolated. And this idea has been introduced to them, oh, because you're not who you think you are. You're something else. And so what's happening even among children now? They end up mutilating themselves. And then they come to their senses it's too late. Isn't that what's happening here? They served the Baals. They probably saw all kinds of crazy things going on in the temple. But when they really needed Baal, he was silent. He left them high and dry out to be embarrassed. And that's what's happening today. People are making all kinds of bad decisions to try to put an end to their suffering and their confusion. And then all of a sudden they're going to find themselves five, ten years down the road going, gosh, I took these hormones and I'm a mess now. I can't ever go back now. I'm missing parts of my body. Or I let someone mutilate me. And guess who's going to be silent? Who's not going to offer a solution for that pain anymore? They're going to realize this is what Satan does. All kinds of promises. He leaves a little bit to keep you on the path and then leaves you high and dry when it matters the most. That's not our God. Our God isn't silent. Our God answers when we need us. Alright, that was just maybe a rant. Alright, 1 Kings. Then Elijah 18, verse 30. Then Elijah said to all the people... Now this is good. Come near to me. So all the people came near to him and he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down. And Elijah took twelve stones according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, Israel shall be your home. He's reminding them of their identity. Then with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord. And he made a trench throughout the altar large enough to hold two seas of seed. And he put the wood in order, cut the bowl in pieces, and laid it on the wood and said, fill four water pots with water. And poured on the burnt sacrifice and on the wood. Then he said, do it a second time. Then he said, and they did it a second time. And he said, do it a third time. And they did it a third time. So the water ran all around the altar. And he also filled the trench with water. You see what he's starting to set up here? Verse 36, And it came to pass, at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near and said, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel. By the way, guess who's listening? He's listening. He listens when you pray. You may not feel like it, he's listening. Let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and I am your servant, and that I've done all these things at your word. So we covered the first point, that God will reveal himself. And you can all, you all know, expect him to do that right now. Thank you for listening to Elevate. We hope this message encouraged, inspired, and challenged you. Authentic Light Church is located at 3750 Michael Boulevard in Mobile, Alabama. Visit our website, authenticlife.tv, for more information about Authentic Life Church, to find out what we have going on, or to make a donation. You can also find us on Facebook. We'd love for you to join us on Sundays at 10 a.m. for our weekend service. We have excellent children's, nursery, and youth programs, so bring the family. For Pastor John DeQuatro, I'm Scott Chestnut. Thanks again for listening, and God bless you.