WHEN GOD SENDS FIRE

WHEN GOD SENDS FIRE – PART ONE

It was a very dark time in the history of God’s people. False idols soon replaced spiritual worship of the one true God. Ahab, one of the wickedest kings that Israel ever had, sat on the throne. Because of the horrific sin of King Ahab and his wife Jezebel and their leading God’s people into sin, Israel was experiencing about 3 and a half years of drought through a prophetic decree by Elijah, God’s prophet during that time. Out of fear of Jezebel for his very life, Elijah fled to a wilderness place to hide from the threats that Jezebel was pronouncing on his life. After Elijah’s little sabbatical on the back side of now where and as he realized that with God on his side, he had no reason to fear, God told Elijah that he was to go and show himself to king Ahab with a message. Elijah went and told Obadiah a faithful servant, who was the governor of Ahab's house to go and tell Ahab that Elijah wanted to meet him face to face. Obadiah delivered the message to Ahab and the king went right away to meet with Elijah. When Ahab arrived, he immediately starting blaming Elijah for the drought and the hardships that had come upon Israel over those past three years. You see, it’s always easier to blame others for our own sin. Ahab referred to Elijah as a “troubler of Israel”. Elijah responded to him by telling him that it was not him that had made trouble for Israel, but that it was brought on from Ahab and his own father's family. He told him that it was because he had abandoned the Lord's commands and had followed the demonic god Baal and their false goddess Asherah and had lead God’s people into doing the same thing.  Elijah told Ahab to go and summon the people throughout the land of Israel and meet him at Mount Carmel and bring all the prophets of their false god’s Baal and Asherah with them. As the hot sun beat down on the parched earth, the crowd gathered under a cloudless sky to watch the God of their fathers do visible battle with the powerless gods of stone. So there they were, silent spectators about to see God himself send fire from heaven to consume the one thing that He requires of His people; a sacrifice of obedience, in which was the very thing that Elijah had given by obeying what God had told him to do. As the people sat watching and waiting and even wondering if their side, “the prophets” of Baal’s antics and effort would make a difference and persuade the god of lighting and fire to fall down on the alter and consume what was there. At one point they began to cry out and demand that Baal show up by sending fire to consume their sacrifice. Yet still, there was no answer. Undaunted, they continued to plead as they jumped upon the altar cutting themselves in a vain attempt to prove their sincerity to the demon god and prove them right. Finally, their weariness turned into disappointment and defeat. Then to make matters worse, the prophet of God made fun of their god Baal as he taunted them. Elijah simply wanted them to realize how utterly ridiculous they were to put their faith and hope into powerless gods of sticks and stone. When it was Elijah’s turn, he prayed, and according to I Kings 18:38,  “ Then the fire of the LORD fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.” God’s response shocked all the people as conviction feel on their hearts that God is right and that their worthless effort to worship and serve man made gods were useless. For you see they had stop worshiping God because they wanted things their way. It’s easy to create gods in our lives to fit our lifestyles and suit us. Yes, even today we are making up our own gods. A false god is anything or anyone that takes the place of the One true God, in our lives. False gods are always created in the hearts of man and represents what they love and idolize. Then, man turns what they love into some form of a graven image of that love. Yet God requires His people to be faithful and wise and stay true to Him.

WHEN GOD SENDS FIRE – PART TWO

Last week I shared how God had told Elijah to deal with His people and their worship of the false gods, Baal and Ashterah. Ironically, the Israelites worshiped Baal who was supposedly the god of rain and fertility of the fields and yet, they were and had been slap dab in the middle of a drought. Now this is very interesting since for the last three years there had been no rain and the fields had dried up. Ashtoreth was the counter part of  Baal, for she was worshiped as the fertility and moon goddess. The worshipers of this false goddess would take a limbless tree trunk and carve a symbolic representation of her, thus was the birth of the Asherah poles. God had already forbidden the worship of this false goddess through Moses. Yet despite God’s clear instructions in Deuteronomy 16:21 God’s people continued to return to false worship as their hearts were turned from God. According to I Kings 18, there was a mighty contest one day between these two false gods and the one true God. On one side, there were eight hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and Ashterah as well as thousands of thier followers who worshiped at their shrines. On the other side was only one and he was a messenger of the one and only true God of heaven and earth. According to Elijah comments, Baal must have been busy or traveling that day for he ignored his worshipers and never showed up no matter how they pleaded with him. In Elijah’s prayer he ask God to let it be known that day, that He (God) was the God in Israel and that Elijah was God’s servant and had done all of these things at God’s command and not of himself. As he cried out, “Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again." Immediately fire fell from heaven and brunt up the offering and the wood along with the twelve stones and water that had surrounded the altar. After seeing this, the people fell on their knees and proclaimed that Elijah's God is the one true God! Then Elijah told the people to have every prophet of Baal seized. He then had them taken down to the Kishon Valley so they could be executed for leading God’s people into demonic worship. Ahab’s wife Jezebel had already slaughtered many of God's own prophets of whom only one hundred were spared, thanks to Obadiah. Elijah was not acting own his own, he was led by the Spirit of God to do what he did. When it comes to false beliefs, teachings, demonic manifestations and practices in our lives, we must take a personal interest and deal with it, or God will. When the fire of God comes into our lives if we are His people, it’s purpose is to always convict, refine and make us more like Him. His fire is a consuming fire that will not stop burning until it has accomplished what it’s purpose was for. For God will not tolerate sin in our lives and will deal with us when we allow other things to take the place of His rightful place in our lives, if we claim to be His. Don’t think for a moment that we live in a time where God’s people are beyond yielding their hearts to a false practice or worship, because it happens all the time. The difference is once they are confronted by God, they will repent or God will simply remove their light.

Loving on you today,

Bren