1 Kings 18:21 “And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.”
Elijah was sent to confront, not comfort, and he spoke God’s words to a king who often rejected his message just because he brought it. We are going to look at how he confronted the issue of idolatry.
Do we worship idols in the 21st century? Can the very culture that we live in today, be compared to false god worship recorded all throughout the bible by God’s chosen people? It is expressed in Isaiah that “their land is full of images; they give worship to the work of their hands, even to that which their fingers have made.” Isaiah 2:8
Idolatry is the worship of a physical object as a god, or the immoderate attachment or devotion to something.
The first commandment in Exodus 20:3 says, “You shall not have any other gods before me.” Idolatry is known as an extreme admiration and worship of something created with human hands. Persons and places can also be considered idols. For example, cultural pride, or the reverence that someone gives to the place they were born. For some would say, my state is the best, some of us of Caribbean descent would exclaim my island is the best. We can even idolize our cars, our houses, our jewelry, our bodies, our spouses, and our children. To clarify, there is nothing inherently wrong with these things but when they our put above God, they by default become an idol who brutally replaces the true creator.
An idol can be anything we put above God.
A gospel musician by the name of Mali Music said it best, “Give me that power to walk away when another God wants to take you place, as much as you as I can take.” But fellow believers we have a problem, the problem is that our sinful natures sometimes don’t want the power to walk away from those gods that want to replace the true God of heaven. The power to walk away from the demonic gods of drugs, alcohol, and sexual idolatry, and the very things we know will destroy us.
It’s understood that anything we put above God including people can be considered idols to us, but in light of 1Kings 18:21, this verse directly speaks specifically of the choice we are to make, whether we will worship the creation or the creator.
Under the reign of evil kings, idol worship prospered in both Israel and Judah. A few good kings in Judah stopped it during their reigns. Let’s take a journey
Baal, one of the most prominent false gods recorded all throughout the old testament, was a half-bull, and half-man who was considered the of fertility. He was the focal point of pagan idolatry in ancient times. The principal fundamentals of Baal worship were child sacrifice, sexual immorality (both heterosexual and homosexual) and pantheism which is the worship of the creation over the creator. Adults would gather around the altar of Baal. Infants would then be burned alive as a sacrificial offering to the deity. Amid horrific screams and the stench of charred human flesh, congregants – men and women alike – would engage in bisexual orgies. The ritual of convenience was intended to produce economic prosperity by prompting Baal to bring rain for the fertility of “mother earth.”
The natural consequences of such behavior were pregnancy and childbirth; they were associated with financial burdens of “unplanned parenthood” but were easily avoided. How were they avoided by these people who worshiped false gods? They could either choose to engage in homosexual conduct; or with child sacrifice on demand, could simply take part in another fertility ritual to “terminate” the unwanted child.
The conflict dealing with Baal worship reached its climax in the book of 1Kings where the prophet Elijah challenged Baal’s prophets to settle the question whether it was Baal or Adonai who was the one who really supplied the rain. We know the story of how the prophets danced and cut themselves for hours in order to cause their number one idol to send rain and prove Elijah wrong.
1Kings 18:27, 28 says, “And in the middle of the day, Elijah made sport of them, saying, Give louder cries, for he is a god; he may be deep in thought, or he may have gone away for some purpose, or he may be on a journey, or by chance he is sleeping and has to be made awake.
1Ki 18:28 goes on saying, So they gave loud cries, cutting themselves with knives and swords, as was their way, till the blood came streaming out all over them.
Elijah replied sarcastically saying maybe he’s sleeping, or on vacation. We must remember that God is the true God who provides for us sunlight, rain, shelter, and food. This false God named Baal had attempted to replace God’s role and take the credit for the things that God provided us. Baal also had a mistress recorded in the bible named Asherah; this shameful idol had been set up by the evil king Manasseh in Gods temple! Asherah is most often identified a chief goddess of the Canaanites. Her worship glorified sex and war and was accompanied by male prostitution. Let’s look back at the key verse:
1 Kings 18:21 “And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.”
Modern-day Baal Worship
Is Baal apart of your life? A deity that has you choosing whether or not to serve God with your whole heart or just choose to give him half, as you remain dreadfully lukewarm. In the words of George Lucas, one of the greatest movie producers America has ever known, he describes movies in an intricate yet concise way “It’s a trick, and we’re the tricksters.” He’s saying that, the movies that we (movie producers) produce with our hands, with our hard work and sweat, is nothing but a trick, a beautiful trick that causes you to get emotionally stirred up over something that is not even real. Yes, we spend our money and patronize these tricks all the time. For the most part movies emotionally ensnare and entangle us to the point of us sometimes losing our consciousness to the real world around us.
Does our one true God want worship and sacrifice? Yes, because in his word, Romans 12:1 he tells us through his manservant Paul “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”
Do Satan’s offspring, false gods want sacrifice just as Baal who was nurtured with human sacrifice? Yes, because the devil always has a counterfeit for we all know that “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 6:23.
We sin when we worship the false gods of this world, who separate us from our one true God. Instead of worshiping the true God, Ahab and his wife Jezebel worshiped Baal, the most popular Canaanite superhero, I mean false god, little g. Baal idols were often made in the shape of a bull, representing strength and fertility and reflecting lust for power and sexual pleasure.
Ahab brought 850 heathen prophets to Mount Carmel to match wits and power with Elijah. There prophets were also called priests because they were in charge of the heathen religious culture. Evil kings hated God’s prophets because they spoke against sin and idolatry and undermined their control over the people. With the wicked kings’ backing, many heathen prophets sprang up to counter the words of God’s prophets. But Elijah showed the people that speaking a prophecy wasn’t enough. One needed the power of the living God to fulfill it.
Elijah in our verse challenged the people to take a stand – to follow whoever was the true God. He was working for spiritual purposes to serve God and the people. The movie producers, I mean false prophets on the other hand were working for political purposes to benefit themselves. Elijah owned little to nothing. The false prophets held positions of great wealth. Elijah spoke only true messages, but the false prophets gave false messages. Elijah spoke only what God told him to say, no matter how unpopular, but the false prophets spoke only what the people wanted to hear.
The false prophets were an obstacle to bringing God’s Word to the people. They would bring messages that contradicted the words of the true prophets.
A singer by the name of Madonna, an American icon was speaking to Anderson Cooper about her upcoming Superbowl halftime show appearance.
“The Superbowl is kinda like the holy of holies in America, right? Like here I am, I’m gonna come, halfway in between the church experience, and I’m gonna have to deliver a sermon, that’s gonna have to be very impactful, I have to put on the greatest show on earth, in the middle of the greatest show on earth, 8 minutes to set it up, and 7 minutes to take it down, 12 minutes to give the greatest show on earth.”
There’s nothing inherently wrong with Madonna, or the Superbowl, but when we spend more time glorifying, when we give more allegiance, when we give more commitment, to anything whatever it is, we have turned it into an iDol.
A god is anything that we may worship or elevate in our lives with a little g, uplifting it above the only one big G.
If batman, superman, and handmade cartoons be God serve them, but if Adonai be God serve him.
If our music and movies be god we should serve them, but if Adonai be God serve him.
If our cars, and clothes be gods serve them, but if Adonai be God serve him.
1 Kings 18:21 “And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.”
