Dueling Prophets

1 Kings 18

“And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said The Lord He is the God; The Lord He is the God.” 1 Kings 18:39

Elijah, having just raised the widow’s son back to life, and having fulfilled his mission with her; The Word of The Lord came again to him. This time however, Elijah was to inform the wicked king Ahab of the rain that was headed for Israel. Again, the whole reason there was this drought in the first place was Ahab had initiated a kingdom of tolerance for heathen religions, and where Baal worshiped reigned supreme. Baal, the god of storms had failed his followers miserably these last three years and it was time for a showdown of the gods. Israel had not repented yet, and it was time to force a battle between the powers of evil and the righteous power of God.

Jezebel, the queen of Israel, had succeeded in killing many of the followers of Yahweh in an effort to create this tolerant society toward her favored religion, and to appease her own god (the god Baal).

We now have an interesting character come into the story, and his name is Obadiah. Obadiah is a fervent worshipper of Yahweh, and has used his connections as king’s steward to hide 100 of the prophets of God by 50’s in caves. The study today takes him out across the land looking for water as the drought had dried up all available resources for quite a ways. It is on this venture that Obadiah meets Elijah as he comes out of hiding for the first time since the drought began.

Elijah tells Obadiah to let Ahab know that he is in the area and would like to see him. Obadiah trembled at the thought of delivering that message, (1) because Elijah was a prophet of God and Jezebel wanted his head, (and 2) because Elijah had a knack for disappearing into nowhere only to be found when the time was right.

Obadiah’s words were, “I will tell Ahab that you are here and the Spirit of the Lord will come upon you and carry you away to a place that I know not of”.

Only when Elijah promised that he would see Ahab, did Obadiah consent to giving Ahab the message.

Ahab couldn’t stand Elijah’s presence due to the righteousness of Elijah condemning the unrighteousness of Ahab. Also look at 1 John 3:12 1 Peter 3:16 2 Timothy 3:12 Cain was infuriated by Abel’s righteousness.

Ahab knew Elijah was a prophet of God, yet he blamed him for the trouble that had befallen Israel. Ahab’s kingdom was built around tolerance of the Zidonian god Baal and goddess Ashteroth and he assumed that as god/goddess they would take care of him, yet these last three years they had failed him as this “trouble” had fallen upon Israel. He assumed this “trouble” was brought on by Elijah’s insistence in worshipping the One True God, and his own gods had removed their blessing. We could say that Ahab was a spiritual man, even that Jezebel was a spiritual woman; but their spirituality resulted in idolatry, which is rebellion of God’s ways, which is witchcraft. Behind every idol is a demon receiving the worship that is given it.

Our children are those in our little domain, just like Ahab as king of Israel had his kingdom of people who were looking to him for guidance. If we as parents are not an example of serving God, whether it’s by losing our temper, disrespect of our leaders, or fellow church members, or whether we are halting between two religions; these could all give rise to a generation of people who are disillusioned having a tainted view of who God is. If we as parents are super concerned with things pertaining to us, be it our hurts, our gifts, or how we expect that men should treat us; then we are selfishly expecting to have our rights upheld. The Bible says offences will come and “Woe to whoever shall give them”. Our children will see who we respond to situations that are less than ideal, and we will make or break their view of God and His ways! Their blood will surely be on our hands if they lose out spiritually due to our lack of spiritual discernment. Matthew 18:6

During the reign of Ahab, many Israelites tried to worship both God and Baal in order to please the prophets and the rulers. This is a compromise of faith and it is clear through the Word of God that compromise of faith will always be sin and will be judged. Revelation 2:14 - Joshua 24:15

So, who really was troubling Israel? When God said in Deuteronomy 11:16-17, “Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them; 17 And then the Lord's wrath be kindled against you, and he shut up the heaven, that there be no rain, and that the land yield not her fruit; and lest ye perish quickly from off the good land which the Lord giveth you.”; He made it clear that certain requirements need to be met or they would be judged along with their land being cursed for their sake. God was not just “troubling” Israel, but was wanting them to see the futility of their worship in an inanimate god. This trouble was self-inflicted because of their rebellious heart.

Today, Do you feel like God is inflicting you? Before you blame God for it, take a look at your life. Are you in whole obedience to God and what he has revealed to you? Also understand that if you are walking in complete obedience to God, Satan would love to sift you as wheat. Further still, Recognize that this may not be a personal struggle, rather this earth is cursed generally, not to make it hard for you, but because of the sin of the world that men and women may realize their need of surrendering to God.

When we forsake the commandments of the Lord, it is clear we will bring “trouble” on ourselves.

What does it mean, “Thou hast followed Baalim”? Is this just a variant of the name Baal? Baalim, according to the Strong’s Concordance is the plural form of Baal.

As Elijah meets with Ahab, he gives this call to worship. It is a contest of worship to see which (G)god is going to come through for their prophets(s). It is time for the showdown. Israel had not repented from following Baal, but they were going to be forced to see that God/Jehovah is the True God and that Elijah is His messenger.

Elijah called them to this contest on Mt Carmel. Now Mt. Carmel was a beautiful Mountain that overlooked the Mediterranean Sea. It was believed to have been the home of the god Baal. Baal was in a sense challenged to a duel on his “home turf”. Elijah was outnumbered 850/1 by the prophets of Baal, plus if you would count the rest of the worshippers of Baal, that number would have risen tremendously.

Israel has been trying to have a tolerant stance toward this false religion, and as anybody can guess true tolerance of anything whether it is a false god or an ideology always end up biting you in the end. There is no such thing as true complete tolerance.

Elijah built the altar with 12 stones to remind the Israelites they were part of the 12 tribes of Israel and that God has chosen them as His people. This symbolized a return to the worship of the true God as the altar had been in disrepair until now.

The Israelites needed to acknowledge that Jehovah is God (the only God) before the drought could end. Leviticus 26:40-45 by the same token, our spiritual drought can be reversed by recognizing that God alone is God and by following in obedience.

Salvation Comes From God!

Salvation Comes From God

Life or Death is in the power of the choice!

There are two eternal destinies to which the eternal souls of mankind choose to spend their eternity by either choosing life or death.  We are able to live physically without choosing God, but we will be making choices to destroy ourselves physically.  The reality is if we are choosing not to choose God we are choosing Satan and his wages...his payment for being his minion is death.  Though you may be alive presently, you can not live on his wages and you will begin to die physically and of course you are already dead spiritually.

We all start out in this life as babies who carry the bent toward sin and death.  We will all carry this to our grave unless … unless there is a Savior, a Redeemer who is willing to take our punishment for the sins we have committed.  We do, and his name is Jesus, He is our Savior.  He is God, come in the flesh to take our punishment of death and save us from our sins and from the penalty of our sins.

As a means to clarify my previous statement, we are not punished for having the bent toward evil, but because of that bent we should choose evil.  That is what we will be punished for.

Salvation begins, only after you have reached an understanding that you are doomed, and that there is a Savior waiting on your acceptance of Him.  Though the purchase price has been paid; it is an advance payment waiting on you to claim it. As it begins to dawn on you that there is hope, that life doesn’t have to be meaningless; and you make your choice to accept the sacrifice Jesus made in your behalf, you begin to live!  

Life will take on new meaning, life will be something to look forward to, and life will now be eternal instead of being over at the grave.

Genesis chapter 15 lays out the covenant God made with Abraham for atonement for sin.  God appears to Abraham in a vision and gives him a message.  

God said, “I am your shield” and “I am your great reward”.  If we were to break this done a bit, it would look like this … I am your protection and your treasure.  What difference did this make to Abraham to have this declaration of God?  First of all, when the Word of the Lord comes to someone; it is to be shared.  Abraham, as the messenger of God, was a prophet of God.  Secondly, Abraham was a part of mankind; and this entire chapter deals with the sin nature of mankind and the redemption process that God had planned.  

Abraham showed his humanity by thinking of passing the blessings on to his household, but God had a much bigger plan in store for him.  God plainly showed Abraham, who was to benefit from this declaration that was given to him.  It was to be his children.  God began to tell Abraham all that He had done for him.  God said, “I have separated you from your land and your people, and brought you to a new place and given to you as an inheritance”.  This land was to be a place where Abraham’s children could serve the Lord without the influences of the wicked neighbors.  (Some of the details needed worked out and would be in God’s own good time!)

The meat of this passage now follows as Abraham, following God’s instructions, takes different kinds of animals and divides them laying them in an organized fashion.  This most certainly would have created a trail of blood as the life-blood flowed from the animals and mingled in a pool.

This was a sight that Abraham was never going to forget because of its significance, and while he waited on God to make the next step; Abraham maintained the purity of the sacrifice by not allowing any external contaminations to take away from the pure sacrifice.  Abraham had birds swooping to get their own piece of that tasty meat which he chased away while he waited.  These birds could be compared to the devil as he tried in vain to get between the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the Father making it impure and thus ineffective.

The sun began to go down, and Abraham in his humanity began to become sleepy as God began to reveal Himself in this new and remarkable way.  It was as if the wickedness of the world had overtaken the light and extinguished it altogether as an unnatural darkness swept across him.

As God began His discourse with Abraham, He prophetically spoke of Abraham’s children being servants in a strange land and being set free when the time was right.  He spoke of the people of that land being judged for their sins, and Abraham’s children inheriting that land from the hand of God.

The smoking furnace that Abraham saw was representative of the suffering Abraham’s descendants would face, while the burning lamp would portray the great deliverance by which they would be delivered.  This has a two-fold meaning, one as in the children of Israel being delivered from Egypt, and two as in we who have been grafted into Abraham’s lineage have lived for many years in bondage to the prince of this world and have received our freedom through Jesus Christ.  This type of covenant could only be broken through one party not going through with his or her end of the covenant, which would require his/her death as the perpetrator of this broken promise.  

Abraham is considered the prophet of the Lord and the father of all who have faith.  Through this kind of representation we see from him we can understand that he is representing both God and mankind.  In a nutshell, this covenant states that if God doesn’t keep up His end of this covenant, He will die as part of that agreement; on the other hand, God is saying, that because no amount of mankind will ever be “good enough” as a sacrifice of death for failing in this agreement, He (God) would die for that scenario as well.

This covenant was fulfilled in Jesus Christ who is God and man both, and because man failed in his part of the agreement, offered up Himself as God on behalf of mankind.  It is critical that we recognize both the humanity and the divinity of Jesus and understand just what He came to do, for how can we appreciate His sacrifice on our behalf unless we understand the workings of this covenant and what was required for sin.

The only way to atone for the sin of humanity was for a holy God to offer Himself as a holy sacrifice for an unholy people.  It is clear, mankind had nothing to offer for its own redemption.  As this plays out in our lives, we have salvation by our faith in the grace of God which is available through Jesus Christ because of His offering.

Genesis 15:1-21

Romans 4:16

Romans 5:1,2

Romans 6:23

The Wayward Heart

I shall never look at my heart the same again!  

Truth shall abound from an Almighty God who has declared that my heart is desperately wicked and exceeding sinful.  Though with great pains He created the heart of man as a perfect place of communion and natural integration of our spirit and His Spirit; we, as children of our ancestors, have inherited a nature that is devoid of love for God and has a natural bent toward a debased behavior.

• The Rebellious nature of our heart

One doesn’t have to look very far to see the effects of the sinful nature so generously bestowed upon us by the sins of our ancestors.  Personal weaknesses and struggles usually get handed down, not necessarily genetically, but spiritually (Exodus 34:6,7).  As Adam’s descendants (Genesis 1-3), his choice to hand authority in his life over to Satan has affected us in one way or another.  Life is now a struggle to take back that authority and give it back to God who is the real owner of authority anyway.  For some reason, by default Satan seems to always receive from us what should be God’s.

The carnality of the heart desires wickedness so when a person follows after wickedness, his focus has left God and has turned to following carnal things.  Even if we are not living in full rebellion we have been deceived and need to repent, otherwise we will be living off one deception after another.  The Word of God makes it clear; if it isn’t of God, it is of the devil and you will be following the devil making him your illegitimate father, which is sin.

The nature of our heart is selfish, yet because we are relational to one degree or another, we create the appearance of service toward others in hopes of getting something in return.  In other words, we are still selfish.  In many cases we desire approval of man, so we offer “approval” to them in order to gain it from them.  In reality, we are worshipping their opinions in order to receive their worship.  The only approval we really should need is God’s approval.  In other words, we are idolaters and have made ourselves gods.  We also deal with personal pride believing we deserve better than what we are getting.  When this happens, we have an over-rated opinion of ourselves and have made ourselves a god.  Pride is usually driven by selfishness, as is adultery, drunkenness, gluttony, etc.

God has shown us through the written text of His Word that though the Old Testament people experienced a promised blessing if they remained true to Him, it was not enough for them to remain true.  The wicked nature of the heart always seemed to show itself sooner or later and sometimes in very pronounced ways.  What was accomplished then by the promise of success for choosing to believe God?  We now have a clearer picture of the state of the heart of man.  Man could try to fit into God’s Plan and receive the success that was promised to them, but with an unregenerate heart the heart is still carnal and no amount of promises of success from God can take that away.

Romans 1:18-32

For some reason or other mankind has resorted to disregarding the evidence of the existence of God, and has chosen to take its own way and worship the created world over the Creator.  Even if we are sinning through deception, we are effectively transferring authority from God to Satan and Satan as a master will destroy us.  God has said that sin can only go so far before He will turn us over to a reprobate mind.  As we continue to transfer authority over to Satan, he becomes the way we think and we end up in complete disregard for the truth.  When this happens, our lives no longer have any room for truth and we become mockers and truth inhibitors.  Once we have a complete disregard for truth God can no longer speak to us and we become a destructive part of society (A minion of Satan if you will).

We are to blame for allowing our culture to desensitize us, for we are responsible to maintain a high alert against the sinful nature we possess.  It is as if the father of deception has set forth to deceive the very elect of God through incremental deceptions leaving us numb and ill equipped to fight for our souls.  Are we going to wake up before we drift away into eternal destruction?

Today, the promise of success has been removed, but God has a plan which involves Redeeming the heart through Salvation and Sanctification.

Marriage with the Devil

Genesis 6
    Satan was busy, as he is now, constantly looking for ways to corrupt mankind.  It is evident the daughters of men were good-looking by what it says in this passage.  Mankind had left the principles of God to the point, that they just planned to do evil all the time. The wickedness of man had gotten to the point that God could no longer bless them with life.  Are we losing the principles of God?  What are the principles of God?
Love the Lord supremely.
Abhor evil.
The heart issues must always be dealt with.
Without God life is void.
Love your fellow man.
Reach out to the lost.

    The term “Sons OF God” has always meant created beings, whether initial  creation or recreated.  The term “Daughters of men” has always been referred to as being of men or children of men.  During this time there were no sons of God except for the angels who He had created.  The ancient Jews believed that this was an alliance between the fallen angels and mankind.  This was ruse of Satan to further corrupt the beautiful creation God had made.  Some people use a verse in the NT to discredit this: Luke 11:34,35 This verse isn't saying they can’t have children, also it is talking about life after death and not the present.  Take a look at this verse:  Jude 6  The angels who had initiated this alliance are bound until the last judgment day.
    The inhabitants of this time were believed to have worshiped the offspring of this alliance as demi-gods.  They were powerful and supernatural.  They became infamous for their evil deeds, presumably against the righteous.  As time progressed, Noah and his family were the only righteous left.
    In these last days we have seen an influx  of the children of the devil.  They are destroying the righteous; physically and spiritually.  We need to stand up and watch that we do not enter matrimony with the devil.
    We have the inexplicable link to the devil that cannot be eradicated until death.  This link is our flesh, and it desperately wants to join into a union with the devil.  We can gain control of it by constantly refreshing our marriage with Christ.  <Romans 7:22-25 With my whole heart I agree with the law of God.  But in every part of me, I discover something fighting against my mind, and it makes me a prisoner of sin that controls everything I do.  What a miserable person I am.  Who will rescue me from this body that is doomed to die?  Thank God! Jesus Christ will rescue me.  So then with my mind I serve the law of God, although my selfish desires make me serve the law of sin.>

The Devil Unleashed

 
 -2 Thessalonians 2:1-12
    The spirit of the devils is alive and well.  Evil and darkness prevails over much of the land.  The devil is all about deceiving the world, and he has been successful to a large degree.
    Christianity is no longer sacred.  The devil has made inroads into the church and has defiled it.  Wickedness seems to prevail throughout the church.  Even though Satan has seemingly taken control of the church, the power of God is still able to withstand him, if we just lay hold of it.  Many people appear to be religious by setting up a law to pace their actions, but their hearts are far from God.  Their laws have become their god, and the law can never save them.
    The church holds up men, ideas, and things as high or higher than the gospel.  We canonize them (in effect, worship them and their ideas); and as we read the Word of God we already have our minds made up as to what it is saying to us, so we are not truly reading to learn.
    Men and women following the desires of their heart will always result in tragedy.  People are always looking for something new and exciting, whether from God or from Satan.  If exciting things drive you,  trouble lies at the door.  You will not be able to keep up with it.  Consider the fashions, health kicks, new ideas in the church And men claiming their ideas are good.  Everything must be from the inspired and finished Word of God.
    Deceived and uprooted from faith in God, the urgency to stand up like a man and fight is more than ever.  Satan’s attacks will be only warded off by counter-attacking with the sword of the Spirit.  People would rather believe a lie than the truth, because truth hurts… our pride.  We must be driven by the Holy Spirit.  God has caused His law to be written on our hearts.
We find his ‘credentials’ in Isaiah 14:12-14.
Pride is a vice that describes Satan’s character.  Satan rears up his ugly head in each one of us.  Our sinful nature manifest is Satan’s character coming through.  Satan’s initial sin was pride and it is still coming through loud and clear.  Pride destroyed him, and it will destroy you.

Attack Stage 1

       -Luke 10:18/Revelation 12:8,9

Satan is very clearly God’s enemy and could not abide in Heaven with God.  Holiness alone is worthy of the presence of God.  Satan having tasted the glories of Heaven, revolted against the Almighty King; and was cast out, banished forever.

Attack Stage 2

The devil has been cast out of Heaven, with no hope of returning, but now he prepares for attack stage two.  The battle in Heaven has been fought, and he lost, but now he will focus on me and on you.  The idea of Satan is to sabotage God, the Almighty King and His wonderful work of creation.

       -Romans 8:22

The world was a perfect environment when it was created by God, but now that Adam, who was the forerunner of all mankind, sinned; the world has since been handed over to the power of Satan.  We now have nothing but pain.  Catastrophes abound, and though God sometimes gets the blame for these;  he is not the cause.

       -James 1:13/Galatians 1:4

Satan would utterly destroy any sign of God’s greatness, if he could, but God allows him a little destruction at a time.

This fight is between God and Satan… we are no match for Satan.  We are pawns in this fight, but we have the power to say who moves us.  Our battleground is like a chessboard that the devil keeps trying to control you side.  He will advance his imps toward you while turning the board about to catch you in the open.  -Jeremiah 17:17- Our only hope is Jesus Christ, He alone can trump the moves of the devil.

Attack Stage 3

The devil has now moved into the third stage of his attack.  This attack includes stage two and adds eroding the foundations of the world.  Through evolution, he has destroyed the knowledge that the world was created.  He has also destroyed the morals of our society by the belief that we are intelligent animals, therefore our actions become animalistic as we seek to be top monkey.  The idea of denying a creator cancels any responsibility towards Him for our actions, thus resulting in chaos for the world.

       

The Curse of Mankind

    Satan doomed the entire human race with a single blow, and now attempts to drive them into deeper sin and destruction.

    Till the time of Christ, mankind, when trying to please God, focused on works; which included a six-hundred page documentary of applications to God’s Laws and yearly sacrifices because no one was able to maintain the highest level of obedience to these laws.

    Jesus Christ has now come, and we now enjoy being vindicated with Him in spite of our past sins.  His death on the cross has paid for our ransom from the hand of the devil and we are now freed from the bondage of sin.

 We are at war, a holy war that does not involve human enemies.

    -Genesis 3:15-

    Adam and Eve faced this enemy and came up short.  Our early father and mother conceded defeat and paid dearly for their defeat as all men after them have.  They have paved the way for all men to be deceived by their arch-enemy, Satan. 

     Instead of man’s heart being inherently good like many try to teach us today, Adam and Eve’s defeat points out that even in a good environment their hearts had a potential for wickedness and destruction built into them and us, and because of their defeat we are all doomed to inadequacy in our  potential to sin has not changed and this is the cause of the latest sweep of attacks on us as Christians.  The change that we have seen in our lives is that we have access to the power of God to keep us from yielding to sin.  Christ has now opened the way for all people to come to Him through faith.

     The value of a person who has been a Christian but has turned back to Satan is in that Satan has delivered yet another blow to God’s majestic realms.  God will never be destroyed by Satan, but will reign on in spite of the blows dealt by Satan.  This battle we face is not between us and Satan, but rather between Satan and God.  We as humans are avenues for Satan to get revenge.

    God can and will give us the roadblock so Satan can not use us against Him; if we allow Him to help us!  This is available to us through Jesus’ blood which paid for our ransom.  The march of Truth will go on forever.

     2 Timothy 4:7,8- “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:  Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing.”

    Keep fighting for the Lord!  The minute you give up, you have lost.  When the devil sifts you like wheat, stand firm and you will come out like gold.

     Be vigilant for God, stand up to the devil in the power of God.  Satan can only destroy you if you let him, so let your light shine from the sword of truth and blast the darkness away.

   As I ponder these thoughts from 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 I am cautioned as to how easy it is to lose our way.

Death Penalty

     Any infraction against God is a felony worthy of our death.  All of us have committed a felony against God.  There are no misdemeanors in God's judicial system but an infraction against Him is an infraction none the less.  When man loses his way spiritually and we all have Satan has us in his clutches.  A man or woman who has transgressed against God's law has no rights but comes under the full prosecution of that law.
     God has provided a way of escape from this looming death penalty and that is through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ taking into consideration that we accept His sacrifice on our behalf.  If we accept this full pardon of our transgression the death penalty has been paid by Jesus.

Sin Is A Criminal

Act Against

God.