A Worked Up Religion — E.A. Johnston

1 Kings 18 and the Prophets of Baal

If you will turn in your Bibles, friends, to the first book of Kings and chapter 18, and as you turn there, your mind has probably already turned into the story of Elijah on Mount Carmel and how the Father Lord fell on the sacrifice and consumed it to the amazement of the gathered crowd, well, I hate to disappoint you because that's not what I'm preaching on this evening.

The Prophets of Baal's Bloody Spectacle

I've chosen a rather overlooked passage of Scripture about the prophets of Baal instead. We'll be in verses 28 and 29. Let me read this to us at this time and may God bless the reading of his holy word.

And they cried aloud and cut themselves after their manor with knives and lancets until the blood gushed out upon them. Let me pause here, friends, to say, here are the prophets of Baal jumping around the platform and shouting.

They cut themselves to show their sincerity to the God they serve. They get themselves all worked up in a froth. They got all worked up and got results. They made themselves a bloody spectacle by the exercise of their religion.

Emotionalism and Religious Showmanship in Modern Churches

This scene looks very much like some of our churches today where everybody gets worked up to a fever pitch emotionally. They go to shout an amen as loud as they can and folks get some religion and come forward as they respond to an appeal and make a decision.

I remember a story that Vance Havener used to tell. He said there was a revival meeting going on at a church and the next night a deacon stood up and led in prayer. And this is what he said as he prayed, Oh Lord, we had us a time last night.

I've never seen such a meeting. This place was filled with shouting and amens. It was really something, Lord. You should have been here. And that, friends, leads us to the next verse of our text. And it came to pass when midday was past and they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice that there was neither voice nor any to answer nor any that regarded.

When Religious Spectacle Replaces the Presence of God

I will stop there. The false prophets of Baal put on a pretty good show for man, but God didn't show up. That's kind of like us today in our churches where we put on a pretty good show for man. We get ourselves all worked up in our emotions and we see some results with people coming forward to join the church.

But like the God of Baal who did not answer nor show up, the God of the Bible is a million miles away as well, friends, from our fleshly display that we call church today. But our text says that there was neither voice nor any to answer nor any that regarded.

A silent God is an absent God. When was the last time, friend, when you saw the power of God in a meeting? God is a million miles away from most of our churches today, so we'll just cut ourselves a little more and shout a little louder and put on a good show.

Sin, Separation from God, and the Need for Repentance

But God is clean gone from the American church today. Folks don't get converted anymore. They just respond to an emotional appeal and make a decision. But there's no inward change and no godly life. I believe if we look hard enough in our Bible, we can find the answer to why God is silent today and why he has withdrawn himself from among us.

In Isaiah chapter 59, it tells us the reason as seen in verses 1 and 2. Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, neither is ear heavy, that it cannot hear, but, notice that word, friends, but, for it is the introductory word that reveals the reason why God isn't among us.

It's not because of any shortcomings in God. His hand's not shortened, he's not deaf, let's read the reason, but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.

Numbers, Crowds, and the Absence of Shekinah Glory

Now I think we better chew on that for a while, because how we run our churches today goes against the mind of God. We place all the emphasis on numbers. So long as we have a crowd, like the prophets of Baal had at Carmel, then we're satisfied and smug in our religion, for we have fooled ourselves into believing that if we have a church on the grow, that means God is in our midst and working, that his smile is upon us.

How many pastors do I hear tell me, God's really blessing my church because we had to build a bigger sanctuary to hold them all, for we got 3 ,000 to come on Sunday, but most of it is just circus activity.

Samuel Chadwick once said, when a church is run on the same lines as a circus, there may be crowds, but there is no shekinah. And that's our problem today, friends. We have sent God away with all our false props of religion and emotional excess and egos.

Repentance from Pride and Self-Reliance

We get up there every Sunday and create some excitement, and we cut ourselves and jump around the platform, but to no avail. God is silent, few are saved, until the church in America gets honest with herself and comes clean with God in an honest appraisal of herself, and falls to her face in shame and repents from her grievous sins of pride and self-reliance and arrogance, then God will not answer our fleshly display by fire, rather we will continue to feel the chilly blast of a worked-up religion that produces members but does not create changed lives.

Let us pray.