2020: The Mount Carmel Moment of the Charismatic Movement

All right, we're going to pray and we will get started. Lord Jesus, as we open up your Word, we ask humbly for your

Spirit to help us to rightly understand what your Word reveals, so that we may believe rightly, that we may confess, proclaim, and walk according to what you have revealed there for us.

For we recognize that in the words of Scripture are the very voice of God. Your Word says so, and so we ask,

Lord, for you to speak to us through your Word this morning. We ask in Jesus' name, Amen. All right, today

I've got an axe I'm grinding, and I'm trying to look for a place to put my coffee, and I'll come back to it, so hold on.

So there we go. All right, so what we're going to do today, I've named today's Bible study something akin to 2020, the charismatic movement,

Mount Carmel moment. And we're going to grind on that a little bit.

We're going to look at 1 Kings 17 and 18, and we're going to unpack some of the popular ways in which both of those chapters get twisted.

And I want to assure you that neither 1 Kings 17 or 1 Kings 18 have anything to do with tithing.

If you've spent time in evangelicalism or any kind of light charismatic church or even

NAR church, they turn them into tithing texts. But before we do this, I want to give you,

I want to kind of, if you would, take a look at something taught in Isaiah 55.

And this is another passage that makes it impossible, straight out, flat out impossible for somebody to prophesy falsely in the name of God.

And let me explain what I mean. Here's what it says in Isaiah chapter 55 and verses 10 and 11.

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there, but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower, bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth.

It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which

I purpose and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. So you're going to note that this text, just taken straight on, it is impossible for God's word to go out and for it to return to him empty.

And at the risk of sounding bizarre, I'm going to invoke our latest prophecy, bingo, for the month of February 2021.

And in there, we had Robert Henderson, who is a fellow who famously falsely prophesied that Trump would win the election in November.

His explanation as to why he's not in office right now is because he's redefined prophecy to be an opportunity for the church to pray into existence a future that God wants to have happen, which is nuts.

In other words, it's your fault. If you voted for Trump and you really wanted to be president and he's not president now, it's because you didn't pray into it enough and you missed your opportunity.

But the idea then here is that scripture teaches us that God's word is—and

I'm going to use a word that you may be unfamiliar with—that it's performative. God's word is performative.

So, for instance, in Genesis 1, God says, let there be light.

Is there a choice for there to remain darkness? No. God's word performs what he sends it to do.

So the idea then is that God, when he sends out his word, it will accomplish the thing for which he sent it.

It will not return to him empty. And to say, thus saith the Lord, and then, you know, the thing that you thus saith doesn't take place is absurd, because that's saying that God's word is returning to him empty and that it failed to accomplish the thing for which he sent it.

And that's not a biblical category. So you'll note there are many different ways that you can look at this, many facets, but at the end of the day, anyone who prophesies falsely is a false prophet, and to believe that you can be a true prophet after having prophesied falsely is to then believe, by extension, that God's word does return to him void, and it is incapable of accomplishing the things that what

God says. So if God had actually said, Donald Trump will win the election in November of 2020,

Donald Trump would be in the White House right now, because God's word always performs that which he sends it, all right?

That's kind of our foundation. Now, turning to the focus of our study today, 1

Kings 17, and we'll do part of 18. 1 Kings 17 and 18, these are very popular stories, ones that I come back to every few years in my teaching, but also ones that everybody's kind of familiar with, the showdown between Elijah and the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel.

And if you always are paying attention, I make a big to -do about the three rules for sound biblical exegesis, and they are context, context, and context.

So yeah, thank you, thank you, Louise, thank you. Yeah, that's awesome.

Yeah, at the risk of sounding like a broken record from the Department of Redundancy department, anyway,

I'm going to back up just a little bit, and I want to set this up. In the tail end of 1

Kings chapter 16, it gives us the account of what's going on in the northern kingdom of Israel.

So this isn't in Judah, this is in Israel, top 10 tribes, and there's going to be a change of monarchy from Omri to Ahav, and I'm going to pronounce his name

Ahav, because that's how it's actually pronounced in Hebrew. I know that we English speakers like to say

Ahab, but it doesn't work on the tomato -tomato thing. When you read

Hebrew, it's Ahav. Okay, so forgive me for pronouncing it that way, but here's what it says. In the 38th year of Asa, the king of Judah, Ahav, the son of Omri, began to reign over Israel.

And Ahav, the son of Omri, reigned over Israel in Samaria 22 years.

And Ahav, the son of Omri, did evil in the sight of Yahweh more than all who were before him.

And if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, he took for his wife

Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, the king of the Sidonians. And by the way,

Jezebel, you could make a very good argument, and I've read Hebrew scholars on this, that the proper way of maybe understanding her name is that she is named

Jezebaal. And Jezebaal means, watch this one, princess of Baal.

Okay, in other words, she's a really lovely lady. Okay, she's just lovely.

Okay, so she's the princess of Baal. And so you're going to note then that this is the big change.

Ever since the establishing of the Northern Kingdom, the Northern Kingdom had deliberately gone into idolatry, but now their idolatry is ramped up.

And you need to know kind of the religious narrative as it surrounds Baal.

Baal means Lord, and Baal is the Lord who is the one who brings the rain.

But before Baal is going to bring the rain, the followers of Baal must bring the requisite sacrifices and offerings and perform the proper rituals.

And in Syria, the worship of Baal also included human sacrifices.

I like to think of Baal as I think of like that cult in the second Indiana Jones movie, you know,

Molaram, you know, and it's that wicked, it's that evil, that's what we are talking about here.

Yeah, the thuggy cult, that's what they're called. So when you think of Baal and those who worship

Baal, you have to think that level of evil, because human sacrifice is part of the things that Baal or the

Baals require in order for them to open up the windows of heaven and bring the rain,

Bruce Byrne says. So the most wicked and hateful king in history of Israel is named Love. Am I getting that wrong?

No, I don't think you are. I actually think you're getting that right. Yeah, yeah, you could make a case for that, okay, but he's the opposite of it, okay.

Now, all of that being said, you now kind of got the inciting incident, and this is where, then, in 1st

Kings 17, we first hear of the prophet Elijah. He comes kind of out of nowhere, but actually we know he comes from Tishbe, and that means he's a

Tishbite. I'm so glad I'm not from a town that where, you know, if you describe the inhabitants of that town, it ends with bites, you know.

I'm glad we don't refer to you folks here from Oslo as Oslo bites, you know. Anyway, all right, so you get the idea, but all of that being said, that Elijah the

Tishbite of Tishbe in Gilead said to Ahav, so note he is speaking directly to the king of Israel.

So God has sent him. A prophet is one who speaks for another, specifically a deity, and here's the message.

As Yahweh the God of Israel lives before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years except by my word.

Now, that's the message God has sent, and I'm sure Ahav went, yeah, right, you're bothering me, be gone, right?

And so that was the message, and then the word of Yahweh came to him, depart from here, turn eastward, and hide yourself by the brook

Kerith, which is east of the Jordan, and you shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.

So he did according to the word of Yahweh. He went and lived by the brook Kerith, that is east of the

Jordan, and the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.

Now, a little bit of a note here. We, a while back ago, did a review of a fellow who did a sermon on this text, and he totally allegorized it, and the idea was is that when

God gives you a vision for your life, there's going to be opposition, and so what's your brook Kerith?

And don't worry, God's going to send the ravens to feed you, and in hearing that, it was one of those times where I wanted to reach to my computer screen and pinch that guy's head and pop it like a pimple, and you know, because just how dare you, you know, twist these texts this way.

So I assure you, number one, you do not have a brook Kerith moment coming in your future, and personally,

I'm glad about that, because even if God sent ravens with meat for me to eat, I would be reticent to eat it.

I'm not a big fan of ravens, and I would make my wife cook that thing to, like, hockey puck status before I would even consider chewing on it, but that's a whole other story, okay?

So what we're looking at here, this is a historical narrative. These are historical accounts, and this is where we have to pay attention to one of the distinctions that we see in Scripture, and that is that there are historical events that when they are interpreted spiritually for us, the doctrines regarding those events then are hooked together to them.

But for instance, I like to point out, if I were to travel back in time to Jerusalem, I were to travel back in time to Jerusalem, and I was there on the day that Christ was crucified, all

I would see with my eyes are the events that are recorded historically. I would see a man suffering, bleeding, and dying.

In fact, three men suffering, bleeding, and dying on the cross. I would see the sun darkened.

I would feel an earthquake. I would hear one of these men crying out, it is finished, and then dying.

But here's the thing, all of that is history. When you then say these words,

Christ died for our sins, that's doctrine. Doctrine connected to the historical events.

And where so many go wrong is they will read historical events and then read into it whatever doctrines they invent in their own head.

It's completely ungrounded, and the more fanciful you read these things, the more interesting it becomes.

And then they'll basically, if you say to them, you're twisting God's Word, they basically say, well, that's just your interpretation.

That's just your interpretation. But we'll note then that all Scripture finds its terminus in Christ.

And the subject that is before us is one that Scripture speaks very clearly regarding doctrine.

And the doctrine that is at stake and on focus here is the first commandment, you will have no other gods.

That is the center and focus and the message here. And in this particular account, we're going to note that God, in His mercy, and this is a right way to see it, because you'll see it in the prayer of Elijah at the end of this.

God, in His mercy, has chosen to work a miraculous sign for the purpose of demonstrating the falsity of Baal.

That's the issue. So in this account, we must consider it, this is a showdown between the one true

God, Yahweh, and the false God, Baal. Now, does

Baal exist? No. All right. Remember the old telephones that when you would call somebody and their number had changed or something like this, you'd get that annoying high -pitched, da -da -da, we're sorry, but the number that you are trying to reach is no longer in service or has been disconnected.

Please check the number and dial again. Yeah, remember that? So here's the reality of the situation.

Every time you try to call Baal, he never answers. And there's a reason, and that is that he doesn't exist.

But it's a little bit worse than that. In 1 Corinthians 10, we get the real origin of where idolatry has its genesis.

And I'm going to read out a text that seems a little odd, but it also relates to idolatry as well as to the

Lord's Supper. 1 Corinthians 10 .14 says this, therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.

And you're going to note, this is New Testament. Flee from idolatry. And we're going to talk a little bit more about the implications of what kind of idolatry we face today within the church.

Flee idolatry. I speak as to sensible people. I don't know why he's saying that.

A lot of people in church are not very sensible. That's just a pastor's assessment. Sorry. My bad.

Judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?

What's the answer to that? Yes, it is. The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?

Yes, it is. So because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.

So consider the people of Israel. Are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar?

The answer is yes, they are. So what do I mean then? That food offered to idols is anything or that an idol is anything?

No. I imply that what pagan sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God.

So this is a fact. Who is behind Baal?

The devil, the demonic realm. Who is behind Molech and Asherah?

The devil. Who is behind the false deities that run around the landscape today?

The devil. And here's where we're going to take a look at a text that needs to sober us up because I think we're taking this text just a little bit too lightly in our day.

And I want you to consider this. The same realm that was responsible for Baal, Molech, and Asherah, Shiva, Vishnu, and the thuggies.

That same force is behind what's going on in much of the church today.

Paul says this in 1 Timothy 4, 1 and 2. Now the Spirit, the Holy Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and the teachings or you could say the doctrines of demons through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared.

I want you to let that set in for a second. Now I've already invoked Robert Henderson. Robert Henderson who spectacularly falsely prophesied that Trump would be re -elected in November is now blaming you for that not being the case because you didn't pray in enough for that to happen.

I would note that he is most famous for his teachings regarding the so -called courts of heaven and that you know he has been teaching within the charismatic movement for many years now this idea that if you're not getting the results that you want it's because the devil has filed lawsuits against you in heaven and God is not legally able to bless you.

Therefore you need to learn how to file your own lawsuits in heaven so that God can have the legal right to bless you and to show you his favor.

To which I say where are you getting any of this?

I would note that in the comment section of our YouTube channel recently we had several people who left comments saying, asking the question sincerely, do

I need to file lawsuits in the court of heaven in order to to get what I need from God in answer to prayer?

No. This is all pure mythology but I think it's more than mythology.

I think that this is a fulfillment of the prophecies given by the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul that there would be people who are devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons.

So you know that idolatry is alive and well within the church today. And let me give you another quote on this.

If we go to 2 Corinthians chapter 11, I would note that the Apostle Paul here in 2

Corinthians chapter 11 is trying to very delicately diffuse a bomb that was put into the church in Corinth by this group of guys who called themselves, get this, they called themselves super apostles.

Okay, well that Apostle Paul, he might be an apostle but he's not the best one because I mean after all he's not very gifted in his public speaking.

And have you seen him? I mean he's cross -eyed and he has a hook nose. I mean that's how he's described by the ancient church.

And he doesn't speak very well in public. And have you ever noticed that the Apostle Paul doesn't charge you money when he comes and preaches here?

Well that's because he knows that nobody would pay a slug nickel for it. But we're so gifted.

We're not apostles, we're super apostles and we're going to charge you top dollar for our services.

But don't worry, we will wow you with all kinds of great stuff. That's what's going on there at the church of Corinth.

So Paul then diffusing this to basically get the people in Corinth to wake up to the fact that there's no such thing as a super apostle and that these guys are not bringing them the truth.

He says, I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me. I feel a divine jealousy for you since I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.

But I'm afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

And I would note, it is not a small thing for the apostle Paul to invoke the serpent of the

Garden of Eden. That serpent was working by the power of the devil if it wasn't the devil himself.

All of that being said, you can see the implication here. He says, for if someone comes to you and proclaims another

Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.

And he's not commending them for being tolerant and open -minded because he then goes on to explain what the fate is of these so -called super apostles.

And so he says in verse 13, such men aren't false apostles.

They are deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even

Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.

And their end will correspond to their deeds. And he's not saying that they're going to join the choir invisible, praising

Christ with a harp on the day of glory. He's saying that their end is hell. That's what we're talking about here.

So I want you to consider then, as we look at this Mount Carmel moment, the question that I would like to ask in the context of idolatry, if we were to kind of find an application today, is does the charismatic

Pentecostal and NAR movements worship a false spirit? That's the question.

And you'll note here, signs of heresy are not only a false gospel or a false

Christ, but 2 Corinthians 11 makes it also clear, grounds for heresy on the basis of idolatry is a false

Holy Spirit. So let's go back to our text. That's a little bit of context for where I want to go to today.

And I'll get to questions a little bit later. I would like to kind of work through these thoughts without getting too far astride from them.

All right, coming back here then. So here's the showdown. Baal supposedly brings the rain.

Yahweh says, uh -uh, it ain't gonna rain until my prophet says it's gonna rain. Which then does what?

Gives objective proof that the claims of those who worship

Baal, that Baal is the one who brings the rain, are patently false. And you're going to note that as we walk through this text, we can see that God will allow

Baal to suffer three years of 2020. Okay, it's a metaphor that we all get right now, right?

So we'll keep that in mind. Okay, so depart from here, go to the brook Kerith. So after the brook dried up because there was no rain in the land, then the word of Yahweh came to Elijah, rise and go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there.

Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you. So he arose, went to Zarephath, and when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks.

Now, a little bit of a note here. If you've spent time in evangelicalism, this is a text that is used as a proof text for tithing.

And here's how the theology works. God cannot bless you until you step out in obedience.

That's the claim. God cannot bless you until you step out in obedience, to which

I would say scripture says God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for our sins.

What obedience did you do that caused God to send the Son of God to bleed and die for your sins?

Answer, nothing. For while we were dead, Christ comes, and he bleeds and dies in our place.

So this idea that, and you'll see it all over the preaching of these types of churches, is that you've got to do your part, which then gives

God the ability to do his part. And God, his hands are tied. He can't do his part until you do yours.

But pay attention to what I just read. I'll highlight a couple of things. The word of Yahweh came to Elijah, rise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there.

Behold, I have commanded, past tense, I have already commanded a widow there to feed you.

Now we're going to see this widow's attitude towards this command of God. But before, before Elijah even left the brook

Kerith, God had already spoken to this widow, and she knew exactly who was talking to her, that it was

Yahweh. You can see it in her kind of snarky attitude. Now, of course, she's got nothing, and the famine has impacted her as well.

And so, as a widow, she's part of the poorest of the poor.

You know, let's just say that the life of widows wasn't one that was opulent in the ancient world.

Far from it. Far, far from it. So who does God send Elijah to?

The poorest of the poor. And so, he had already commanded her to feed

Elijah. So Elijah rose, went to Zarephath, and when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks.

So, Elijah, being a prophet, knows that's the gal, and so he strikes up a conversation with her.

And he said to her, bring me a little water in a vessel that I may drink. And now, out comes her attitude.

And she, as she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, bring me a morsel of bread in your hand. And she said, as Yahweh, your

God, lives, okay. Notice, it's not her God. She already knows that Yahweh has spoken to her. She knows what the name of God is.

As Yahweh, your God, lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug.

Now, when I read these words, I think about what, she sounds really annoyed.

She sounds kind of like this is just irritating for her. God has commanded her to feed this prophet, and she's got nothing.

And it's kind of like when I come home sometimes, and I look at my wife, and she's not right.

And I say, how you doing, honey? And she says, fine. Okay, that is a four -letter word.

And when my wife says, fine, I don't make eye contact, because if I do,

I'll be dead. Okay, yes, it is trouble time. Okay, so if Elijah had asked her, hi, how you doing?

She would have said, fine. Okay, that's kind of the attitude going on here. All right. And then she says this, and now

I am gathering a couple of sticks so that I might go in and prepare it for myself and my son so that we may eat it and die.

Well, that's a great answer. And you're going to note here that Elijah, he doesn't say, oh, don't worry, you're not going die or anything like that.

He says, all right, don't fear, go do as you said. Go ahead and die if you want, which

I think is just great diplomacy. Anyway, so he says, but first make me a little cake of it, and then bring it to me.

Afterward, make something for yourself and for your son. And I'm going to note here, before this woman has done anything while she's still in the presence of Elijah and their first meeting, the

God who commanded her to feed Elijah then reveals to her through the prophet that he will miraculously provide for her the means to sustain the prophet and herself.

And it's given as a gift. It's given as a promise. It is not contingent upon her obedience at all, because before she did anything one way or another, the promise was there.

And remember what we read in Isaiah 55. When God sends his word out, it performs the thing for which he sent it.

It is performative. That means since God is the one who said, your flour and your oil will not run out, because he said that, will her flour and oil run out?

Nope, not until the time when he says it will. And so that's the point.

It is based upon the God who sends his word, and his word performs that which for which he sent it.

It is not based upon her obedience, and it's a twisting of this text to make it otherwise. For thus the

Yahweh, the God of Israel, says the jar of flour shall not be spent, the jug of oil shall not be empty until the day

Yahweh sends the rain upon the earth. And so she went and did as Elijah said, and she and her household ate for many days.

The jar of oil was not spent, neither did the jug of oil become empty according to the word of Yahweh that he spoke by Elijah.

Now you'll note that in their first meeting, is this woman, the widow of Zarephath, a believer in Yahweh?

No, because Yahweh is Elijah's God. And I would note that as difficult as it is to read this next section, we should note that God works this for her to confess

Yahweh as her God. What comes next? So after this, the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill.

His illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. And she said to Elijah, what have you against me,

O man of God? Have you come to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son?

Who does she think is responsible for the death of her son? Herself. Why? Because she believes that her son died because of her sin.

And I'm going to note this. Resurrections in the Bible are rare. They really are rare.

There's just a handful of them. And in this particular case, we see

Elijah now in a way that kind of has echoes that point us to Christ and his work.

Because I seem to remember there was a little girl in an upper room that Jesus brought back to life, right?

So he said, give her to me. Yeah, so he said to her, give me your son.

And he took him from her arms, carried him up into the upper chamber where he lodged, laid him on his own bed.

Now, a little bit of a note here. You're going to see, Elijah is not going to decree.

He's not going to declare. He's not going to command. He's not going to control.

He's going to ask. And that's an important bit.

So he cried to Yahweh. Oh, Yahweh, my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom

I sojourned by killing her son? Then he stretched himself upon the child three times.

Father, Son, Holy Spirit, cried to Yahweh.

Oh, Yahweh, my God, let this child's life come into him again. And this stands kind of in stark contrast to the way

Jesus raised people from the dead. You think of that 12 -year -old girl, the daughter of Jairus.

Christ takes her by the hand and says, little girl, I tell you to arise. Lazarus, Lazarus, come out.

Right? He, on the other hand, like us, we had to pray. Now, it's in this regard

I'm going to point something out, and this is a little bit of a digression, but again, we're kind of framing this in the context of idolatry.

The year 2020 was a bad year for the Charismatics and the NAR and the

Word of Faith. Not only did all the prophets fail to see COVID coming, we spectacularly watched

Kenneth Copeland and others make buffoons of themselves, commanding and controlling

COVID -19 and the pandemic to come to an end and the vaccine to come immediately. How'd that work?

And then they prophesied Trump was going to win the election. How'd that go? And they all claimed that despite the fact that it looks like he lost, that God was going to place him into office on the 20th of January.

That didn't pan out. And now some of them are still saying that they refuse to concede and they believe that he will take office sometime in March or April.

Cognitive dissonance is strong with them. But I would note this, that their woes didn't begin in 2020.

Their woes began in 2019. If you remember in December of 2019, that was when the little girl of one of the worship leaders at Bethel died.

Her name was Olive. And for two weeks, Bethel refused to bury her.

Her corpse sat in the refrigerator at the county morgue in Redding, California.

And it was not in good condition when they buried it. And for two weeks, they were commanding, and they were controlling, and they were decreeing, and they were declaring, what?

For Olive to rise from the dead. And their slogan was, wake up Olive.

And I would note this, God didn't hear them.

And Bill Johnson of Bethel self -identifies as a living apostle of Jesus Christ.

One of the signs of a true apostle is that they have the miraculous ability to raise people from the dead.

Peter did it. Paul did it. Bill Johnson couldn't and didn't.

And we ended up doing a video on it while Olive was still sitting in the morgue. And an insider from Bethel contacted me to give me inside information, hoping that if I put that inside information into our video, that that would shame them into finally burying

Olive. And after we put the video out, I got a really sharply worded email from a member of the staff of Bethel, wanting and demanding to know where I got that information.

But the person who contacted me was a Bethel insider, and they were so disgusted because they had personally seen the state of decay of the corpse of Olive.

I personally believe we are dealing with the demonic. I know this is a sobering message, but something to consider in this regard.

Elijah, true prophet of God, he called out to God humbly, asked God to revive this child and for his life to come back to him.

And Elijah took the child, brought him down from the upper chamber into the house, and he delivered him to his mother.

Elijah said, see your son lives. And the woman said to Elijah, now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of Yahweh in your mouth is truth.

Note, this is a sign. It's a sign that Elijah truly is a prophet of God. If, when somebody speaks in the name of God and it comes to pass,

God's word never returns to him void, somebody sees what takes place according to the word of that person who's speaking on behalf of God, it's a sign that they're speaking the truth.

What about the converse? They say something's going to happen and it doesn't happen. What does that tell you?

They're not hearing from the real God. And it's in this context then that we continue the story.

After many days, the word of Yahweh came to Elijah in the third year saying, go show yourself to Ahav and I will send rain upon the earth.

Who's doing the, who's in charge here? God is. How many years? Three. So in that time, the prophets of Baal had three straight years of 2020.

Everything they said, everything they did, it amounted to nothing. They would perform their rituals, offer their sacrifices, do their offerings and say, we have fulfilled our duty.

It's guaranteed it's going to rain this year. Did it?

No. And it also, we learn from this text that there were at that time, prophets of Yahweh.

As prophets of Yahweh, what would have been the message of the prophets of Yahweh to Jezebel and the prophets of Baal and Ahav?

It ain't going to rain until Elijah says so. That's what God said.

And how well do you think that message is going to be received? It's not.

It's easy to kind of sort this all out. So Elijah went to show himself to Ahav.

Now the famine was severe in Samaria. Ahav called Obadiah who was over the household.

Now Obadiah feared Yahweh greatly. And when Jezebel cut off the prophets of Yahweh, cut off is a polite way of saying she killed them.

Like cut off what? Their heads. Okay. And we can see how this went down.

It doesn't take rocket surgery to kind of figure this out. So year one, having not rained for 12 months, they do their sacrifices.

They offer their offerings. They spill their blood. They kill somebody according to the rules of Baal and they didn't fulfill his need.

And they say it's going to rain this year. Prophets of Yahweh are saying it ain't gonna rain until Elijah says so.

And guess what? It doesn't rain. Ahav comes home to the palace.

Honey, how are you doing? Fine. Right? Fine. I'm fine.

Okay. But what's she upset about? She's mad. She's furious because you got the prophets of Yahweh saying it ain't going to rain.

You have her prophets and she's the princess of Baal. Her prophets saying it's going to rain and it's not raining.

And here's the thing. You would think that she would sit there and go maybe Baal isn't real.

Okay. But it says that at some point she cut them off. Maybe year two.

Okay. Year two comes around. They offer all those sacrifices and all the prophets of Baal saying it's going to rain this year.

Prophets of Yahweh say ain't gonna rain until Elijah says so. And her response is kill them.

And they're cut off. Now Obadiah, who works in the palace, he fears the Lord and it says he took a hundred prophets, hid them by fifties in a cave and fed them with bread and water.

I'm sure the sanitary conditions there were great. Right? So Ahab said to Obadiah, go through the land to all the springs of water, to all the valleys.

Perhaps we may find grass and save the horses and the mules alive and not lose some of the animals.

So you can tell the fact it's not raining, that's a big deal. The animals are dying. Humans are suffering.

So they divided the land between them to pass through it. Ahab went in one direction by himself. Obadiah went in another direction by himself.

And as Obadiah was on the way, Elijah met him and Obadiah recognized him and fell on his face and said, is it you my

Lord Elijah? And he answered, he says, it is I. Go tell your Lord behold, Elijah is here.

And Obadiah just shows that this man has been abused and just under the thumb of Ahab and Jezebel.

I mean, what comes out of him is absolute terror. He says, how have I sinned that you would give your servant into the hand of Ahab to kill me?

As Yahweh your God lives, there is no nation or kingdom where my Lord has not sent to seek you. And when they would say he's not here, he would take an oath of the kingdom or nation that they had not found you.

And now you say, go and tell your Lord behold, Elijah is here. And as soon as I've gone from you, the spirit of the

Lord will carry you to I don't know where. So when I come and tell Ahab and he can't find you, he will kill me.

Although I your servant have feared Yahweh from my youth. Does this sound like this guy's had a good three years?

Okay. He's a little frazzled. Okay. The ends are a little frayed. Then he says, has it not been told to my

Lord that what I did when Jezebel killed the prophets of Yahweh, how I hid a hundred men of Yahweh's prophets by fifties in a cave, fed them with bread and water.

So he invokes the fact that they were killed. And now you say, go tell your Lord, Elijah is here.

He will kill me. And Elijah said, is Yahweh Sabaoth.

Now we see the word hosts and we think, you know, black tie with hors d 'oeuvres.

You okay? Okay. The Hebrew word means army. All right.

So note here, invoking Yahweh Sabaoth, the God of hosts, the God of armies, basically he's saying we're going to war buddy.

All right. As Yahweh Sabaoth lives before whom I stand, I will surely show myself to him today.

So Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him and Ahab went to meet Elijah. Now this next part,

I want you to pay close attention to this. All right. And that is, is that when we are described by scripture in our fallen state, we are described as dead in trespasses and sins.

I want you to consider this for a second, three years, for three years.

And it was to Ahab that Elijah delivered the initial message. It ain't going to rain till I say it's going to rain.

Three years have gone by and there's no rain. The proper response for Ahab in his first meeting with Elijah in three years is to say, you were right.

I was wrong. Baal doesn't bring the rain. I'm sorry.

Please pray to Yahweh that he would forgive me. That is the proper response.

Never underestimate just how dead, dead is in dead in trespasses and sins.

Because when you are that dead, and we all were at one point, you believe that evil is good and that good is evil.

That's how backwards upside down and inside out you are. So Ahab says to Elijah, he says, is it you, you troubler of Israel?

Really? Really. And you'll note Elijah just has none of it. He just fires back immediately.

I have not troubled Israel. You have. You and your father's house, because you've abandoned the commandments of Yahweh and you have followed the

Baals. Now, therefore, send and gather all of Israel to me at Mount Carmel and the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel's table.

All right. Big showdown here at this point. Now, at this point, I'm going to do a little bit of an aside.

In evangelicalism, what comes next is now used as a tithing text.

And the way it goes is that if you guys remember how the story is going to go, when Elijah finally offers his sacrifice, he's going to have it doused with water.

How many times? Three times. And so the question comes up, where did they get the water during a famine?

Where did they get the water? So the way the evangelicals and the charismatics are using this text, they say, well, this proves that you have to tithe.

If you want the fire to fall from heaven on your finances, you first have to give up your precious commodity of water, money, in order to get the blessing of God.

Now, we're just going to go and do a little bit of the obvious here. On the screen in front of you,

I'm going to put everybody down here for a second here. On the screen in front of you is a satellite view of Mount Carmel.

That's where we're at. Okay. And I'm going to zoom out for just a little bit here.

And you're going to note, I'm going to zoom in just a smidge here. So here is Mount Carmel National Park. Not too far from this site, then, is the actual physical place where the showdown took place.

And this is in Haifa today in Israel. That's where it's located. So the question is, in the middle of a drought, where does one find enough water to douse a sacrifice three times?

Well, let's take a look. Okay. That big blue wet thing is called the

Mediterranean Sea. And it is less than a kilometer. And I mean less than a kilometer from the point where they had the showdown.

And, well, you get the idea here. It's not going to take much to walk down the hill and grab a...

And you'll note that during droughts, the Mediterranean Sea doesn't dry up.

Okay. Yeah. So I'm pointing this out because sometimes if you just know your

Bible geography, it will protect you from the bizarre machinations of what goes for preaching today.

All right. So the answer, where do they get the water? I don't know. The big blue wet thing. I'm just going to take that as my guess.

Okay. This is not a tithing text. This is not teaching us the principle. If you give first your precious commodities, then

God will cause the fire to fall on your sacrifices. That is absolutely false doctrine through and through and not the point of this text.

This text is about what? Idolatry. Who's supposed to be bringing the rain?

Baal. Who really brings the rain? Yahweh. All right. So Ahab sent to all the prophets of Israel, gathered the prophets together at Mount Carmel, and Elijah came near to all the people.

He said, how long will you go limping between two different opinions? Subtext here.

You've had three years with your own eyes to see the prophets of Baal are completely worthless. How much rain has

Baal bought you these past three years? Not a drop. How long are you going to go limping between two opinions?

If Yahweh is God, follow him. If Baal, then follow him. So the people did not answer him a word.

They're still unsure. Is Elijah unsure? Not at all.

And you're going to note here, how many prophets of Baal are there in this showdown? 450.

How many prophets of Yahweh? One. And I want you to note here that people today argue the mega churches have to be right because look how many people go to them.

Joel Osteen has to be teaching us the truth. After all, he's on television. Does might make right when it comes to theology?

No. All right. So Elijah then said to the people,

I, even I only am left as a prophet of Yahweh, but Baal's prophets are 450 men.

Let two bowls be given to us. Let them choose one bowl for themselves and cut it in pieces and lay it on the wood and put no fire to it.

I will prepare the other bowl and lay it on the wood and put no fire to it. You call upon the name of your

God, all call upon the name of Yahweh. And the God who answers by fire, he is

God. And the people answered, it is well -spoken. All right. It's a showdown to the death, if you would.

So then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, choose for yourselves one bowl, prepare it first for your many, call upon the name of your

God, put no fire to it. And they took the bowl that was given to them and they prepared it and called upon the name of Baal from morning until noon saying, oh

Baal, answer us. We're sorry, but the number you're trying to reach is no longer in service or has been disconnected.

Please check the number and dial again. Right? No answer. There was no voice.

No one answered. They limped around the altar that they had made.

I'm sure this was quite the spectacle. Hours and hours and hours. So at noon,

Elijah mocked them. And yes, Elijah mocked them.

Yeah, that's right. He clearly has a spirit of divisiveness, you know, and he's just being arrogant.

You know, it's just nonsense. Okay. I would note that Jesus Christ himself said to the

Pharisees, you brood of vipers, roughly translated, you whose mothers are snakes, you are whitewashed tombs.

Outwardly, you appear beautiful, but inwardly, you're full of dead men's bones. Oh yeah, Jesus did some name calling too.

All right. So at noon, Elijah mocked them saying, cry aloud. He is a

God. He either is musing or, and I got to laugh at this because the

English is so sanitized. Okay. Or he is relieving himself.

Let me get it a little bit closer to the way the Hebrew reads. Maybe your

God's taking a dump. Okay. Well, that's not very loving.

Oh, wait a second. Excuse me. But showing that Baal is a complete farce is the most loving thing that you could do.

For these people to be entrapped and ensnared and afraid to say the obvious.

Well, Baal has done nothing for us for three years. Of course, Yahweh's God. For Elijah to point out that that deity is an absolute demonic farce, and he's incapable of even clipping your toenails.

That's a good thing. It's a loving thing to open, to wake up, wake them up from the stupor and the deception that they're under, the delusion that Baal brings these things.

Right? So cry louder. He's musing. He's taking a dump. Maybe he's on a journey. Perhaps he's asleep and must be awakened.

So they cried aloud and they cut themselves after the custom with their swords and lances until the blood gushed out upon them.

And as midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation.

See, you got 450 men bleeding, blood all on the ground.

And I'm going to note this, that God does not demand a sacrifice of you.

He provided the sacrifice for our sins. Christ is the one who bled in your place.

He does not call on you to cut yourself. The text says, no one answered.

No one paid attention. Right? And then

Elijah said to all the people, come near to me. And all the people came near to him by himself, by himself, the only one there who trusts and believes in Yahweh.

He repaired the altar of Yahweh that had been thrown down. Elijah then took 12 stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of Yahweh came saying,

Israel shall be your name. And he reminds them then what their real name is.

Israel, you are the ones who wrestle with God, the one true God.

And with the stones, he built an altar in the name of Yahweh. He made a trench about the altar as great as would contain two seahs of flour.

That's really about only seven liters. One man couldn't really scratch out much of a trench, but yet he did.

And he put wood in order, cut the bowl in pieces, laid it on the wood, laid it on the wood.

That seems to recall this particular sacrifice I know about. And then he said, fill four jars with water, pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood.

And he said, do it a second time. And they did it a second time. And he said, do it a third time.

And they did it a third time. And the water ran around the altar and filled the trench also with water three times in the name of the

Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. This offering was baptized and laid on the wood.

Ooh, I know another sacrifice that was baptized and laid on the wood too. And at the time of the offering of the oblation, all right, those of you

Bible scholars, what time is it? Three in the afternoon.

It's three in the afternoon. Remember, there are two sacrifices according to the Mosaic Covenant that are required daily.

One is the morning sacrifice. The morning sacrifice is at nine. The evening sacrifice is at 3 p .m.

3 p .m. is also the time on the day of the Passover when the Passover lambs are slaughtered.

3 p .m. is the exact time when Jesus Christ, the sacrifice provided by our

God for our sins, cried out in the darkness, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

And he says, it is finished into your hands. I commit my spirit. And he died.

You can take a pin from this 3 p .m. sacrifice and in sticking it in the map, it hits

Jesus at exactly the same time that he dies. So Elijah the prophet came near and he said, oh

Yahweh, God of Abraham, Isaac, Israel, let it be known this day that you are

God in Israel and that I am your servant and that I have done all these things at your word.

Answer me, oh Yahweh, answer me that this people may know that you, oh

Yahweh, are God, and here's the best part, and that you have turned their hearts back.

The whole purpose of this miraculous sign was for the repentance of Israel of their rank idolatry, that God himself in his mercy and kindness took away all reason for doubt and instead gave them reason to believe so that he was the one who was turning their hearts back to himself, not that he would condemn them, that he would forgive them.

So then the fire of Yahweh fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust and licked up the water that was in the trench and when all the people saw it they fell on their faces and they said,

Yahweh, he is God, Yahweh, he is God, and Elijah said to them, seize the prophets of all, let not one of them escape, and they seized them and Elijah brought them down to the

Brook Kishon and slaughtered them there. I'm sure Google wouldn't want me pointing that out, but it's the truth and it was the best thing that could have happened for Israel, that those impenitent false idolaters who had ensnared their minds would no longer be allowed to ensnare them anymore and that God himself was bringing

Israel back to repentance. It's all about idolatry and I asked the question earlier, as we consider this text,

I think it's time for the church to consider the reality that we have idolaters within the visible body of Christ who worship a false spirit, that according to the spirit that they worship, they failed to see

COVID coming. According to the utterances of their spirit, they were unable to stop the pandemic despite their decrees and their declares.

They also falsely prophesied that Trump would win re -election and then when that didn't happen, they said that he would still be inaugurated on January 20th and they are still to this day claiming that Trump will be in office no later than April.

This is kind of a Mount Carmel moment for them. The spirit that they are invoking does not exist.

When God sends forth his word, it accomplishes that for which he sends it. To believe in a holy spirit that is incapable of performing his word is to believe in a false holy spirit and invoke the heresy nuance, if you would, requirement of 2

Corinthians 11. And so I would ask then that you pray for the church.

Pray for your brothers and sisters or friends and family who are under the sway of these false prophets and these false teachers that despite all of their failings, they are incapable of seeing that the holy spirit that these people are invoking and worshiping is not a true holy spirit.

It's a counterfeit holy spirit that ensnares and enslaves and makes people just ridiculously silly.

And I would note that atheists and Muslims are having a heyday because of these people.

Heyday. And it is our job as Christians to speak the truth and tell these people the truth.

They are not prophets. Their holy spirit is not the holy spirit. They are idolaters.

God, when he sends his word forth, it accomplishes the thing for which he sent it. I'll take a look at questions real quick here.

And I did see that there was a lot of scrolling that I wouldn't going to have to do, but I have to keep an eye on my time today here.

Let's see here. All right. So the most wicked and hateful king. We got that.

All right. So didn't someone in your prophecy bingo video say that Elijah was sinning by being in the cave that he hid in?

Such a weird point to make. No, he wasn't. He wasn't sinning. God did not rebuke him for being in that cave.

He asked him, why are you here? And I'll note that if you know the rest of the story, does

Jezebel repent after all of her prophets are murdered? No, not murdered, killed. No, she doesn't.

What does she do? She threatens to kill Elijah after this. Elijah runs for his life.

All right. I think they were trying to say that Elijah didn't pray hard enough to change God's will on something, which is, again, silly.

No text says that. Was Elijah an eit, a Gentile or a Hebrew? He's from Gilead, so he's definitely a

Hebrew. So all right. I almost lost my faith because of that theology. Yeah, I know,

Dana. There's a lot of people that are just like that. And it's time for us to soberly come to grips with what we're dealing with right now.

Second Timothy 4, 4, they shall be turned into fables. Yep. Jesus never told his followers to file

TPS reports in order for their prayers to be answered. That's true. That's true. Don't forget that cover sheet on the

TPS report. And they're only good if you actually make them on a Saturday. I just want to make that clear. So the funny thing, the super apostles don't have any epistles in the

Bible. Yeah, that's true. Yes, can't forget that cover sheet. All right, let's see here.

I have a copy on my desk. There's a lot of banter here. All right, let's see. I don't get why they keep giving prophecies even though none of them have come to pass.

Marab, here's the thing, is that the prophecy regarding these people is that they are liars whose consciences are seared.

And, you know, I'll be blunt. If I spoke a prophecy and said that God said something was going to happen and it didn't happen,

I would be too ashamed to show up in public ever again. You wouldn't have to remove me from my office.

I don't think I'd show my face ever again because I had clearly deceived people and had been deceived.

That's not how it works with these people. Scripture says of them that their consciences are seared. So they have no conscience.

They continue to lie in the name of God and their prophecies keep not coming to pass.

And what do they keep doing? They keep prophesying. And this shows you that their hearts are stone hard.

I mean, you can't even cut their hearts with a diamond, you know, blade at this point. Nothing's going to pierce this.

So that's the reason. You can raise the dead. You can control the weather. You can blow disease away.

If we said this to others, they'd put us away. Yep, yet people follow and send ridiculous amounts of money to these charlatans.

Indeed, you know. How's the budget item for my private jet this year? It never made it past the church council.

We're still 60 million dollars away from that. Okay, just checking. Okay, hey,

I'll take that. We'll talk. New shoes would be nice. I'll take that. Okay, all right.

So institutionalizing the mentally ill in today's society. Yeah, yeah. So why do they continue in idolatry after predicting falsely?

Maybe their conscience are seared. Right, Elizabeth, you got it. Okay, for this reason God sends them a strong delusion so that they'll believe a lie.

Yep, and so they will be condemned. That's right. Scratching itching ears. I think you all get it.

All right, so all of that being said, I have to wind up here. So I know this was something

I was grinding on and it was a lesson I really wanted to teach and, you know, kind of explore the topic of idolatry and its implications for the church today as it considers that Old Testament text.

I hope you found this helpful. So Lord willing, we will see you next time. Peace.