Elijah

The Prophet Who Didn’t Waver

READ 1 Kings 18:16–46

In the play and movie Twelve Angry Men,^* a jury debates a court case against a nineteen-year-old boy. If the teenager is found guilty, he’ll go to the electric chair. The jury’s decision needs to be unanimous. All the jurors find the boy guilty . . . except for juror number 8. Juror 8 stands firmly on his own, not swayed by the majority. He is simply not convinced of the boy’s guilt, and the more they discuss and reflect on the case, the more the other jurors side with juror number 8. In the end, the innocent teenager’s life is saved because one juror stood firm in his convictions rather than going with the crowd.

Few characters provide as clear an example of standing alone against the crowd as Elijah facing off against the prophets of Baal and Asherah. After the reign of King Solomon, Israel split into two kingdoms: the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah. Elijah was a prophet of God who announced a famine in the land of Israel due to King Ahab’s sin. Rather than repenting of his sin, Ahab blamed Elijah for the famine. In the third year of the famine, God sent Elijah, who had been living outside Israel in the area of Tyre and Sidon, to confront Ahab.

Elijah challenged Ahab to a contest: Elijah versus 450 of Ahab’s pagan prophets, to call on their competing gods to see who would answer by lighting an offered bull on fire.

The odds seemed to be stacked against Elijah in this epic showdown. It was not just the issue of one prophet against hundreds. The nature of the challenge, to see which god would answer with fire from the sky, seemed to favor Baal. Ancient iconography pictures Baal with a lightning bolt in his hand, similar to the Greek god Zeus—Baal was revered as the storm god. If any god were to send fire from heaven, surely it would be Baal.

The location of the contest also favored Baal. The mountain of the God of Israel was believed to be Zion, in Judah’s capital of Jerusalem. Carmel, on the other hand, was considered Baal’s home turf. Furthermore, Elijah let Baal’s prophets pick which bull they wanted to sacrifice, allowing them to choose the best one to please their god. What’s more, Elijah soaked his own sacrificial altar with water—not exactly a conducive approach to fire building.

Having every advantage, Baal’s prophets set to invoking their god to show his power. They danced and called, becoming more and more frenzied as time went on, even cutting their bodies to win their god’s attention—to no avail.

The showdown between the God of Israel and Baal had an audience. Speaking to the crowds, Elijah challenged them to stop wavering between two positions: “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him” (1 Kings 18:21). The people, hedging their bets rather than risking commitment, remained silent.

That is, until the power of God was unleashed before their eyes. At the time of the evening sacrifice, Elijah called on God to send fire from heaven, “so these people will know that you, LORD, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again” (v. 37). Fire poured down from heaven, consuming the sacrifice, the altar, and the water that had soaked it all. The people finally responded with a declaration of faith: “The LORD—he is God!” (v. 39).

Elijah demonstrated the power in standing firm for God, even when it meant standing alone. When we know God’s love and God’s will, no amount of peer pressure can sway us from our convictions. We don’t need to be afraid; we know God and we trust in him alone. Elijah had a real and deep relationship with God. The fact that there were hundreds of prophets of Baal on the mountain while he was the only prophet of God didn’t sway him in the least. Neither should we be swayed in our faith by the voices or influences around us. What we have seen and experienced, planted within us by the gift of faith, is the life-giving message and power of Christ. Even when we stand alone, we stand faithfully in that power.