So the great meeting was arranged. “Ahab sent unto all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together unto Mount Carmel” (1 Kings 18:20). The omission of any mention of Jezebel at this critical juncture is remarkable. We can only think of one gathering in the Holy Land more momentous in its results than that on Mount Carmel. All four Evangelists record a multitude gathered outside Pilate’s palace in Jerusalem, led by the highest ecclesiastics of the nation. A great decision had to be made. Barabbas the robber, and the blessed Son of God, Israel’s Messiah, were set before the people for their choice. “Not this man, but Barabbas,” was their united cry. Yet that multitude were not Baal worshippers as those with whom Elijah had to do; they were the professed worshippers of Jehovah, and they regarded with abhorrence the idolatries of their fathers! Yet they would not have Jehovah’s Christ; a robber was more to their taste! Fatal decision, from which the blinded nation is suffering to this day? “His blood be on us, and on our children,” said they (Matt. 27:25); and the God of righteousness has held them to their word.
We borrow the words of another concerning the meeting on Mount Carmel. “There are few more sublime stories in history than this. On the one hand the solitary servant of Jehovah, accompanied by his one attendant; with his wild shaggy hair, his scanty garb, and sheepskin cloak, but with calm dignity of demeanor and the minutest regularity of procedure, repairing the ruined altar of Jehovah with twelve stones, on the other hand the eight hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and Ashtaroth, doubtless in all the splendor of their vestments, with the wild din of their vain repetitions and the maddened fury of their disappointed hopes, and the people surrounding all” (Dr. W. Smith). It is not quite certain that the prophets of Ashtaroth were present, possibly Jezebel was able to protect her own protégées, although the feeling amongst the people was too strong to allow her to prohibit the gathering altogether. Elijah wished the two hosts of misleaders to attend; but mention is only made of Baal’s four hundred and fifty (1 Kings 18:19, 22, 40).
Elijah addressed himself to the people direct. When rulers transgress against God, and bring down His chastening hand, it is always the poor who suffer most. Probably Ahab and Jezebel had not been short of wine and meat during the famine; and false prophets can always be trusted to look well after themselves. So “Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? If Jehovah be God, follow Him; but if Baal, then follow him” (1 Kings 18:21). This day must be a day of decision, and the people doubtless felt the reasonableness of what Elijah said. The nation was at that time divided into three classes: there were hordes of evil religious leaders; there were at least a few thousand who were still true in heart to Jehovah (although did not seem to be aware of their existence); and there was the mass of the people who were apparently indifferent, to what form religion might take, but they wanted rain! These three classes are represented today in the nations of Christendom. There are religious misleaders, some of whom, pompously describe themselves as “Higher Critics,” who would destroy all faith in God and His Word; and others, ritualistically inclined, would enslave the multitudes to the Italian clique in the Vatican. These two groups are largely responsible for the terrible disasters of our time. In contrast with these, God has in every land a pious remnant who love His Word, although perhaps they are not as outspoken in testimony as they should be. There then are the masses, who care nothing for “religion.” Christianity, Judaism, Mohammedanism, etc. are much alike to them; but they do not wish to be disturbed, and they cannot see why God should punish the nations for this condition of things. These people need to be brought to the point of decision. Is there a God; why not obey Him? Is there a Saviour; why not trust Him? To which of these three classes does the reader belong? Reader, is your mind made up that the God of Heaven is the only true God; that the Lord Jesus, His beloved Son, is the only possible Saviour; and that His precious blood can alone cleanse from sin, and give you a title to eternal bliss?
Elijah spoke a second time to the people, again ignoring both king and prophets, and also any officials who may have been in attendance upon the king. His proposal was very simple: two bullocks were to be provided, one for Baal’s four hundred and fifty prophets, and one for himself Jehovah’s solitary witness that day. (Where was Obadiah?). Each bullock was to be cut in pieces and laid on wood, with no fire under, and the prophets of Baal were to call upon the name of their god, and Elijah would call upon the name of Jehovah; and the God that answered by fire was to be Israel’s God. The people, well knowing that Baal was the reputed god of fire, said, “It is well spoken.” To Elijah’s appeal, “How long halt ye between two opinions”? they answered not a word; but the proposal to submit all great question to a trial by fire, was so reasonable that “all the people answered and said, it is well spoken.”
Elijah then turned to the prophets of Baal, and said, “Choose you one bullock for yourselves, and dress it first; for ye are many; and call on the name of your gods, but put no fire under” (1 Kings 18:25). It was important to stress the last clause when dealing with unprincipled villains. Priestly “miracles” have a bad reputation for imposture. In the calmness of faith, Elijah could afford to allow the emissaries of Satan to move first, knowing quite well that the god they served had no power.
What a day it was! From morning until noon the prophets cried, “O Baal, answer us!” realizing that for them everything was at stake. The silence of their deity threw them into a frenzy, and they leaped about the altar they had made “The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but they speak not; eyes have they, but they see not, they have ears, but they hear not; neither is there any breath in their mouths. They that make them are like unto them: so is every one that trusteth in them” (Psa. 135:15-18).
With the multitudes looking on, when noon same Elijah mocked the unhappy prophets. He suggested that they were not crying loudly enough; perhaps their god was occupied with other business, and could not attend to them; possibly he was away from home; or he might be asleep! Goaded by these taunts, the false prophets gashed themselves with swords and spears until their bodies streamed with blood! This unholy farce on the part of men made in the image of God was suffered to continue three hours longer.
At “the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice” Elijah judged that his opportunity had come. It was three p.m., and the evening lamb was being placed on the altar of Jehovah in Jerusalem, with its accompanying Meal offering and Drink offering, all speaking to God of Christ whose death at Calvary took place at that hour (Ex. 29:41; Matt. 27:46). It was the hour of divine blessing: compare Ezra 9:5; Daniel 9:21. The hour had struck for Elijah’s sacrifice to be offered, and for the blessing which followed.
“Come near unto me,” said Elijah to the people, so long led astray like foolish sheep. There is a sound of tenderness in the prophet’s words, reminiscent of Joseph’s invitation to his guilty and trembling brethren in Genesis 45:4. Elijah would soon now lead the poor misguided people back to their long-suffering and faithful God. In their presence he repaired the long-dishonored altar of Jehovah. He would teach them the true way of approach to God. If blessing was ever again to be enjoyed in Israel, it must be in virtue of the divinely accepted sacrifice. When the remnant returned from Babylon with Zerubbabel “they set the altar upon his bases, for fear was upon them because of the people of those countries: and they offered burnt offerings thereon unto Jehovah, even burnt offerings morning and evening” (Ezra 3:2-3). In their weakness they felt the altar would be a better protection than walls and weapons. They were right, for the altar and sacrifices spoke to God of Christ, and God always responds to faith of that character.
Elijah built his altar of twelve stones “according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, unto whom the word of Jehovah came, saying, Israel shall be thy name.” This act is proof of the prophet’s spiritual perception. The twelve tribes were no longer walking in unity; their unity has not been restored to this day, nor will it be until the kingdom of the Lord Jesus (Ezek. 37:21-23). Elijah was standing on ten-tribe ground; but his twelve stones tell us that he entered into God’s thoughts about His people. The people were still one in His mind. Although the temple in Jerusalem was now only recognized by two tribes, the High Priest still bore the names of all the children of Israel on his breast plate before Jehovah, and twelve loaves were still placed on the table of shewbread in the holy place (Ex. 28:29: Lev. 24:5-8). Two centuries after the great gathering on Mount Carmel, Hezekiah, King of Judah, at the Passover that he held in Jerusalem commanded that atonement should be made for all Israel (2 Chron. 29:24). Yet only two tribes acknowledged his sway, and the deportation of the Northern tribes had already began! After the return from Babylon “the children of those that has been carried away, which were come out of the captivity, offered burnt offerings unto the God of Israel, twelve bullocks for all Israel” (Ezra 8:35). Six centuries later still, James addressed an epistle “to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.” All this was very precious to God, as showing that Elijah, Hezekiah, Ezra, and James entered into His thoughts concerning His faulty people. Are we as spiritually intelligent today? As we look around us, we see Christ’s members, not in two parts as Israel in the days of the kings, but in divisions almost innumerable. Do we sorrow about this before our God, and do we seek to contemplate His saints (however faulty they may be) as He contemplates them? Do we refuse to sanction this unholy confusion? Are we able to say in faith “there is one body and one Spirit, even as we are called in one hope of our calling?” (Eph. 4:4).
Elijah having built his altar, made a trench around it; and when lie had laid his burnt sacrifice upon it, he commanded to pour four barrels of water over it. He repealed this three times, until the bullock and the wood were drenched, and the trench became a moat! He would thus appear to put every possible difficulty in the way that the impending miracle might be the more convincing. The prophets of Baal did not venture to use water thus, but Elijah used it freely. He then drew near, and offered his simple prayer: “Jehovah, God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that Thou art God in Israel, and that I am Thy servant, and that I have done all things at Thy word. Hear me, O Jehovah, hear me, that the people may know that Thou art the Lord God (Jehovah Elohim), and that Thou hast turned their heart back again” (1 Kings 18:36-37). It should be observed that the prophet sought no honor for himself (unlike Simon of Samaria who “gave out that himself was some great one” (Acts 8:9); he kept his true place as a mere servant, acting at the word of his God. Like Paul, he would have said, “I am nothing” (2 Col. 12:11; 1 Cor. 3:7). Do not miss the lesson, good reader!
Elijah proved the truth of Isaiah 65:24: “it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer: and while they are speaking, I will hear.” Israel must wait for this blessed experience until the glorious age when “the wolf and the lamb shall feed together.” Elijah had it while facing a whole pack of wolves with teeth undrawn! It is good to have to do with God. His answer to the lonely man’s prayer was prompt and decisive. “Then the fire of Jehovah fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.”
Let not the reader miss a word of this remarkable verse. The fire—the emblem of the righteous judgment of God—might well have fallen upon the disobedient nation, or, passing by the nation, it might have fallen upon Ahab and his hundreds of idolatrous prophets—all servants of the Devil; but it did nothing of the kind. The fire fell upon the unoffending bullock which Elijah had placed upon the altar! What a picture of the great sacrifice of Calvary! There the righteous judgment of God fell, not upon the wicked masses of men, nor even upon the unprincipled leaders who were primarily responsible for that cross being set up; the judgment of God in all its terrible severity fell upon the Holy One who hung there, so that He was constrained to cry, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27:46). That stupendous sacrifice, the full value of which is only known to God, has made blessing possible for sinners everywhere; and the first preachers of the Gospel were even commanded to begin at Jerusalem with their proclamation of repentance and remission of sins in the Saviour’s name! (Luke 24:47). Faith sees Him now risen and glorified at God’s right hand, clear proof that for Him, and for all who trust Him, the judgment of God is past forever. The effect of the fire from heaven at Carmel was marvelous. “When all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, Jehovah, He is the God; Jehovah, He is the God.” The great decision was made; and God, who is compassionate for nations as well as for individual sinners, could now grant blessing. The rain would soon descend!
But what about the prophets of Baal? They were not destroyed by the fire of God; there was thus, for a brief moment, a door open for repentance. Their exhausted and bleeding bodies were sufficient proof that Baal was worthless. He could do nothing for his most ardent votaries in their hour of peril. They stood publicly convicted of having practiced fraud upon the people. Why did they not immediately fall upon their faces, and confess their great sin before God and the nation? They did nothing of the kind; sullen and defiant, they stood upon the mountain in the presence of the people they had cruelly deceived for many years; and even the king’s partiality for them could not now save them from destruction. In obedience to Deuteronomy 13:1-5 (which meant nothing to Ahab), Elijah commanded that all the prophets were to be arrested. Willing hands obeyed, and the whole ghastly host, four hundred and fifty in number, were led down to the brook Kishon, and slain. Have we learned to distinguish between the ways of God in different dispensations? From Moses until Christ was the age of law. Among other righteous enactments, death was the penalty for false teaching. It is otherwise in this day of grace. Those who would mislead souls concerning the fundamentals of the faith must be sternly rejected; even a widow and her children were admonished by John in his Second Epistle not to show such persons even the courtesies of life; but beyond this we have no authority to go. Rome has judged otherwise in her ignorance of divine grace, and blind disregard of the Word of God. Many a choice servant of Christ has been cruelly slaughtered under the pretense of getting rid of “dangerous heretics.” When the servants in the parable of the tares in the wheatfield inquired if they should gather up the tares, the Lord replied: “Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest” etc. (Matt. 13:29-30). Perhaps no words from our Lord’s lips have been more generally misunderstood than these. They have frequently been quoted as a plea for retaining unsound persons in Church fellowship. But the Church is not in view in the parable of the wheat and the tares; indeed the Church had never been spoken of up to that time. The parable is found in Matt. 13; but the Lord’s first mention of the Church is in Chapter 16 “Grow together” does not mean “fellowship together”; impossible that He who is Holy and True should appear to sanction such confusion (Rev. 3:7). The wheat and the tares are to grow together in the field, and the Lord Himself has taught us that “the field is the world” (Matt. 13:38). In other words, those who are true to Christ and love His truth must not put to death false teachers, even if they had power to do so. Such delicate work as weeding God’s wheatfield could not be entrusted to fallible men; terrible miscarriages of justice would inevitably follow.
If any would inquire as to what is meant by the “destruction of the flesh” in 1 Corinthians 5:5, it is not the body that is referred to, but lie evil moral principle that is connected with the body in us all. “Delivering unto Satan,” as in 1 Corinthians 5:5 and 1 Timothy 1:20 is apostolic action; in the first case operating in conjunction with the assembly and in the second apart from the assembly altogether. The evil persons in question, having failed to learn their lessons in God’s gracious school, had to be broken and humbled by Satan’s cruel instrumentality. Divine discipline in all its forms is a deeply serious matter, but always with ultimate blessing in view, “that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.”
Our duty is to “put away” from amongst ourselves wicked persons. Further we must not go.