Fire!

Next, we come to perhaps the best known story from the life of Elijah - it's the kind of story that gets (partially) told in Sunday school and holiday clubs. There's suspense, action, humour and lots of potential for good craft activities! It's the story from 1 Kings 18 of Elijah on Mount Carmel with the prophets of Baal.

Battle lines are drawn on the mountain, and at the start of the day it looks as if Elijah and his God are on one side; and all the people, the king, and the prophets of Baal and Asherah are on the other.

And the task for the day for each team is to first of all build and altar, sacrifice a bull on top and then call on the name of either Baal or God and see who answers with fire. Ever the gentleman, Elijah allows the 450 prophets of Baal to go first. After several hours of unsuccessful calling on Baal, during which they have lost their voices, got tired legs from dancing and jumping around, slashed themselves with spears and swords...still nothing. Elijah suggests that maybe Baal is asleep or maybe travelling - suggesting that they shout louder - still nothing.

Then Elijah suggests that he has a go, and builds his altar, kills the cow, digs a trench, pours 12 large jars of water over it so that even the trench is filled, and prays a simple and short prayer. And the fire falls from heaven, consuming everything, including the water. And the people turn their hearts back to God and worship him.

James 5:17 tells us that Elijah was human, just like us, and therefore we should have faith when we pray. But I doubt many of us will have had such a dramatic and public answer to prayer as this one on Mount Carmel. But God does answer prayer, he continues to work miracles. He is not asleep or travelling or otherwise occupied. So we pray to a God who hears, a God who is in control, a God who is working out his good purposes in us and through us.

We might expect this event to boost Elijah's faith to super levels, but as we shall see tomorrow the opposite is true. He plunges from the mountain top into despair and fear.

God really can use you

Do you ever feel insignificant? When we look at the situations around us, they seem so huge and we wonder what difference we could ever make. And then there are really gifted people already doing all they can - and how can we compare ourselves with them? We have no experience. We have no training. Or maybe we've grown up listening to messages telling us that we're no good at anything, and we've heard it so often that we've started to believe it. Or maybe we've started to believe that because we come from a certain background we have nothing to offer. And so we keep our heads down, we don't get involved, and we believe that God can't possibly want to involve us in his plans.

The next part of the Elijah story (1 Kings 17) shows how God uses the most unlikely people in the most unlikely places. In fact, the more unlikely it is, from a human perspective, the better it is from God's perspective, because then we learn to rely on him, and depend on him, rather than ourselves. It is in our weakness that God demonstrates his strength and power.

From Elijah's cultural/religious background the widow at Zarephath would be the last person he would go to in order to find provision in a time of drought and famine. She was a foreigner. She was a woman. She was a widow. She lived in the heartland of Baal worship (see yesterday). And yet this widow was exactly the person that God had spoken to and wanted to use to provide for Elijah in a miraculous way. The most unlikely person in the most unlikely place.

When it comes to doing amazing things for God maybe you see yourself as the most unlikely person. That's great - because that's exactly where God wants us to start from - because it's ultimately not about us - it's about God working in us, and through us, as we make ourselves available to him, and are obedient to his call.

Elijah - a good man to have on a camping trip

This past week, as I've been preparing for Sunday's talk on the Old Testament prophet Elijah, it was clear that there was far too much for one message - there was probably enough for a whole series. So over the next couple of days I'll look at a few of the bits of Elijah's life we couldn't cover yesterday.

Yesterday I briefly mentioned that our introduction to Elijah (1 Kings 17:1) is as he gives king Ahab the message that there will be no more rain in the next few years unless Elijah gives the say so. Such a claim is pretty amazing in and of itself - for anyone who can control the weather is clearly getting help from a greater authority than themselves.

But this claim becomes more significant when we look back to 1 Kings 16:31 and see that king Ahab had chosen to neglect the worship of the true God, and has instead aligned himself with the worship of Baal. The item below is a small statue of Baal, displayed in the British Museum; although this statue is much older than the time of Elijah. It is not complete - whatever was in Baal's raised hand is now missing but the view is that it was either a club or a thunder bolt - because Baal was a storm-god.

And so when Elijah makes this claim that there will be no rain, it is a direct challenge to Ahab and his new god - who is a storm-god, and supposed to be able to bring rain. Therefore the drought that followed was a clear message - Baal is powerless in the face of the one true God.

God is all powerful. Ahab made the wrong choice of whom to worship with disastrous consequences as we shall see over the next few days. Where is our allegiance?

We can all do something

What's your promise? from Micah Challenge in the UK on Vimeo.