Decision & Commitment

[1 Kgs. 18:19] Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel unto mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, which eat at Jezebel's table.
[21] And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the L-RD be G-d, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.
This is one of the most dramatic chapters in the Bible. The atmosphere is changed by the hardship of a long drought, the ruthless persecution of the L-rd’s prophets, and the relentless hunt for Elijah. Against this background, Elijah boldly confronts Ahab and engages in a life-or-death contest with 450 prophets of Baal.
Waiting is very much a part of the life of a prophet, for the prophet does not act on his or her own initiative.
The time of preparation and hiding is over, wherein he shows a strong faith, and resolute obedience, and unbeatable courage, that he durst at G-d's command run into the mouth of this raging lion, a marvelous proof of the natural intrepidity of this prophet, of his moral courage, and his unfaltering confidence in the protecting care of G-d, that he ventured to approach the presence of the raging lion.
Elijah is one against 450! Why do you walk so lamely and unevenly, being so unsteady in your opinions and practices, and doubting whether it is better to worship G-d or Baal? The people want to have it both ways, to worship both the L-rd and Baal. They walk with one foot for the L-rd and one foot for Baal, afraid to take a stand or dread of the king's displeasure. Elijah proposed to decide for them the disagreement between G-d and Baal by an appeal, not to the authority of the Law, for that would have no weight, but by a visible token from Heaven.
Elijah, the bold initiator of action throughout the proceedings, proposes to the assembly a contest to determine whether it is the L-rd or Baal who is G-d. Let each party prepare a sacrifice but lay no fire and call on the name of their deity. The G-d who answers by fire, he is G-d.
That shall consume the sacrifice by fire sent from heaven; which the people knew the true G-d used to do. It was a great condescension in G-d, that he would permit Baal to be a competitor with him. But thus G-d would have every mouth to be stopped, and all flesh become silent before him. And Elijah doubtless had a special commission from G-d, or he durst not have put it to this issue. But the case was extraordinary, and the judgment upon it would be of use not only then, but in all ages. Elijah does not say, The G-d that answers by water, tho' that was the thing the country needed, but that answers by fire, let him be G-d; because the atonement was to be made, before the judgment could be removed. The G-d therefore that has power to pardon sin, and to signify that by consuming the sin - offering, needs be the G-d that can relieve us against the calamity.
When their idol did not bring the fire they began to cutting themselves, mingling their own blood with their sacrifices; as knowing by experience, that nothing was more acceptable to their Baal (who was indeed the devil) than human blood; and hoping thereby to move their G-d to help them. And this indeed was the practice of divers Heathens in the worship of their false G-ds. Ecstatic behavior was the distinctive feature of Canaanite prophecy. The cutting (forbidden in Israel, Lev. 19:28; Deut. 14:1) was apparently to compel the attention of Baal. This went on until the time of the offering of the oblation, the main daily sacrifice, about three o’clock in the afternoon.
The resolution of the contest comes through Elijah’s prayer. Hereby he shews faith in
G-d's ancient covenant, and also reminds the people, of their relation both to G-d and to the patriarchs. Three things Elijah pray:
1. The L-rd alone is proven to be divine and the only deity for Israel.
2. Ahab charged Elijah with being the troubler of Israel. Elijah asks to be vindicated as the L-rd’s servant whose conduct in relation to the drought was in obedience to G-d’s Word.
3. Elijah knows that they cannot return to the G-d without the G-d’s help and prays that they may be made aware of G-d’s grace in turning their hearts back.
The miraculous fire descended (Leviticus 9:24, Judges 6:21, 13:20, 1 Chronicles 21:26, 2 Chronicles 7:1), and consumed not only the sacrifice, but the very stones of the altar.
The Father’s response exceeds all expectations. Not only is there a manifestation of fire but it consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench!
The impression on the minds of the people was that of admiration mingled with awe; and with one voice they acknowledged the supremacy of Jehovah as the true G-d. Taking advantage of their excited feelings, Elijah called on them to seize the priestly impostors, and by their blood fill the channel of the river (Kishon), which, in result of their idolatries, the drought had dried up - a direction, which, severe and relentless as it seems, it was his duty as G-d's minister to give (Deuteronomy 15:5, 18:20). The natural features of the mount exactly correspond with the details of this narrative. The obvious summit, 1635 feet above the sea, on which the altars were placed, presents a walkway spacious enough for the king and the priests of Baal to stand on the one side, and Elijah on the other. It is a rocky soil, on which there is abundance of loose stones, to furnish the twelve stones of which the altar was built - a bed of thick earth, in which a trench could be dug; and yet the earth not so loose that the water poured into it would be absorbed; two hundred fifty feet beneath the altar plateau, there is a perennial fountain, which, being close to the altar of the L-rd, might not have been accessible to the people; and whence, therefore, even in that season of severe drought, Elijah could procure those abundant supplies of water which he poured over the altar. The distance between this spring and the site of the altar is so short, as to make it perfectly possible to go thrice thither and back again, whereas it would have been impossible once in an afternoon to fetch water from the sea. The summit is one thousand feet above the Kishon, which nowhere runs from the sea so close to the base of the mount as just beneath El-Mohhraka; so that the priests of Baal could, in a few minutes, be taken down to the brook (torrent), and slain there. Was this done in obedience to one of the Laws mandating the death penalty for those who serve or cause others to serve other idols? In any case, the dispatch of the prophets of Baal would not have been regarded as murder, but as a sacramental purging of evil (Deut. 7:1-15; 13; Josh. 7; 1 Sam. 15:1; 1 Kgs. 20:42).
There is as yet no sign of rain, not even a cloud, but Elijah is so certain of it that he already hears with the ear of faith ‘a sound of rushing of rain.
While the contest with the prophets of Baal is the most dramatic part of the chapter, the real climax is the coming of the rain and the ending of the drought, now G-d had thus honored him!
This chapter corrects the notion that atheism and abandonment of G-d are the chief forms of the violation of the commandment. The chapter reveals that a whole people can learn to go limping with two different opinions, hobbling with one foot for ‘Baal” and one foot for G-d, oblivious of how ridiculous and impossible their walk in life is.
Nowhere in the Bible is it stated more forcefully that there can be no compromise between Baal – in whatever form – and the G-d of the Bible. And nowhere is it clearer that it is the role of the prophet to identify the threat to true faith in his or her day, especially when it has been made to seem so reasonable and acceptable that most are oblivious to it, and to call their fellow citizens to a decision.
Are not the values and practices of Canaanite religion as real now as they were in the time of Elijah? Indeed, does not ‘Baal’ still live? Do not many of us of the industrialized nations tend to look to ‘Baal’ for commercial success (our equivalent of rain), resorting to dishonest practices in order to survive, and see no conflict in worshipping the G-d of the Bible. Do we not also limp with two opinions and need to be called to decision and commitment to the Father of our L-rd?