I love today's recollection of Elijah vs the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. It is one of those situations that reminds us of how powerful God is but how many important points can you pick out of the story?
The first point is that God spoke to Elijah and Elijah heard and went to Ahab. We tend to presume God is always speaking but how many of us hear and how many of us go?
Next Elijah has the boldness to speak the truth to the evil king Ahab. Sometimes we have to speak the truth when we know it will not be received well, sometimes to people who 'could' kill us in return.
Elijah then tells the king to summon the prophets of Baal to Mount Carmel to prove that God is the Lord. We tend to forget that despite Elijah's background and track record, this would have been hard to say both taking the risk that it would not work and also knowing what would happen if it did.
Then rather than simply denouncing the prophets of Baal, he allowed them the chance to prove what they believed.
He then setup a trial for God in a way that only God could perform. By the time the alter was soaking wet, there was no way that a human could have tricked people into starting a fire. He didn't try and make it easy for God (or perhaps easy on his faith) - not that God needed it to be easy of course. You could also say that the alter represented worship which was important to prepare the ground as it were.
Of course God came through and the prophets of Baal were not forgiven and sent away but were slaughtered. Again, killing was more common in the OT it seems but this wouldn't have made it easy for Elijah to command their execution but he did it because God told him to.
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