And Elijah came unto all the people and said, How long halt
ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow Him; but
if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a
word.--_1 Kings 18, 21._
It was a remarkable, but wise decision that King Solomon once
rendered in a difficult case which was brought before him. Two
women came to him with an infant to which they both asserted a
mother's claim, the one contending that the other had overlaid her
child, and taken hers from her before she was awake, and laid her
own dead child in its place, whilst the other asserted that the
contrary was the truth, saying, "The dead child is hers, and the
living is mine." And now it was for the King to decide. But how was
it to be done? Solomon calls for a sword. "Divide," he commands,
"the living child in two, and give half to the one and half to the
other." Then spake, says the Holy Record, the woman whose the living
child was unto the King, for her bowels yearned upon her son, "O
my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it." But
the other said, "Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it."
Solomon instantly recognized the true mother's heart. "Give her
the child," he said. The same it is with God, our true heavenly
Parent. He does not want His children divided; He will have them
entirely, as a whole living sacrifice, or not at all. The sum of His
commandment and will regarding us, as repeated in to-day's Gospel
lesson, is: "Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with _all_ thy
heart, and with _all_ thy soul, and with _all_ thy mind." Of that
would we remind ourselves in our present worship, taking for our
instruction the Scripture read as our text.
With the aid of the Holy Spirit we note Elijah's challenge on Mount
Carmel,--_A call to Christian decision_. _I. The question at issue:
"Is the Lord God?"_ _II. The obligation involved, "Then follow Him."_
Israel had had many wicked kings since the suicide of its first
monarch, Saul, upon Mount Gilboa, but none more so than Ahab. The
crowning iniquity of this unprincipled and despicable prince was the
introduction of the idol called Baal into Israel. Baal signifies
governor or ruler, and was the name given in the East to the chief
male idol of the heathen. To the honor of this idol, temples
were erected, bloody sacrifices offered, and the most shameful
things perpetrated. Ahab had married Jezebel, the daughter of the
idolatrous King of the Sidonians, and under her sway the worship
of this idol had become sinfully popular in Israel. Four hundred
and fifty priests served at his altar, and nearly an equally large
number were appointed to the worship of his mate, Ashtaroth, for
every male idol was wont to have his goddess. This abominable form
of idolatry was going on in the land where God had thundered from
the sides of Sinai as His first requirement: "Thou shalt have no
other gods before me," and had declared: "My glory will I not give
to another, nor my praise to graven images"; and in consequence
the judgments of Jehovah were not slow to follow. No rain or dew
had fallen for the space of three years, the heaven was as brass,
and the earth like a nether grindstone.--Famine stalked throughout
the land, when one day, as Ahab was wandering up and down the
country searching for food, he met the stern and fearless prophet
of Jehovah, Elijah, called the Tishbite. "Art thou he," asks the
King, "that troubleth Israel?" Elijah retorts: "Not I have troubled
Israel, but thou and thy father's house, in that ye have forsaken
the commandment of the Lord, and thou hast followed Baalim."
And so the contest is on, not so much between Elijah and Ahab as
between the supremacy of Jehovah and Baal. How is the dispute to be
settled? Elijah proposes a method. All Israel should be convened
at a place specified, Mount Carmel. Two altars were to be erected,
one by the champions of Baal, another by himself. Sacrifice was to
be laid thereupon, and the God that would answer by fire to devour
the sacrifice should be recognized victor. The test is accepted.
You, as well-informed Bible readers, know the outcome. After futile
attempts by the priests of Baal to secure the hearing of their God,
Elijah addresses his God. In fervent prayer he raises his eyes and
hands and heart to heaven. No sooner had the last words escaped the
prophet's lips than down came the fire of God consuming the whole
sacrifice and the wood, the stones, and the dust, and licked up the
water that was in the trench, whilst the fickle people fell on their
faces, crying: "The Lord, He is God; the Lord, He is God." Elijah
then follows up his victory by commanding them to seize the whole
group of Baal's priests and slay them at the brook Kishon. Thus did
Jehovah terribly and surely vindicate His honor and majesty.
What lesson may be gathered from this thrilling story? Beloved, the
conflict between the forces of the true God and His opponents is
not yet over, and, as of old, that conflict, in the final issue,
centers in a question. At that time it was, "Is Jehovah the Lord
God?" Formulated by the Lord Himself in the Gospel-lesson of this
day, it now reads: "What think ye of Christ? Whose Son is he?" Or,
in other words, Is He, Jesus Christ, God? Around that question are
rallied the religious forces of to-day. The answer to that question
determines men's attitude, their position on the one side or on the
other; their answer to that question decides the destiny of every
individual soul. According as the Gospel of Jesus Christ is accepted
or rejected, will men stand or fall. What is it in its significance
but the conflict of Mount Carmel over again? And how is this vital
question to be decided? For the determining of the question, "Is
Jesus Christ God?" there are many proofs, all of them conclusive
and incontrovertible. We might point to Christ's spotless character
and His immaculate life. "Which of you," He challenged His enemies,
"convinceth me of sin?" And none who has ever examined into His
life and character but is unstinted in His admiration and praise.
"He was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners"; He was
divine. We could point furthermore to His teaching. Merely human
mind and merely human lips never conceived and spake as He spake. As
you study our Lord's utterances, what loftiness in His maxims, what
profundity of wisdom in His discourses! The hearers of His time were
constrained to exclaim, "Never man spake as this man speaketh," and
He taught as one having authority and not as the scribes. No wonder,
for He was the teacher come from God,--He was God.
We could point out the divine influence His religion has exerted
upon the world. Why do the nations write 1912 in the enumeration
of time? Who has taken possession of everything great and grand in
our age? Rather, should I say, who has made that which is great
and grand in art, in music, in literature--the masterpieces, the
sublimest productions? Whom do they treat of? The civilization of
to-day--whose product is it but of His religion? thus stamping it
and its Founder as divine, as God.
But, my beloved, after all these and manifold other proofs have
been adduced, there remains one more which, more than any other
proof, brings home to us the conviction that Christ is God, not
only intellectually, but morally, spiritually. From the scene upon
Mount Carmel I would direct you to a scene upon another mount,
Mount Calvary. There, too, we witness a sacrifice; there, too, lies
a victim upon an altar, the altar of the cross. The fire of God's
wrath comes from heaven to consume that sacrifice. How is that a
proof of Christ's divinity? Because it solves, as nothing else
can solve, the great problem of Religion, "How can man be saved,
justified before God?" "No man can by any means redeem his brother,
nor give to God a ransom for him." It required one more than mere
man to do that--God Himself. What man can look upon that Calvary
scene and contemplate the significance of it, but exclaim with
the Roman centurion under the cross, "Truly, this was the Son of
God,"--nor gaze upon the print of the nails in His hands, and the
mark of the spear gash in His side, but confess, with the multitude
upon Mount Carmel, "Jehovah--Jesus, He is the God! Jehovah--Jesus,
He is the God!" There is no proof so powerful that Christ is God but
the sacrifice of Calvary; yea, he who accepts not that sacrifice,
together with the resurrection of Christ, believes not in Christ.
That Old Testament scene and sacrifice points, and is a type, of
the New Testament scene and sacrifice. May the impression and the
confession it produced be the same on the lips of every one of us,
as it was yonder on Mount Carmel,--"The Lord, even Christ, is God.
He is my God."
And now let us note the obligation it involved. The particular
offense with which Elijah charges the people on this occasion is
"halting." The word translated "halting" is old English. It does
not mean standing still, but limping. Elijah's question, "How long
halt ye between two opinions?" accordingly means, "Why do you not
make up your minds; why do you not take a positive stand one way or
the other and instead of vacillating between the worship of Baal
and the worship of Jehovah, accepting neither fully, seize on to
one or the other with full conviction, and follow that with _all_
your heart?" Decision, the taking of a position and holding to it,
is the appeal of the prophet. And is his appeal not applicable in
our own day? Is there no halting, limping, swaying, and swerving
between two opinions? It is of just such people that our modern and
immediate community is full; they take an intermediate position, a
sort of betwixt and between; they are not out and out Christians,
and still they wish to be rated as Christians. They admit their
reverence for the Bible; they would not question anything taught on
its testimony; they take delight in hearing occasionally a Christian
preacher, attending upon Christian services; there is scarcely a
mental or moral persuasion in favor of Christianity which they do
not cheerfully entertain; they would not think of having their
children grow up unchristened or a marriage in the family performed
without a Christian minister, and when trouble and sorrow comes
upon them, they look to Christian sources for consolation. And
still, when the test comes for them to confess themselves in the
appointed way as Christ's disciples, to take their places at the
family table of the Christian Church, they have their excuses; they
turn their backs and go off on to something else. "They've not
been confirmed"; perchance, "they want to consider." As stated,
our immediate neighborhood is full of such halting, compromising,
so-near-and-yet-so-far people. What they want is not to "consider,"
but to act. Time for deliberation they have had plenty and long
enough. One year, ten years, finds them still "considering." What
they need is decision, action, and not to arrive at that is to
remain in a state of sin and of danger, of ingratitude to God
and discomfort to their own soul. If I am addressing any such,
and I know that I am, let them not be offended, but earnestly
regard and give up a position so unworthy, unsatisfactory, God and
Christ-dishonoring.
But does the appeal of the prophet in no wise apply to those who
have made a pronounced confession, who have taken a stand, and whose
names appear on the roster as His followers? Is there no indecision
of conduct there, no limping, no dividing of one's heart between
Baal and Jehovah? The ordinary type of Christian and church-member
is not a person of fixedness, determination, neither in doctrine
nor in practice. Baal still has his altar, only decked out in a
different shape:--in the market-places of business, in the houses
of amusements, in the halls of secret organizations and lodges.
It is not an unusual thing to see men and women in our churches
going to the Lord's Sacrament and belonging to societies which know
not Christ and will have none of Him, reject His Godship and His
sacrifice upon Calvary. It is not an unusual thing to hear men and
women, young and old, singing hymns and doxologies and speaking
words of Christian prayer, and then lifting up their voices in
speech and song that tells not whose they are and whom they serve.
The trouble with all of us is that we are not as outspoken in our
testimony, as consistent and faithful, and unflinching as we ought
to be, as our Christian duty and the honor of our Lord calls for
and deserves. Having performed our vows and service to God in His
temple, we are content to go back to the world and to business,
forgetful that there, too, we should bear faithful witness for our
Lord. From the text of the day may you form the noble resolution:
"I will be always and altogether the servant of God, the follower of
Christ; in which resolution do Thou, Lord, sustain me to the end."
Thine forever! God of love,
Hear us from Thy throne above.
Thine forever may we be
Here and in eternity.
Amen.