you in advance I'm going to say this with a smile we have a rule in Canada I don't know if you have it here or not but it's polite for only one person to speak at any given time I can take old people's hearing aids whistling I can take little babies crying but I can't stand talking teenagers all right so if I see some of you talking I'll just stop and wait for you to finish because I don't want to be rude all right I thought it maybe tell you that now and then you won't think me, they say that you should get your idiosyncrasies early in life so that people don't think you're going mad later on. So I have most of my idiosyncrasies already and that's one of them and just so we all understand each other. I'd like to read together here in First Kings chapter eighteen and we're going to look at verse It came to pass when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Aren't thou he that troubled Israel? And he answered, I have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father's house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed the Bales. That was a whole family of gods that the nations worshipped. 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. So Ahab sent unto all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together unto Mount Carmel. 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 Dale then follow him, and the people answered him, not a word. Now Elijah lays down the terms. He says, let's put this to the test. You prophet to Dale, you will have your altar and put your bullock, your young bull on it. And I'll have an altar and I'll put my bull on it. And we'll cry out to God. And the God that answers by fire, that's the true God. And at the end of that, in verse twenty-four, at the end of the verse, all the people answered and said, It is well spoken. And so they go ahead and do that. The false prophets of Baal start. You probably know the story well. And they got pretty excited about things. They leaped on the altar, which they had made. Elijah waited for them from six in the morning till noon. And at high noon, he started getting a bit impatient. And he said, Listen, we've got to get this thing going here. why don't you shout a little louder obviously your God's gone for a little walk or maybe he's sleeping he's taken to hunting or something like that so they began to cry aloud and they jumped up and down and they slashed themselves and nothing worked and finally at the time of the evening sacrifice about six o'clock in the evening after twelve hours like this in verse thirty we read and Elijah said unto all the people come near to me and all the people came near unto him and he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down and Elijah took twelve stones according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob and he establishes the altar and then he says in verse verse thirty three after everything is in order he says fill four barrels with water pour it on the burnt offering they do it again and they do it again until twelve barrels have filled the whole area with water And then he comes near to the Lord, and he begins to pray. In verse thirty-six, Lord 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 these things at thy word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the Lord God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again. Then the fire of the Lord 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. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces. And they said, The Lord, He is the God. The Lord, He is the God. And God will bless His word to all of us who are listening for His voice tonight. It was a dark day in the history of Israel. The kings were worse than the people and had led them into wicked idolatry. Some of the previous kings had committed suicide. Some had died in drunken stupors. All of them were idolaters and wicked men. It seemed when the last ray of hope had died suddenly appears This man called Elijah the Tishbite. That's all we know about him. He came probably from a little town called Tishbite on the other side of the Jordan in the land of Jordan today. And he suddenly appears like a shooting star in the presence of wicked king Ahab and his even more wicked queen Jezebel. And he says, dry up, Ahab. Dry up, Israel. Until you return to the fountainhead, God, there isn't going to be any rain, there isn't going to be any dew. Because God had said back in the book of Deuteronomy, that if you turned away from God, He'd just stop the rains. So you'd find out who He was, and your hearts would turn to God. And He turned and stalked out of the palace. And one year went by, and two years, and three years. And all of their creeks and rivers ran dry and their wells dried up and their cisterns at last reached bottom. And in the early part of chapter eighteen we discover the king is at the end of himself. And what does he do? He goes looking for God? No. He goes looking for grass, for his stud farm. If in times of prosperity people don't seek after God, sometimes when the hard times come All it does is make them hard. Elijah wants to meet this man because God has spoken to him again and the God who has acted in judgment is now going to act in mercy. And that's the way God is, you know. He's a God of judgment and mercy. And so we jumped into the story at this point. Then Elijah... has a meeting with Ahab. And the first words that come from the lips of Ahab are these, art thou he that troubleth Israel? I have a friend. Some of you may have met him. He lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And he does a fair bit of street preaching. And he was preaching down at a campus in the city of Grand Rapids. and the rent-a-cops on the campus came and told him to go home. And so he said, well, what I'll do is I'll go and check the laws on the city books, and if I'm not breaking any laws, I'll be back tomorrow. And he went and checked, and sure enough, there were no laws against it. And so he came back, and he began to preach the next day. Well, in the meantime, while he had been preaching there the first day, someone had come and taken a photograph of him, preaching in the open air, got him in a rather ungainly position, and put it on the front page of the campus newspaper, and underneath it they wrote these words. John Biorley, campus preacher, was exercising his First Amendment rights in expressing his views on salvation until he caused a disturbance and was asked to leave. He wrote a polite little letter to the editor and said, Dear sir, regarding your photograph of myself on the front page of the newspaper, I would like to point out that it was not I who disturbed the campus. It was disturbed long before I got there. And then he quoted the scripture, the wicked are like the troubled sea, casting up mire and dirt, and they can never be at rest. It's not the gospel preacher who causes the trouble, you know. It's sin that causes trouble. Aren't thou he that troubles Israel? Oh, no, said Elijah. I didn't cause the trouble. But thou and thy father's house Thou hast followed the Bales. Now the fact is that everyone is a worshiper. Everyone is a believer in the world. And everyone believes something. Believes in something. A young man said to me one day, I don't believe in any God. I said, well, just keep talking. I'll find out who your God is. He said, I don't believe in any God. I said, why? Well, he said, I can't understand it. I said, now I know who your God is. He said, who? I said, your mind is your God. The philosopher defines God in these words, that then which there can be no greater. And I said, you've made your mind your God. And if you can't fit it into your little pea brain, then it doesn't exist for you. So your mind is your God. Makes a pretty poor God at that. But everyone worships someone or something. Harry Arnside was preaching on one occasion in the streets of Oakland, California. And someone said to him, Hey, Mr. Preacher, how do you expect me to figure out what the right God is, the right belief, all the religions in the world, all the beliefs in the world? Harry Arnside said, Sir, I only know of two beliefs. Only two. There is Taoism and Confucianism and Islam and Judaism and all the isms of Christendom. What do you mean only two beliefs in all the world? They said there are only two. There are those who believe they can save themselves and those who believe they need a savior. Now, the list of saviors is very short. There's only one. Only one who claims to be the savior, who die for sinners. So you have to believe something. You have to be a believer, a worshiper at some God or other. And the issue is, who is the God? Who is the true God? Now, Elijah says to Ahab, I'd like to have a little meeting, if you don't mind, upon the slopes of Mount Carmel. Carmel means the vineyard of God, and God was going to trample out the vintage. I'd like you to be there, if you can make it, and I'd like you to have the false prophets of Baal there, please. And let me check the party list here. I'd like the four hundred prophets of the groves. And gather all Israel there, please. Well, Ahab was over the barrel, wasn't he? And the barrel was dry. And he had to do it. He didn't want to do it. But reluctantly, he gathered all Israel together to Mount Carmel. Now, Elijah makes three appeals. And I'd like you to notice very carefully what these three appeals are. And I'd like to see what kind of a response you'd have to these appeals if Elijah were here today. In verse twenty one, he makes his first appeal to the conscience. And while a man's conscience may be distorted by sin, it may be calloused a bit, men still have a conscience. So much so that Sometimes they try to avoid the gospel because it bothers them. His appeal to the conscience goes like this in verse twenty one. How long halt ye between two opinions? Now the word halt here is a word that we don't use very often in the English language. But if you're walking through a shopping mall or walking down Main Street, We seem to have this gyroscope inside that puts us on a collision course with other people fairly frequently. Do you have that? They're coming straight for you and you know that you're going to hit them. And yet there's something that sort of draws you on and you can't seem to get off that line until eventually you come sort of nose to nose with the person and you zig and they zag, right, which means mirror image. Well, they go the same way you do. So you zag and they zig and you do one of these things for a minute and then you sort of brush by them and you're quite embarrassed and excuse me, I'm sorry. You'll do it again tomorrow. I don't know what it is in us, but we have this little thing. Maybe it's self-will. It's plain chicken, you know. I'm not going to budge. Let them budge. I don't know what it is, but we do that. Well, this little thing, this whole thing, say, should I go this way or should I go that way? That's the word here. How long do you halt between two opinions? The sad thing is that he has to use this word opinions or thoughts. The tragedy is that to many people, heaven and hell is just an opinion. There are people who used to live in Atlantic, Iowa, and hell and heaven are no longer to them just an opinion because they're there. Heaven and hell are not something to be debated or discussed. Hell is to be shunned and heaven is to be sought. And the Lord Jesus said, strive to enter in. Mean business about this thing. How long do you halt between two opinions? Now, I suppose there are some of you here. Maybe you were raised in Christian homes. And you know the issues. You could probably get up here and preach the gospel yourself. You know all about heaven and hell, but to you it's just an opinion. If I were to take a piece of paper tonight and write on the one side of it, I now confess my sin and receive Jesus Christ as my personal Savior and Lord. And I put a line there for you to sign. And on the other side, I wrote, I now once and forever renounce all hope of ever being saved and determined to spend my eternity in hell. And I put a line there and I said, all right, which side will you sign? I say, well, I don't want to go to hell, that's for sure, but I'm not sure exactly that I'd like to trust Christ tonight either. That's you, isn't it? Halting between two opinions. Will you notice the response of these people? He said to them, If the Lord be God, follow Him. Does that make sense? If there is a God in heaven who controls your heartbeat, who gives you one breath at a time, who controls the rise and fall of nations, the movement of history, the wheeling of the galaxies through space, if this God has everything in hand and your life is a mess, And he's standing by and he says, I'd like to take your life and make it what I intended in the first place to bring you real joy and peace and all the things that you really long for. You'd be an idiot not to hand your life over to him, wouldn't you? And he says, but if Baal's God, who cares? Follow him. The Bible gives an interesting picture of an idol. imagine a man going out he's going to make an idol and he gets his axe he cuts he cuts a piece of log and he takes his axe and he hues it in two pieces right and he takes half and he starts a little fire with that to keep himself warm while he's working and he takes the other half and he begins to carve a god out of it didn't make any difference did it which half of the piece of wood he used whether it was a fire or an idol or like day gone They bring the ark of the Lord in. They didn't know the verse that said, Thou shalt have no other gods before me. When they came in in the morning, Dagon was lying on his face. So they got down and they propped him up again. Imagine having a God couldn't even get up out of his own face. Came in the next morning and he was smashed in pieces. I tell you, there are a lot of gods that people worship down here that are pretty pathetic gods. And I see all these... rock stars plastered all over the walls. I think of that verse, These be thy gods, O Israel. The people worship them, you know. What is worship? Worship is worthship. The people I spend my time thinking about. The people I pay my money to hear. The people I give my heart to. Those are my idols. Anything that gets in the way between the true God and my heart is an idol. and the world has some pretty poor gods. There was a very brave man by the name of Peter Marshall, came from the shores of Scotland to the United States and eventually became the chaplain of the United States Senate. There was a very crucial decision to be made in the Senate and they asked Peter Marshall to come and speak to them from the Word of God. And so he laid out before them the decision they had to make And he said, If the Lord be God, then follow him. And you will be blessed, and the nation will be blessed with you. But if they'll be God, then follow him, and go to hell. And he turned and walked out of the room. Now I'm not sure I could preach like that, but you know that's just exactly what's involved. And what did the people respond? They answered Him, not a word. What could they say? They stood condemned before their own conscience. Are you like this, halting between two opinions? You very much intend on getting saved someday, don't you? You have no plans in going to hell. But I tell you, there are many Christians children, many people who have been exposed to the gospel, who go to hell because they halt between two opinions. Well, says Elijah, let's try something else. And so he makes a second appeal now, and he appeals this time to their heart, pardon me, to their mind, to their reason. He says now there's just one of me, and there are four hundred and fifty false prophets of Baal. By the way, for every truth, there are thousands of errors, you know. And so he said, I'll tell you what, you provide the bullock, seeing there are so many of you, and we'll have our altars, and we'll call to our gods. And the God that answers by fire, well, that's the true God. Well, you can be sure that the prophets didn't like this idea at all. A religion can sound very nice when it's preached from the pulpit, you know. But when it's a time of crisis, that's when you see the measure of a man's belief. I go to doors, knock on the doors, talk to people, they say, oh, I'm a, and they tell me what religion they are. And I say, well, as a, whatever religion they are, how does that tell you how to prepare to meet God? Ooh, they don't like that question. It tells them what to do if they go out and do something bad on Friday night. How much money to pay to the church or what to do to get out of it. You see, how to bribe God as if God is some sort of unjust judge who will take money under the table and overlook your sin. You see, that's the problem. But there are many religions that profess to tell people how to live, but there's only one belief that tells you how to die and meet God. And that's what the word of God teaches. And so he said, let's see, let's see how you stand in time of crisis. The God that answers by fire, let him be God. Now that's the issue, you see. Let him be God. I've spoken to some young people in universities and colleges and I'll say to them, listen, if I could prove to you that the Bible's true, If I could prove to you that Jesus is the Savior, if I could prove to you that you could have your sins forgiven if you would repent of them and receive Christ, would you get saved today? And so, I don't think you can prove that. I said, I didn't say that. I didn't say I could. But if I could, would you receive Christ? So, well, I don't think you can prove it. So, I didn't say that. If I could prove it, would you receive Him? It's not a matter of the mind at all, is it? the matter of the will. The Lord Jesus said, you will not come to me that you might have life. It's not can't, it won't. I was down in Augusta, Georgia some years ago. It was a young girl came to me. Her sister was a lovely Christian in the assembly there, and she came from St. Petersburg, Florida. Well, the assembly down there is, you know, as they say, kind of a geriatric ward or something. The launching pad, they call it. You know, they're all just ready to go to heaven down there as waiting for the shouts. She said, you know, if I was here in Augusta with all these fine young people, I think I'd become a Christian, but I have to go back there to St. Petersburg, and I've been out to the Assembly, and I've seen all those old people, and I'm not sure I'd want to get... What a crummy excuse not to get saved, huh? So she said she wanted to talk to me. So we sat down, and she began to ask me all these involved questions about the Bible. So I'd turn to the Scripture and read this to her, and she'd get satisfied with that when she'd say, but what about this? And so we'd go at it. And we went at it for three and a half hours. And finally I said, listen, I've got a supper engagement here. I've got to go to. Could I ask you one question? You've been asking me questions all afternoon. Could I ask you a question? She said, sure. I said, do all of these things really bother you? Or is it just that you know how much it would cost you to become a Christian and you don't want to change your lifestyle? She dropped her head and she said, well, I suppose that's it. Well, then I said, I've got nothing more to say to you. You know how to get saved? She said, I think so. I said, let me tell you one more time. And I explained her as clearly as I could, the gospel. I said, I can't do any more for you. God can stand honest doubt, but he can't stand willful ignorance. Two years went by. One day I met her sister and she was floating about six inches off the ground. She said, you never guess what happened. I said, maybe I can. Your sister got saved. She said she did. She went out finally, I said, just as we were leaving, I said, I'm going to pray for you. Do you mind if I pray for you? She said, no, go ahead and pray for me. I said, wait till you hear what I'm going to pray. I said, I'm going to pray that God's going to alienate you from all your friends down there in Florida so you'll find out they're just for time and you need something for eternity. Said, you still want me to pray for you? I said, well, I don't know. So I prayed like that. And you know, that's what happened. and all of her friends moved out until she was left alone. And she went out to the meeting. She heard the gospel and she left the first night because nobody bothered to speak to her. The next night she came out and someone said, Are you a Christian? And she said, I don't think so. She knew she wasn't. They said, Would you like to be a Christian? She said, I sure would. She went in and sat in the back room with a sister and her husband. They said, now we'd like to read some scriptures with you. She says, I know how to get saved. They said, oh, you do. She said, yeah. They said, well, go ahead. She said, all right, I will. Because she was willing to pay the price now. See, there is a price to be paid. I want to tell you this, that to become a Christian is absolutely free. But to be a Christian will cost you everything. Don't ever forget that. This is no cheap gospel we preach. We have to recognize this. But this was going to be an expensive proposition for Israel to come to the Lord. And it will be for you too. Oh, it's worth it. It's worth it. But don't ever underestimate the cost involved in being a Christian. This time, instead of the people not saying anything, the people answered and said, the end of verse twenty-four, well spoken. how many times I've heard that preach my heart out and the people walk out the door shake your hand and say that was a good word well spoken you know nice that was a good point there when all is said and done more is said than done isn't it the preacher is not here to try and impress you tonight I didn't leave a wife and four children at home to travel here so that you all go out and say my what a good preacher he is I didn't come here for that I came here to present you with the claims of the Lord Jesus. Not so that you would judge the preacher, but so that you would let the Word of God judge you and show you that you need a Savior. How desperately you need a Savior and that He's waiting for you and wants to save you and has made provision for you. And my Bible tells me that the Lord Jesus wept over Jerusalem and He said, I willed. But ye willed not. It's a strong word. I willed. Ye willed not. And so he said, let's see how the contest begins. The battle of the gods. And so the prophets of Baal begin. And you will notice that they leaped upon the altar which they had made. Verse twenty-six. Man's false religion and man's false altars. It really doesn't make any difference, does it? because they're worshiping false gods anyway. Let the religions of the world do whatever they want, folks. Doesn't make any difference. But if you profess to follow the Lord God, you better make sure you follow his word. You will notice later on that when Elijah gets to it, he doesn't build a new altar. He restores, he rebuilds the altar of the Lord that was broken down. And will you notice that he uses twelve stones, not ten? We know by this time that Israel was divided. Ten tribes in the north, two tribes in the south. But God doesn't recognize man-made division. And so they build their altar and they begin to call on their God. Now you'll notice they're sincere. I mean, they're cutting themselves with knives till the blood gushes out. There are many sincere religious people. I grieve for them. And they think they're appeasing God. And they pay their money till they have no money left. And they say their prayers. They light their candles. And they're in the darkness. I grieve for them. But sincerity is not enough, is it? And at last, when they had showed how empty and hopeless their religion was, and that there was no God to answer, And I see, dear people, as I attend funerals. And there they are, looking into the grave. The first funeral I ever had was a Sunday schoolboy, just my age, eighteen years of age. And his unsaved mother threw herself in on top of the casket into the grave, wailing. You can have your religion, but it may sound good. But I ask you, how does it do when you look out into eternity? And one of us in this audience will be the next one of us to go. Are you ready? Everyone prepares, you know, prepare for your holidays, prepare for your education, prepare for your golf lessons, prepare for your retirement, prepare to go out to dinner, make reservations. But who prepares to meet God? My friend, that's the big one, isn't it? Prepare to meet thy God. Now Elijah makes his third appeal. It is an appeal to the heart. And he says in verse thirty, To the people come near to me. And he stoops down. and he repairs the altar of the Lord that's grown cold. No sacrifice has been there in a long time. When the stones are put back in their place, he puts the wood in order and puts the bullock in pieces on the wood. Then he says, now, I want you to know this is no hocus pocus. This is no slight of hand. I want you to get four barrels of water and then another four and then another four and I want you to just deluge the altar with water. There was something symbolic wasn't there. A twelve stone spoke of the fact that God had loved Israel and he wanted them to be his people. He was the God of Israel. But the twelve barrels of water said that's what Israel had done to their God. They'd put out the fire. They didn't want to think about these things. I said to an old man, ninety-two years of age, as he was going out at the last night of a week of gospel meetings, tell me, Mr. so-and-so, calling him by name, what do you think about when you think about eternity? And he looked at me rather pityingly and said, Sonny, I make it my business not to think about eternity. Are you putting the water on? When the Spirit of God speaks to you, do you quench the Spirit in your heart? Do I don't want to listen to this? Try and distract yourself. I used to do it. Count the panels in the ceiling. Do anything. But listen to the voice of God. This could be for you God's final call. One day it will be. So listen carefully. Some skeptics say, well, hey, I thought this was the problem, no water. Now he's got twelve barrels of water? What's this? Well, the Carmel Mountain Range, of course, juts out into the Mediterranean. There's only one little bump on the Israeli coast, and that's where the Carmel Mountains push out into the Mediterranean Sea. There was lots of water. They just couldn't drink it. It was all salt water. They brought it up and dumped it on until the place was awash with water. And then... At the time of the evening sacrifice, Elijah draws near to God. He says, O Lord, show them. Show them their need of thee. Show them that I am the true God, that thou art the true God, and I am thy servant. Hear me, O Lord, hear me. And I dare say there are some of you here, and your parents have spent hours on their knees praying for you. And their pillows have been wet with tears for you. And they have cried out here, O Lord, here, that they may know that thou art the true God. Then, then what happened? I don't wish to be sacrilegious, but if just for a moment you could imagine that your God And you're looking down on that little scene on the slopes of Carmel. And you hear the prophet of God crying for the fire. On whom would you have sent the fire that day? Ahab, wicked Ahab, marrying the daughter of the high priest of all the Baal worshipers in the Middle East. Would you have sent the fire on him? A false prophet of Baal who had led this great facade of a religion and swept away the people into idolatry. Would you have sent the fire on them? Four hundred prophets of the groves eating sumptuously at Jezebel's table while the people of God starved in the streets. Or the people themselves who professed to be the people of Israel worshiping at the temple of Baal. Did you have sent the fire on them? Oh, listen to this. And the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice. It fell on the sacrifice. I see another scene. Hundreds of years later, sixty miles to the south and east, Mount Calvary now. And here again are the religious leaders. with their long faces and their long robes and their long prayers. And here are the people who just a few days before had cried, Hosanna, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. And now all the louder they cry, Crucify him. We will not have this man to reign over us. Is that your cry tonight? On whom would you have sent the fire? I want to tell you the fire fell on the sacrifice. And all the wrath of God came against His lovely Son. And He died for you to save you from the wrath to come. Oh, one difference though. That at Carmel, there the fire consumed the sacrifice. But at Calvary, the sacrifice consumed the fire. Until all the wrath of God was gone. And there was a great calm. And the Lord Jesus cried with one word, finished. What was finished? Have you really heard this with your heart, man? That it's finished. That the work of God is done. God is satisfied with the sacrifice of His Son. with the debt that has been paid. And he wants you to rest where God rests. As an old gospel track that tells the story of a farmer in the early days of the homesteaders. And just when his crop is ready to be harvested, he noticed on the horizon ominously black clouds and at the base the flickering flame of a prairie fire. Reluctantly, he went out into his own field. and lit the field on fire until in just a few moments where once there had been beautiful grain ready to harvest, there was now nothing but black and ash. Soaking big blankets at the well, he took his family out into the middle of this charred field and covered them with the blankets and waited for the firestorm to sweep down upon them. When at last it reached their farm. Well, it went around the farm, didn't it? There was nothing left to burn. And if you're going to be saved, you've got to stand where the fire has been. You've got to stand where God stands in the finished work of Christ and accept His sacrifice. And this time the response of the people was different, wasn't it? The first time they said nothing, condemned by their own conscience. A second time they said, well spoken, Mr. Preacher. But this time when they saw the mighty power of God and what he had done for them, the sacrifice had been their substitute. They fell down and responding antiphonally to the name of the prophet himself, L is Jah. God is the Lord. They said, the Lord he is God. He is the God. Will you then?