²⁵ Then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “You go first, for there are many of you. Choose one of the bulls, and prepare it and call on the name of your god. But do not set fire to the wood.”

²⁶ So they prepared one of the bulls and placed it on the altar. Then they called on the name of Baal from morning until noontime, shouting, “O Baal, answer us!” But there was no reply of any kind. Then they danced, hobbling around the altar they had made.

²⁷ About noontime Elijah began mocking them. “You’ll have to shout louder,” he scoffed, “for surely he is a god! Perhaps he is daydreaming, or is relieving himself. Or maybe he is away on a trip, or is asleep and needs to be wakened!”

²⁸ So they shouted louder, and following their normal custom, they cut themselves with knives and swords until the blood gushed out. ²⁹ They raved all afternoon until the time of the evening sacrifice, but still there was no sound, no reply, no response.

³⁰ Then Elijah called to the people, “Come over here!” They all crowded around him as he repaired the altar of the Lord that had been torn down. ³¹ He took twelve stones, one to represent each of the tribes of Israel, ³² and he used the stones to rebuild the altar in the name of the Lord. Then he dug a trench around the altar large enough to hold about three gallons. ³³ He piled wood on the altar, cut the bull into pieces, and laid the pieces on the wood.

Then he said, “Fill four large jars with water, and pour the water over the offering and the wood.”

³⁴ After they had done this, he said, “Do the same thing again!” And when they were finished, he said, “Now do it a third time!” So they did as he said, ³⁵ and the water ran around the altar and even filled the trench.

³⁶ At the usual time for offering the evening sacrifice, Elijah the prophet walked up to the altar and prayed, “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, prove today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant. Prove that I have done all this at your command. ³⁷ O Lord, answer me! Answer me so these people will know that you, O Lord, are God and that you have brought them back to yourself.”

³⁸ Immediately the fire of the Lord flashed down from heaven and burned up the young bull, the wood, the stones, and the dust. It even licked up all the water in the trench! ³⁹ And when all the people saw it, they fell face down on the ground and cried out, “The Lord—he is God! Yes, the Lord is God!”

⁴⁰ Then Elijah commanded, “Seize all the prophets of Baal. Don’t let a single one escape!” So the people seized them all, and Elijah took them down to the Kishon Valley and killed them there.

1 Kings 18:25-40

Dear God, I whenever I use these images from Ned Bustard’s book Revealed: A Storybook Bible for Grown-ups, I start with the image, but today I want to start with Elijah’s prayer to you. Why did he do all of this? He did it for your glory. “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, prove today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant. Prove that I have done all this at your command. ³⁷ O Lord, answer me! Answer me so these people will know that you, O Lord, are God and that you have brought them back to yourself.”

I wonder how much more I should be calling on you to prove your existence to those who do not believe. How much more should I be taking you to them and letting them know about the God who loves them and wants the best for them? I should probably be more mindful of doing this.

Now, as for the image, this is a difficult one for me to see what’s going on. I seethe bull in the bottom right. I see the sun overhead. I see bearded faces in the background. And I see a man in the foreground, but, honestly, I can’t tell if he is Elijah or one of the prophets of Baal working in vain. I haven’t read the description of the image until now, but I’ll go ahead and read it. Okay, so Bustard didn’t interpret the image, but instead talked more about the story in his description. But in the description, he quotes D.A. Carson: People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith…we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.”

Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, this is a reminder to me to not drift, but to be bold. As I experience vacation this week, there is certainly a tendency to “drift” towards lethargy. But there is so much to do in your name. Whether it is ensuring my heart is pursuing you and loving you with everything it has or loving on others in your name, there is work to be done. So help me to do this work today. Help me to do it in great faith. Be glorified through my little life.

I pray all of this in the joy of my reconciliation to you through Jesus,

Amen