Elijah and Elisha for Today

The Audience or The Trial by Fire

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

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Genre: Sermon Series

Lesson: 5 of 16

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[Rushdoony] Scripture this evening is from book of Kings, I Kings 18 verses 17 following. I Kings 18 verses 17 following. “And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth 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 Baalim. 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 Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.  

Then said Elijah unto the people, I, even I only, remain a prophet of the Lord; but Baal's prophets are four hundred and fifty men. Let them therefore give us two bullocks; and let them choose one bullock for themselves, and cut it in pieces, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under: and I will dress the other bullock, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under:  And call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said, It is well spoken.  And Elijah said unto the prophets of Baal, Choose you one bullock for yourselves, and dress it first; for ye are many; and call on the name of your gods, but put no fire under.  And they took the bullock which was given them, and they dressed it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any that answered. And they leaped upon the altar which was made. And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.  And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them.  And it came to pass, when midday was past, and they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded.

 And Elijah said unto all the people, come near unto 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, unto whom the word of the Lord came, saying, Israel shall be thy name:  And with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord: and he made a trench about the altar, as great as would contain two measures of seed.  And he put the wood in order, and cut the bullock in pieces, and laid him on the wood, and said, Fill four barrels with water, and pour it on the burnt sacrifice, and on the wood.  And he said, Do it the second time. And they did it the second time. And he said, Do it the third time. And they did it the third time.  And the water ran round about the altar; and he filled the trench also with water.  And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near, and said, 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 Elijah said unto them, Take the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape. And they took them: and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there.  And Elijah said unto Ahab, Get thee up, eat and drink; for there is a sound of abundance of rain. So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; and he cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his knees,  And said to his servant, Go up now, look toward the sea. And he went up, and looked, and said, There is nothing. And he said, Go again seven times.  And it came to pass at the seventh time, that he said, Behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man's hand. And he said, Go up, say unto Ahab, Prepare thy chariot, and get thee down that the rain stop thee not.  And it came to pass in the mean while, that the heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode, and went to Jezreel. And the hand of the Lord was on Elijah; and he girded up his loins, and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel.”

We saw last night the meaning of Elijah’s words to Obadiah “go tell Thy Lord behold Elijah is here.” This is a royal summons from the King of kings. For a king to answer such a summons indicates that he acknowledges a greater sovereign. Ahab came because the force of circumstances was against him. His nation was faced with ruin and had the drought continued there would be no kingdom to rule. Three and a half years without rain is a disaster. Very few streams were still running, most of the land was powder dry. A drought can do fearful things. Twice in my life I have seen the effect of drought in the West. We had a drought from 1928-33 and it left devastation in its wake. I knew one fine old rancher who had worked hard all his life and built up a very fine and wealthy spread. But step by step he had to liquidate everything he had in those years and finally he was unable to pay even the taxes. And finally all his cattle were liquidated and there was nothing for him to do but to walk out of his house and let it go. That area now is covered by the city of Los Angeles and the land is worth millions. He was only a night watchman after that; a man in his late 60’s cannot find work very readily.

Drought is disaster. Ahab was faced with disaster and so when the summons came, a royal summons, a summons that was an insult to ever pretention he had, a summons which treated him as a criminal summoned by the sovereign, Ahab went. But his bitterness poured out as he saw Elijah “Art thou he that troubleth Israel?” We encounter such a charge once before in scripture on Achan who troubled all Israel with his sin and now Ahab raises this religious charge against Elijah. Achann was executed and the place of his execution known as Achor, trouble. But Elijah answers “I have not troubled Israel but Thou in thy father’s house in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord and thou hast followed Baalim.” And so Elijah sets up the audience, the trial, the court of feedings {?} and lays down the terms of it. Ahab is to summon all Israel, all leaders, the elders, all the prophets of Baal and the prophets of the groves, to Mount Carmel. This is a royal summons. First to Ahab then to the prophets of Baal then to the men of Israel, the King of kings through his throne man Elijah summons them to the hearing, to the audience, before the King of kings. And there Elijah confronts them with their sin, with their compromise, with their syncretism. Remember Israel professed from the days of Jeroboam the first through the days of Jeroboam the second and the sorry end of Israel to be the people of the covenant. But they were syncretists. In the name of the Lord they embraced every kind of cult and had a smorgasbord religion to which they gave the name of the Lord.

So Elijah confronts them, he indicts them “how long halt ye between two opinions, if the Lord be God then follow them; but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.” And so then Elijah proceeds with the trial, a test and a trial; a trial of their syncretism, of their halting before two opinions, a trial of all that was false in their faith, and the trial proceeds. Elijah lays down the terms. Neither Ahab nor the people nor the prophets of the groves nor the prophets of Baal raise the word in objection, and then it began; an altar with wood, a sacrifice, and no fire. “Call down fire from heaven.” The prophets of Baal began with a dance, a rain dance, something that we in this country know something about because they are practiced still among certain of the tribes of the southwest. And no doubt some of the prophets and priests of Baal had their own occultist practices which sometimes had some power. Remember the miracles that were worked when Moses first confronted Pharaoh and his occultists.

Through dark powers sometimes such people do have powers. I know that among the Indians whom I have served their medicine men could do sometimes things that defied explanation. Such as out in the wild they could go out chanting to a rattler and pick it up, carry it around their neck, put its head against their mouth and their cheek, nothing ever happened. Not so the rattlesnake cults from the south from the 30’s who moved to California and tried to practice their rattlesnake practices with a Western rattlesnake, did it just once, and they were dead. [ripples of amusement in audience.] That ended the cults. How do you explain that? I believe it is demonic. And the practices here of the priests of Baal were designed to invoke powers, it was all futile because all things including the demonic powers are in the hand of the Lord, and He uses them for His purposes.

And they shouted and danced and they cut themselves. The Bible said they cried aloud and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets till the blood gushed out upon them, scripture is very discreet here. Some of these cuttings were simply castration, self-mutilation, whereby they traded powers with their gods in return for occult powers. And Elijah mocked them “cry aloud to your god, maybe he’s busy talking with another god and can’t hear you. Shout a little louder. Or maybe he’s out hunting, or on a trip, or perhaps he’s asleep.” Then when their time was over, and they had most of the day, Elijah repaired the altar of the Lord. Now this does not necessarily mean that he repaired an old existing altar, but that he repaired, he established it in the purity of the manner required by scripture, by God. So that it was a pure altar, pure unto the Lord exclusively. And he took 12 stones to signify the covenant of God and then he prayed. And he prayed to God that God would reveal Himself “let it be known that Thou art the Lord.” Here is a triumph, call out your summons, and the prophets and the priests of Baal had been found wanting. The people of Israel did not answer when they were confronted with the indictment of halting between two opinions and the king of Israel sits silently. Now the Lord, the God that answers by fire, he is the Lord, let it be known that Thou art He. And then he goes on to say “let it be known that I am Thy servant.” Elijah for three and a half years, and of course before that had been defamed, vilified, treated as the enemy, the enemy of the nation and the enemy of God, the troubler of Israel, an Achan. Let it be known that I am Thy servant and the word that I have spoken is the word of truth, and then let it be known that I have done all at Thy command.” To be the servant of the Lord is to be the one whom the Lord commands, the one who goes at His bidding, and Elijah wants publically to be set forth as God’s throne man, the man who speaks the word of the Lord, the man who issues the summons from the throne in full faithfulness to that word.

“Hear me oh Lord, hear me, that this people may know that Thou art the Lord God and that Thou hast turned their heart back again.” He concludes his prayer with a prayer for the people. Let the people be converted, and God answers by fire. The fire of judgment, the very stones of the altar are consumed so that it indicates an amazing supernatural fire and the judgment of God having been past, remember first a summons, the audience before the throne man of God, the indictment, the trials, and now the execution. 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 Elijah said unto them ‘Take the prophets of Baal, let not one of them escape,’ and they took them and brook Kishon and slew them there.” It’s amazing how many commentators at this point, including those who claim to believe that the Bible is God’s word, tell us Elijah here represents a lower standard then in the New Testament. How dare they, how dare they? On the mount of transfiguration God the Father sent two men to meet with God the Son, Moses and Elijah. And Elijah is the man in the Old Testament who God took into heaven without death. Here he acts as God’s executioner. What do these people want? Should of it be Elijah at this point said “now brethren, my dear friends of the groves and of Baal, it is time for us in the light of these events to set up a council of churches”? Is that what they would of preferred to see? There had been a summons, there had been a hearing, there had been an indictment, and God spoke by fire, the fire that symbolized His judgment and when Paul speaks of the shaking and the judgment of the Old Testament era which began at Sinai and concluded with the fall of Jerusalem and speaks of the shaking that begins thereafter and continues until all things that are shakable are shaken so that only that which is unshakable remains, he declares ‘our God is a consuming fire.’ And here that God speaks by fire and the throne man acts as the executioner. Elijah himself took and slew them at the brook Kishon, a dry stream at that time. But one soon to be raging with the flood waters as they washed down the mountain side to sweep out those dead men and their blood into the sea, and to purge the land of their iniquity.

Then before there was any rain Elijah commanded Ahab and Ahab obeyed, to celebrate, the drought was over; to eat and to drink freely. Signifying that now God’s judgment had descended and God was now to bless the land. Ahab then waits dutifully, he does not then move until Elijah through a servant, because God since he went to Zarephath had provided Elijah with a servant, until the servant of Elijah tells Ahab he may go. A king is summoned, he is taken to triumph, before the nation his power is made to be as nothing and the power God set forth in all its majesty, and now it is the servant of the throne man of God who speaks to him, not even the throne man.

Ahab had obeyed the summons and now stunned and awed by these events obeys, he obeys Elijah and the weather obeys God’s throne man. They are speedily overwhelmed with a down pour so that they go no further than Jezreel. But even as they go Elijah in the power of the Lord outraces Ahab and his chariot. This is the audience and the trial at Mount Caramel. God vindicates publicly His throne man. Elijah his power and his office are confirmed before the entire nation, God speaks, the audience and the trial are concluded.

This is one of the great scenes of scripture, one of the more dramatic moments of history. In that again and again throughout history God summons the nations for trial and He finds them wanting weighed, weighed in the balances and found wanting, and God breaks their power in a night, or in a year, as He see fit and the Belshazzar’s of history disappear, and their empires disappear, and they are as nothing, but Elijah and the word of Elijah stand because his word is the word of the Lord. And today the nations like Ahab of old have been summoned to judgment and we as the people of God must issue the summons. “Hear ye the word of the Lord, thus saith the Lord.” What does scripture tell us? It tells us in Deuteronomy 28 that if we obey God all these things shall come upon us and overtake us, and if we disobey Him all these curses shall come upon us and overtake us, and the image is of a pursuing power which, like a beast of prey overwhelms, and inevitably accomplishes its purpose. We have a picture of irresistible blessings and irresistible curses. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The wages of sin in any and every age are death. “I am the Lord, I change not” he declares. And even as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are the same yesterday, today, and forever, so too is his word. And so we must confront men with that word. Will they meet God as the God of all grace or the God of all judgment? Will they find themselves overtaken by His irresistible blessings, or by His irresistible curses? And we must say to a generation that like that of Elijah is syncretistic as a form of godliness, but lacks the power thereof, “how long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.”

We are not called to be church members and bench warmers, but soldiers of Jesus Christ. We are not merely to say “amen” but to do the will of him that commissions us and sends us out, and we are to put on the whole armor of God and bring ourselves under subjection and all that we posses and all that we have to bring into subjection to God and His word so that we can say with the saints of old “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Let us pray.

Almighty God our heavenly Father grant that by Thy grace we serve Thee with our whole heart, mind, and being, that we love and glorify Thee all the days of our life. Take away, purge out of hearts all halting between two opinions, strip us of all vain glory and make us throne men, men who are commanded entirely by Thy word. That in faith and obedience and with holy boldness we may serve Thee all the days of our life. Grant us this we beseech Thee, in Jesus name, amen.

Are there any questions now?

[Audience member] One of the things that you {?} there is continuity between the Old Testament {?} and the New Testament {?}. A lot of dispensationalist have a very dualistic view of this. What I’d like you to comment on is the two covenants that Paul speaks of and those who oppose the argument try to use and deny that Moses was Israel’s law {?} for our time, the administration of it, I mean details as well as {?} for those who, in our Calvinistic camp, have written articles {?} I wish you would clarify the different covenants and clarify their position and so forth.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Basically we must say that from beginning to end there is one covenant that man in the Old Testament as in the new is saved only by grace, never by works. Moreover the covenant in Jesus Christ is not a different covenant but a renewed covenant. It is now the open expression of that which was set forth in types and in symbols in the days from Adam through Noah. It is renewed and the continuity is set forth in the fact that for the 12 tribes of Israel 12 passels are chosen. They are known as the Israel of God so that as the church goes out it goes out self-consciously with this continuity. The very name given to the officers of the old Israel, elders, is immediately a name for the officers of the new.

Moreover the very same word which in the Septuagint describes the kingdom and the congregation, or the assembly, describes the church. Ekklesia, as we have an ecclesiastical. Now when we use the word church it comes from another word, our word church, kyriakos, as in the expression kyriakon doma and so on, and it refers to a building or an institution for worship. But as the New Testament uses the word it is the kingdom, the assembly, or the congregation, so the very word for church in the New Testament sets for the continuity with the Old. It is the Old Covenant now brought into its fullness. The types done away with, and whereas the old covenant had fallen short of its duty and gone astray now they are cut off for a time, and a new people is grafted in, I am the Lord and ye are the branches. So again and again the continuity is stressed so that we are told that Abraham is our father in the faith and we are the children of Abraham by faith. We are the Israel of God so it is, I believe, a serious error to speak of New Testament Christianity, no such thing exists, it is Biblical Christianity grounded in the entire word of God.

Are there any other questions now?

[Audience member] In the millennium will, since God’s law will be universally observed, will this do away with the national boundaries, will there be {?} centralized government of course our connotation of the word “government” will be drastically changed in the millennium, what I mean will there be national separation of the boundary lines from one nation, it will be a universal observance of God’s law.

[Rushdoony] Yes. There will not be the necessity for a world government such as men think of it now, nor will the situation be one of any centralization because the more people become Godly the more all things will become decentralized. You see, there was a time before world war I when you could travel from one end of the world to another and very few places where you needed a passport. Now its difficult to cross lines. The more you centralize power the more totalitarian you become, whether on an international basis or a nationalistic basis, the more movement is impeded. But when people begin to live in terms of the word of the Lord, then the basic unit of government is the family and the individual and then you have the rule of elders, then you have localism replacing other things. I believe you will have nations to the end of time, and I think their significance will wane so I think we tend to look at the future too much in terms of humanistic eyes that see the solution as in a centralization so that man as Lord as sovereign can issue his decrees of predestination and control of man and society. But for us the sovereign is the Lord, not human governments.

[Audience member] I believe you said to remind you that someone..

[Rushdoony] Oh yes, someone handed me some questions. There are two questions here, they’re really a series of them “what is the origin of a church constitution, is one required?” “Should a constitution require a decision as to a person’s qualifications for church membership?” Well the answer to is we do have a great need for a church constitution and the sad fact is that very few churches pay any attention to it; they’re too busy creating their own. We have one in the Bible. [laughter].

Now the Bible lays down the requirements for faith and membership and the structure of the church but you know men have a fondness for what they create and so they endlessly want to create all kinds of documents which will take the place of God’s word and create a whole chain of human powers and authorities and rules and regulations. Now this is a question I’ve had more than once. You see what has happened in our day is we have become paper Christians. We want a multiplicity of documents; we don’t feel safe without them.

Our in California about 8 months ago a church that was less than a year old made up of three groups that came together because the churches they were involved with were all going very much astray and involved in serious problems or unbelief. And they were busy writing a constitution and it almost destroyed the church. and some of them came to see me when I was there in that particular county and they asked my council and I found that what was happening was, and they had a number of church officers in the group because it was the strong men in each of the three groups that had left and made a stand, and they were good men, but each of them had ideas about what had gone wrong in their church and how they were going to prevent it by writing into their church by laws and church constitution this that and the other privilege, and they were meeting at that time every night and on one or two occasions until one o’clock arguing out the details, and it was about to kill the church. Well I counseled them “take everything you’ve worked on and put it in the waste paper basket, forget about it. What you need to do is to grow in grace and in fellowship and take two-three years, or even longer, to grow as a group. You don’t need those things, you have all that you need in the scripture, and if you should need a few little regulations perhaps after that time you might draw up a simple thing, but you’re trying to prevent troubles by a written document which is meaningless. All three of you come from church groups where you had all kinds of documents, excellent ones, and what happened? Not only the local churches but in two cases the denominations went astray. What was on paper didn’t prevent them because first of all they began by abandoning the word of God.” So now their doing beautifully the last I hear and nobody is bothering about the fact that they don’t have a man-made constitution, they’ve got one in the scripture, they have a growing attendance, they meet once a month after morning worship in the summer of the homes of various members and backyard. In the winter they go to a restaurant to have a love feast, as they call it, together. They’re not suffering for the lack of a constitution. Somehow nowadays we believe it seems that something man can pen is the best insurance for protection from problems in the church, and that’s an illusion; it’s growth in the ministry of the word and in obedience to it.

“Can a church body ever excommunicate a member, and on what grounds? Is this excluding them from the word since we know not who is saved?” Well first of all scripture tells us that not only we can, but we must sometimes excommunicate members. We’ve got that in the scripture, we don’t need anything else to tell us that. The last part of the question involves a misunderstanding I think because we do know who is saved, our Lord tells us “by your fruits shall ye know them.” Now it was Greek belief that you couldn’t judge people because you had no way of knowing what was in their hearts, the Greeks had a dualistic view of man, that man was made up of two alien substances and therefore what was in mans soul, or mind, or spirit, might be something radically different from what was in his body. So that Socrates and Plato could be perverts, as they were, but they were men of great virtue in their souls so they were noble, wonderful men, but we can’t believe that. The issues of life are out of the heart of man, men as an unity, “by their fruits shall ye know them.” A good tree brings forth good fruit; a bad tree brings forth bad fruit. You don’t get figs or grapes, or anything like that from thistles, nor thistles from a fig tree. Our Lord spells it out there, we shouldn’t be under any illusions; “by your fruits ye shall know them.” So please, anytime you hear someone saying “well, we don’t know what’s in his heart.” Tell them “Our Lord says that we do.” And that should be sufficient for us. You see it’s the sufficiency of the word that we bypass when we try and create all kinds of structures.

I know some very fine churches that are just building a noose around their neck with endless regulations. About twenty years ago someone who is a distant kin to me, I don’t see him too much these days, but that time he had just served as a deputy attorney general of the US under Truman and he was an elder in the old Presbyterian church. And he told me, he said, “do you know what has happened? Over the generation we’ve added rules and regulations that are supposed to make for better discipline and its reached the point of strangulation.” And he said “I’m on a committee now that has to try a pastor” and I knew the man and had no use for him, “who is guilty of theft.” He said “I don’t believe we can ever convict him. As a lawyer, Presbyterian law is such a jungle that you can accomplish nothing under it. And he said that man will demand that everything be done according to the book in his power, well he was right. The only way they finally got rid of him was by retiring him with a very fat gift and a banquet in his honor. [laughter].

Now, so much for all the rules and regulations that they had established.

And we’re seeing it, aren’t we, in civil law today? Haven’t we created a situation where it is the criminal who profits?

Are there any other questions?

[Moderator] We certainly appreciate very deeply Dr. Rushdoony’s ministry through this week and I know that you have profited from the exposition of the word of God. I remind you that the tapes are here for you to take and also the question and answer session has been recorded in each of the evenings that we’ve had questions raised. I hope that you are on his mailing list and I will encourage you in the support of Chalcedon because it is a very worthy, worthy organization, tax exempt, and God is using Dr. Rushdoony and his staff in a tremendous way where it is needed in these days. We hope this is just the beginning of his ministry.