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A TALE OF TWO PRAYERS

There’s a marvelous praise song being sung in thousands of Christian churches these days, written by one of the brightest creative talents out there right now: Darlene Zschech. Some of her concert CD albums from Australia are really a lot of fun to listen to — filled with joy. But the song everyone is doing lately is entitled Shout to the Lord. And the lyrics to the chorus are just perfect:

Shout to the Lord, all the earth, let us sing. Power and majesty, praise to the King. Mountains bow down and the seas will roar, At the sound of Your name.

Well, that’s a good song, but the concept of shouting to the Lord might seem rather foreign to you. Many of us are more inclined toward the mindset of “The Lord is in His holy temple; Let all the earth keep silence before Him.” That choral anthem is actually word for word from Habakkuk 2:20, so the concept of whispering before the Lord is a biblical one, although we’re told eight time in the Book of Psalms alone that shouting unto the Lord is also a good idea.

Our focus today, though, as we keep on with the Elijah Experience on Mount Carmel is this: do we NEED to shout in order to get God’s attention? Do God’s followers have to scream and holler and make a scene in order to get Him to do what they want? Because what we have on Mount Carmel is really a tale of two prayers.

First, though, let’s go back and set up the scene. All of Israel is up on the top of this mountain: Elijah the prophet of God, the many prophets of Baal, King Ahab, and then all of the “dancers” or fence sitters. People trying to have it both ways: God and Baal at the same time. And Elijah gives them this famous altar call:

“How long will you waver [or dance] between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal is God, follow him.”

And then Elijah — always a risk-taker at heart, it seems — offers them this proposition. “Look,” he says. “Let’s build two altars. One for your god and one for mine. We’ll kill and dress two bulls as sacrifices. We’ll put the bull on the altar, we’ll put the wood on the altar . . . but we’ll not put any fire on the altar. That’s God’s job. Whichever god answers our prayers by fire — He’s God. From now on. Fair enough?”
And all the people sitting there in the cheap seats kind of nod to themselves and admit: “Yeah, that’s fair. That’s a level playing field all right. Two altars, two bulls, two piles of wood . . . and no fire. Let’s see which God comes through.” The late Bible writer, Ellen White, points out that even the devotees of Baal had to confess that this was a fair contest.

“God’s message to Ahab gave Jezebel and her priests, and all the followers of Baal and Ashtoreth, opportunity to test the power of their gods, and, if possible, to prove the word of Elijah false.”

We pointed out yesterday that these Baal-worshipers were already beginning to have doubts about their so-called wonder god: Baal the rain-maker. One commentary had this insight:

“Mt. Carmel, once a place of great scenic beauty, with its idol temples in flourishing groves, was now a place of desolation. Trees stood gaunt and bare, springs were dry, and flowers were no more. The gods of fertility had sadly failed their worshipers, and they had failed themselves. Their own shrines were places of vexation and dishonor. Here on these grounds consecrated to pagan shrines, once so beautiful, now so barren and forlorn, Elijah proposed to demonstrate the utter folly of the worship of Baal.”

And yet, after three years of their god producing nothing, the God of heaven is willing to participate in a contest where Baal, the imposter deity, is given a fifty-fifty chance. And Elijah even lets the 450 priests of Baal go first.

And now let’s focus on the prayers of god #1. Talk about “shouting to the Lord” . . . these 450 false priests begin a screaming match that echoes all the way to Ethiopia. Listen to this:

“Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. ‘O Baal, answer us!’ they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made.”

Now we begin to see a bit of the prophet Elijah’s naughty side. He has a rather teasing nature to him. Of course, he already knows he’s going to win, so he’s just standing on the sidelines enjoying this rather noisy show. But the Bible describes what happens next:
“At noon Elijah began to taunt them. ‘Shout louder!’ he said. ‘Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.’ So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time came for the evening sacrifices. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention.”

That’s wild, isn’t it, about the screaming . . . and especially about these priests cutting themselves. The Bible talks about this in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, and absolutely forbids the followers of God to indulge in that kind of heathen self-mutilation. But listen, friend, false religions have always portrayed their gods as wanting to see pain and suffering, and that by hurting yourself you could “rouse the deity to action.”

Now, all through this long day of screaming and slicing, the idea of sabotage certainly must have occurred to some of these Baal-bowing kingpins. Could someone slip a match underneath the wood and then shout: “Fire! Fire! At least a LITTLE fire”? Well, Elijah was watching very keenly to make sure that didn’t happen. And I’m sure the angel hosts of heaven were there as well, to keep Satan’s demon armies from doing any such thing. This really was the war of the world up on the top of Carmel.

But finally the long orgy of shrieking and dancing ground to a halt. The prophets of Baal had just plain run out of gas, and it was obvious that they were shouting to an empty sky. Nobody was home in Baal-ville that day, and everyone on the mountain knew it.

And I love how Elijah responds. No more teasing — and surely he knew that this was a fragile moment, with wounded pride and a lot of confusion. Very gently he said to all the people: “Come over here; come closer to me.” And they gathered around to watch. And before he did anything else, the lone prophet of God rebuilt the altar to the Lord, which, over the years, had fallen into ruin from neglect. And then he told some of the people standing around to get four huge jars of water and pour them over the altar, with the dead bull still on it these many hours later. They did, and he said, “Do it again. And again.” Twelve barrels of water — and goodness knows where they got them in the middle of that drought, but you see, Elijah wanted to make sure they all knew that HE hadn’t snuck a match or a cigarette lighter into the game.

And all the time he’s quietly working, building up the altar, pouring the water, the people are watching in silence. There’s no shouting now, no blood, no flashing of knife blades. Just Elijah, setting the stage for his God to have a turn. And one Christian writer can’t help but point this out:

“The calm demeanor of the prophet stands out in sharp contrast with the fanatical, senseless frenzy of the followers of Baal.”

And then we have the prayer of Elijah. The prophets of Baal screamed at the sky for about nine hours; the prayer of Elijah takes maybe 30 seconds. That same Christian writer, Ellen White, sharpens the contrast:

“Bowing reverently before the unseen God, he raises his hands toward heaven, and offers a simple prayer. Baal’s priests have screamed and foamed and leaped, from early morning until late in the afternoon; but as Elijah prays, no senseless shrieks resound over Carmel’s height. He prays as if he knows Jehovah is there, a witness to the scene, a listener to his appeal. The prophets of Baal have prayed wildly, incoherently. Elijah prays simply and fervently, asking God to show His superiority over Baal, that Israel may be led to turn to Him.”

And here’s the word-for-word transcript of that prayer:

“O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at Your command. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so that these people will know that You, O Lord, are God, and that You are turning their hearts back again.”

Sixty-one words. That’s all: just 61 words. Just a few, heartfelt sentiments expressed without high octane or excessive decibels. And what happens? Boom! The fire comes down from God out of heaven. It consumes the bull, it consumes the wood, it consumes the altar, it consumes the water in the trench. In one flash of divine response, the true God of heaven shows Himself to the people. And the dance, the wavering, the “halting” between two opinions . . . is at long last over.

Friend, if the Lord’s been good to you and you want to shout His praises, that’s wonderful. Raise your voice and sing. But if your heart is aching today, or if you simply need for heaven to move into your home and your heart, really, just a quiet whisper will always be enough.