And at noon Elijah mocked them, saying, “Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.”
I like the way the band Disciple covers this in "God Of Elijah" ( use youtube to find it online ).
Bring on the show down How long will you waver between two opinions If the Lord is God then follow Him But if Baal is god then follow him There are 450 prophets of Baal and just one of me So it should be no problem to get his attention And show everyone here today That if he's the real god He'll have to send fire down So they began to shout, run around, cut themselves Baal made no reply, so Elijah cried Maybe he's sleeping, or busy or traveling Or using the bathroom, or deeply thinking
I can just see the prophets running around cutting themselves and screaming to rouse a god who happens be busy sitting on the toilet.
Today we are trying to replace God with the idea of a perfect man. That we are all that there is. We only need to look in the mirror, understand science, and find inner meaning to find "god". What foolishness.
We run around cutting ourselves, bleeding all over, screaming, and crying out to a false god. Look at how much money and flesh we sacrifice in the temples of pleasure at Vagas. Look at how much blood of our children we spill for the image of selfishness. For the right of not being burdened with them.
In the end men will be lying in the dirt looking up at the fire of God. Their sacrifice sits, blood spilt out for nothing and to no one. Their lost hope mingling with the blood and dirt inside the wounds on their cut backs.
It is rather easy to find the people who rely only upon their own strength. Look at Ahab ... and he lay down on his bed and turned away his face and would eat no food. All because he didn't get what he wanted he ran away and pouted like an young child. And soon that lead to a great evil and his own death.
If you are your own god ... If you sacrifice only to yourself ... How great the fall when any trial comes upon you! You stand alone and see nothing outside of your own pleasures. And when the pleasure stops, like it does for all people, how great the pain.
Power corrupts. This truth is so easy to see in the life of Solomon. He knew ... for God gave him wisdom above everyone else. And he still turned to worship other gods.
He had so much. So much wealth. So many women. So many servants. So much wisdom. And so much power. He would be envied like none other if he lived today.
I am young (-ish) and stupid. When I was younger I was even stupider. The sad part is you only know you are stupid, and were stupid, because you have moved on in your life and can look back at how stupid you really were.
The reason for this is like the frog in the well.
The frog looks up and sees "the entire sky". Of course it is just a tiny piece of what God's sky really is, but he doesn't know that. After a while he hops up closer to the top of the well. Looking up he is amazed that the sky has become larger and so much more detail! He sees branches of trees, yet still no whole tree. And for the first time he sees the moon close to the edge of the well.
Now he must know all that there is to know! Of course, it is still just a tiny piece of what God's sky really is.
Those that have gone before have a duty to call back down the well to let us know what we have waiting for us. And those heading up should listen and heed the words of the God fearing men in front of us. We should not listen the silly frogs at our side telling us how smart we are. And imagining that the tiny hole above our heads is all there is to know.
Peter was so sure he would stand by Jesus. Just a few hours before this the disciples were in a dispute of who of them was the greatest. Then soon after ... none could be found and Peter was screaming out “Man, I do not know what you are talking about.”
When times are good it is so easy to be full of pride. God is watching over our steps and we start to imagine that we are far more that we truly are. “Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death.”
Solomon fell away from God after being surrounded by wealth, women, and power. His son fell away from wisdom after being surrounded by fools who stroked his ego. And Peter fell away from Christ when he was confronted with what it really means to follow him. Christ wasn't the man about to crush Rome. For He came to suffer and die.
Teaching in these times I wonder if anyone prays for wisdom.
Today I feel like people would rather have oracles than wisdom. Have a math problem ... get the calculator. Have a harder problem ... get the answer from the back of the book. It's an even numbered problem ... ask someone else to do it for you. How should we vote ... listen to the talking heads on TV. Is the president a good man ... read the talking heads on the internet.
No one seems to want to work for understanding or to work for wisdom. It is a rare person who goes out of their way to become wise in knowledge. Let alone try to become wise in the ways of the LORD.
Solomon built the temple and his own house. He spent 7 years on the temple and 13 years on his own house.
God only asks for one day a week for us to spend with Him. I like to think of Sunday as a day of focus. A day where I focus on God and what He wants. The other 6 are for work. But are we like Solomon in spending twice as much time on ourselves than the Lord? Is that where your money goes? Your efforts? Your time?
For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.
As I said above, we are like Solomon. Out of our abundance we give, but the majority of our wealth we hold for back for ourselves. During the 2004 election I spent some time looking at the IRS information of wealth, taxes, and giving. I was curious about how people voted based on those three things.
What wasn't surprising to me was that the poorest states gave the largest portion of their money away. And the richest states gave, by far, the least portion of their wealth. Those that have can't imagine not having ... so they hoard. Those that don't have know what it is like to be without ... so they give what little they do have to help others.
