31 December, 2000

Slay Them All

1 Kings 18:40

I hate to have to do this, but last Sunday I told you something that wasn't true. I told you that today we would be resuming our studies in the book of Revelation, chapters 10 & 11. That has proven to be incorrect. We will not be in Revelation today. There is an old Jewish proverb that says: "If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans." God does have an excellent sense of humor, and although I had planned to be back in Revelation today, it looks like that is going to have to wait another week. My plans got changed.

If you have your Bibles with you today, and I hope you do, turn to 1 Kings chapter 18 verse 1. Today is the last day of the old year, tomorrow is the first day of the new year, which makes it a great occasion to spend a few moments thinking about what kind of people we are, the sins that so easily beset us, and what we need to do about it.

In this part of 1 Kings, we find that Israel is under the leadership of a notoriously degenerate ruler. Ahab is the king, and he has taken for his wife the evil woman Jezebel, and the country is in a sorry condition.
During this time, God raised up a remarkable prophet, Elijah the Tishbite. Elijah had the very strange habit of taking God and His Word at face value. If God's Word said it, Elijah assumed it was true and acted accordingly, and oddly enough, miracles happened. Who would have ever guessed?

For instance, over in Leviticus 26, God promises the people of Israel that if they will be obedient to His Word, He will bless them with rain, good crops, good health, and a bunch of other material blessings. He also promises them that if they are disobedient, if they despise His laws, and make themselves other gods, then He will send them problems, one of which is drought. In an agricultural society, drought gets people's attention.

So the background of today's message is that this wicked king has taken to himself a heathen wife, and whatever she wants, he does. He builds altars to Baal, sets up idols; the Bible says that Ahab did more to provoke the Lord to anger than all the kings of Israel that preceded him. And then out of nowhere, with no previous mention, comes Elijah the Tishbite, who walks up to Ahab and says; "As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years but according to my word."
Apparently when the Spirit of God lead Elijah to claim some portion of the Word of God, he just went and did it. And all he said was the very same thing that God had already said. "You worship idols? I cut off your rain."

The Bible does not record Ahab's response, but I bet it was something like; "Phah! Go away! Stupid Bible-believing fanatic." Three years and no rain later, Ahab and Jezebel were trying to find Elijah and kill him. God hides Elijah and feeds him for three years, and then turns things around and uses Elijah to have a showdown with Ahab.
1Ki 18:1 "And it came to pass after many days, that the word of the LORD came to Elijah in the third year, saying, Go, shew thyself unto Ahab; and I will send rain upon the earth.
1Ki 18:2 And Elijah went to shew himself unto Ahab. And there was a sore famine in Samaria."
For the sake of time, let me summarize: Elijah meets Obadiah, Ahab's chief servant, and a faithful follower of the Lord, and tells him to tell Ahab where to find him. Verse 17.
1Ki 18:17 "And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel?
1Ki 18:18 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.
1Ki 18:19 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.
1Ki 18:20 So Ahab sent unto all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together unto mount Carmel.
1Ki 18:21 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.
1Ki 18:22 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.
1Ki 18:23 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:
1Ki 18:24 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.
1Ki 18:25 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.
1Ki 18:26 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.
1Ki 18:27 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.
1Ki 18:28 And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them.
1Ki 18:29 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.
1Ki 18:30 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.
1Ki 18:31 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:
1Ki 18:32 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.
1Ki 18:33 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.
1Ki 18:34 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.
1Ki 18:35 And the water ran round about the altar; and he filled the trench also with water.
1Ki 18:36 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.
1Ki 18:37 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.
1Ki 18:38 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.
1Ki 18:39 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.
1Ki 18:40 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."

There are any number of excellent applications that could be made from this powerful bit of history. Do we need any role models in our society today? Do we need any instructions in church doctrine? We could make a number of good applications from this passage. We could make applications about the relative truth and falsity of different religions and how we need discernment in every generation, but that's not what I want us to think about.

"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." What I want us to see this morning today is how this passage relates to us as believers today. This message today is not for unbelievers. If you have never yet come to Christ, then you need to do it, but today's message is not for you.
This message is for the person that claims Jesus Christ as his or her Lord and King, but meanwhile you still have prophets of Baal in your life, causing corruption, creating subversion, seeking to seduce you to follow sin. What kind of new year does God want you to have? What kind of new year does the devil want you to have? What kind of new year do you want to have?

Something we need to get fixed in our minds as a way to start the new year, we do not make compromises with sin. We do not get involved with diplomatic negotiations with sin. We do not declare truce, we do not practice religious tolerance with the false religion of sin in our own lives. "We take the prophets of Baal, we let not one of them escape."

What I want us to see today, why do we slaughter sin without mercy, as Elijah slaughtered the prophets of Baal? Why do we have to be completely thorough, as Elijah was, and let not even one escape? And finally, how do we do it? What is the why and the how of getting the job done?

First, why do we need to slaughter the sin in our lives? There are lots of reasons, but we only need to look at a few. Let's start with this one: sin is treason toward God, toward the lawful ruler of this earth. Before we got saved, we were traitors also, and we sheltered and fed and watered our sins very happily. We were contrary and rebellious toward God, we did not want Him to rule over us, and so our sins were sort of our allies. Sinners like to sin. Sinners enjoy sinning. We did not want to have such a King as Jesus Christ to rule over us, we were in rebellion against Him. That's treason. The appropriate penalty for treason in times of war is death, and there is a spiritual war going on, make no mistake.

Meanwhile we were happy to have along with us those behaviors and attitudes that were also in rebellion against Him. Our companion is named "Sin, " and he is also treasonous. What should we do about him? Galatians 5:24 tells us that "they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts." Crucifixion is death, pure and simple. Every time. If we belong to Jesus Christ, then our sins are treason against Him, and they deserve to die, they need to die. And we should help them along.

Here is another reason that our sins need to die: they have already done us infinite evil, they have already caused us terrible harm. It's bad enough to discover that our sins deserve to die because of their treason against God, what about all the harm and damage they have done to us? How many of us here have relationships between ourselves and someone we love that have been hurt by sin? How many of us have had loved ones die because sin came into the world, and brought death with it?

Look at all the things that have happened down through history and see how many things sin has brought into the world, and how many of them have made men despair and women weep? Sin has taken away the Garden of Eden and replaced it with drought and famine. All through parts of Africa, millions of people are dying of AIDS, and sin is the cause of every bit of it.

Why do we have wars and suffering, hatred and death? It is because of sin. Why do we have men and women who go through their whole lives alienated from their family, from their neighbors, unable to get along with their parents and their children, separated from God, and finally going to hell with no remorse and a curse on their lips toward God and toward all of creation? It is because of sin.

Will we make friends with sin? Will we welcome it into our homes? Make it our companion? Invite it to go and have a pleasant evening with us? Sin has already killed some of my family and probably some of yours, will we invite it over for a cup of coffee out on the deck? Elijah had the mind of God on the matter; take the prophets of Baal, let none of them escape. We need to get rid of the sin that plagues us.

What will happen if you do not seize every one of them and destroy them? They will find some way to cause you mischief and grief. They will eventually bring you down and destroy you. Perhaps you are sitting there and thinking that you have no great sins in your life, and that's good, but what about all the little ones? We are all careful about great sins, like murder, cheating on your spouse, robbing someone; we all do a pretty good job avoiding them, but what about the so-called little sins?

Do you think that it's acceptable to tolerate them? Is it a good idea to die the death of a thousand cuts? I don't think so. A Christian cannot indulge themself the liberty of tolerating or accepting a known sin into their life, and still expect to walk with God. Let me say that again. A Christian cannot indulge themself the liberty of tolerating or accepting a known sin into their life and still expect to walk with God. It doesn't work. If you belong to Christ, God the Holy Spirit dwells in you, and He will not put up with it.
When you accept a known sin into your life and accommodate yourself to it, you lose power in prayer. When you tolerate a known sin in your life, and accommodate yourself to it, you lose your discernment of the Word of God. The Bible no longer opens itself to you as it once did. The church service becomes boring, and there are other places that you would rather be.

Perhaps you have one particular sin that is attractive to you, you like it, it is pretty and it pleases you very well. That's what Samson thought about the woman that his eye lusted after. I suspect that probably Jezebel was very good looking. And Ahab was probably tall, dark and handsome, and a rich king to boot. And every one of them was treacherous, every one of them was deceitful, and every one of them plotted misery and death to those that were foolish enough to get involved with them. That's what the little sins that we cultivate, and accommodate, and accept, will do to us.

Seize them. Let not one of them escape. Kill them, every one of them. Perhaps you are wondering why it was necessary to be so very thorough, why was it necessary for Elijah to utterly kill and destroy every one of the prophets of Baal? Surely some of them were family men, they had wives and children, maybe some of them were polite and nice people, is it not terribly harsh to kill every one of them? Surely some of them might have been spared?

Elijah told the people, before the contest started, that if Baal was God, serve him, but if Jehovah was God, then serve Him. This was not a both/and sort of situation, it was an either/or type of situation. If you want to be a pagan, and serve a false god, or a plethora of gods, that is your prerogative. God will allow you to be stupid and destroy yourself, and ruin your very soul, that is how He does things. But God will not allow you to serve Him, and also go and serve another, that is intolerable.

Why is that? It is because of the nature of reality. Two spiritually opposite things cannot both be true at the same time. You cannot serve God and non-god at the same time. You cannot serve God and the devil at the same time. The very nature of the reality which God has created makes it impossible.

Let me make a very crude example of how to understand this. Last Sunday morning, just before the service started, it was discovered that a cat had got into the building and deposited a horrible mess over against that wall. It was nasty. It looked bad. It smelled worse. If I stand up here and say that what cats sometimes leave on the carpet is nasty, every one will agree with me. We would all be in agreement that was a true truth.

Now if someone else were to get up here, and say that what cats leave over by the wall is a fine thing, and we should all be sure and have such things on our own carpets, everyone would think; "That person is a liar, or a fool, or both, what he proposes is not true. Not only is it not true, it is verily verily not true! I will have no part in such a stupid, unthinkable thing."

But we find ourselves in an age of tolerance. We are supposed to tolerate other opinions, other ways of doing things, world views that are the opposite of what we believe. It is interesting that the gospel has won millions of converts in China, but very few in India. The Hindu way of looking at things is that there are parallel realities, equal and simultaneous truths that may both be held at once. The Hindu would say: "You believe that Jesus Christ is the way the truth and the life, and that no one can go to the Father but by Him, that is fine, and I'm sure that it is true. I believe in Karma, and in reincarnation, and I am satisfied that it is also true." Two contradictory realities, simultaneously held. And both thought to be true and real. One of the things that the Bible demands of all of us is that we cannot accept and live with a lie. The Bible demands a reality based world view.

If God is true, if the Bible is true, then every other religious , ethical, or scientific opinion is called into question according to how closely it deals with reality as the Bible defines it. "Let God be true, and every man a liar." And Elijah told the people that if God is God, then you take Him on His terms, or not at all. And His terms include the truth that every other religious system or practice is not true, it is false, it is a lie. Accepting Jehovah always excludes Baal. Always.

When the fire came down, it not only licked up the sacrifice, it licked up the wood, the stones, the dust, and the water too. When God takes our sacrifice, He takes it all. There is none left for the prophets of Baal. The truth of God leaves no room for the lies of sin. Will you be consistent in your actions, will you follow Christ and turn away from sins? Or will you try and go two ways at once? Will you profess to have turned away from sin, and at the same time be turning toward it, taking it with you? That is the same as believing that cat mess is horrible and you need to avoid it, and then turning around and acting like it is acceptable at the same time. "I think I'll put some in my pocket." We all know better than that, we don't put cat mess in our pocket, we flush it. Take the prophets of Baal, let none escape. If you profess to be a child of God in Jesus Christ, then any sins you are meeting up with in your life need to be flushed, dead, gone. No compromises. Let none of them escape.

When you got saved, you clearly saw, probably for the first time, Jesus Christ dying on the cross for you, as you, made sin for you, your sin on Him, and Him suffering for it, for you, for your sake. Your sins put Him there, your sins caused His wounds, would you add to them? He died for every sin you have ever committed, and every sin you ever will commit, will you go out and commit some more? There is nothing more likely to convince you that sin must die than the fact that Jesus died for sin. If Jesus died for sin, then sin needs to die in the believer, it is as simple as that. The blood of Jesus Christ, the wounds of Jesus Christ constrain us, it persuades us to take the prophets of Baal, take the sins that have crucified our Lord, and let not one of them escape.

Destroy each and every one of them. Take no prisoners. There is a new year coming; will you live it in compromise with the enemy of your soul, and the enemy of your Savior? Or will you take revenge on the sin in your life, and let none of it escape?

If you belong to Jesus Christ, then you need to do the same thing in your life that Elijah did with the prophets of Baal. Get rid of the agents and actions of sin, in whatever form they should appear. No mercy, no prisoners, no exceptions. God commanded King Saul to kill all the Amalekites, and all their animals, but Saul didn't kill all of them, he saved the better animals. He exercised his own judgement as to which ones to kill, and which ones to keep alive. What kind of judgements do we make? It is easy to be very firm on drunkenness and spousal abuse, or some other obvious and socially hated sin, and then turn around and look the other way about gossip, or laziness, or slander, isn't it? Shall we kill the black widow, and let the brown recluse go free?

We seek to excuse ourselves by saying: "That's the way I was brought up," "I have always been that way," "That's just the way I am." The Bible tells us; "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation." What part of "any man" did you not understand? Did you think you were an exception? "If any body else but me is in Christ, he is a new creation, but I'm not, I'm just like I always was." Well, then maybe you're not saved.

God says you are a new creation in Christ, if you are trying to cop out on your behavior or attitudes by blaming it on your past, or your genetics, or whatever, then you need to hear if here first, it is just a cop out, God says otherwise. If you are in Christ, you are a new creation, you and everybody else around you should be seeing a major upgrade in who and what you are.

If you are a new creation in Christ, and you have a problem in some area, then what you need is more grace in that area. If more grace is needed, then more grace may be had. God is generous to give you what you need. But if you try to justify your sinful behavior and just keep doing it, how much grace do you think God can or will give you? God will give you a trip to the woodshed is what He'll give you.

Be very careful in this area of not throughly judging your sin. The way that you judge yourself concerning your sin is a good thermometer of your spiritual health. Let me ask you a serious question: does a child of God love sin? Is there some area in your life where some sin is more important to you than the love of God? Think about that. A child of God can fall victim to sin, but then the spiritual thing is a desire to be delivered from that sin, Amen?

What about a person who professes to be a child of God, and they are beset with some sin and perfectly happy to stay in it? What's wrong with that picture? If you have some sin in your life, and you are quite content to let it just continue on, and there is no desire to be delivered from it, then you and God need to get together just the two of you, and get real serious. As Peter says, "Be diligent to make your calling and your election sure."

There is another reason why it is so very necessary to make sure that not one of your sins escapes judgement, and that is the effect that you will have on the rest of your brothers and sisters here. This church is not just a collection of people and families that just occasionally happen to get together on a certain day, it is a local body of the body of Christ. One sin festering along in a church will slow down, bring down, and hinder the growth and work of the whole church body.

When Israel went to conquer the city of Ai, there was one man in the whole camp of Israel that had committed sin against the Lord, but the whole Israelite army was put to flight. What should have been an easy battle was a rout, and Israel was put to shame by the sin of one man in the camp. After the accursed thing was revealed and put away, then Israel continued forward in victory, but not before. Would you like to see this assembly grow spiritually, numerically, and every other way? Then we as individuals, each one of us, we need to get rid of each and every sin from our own lives, let not one of them escape.

Something else about sins, they never travel alone, they always go in packs, like German U-boats in WWII. If you think that you will tolerate just one sin, you can be assured that before long it will have company. When you take sin into your soul, it is like a bacteria. Before long, it will have multiplied a thousand times, and you will be spiritually very sick.

Hopefully by now, the Holy Spirit has convinced you that you need to take your Christianity seriously, clean out all of last years old dust and dirt and mess and get ready for a new year and a fresh walk with the Lord, but maybe you are not exactly sure about how to do it?

If you know anything about the Christian life, you know that you don't save yourself, it is an act of God's grace in Christ. You know that you don't keep yourself saved, it is also an act of God's grace in Christ. And you know that you don't grow in grace and sanctification on your own, it is also a work of God's grace in Christ, and the Holy Spirit is the one doing the work. But you can slow down the process a whole bunch by refusing to cooperate. Or stupidly wasting your time by insisting on going off in the wrong direction all the time, by trying to grow spiritually through the power of the flesh. You cannot kill your sins through the power of the flesh.

You can never gain victory over your sins through the power of the flesh, it doesn't work that way; never has, never will, and it's easy to prove. Let's say that you start to suspect that you have a problem with pride, so you figure the way to fix the problem is to act more humble. And you know what will happen to your pride after the flesh gets done fixing it? "I'm so glad I started practicing being more humble: I'm a lot more humble than I used to be!" No, now you're proud of your humility. A humble man mourns over his pride every day. A proud man thinks about his humility, and is proud of how much humility he has.

Cleansing from sin, and growing in Christlikeness is the work of the Holy Spirit. That is what He does. He magnifies Jesus Christ, and He does it in individual believers. If we think that we will be the ones to take the prophets of Baal and slay them ourselves, then we will fail, but if we hand them over to the Holy Spirit, then He will destroy them quite nicely.

Our task is to cooperate with Him, and ask Him to show us what sins there are in our lives. And when He does, give them over to Him. He wants us to listen to Him as he speaks to us, because He is the one to tell us what these different sins in our lives are. That means we need to pay attention to what He tells us. We need to listen. We need to watch. When the Holy Spirit brings to your attention something in your life that is not right, don't just fluff it off and go on, that's not why He did it. He brings it to your attention so that you can give it to Him, so that He can kill it. God is a gentleman. Even though He is sovereign, in most cases He still waits for your cooperation.

Be watchful. All of us know about our different sins that we each have, be watchful for an opportunity to give them to God so that He can put them to death. Satan is watchful for how he can mess you over, you need to be watchful for how you can give his pet projects to the Holy Spirit so that He can take the sword to them. And also be watchful that sin does not blindside you when you are not paying attention. Neil Young once made an album called "Rust Never Sleeps." Neither does sin. Sin doesn't sleep either, be alert.

Today is the last day of the old year, don't take any of last year's bad habits into the New Year. You don't need them, and neither does anybody else. God has chosen us to be holy. God has chosen us in Himself to redeem us from all iniquity. It is a great and wonderful thing to be saved and fitted for heaven, but meantime, God has left us on the earth because there is still something to be done. God has a purpose: to perfect us and to save others. God wants to show forth His workmanship in us, we are created to glorify God, to show forth the image of Christ Jesus. Cooperate with Him. Let Him slay the sins that are still in you. Don't let a single one of them escape.

Perhaps there is someone here today that the Holy Spirit has been dealing with you about something? Would like to come up to this altar and take care of it today? I know a number of you would like to do that.

This last week during Bible study, someone suggested that it would be good if others would come up and join those who come forward, lay a hand on their back or shoulder, stand with them, kneel with them, pray with them. This is already a close knit group, but we could be doing even more to encourage and draw closer to those that seek to draw closer to the Lord.

Turn to # 347, I Surrender All, we will sing that together, and if it turns out that the whole church ends up here at the altar and there is no one left to sing, that's OK too. # 347, I Surrender All.