Bowing to Idols

God showed me something new in His Word this past Sunday.

As Shep taught our class about the showdown between Elijah and the prophets of Baal, God had a modern day lesson for me.

1 Kings chapter 18 is pretty dramatic.  

Elijah intends to show the people of Israel that the LORD is God alone.  These people have followed false gods and have turned away from the one true God. 

The stage is set.

Two bulls are chosen and cut up for a sacrifice and placed upon wood. 

The 450 prophets of Baal are to call upon their god to answer by fire and consume the sacrifice.

Elijah, a prophet of God, will do the exact same thing (as well as soak his altar with water three times and build a trench) and call upon God to consume his bull by fire.

We know the outcome....the prophets of Baal call to their god and he does nothing.  Elijah calls upon the Lord God and "the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, and the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench." (v.38)

However the outcome of this story is not what God had in mind for me. 

My application came 10 verses earlier in the story.  The prophets of Baal called on their god repeatedly.  Verse 28 says, " So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed."

These people had been completely deceived.  The same enemy that seeks to steal, kill, and destroy us had disillusioned them.  They had decided to place their hope in a false god.  They bowed to it.  They believed in it.  They even slashed themselves until their own blood flowed.

Are we that different?

Do we place our hope in any false gods?
Do we bow to them?
Do we believe in them?
Do we cry out to them repeatedly to save us...deliver us....help us?

I know I have.  From time to time I still do.

I bow to security.
I bow to prosperity.
I bow to power.
I bow to popularity.
I bow to jealousy and anger.
I bow to resentment.

We may shun the idea of any of these things being a false god...but if you place your hope or focus on them instead of God...one or more of them has become an idol.

Thankfully the Holy Spirit will convict me when I bow to any of these idols.  He is a jealous God and will allow nothing else to come before Him.  This is for my own good.  My other gods remain silent just like Baal.  They have no real power....I only imagine a false sense of control.

As God showed me this in my own life He took it a step further. 

Did you notice that these people cut themselves until their blood flowed?

I meet young women each week at our center who have done the same thing.  They are so desperate to find security, fulfillment, and hope that they will cut themselves just to try to attain some attention or some type of cleansing.

God asks us to bow to Him alone because His blood flowed. Ours doesn't have to.

Not only did it flow for us but He can still consume like a fire and show Himself mighty!

Let's live the sacrificial life set ablaze by God's holy fire.