Elijah’s Sacrifice, Pt. 1
17
February 2008
Lord's Day evening
1 Kings 18:31-40
Introduction: Open your Bibles to the book of 1 Kings 18:31-40. The title of the message is “Elijah’s Sacrifice”.
Tonight I want to inspect what God requires in a sacrifice acceptable to Him. Obviously as we learned this morning, God would rather have our lives as a living sacrifice to Him, more than ten thousands of rivers of oil or thousands of rams. So what kind of sacrifice He accepts.
At all times we are either worshipping God acceptably or giving Him a maimed sacrifice. Is your sacrifice to God acceptable? Elijah’s was. Look at 1 Kings 18.
1 Kings 18:31-40, “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 31 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. 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. 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. 35 And the water ran round about the altar; and he filled the trench also with water. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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”.
I. First, there should be Participation in worship. Verse 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”. There were present in that gathering only members the ten tribes of Israel. But Elijah took twelve stones to build the altar with, illustrating that he was about to offer sacrifice in the name of the whole nation. The nation was divided. And where there is division or disinterest there is sin in the camp. You can’t say, well this is for him and the other is for me.
· If you come to Sunday school only when you are teaching Sunday School, then something is wrong.
· Some people come to church because they like the music program, or the youth program
· People come to church and are totally disinterested in one aspect of the service or another. All of this shows that there very likely is a hardness of heart. Something is not right.
· We are to come to church to serve, not to be served. To listen and to engage, not to be pew sitters. We are to come together, not to be divided. If you are divided from one member or another, do as Matthew 5:24 instructs us, “Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.” Participation in worship.
II. Secondly, there should be Precision in our worship. Look at verse 32, “And with the stones he built an altar in the name of the LORD…”. Elijah was careful how he worshipped the Lord. He carefully constructed it according to the Law of the Lord written in Exodus 20:25, “If thou wilt make Me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it”. He didn’t try to improve upon the stone. Human arts were not to be added. The truth here is that the worship of God given to us in the Bible cannot be improved upon. We don’t need to do our own thing when we come together to worship God. We always need to be examining our church and how we worship God to make sure we are not inventing things, but also to make sure that we are not simply doing something because of tradition.
Application: We don’t need a music concert to gather a crowd. We are not here for entertainment. Our music should be heart felt and it should open the heart. It should be well prepared. But we should not add anything to our worship of God.
This also applies to the truth we have. We worship God in Spirit and in truth. The Bible doesn’t need improvement. Every sin problem is a heart problem that can be solved by the Word of God. Every sin problem is an idol that can be torn down by God’s sufficient word.
He was building an altar before pagans—both the people and the priests were pagans. He would slaughter the priests, but he wanted to win back the people.
So many today want to win the people by bringing God’s holiness down. The moment you make God less holy than He is, you’ve created an idol! Be careful what you offer God. Elijah carefully built the altar of the Lord. What are some things we offer God that are unacceptable?
A. Unacceptable worship.
1. Half-hearted worship is unacceptable to God. God is a consuming fire. God demands our whole being in worship. He wants the best you’ve got! He wants your best lamb, not the one with the bum leg or the one that’s dying. In 2 Samuel 24:24, David was offered a threshing floor to offer his sacrifice to God. And Araunah was going to give it to David for free. David would have none of it, but said, “neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the LORD my God of that which doth cost me nothing.”
As old A W Tozer said, “The total life, the whole [person], has got to worship God.… If there is anything in me that does not worship God, then there is nothing in me that worships God perfectly! I do not say that God must have a perfection of worship or He will not accept any worship at all. I would not go so far; if I did, I would rule myself out. And we would all hang our harps on the willows and refuse to sing the songs of the Lord in a strange land. But, I do say that the ideal God sets before us is that we should worship as near to perfectly as we can.”[1]
God is entitled to our best. We need to “study to show ourselves approved unto God, a workmen that needeth not to be ashamed” (2 Timothy 2:15).
God gives a hearty warning in Jeremiah 48:10 that we all ought to heed, “Cursed be he that doeth the work of the LORD deceitfully [or negligently as the margin reads]”.
2. Outward show worship is unacceptable to God (Isaiah 1:10-15). This is the worship that falsely thinks that worship only occurs on Sunday morning or if you see another Christian in the grocery store. Then and only then do the spiritual words come out. But I’m here to say, that worship occurs at all times, public and private, not just when we see the pastor or other church members.
Test yourself: Do you get a cold sweat when you see the pastor or other church members in public? Then you may be concerned with outward show.
Application: Let me be even more specific. It used to be that we thought the real spiritual people were those who showed up for bus visitation. Now don’t get me wrong, I think most people serve God too little in their local church. When I became a pastor, I thought through how careless I was in my home church. I would have been much more involved if I would have known then what I know now. But worship must be practiced not only on visitation and on Sundays and Wednesday nights. Worship occurs when you turn on your radio. Don’t think you are spiritual just because you show up for church. You ought to do that. It’s your reasonable service. But if you fight with your wife and yell at your kids, or curse your boss under your breath, and then come and worship God, your worship is unacceptable to God.
B. Acceptable worship is always concerned wholehearted, consistently goes on both in and outside of the church and is both public and private. And it is always directed toward God, not for my benefit or praise, but for God. Verse 32 says, Ah, take note of that: “He built and altar in the name of the Lord”, that is, for God’s glory. And this is exactly how it should always be with us: “Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Colossians 3:17). If you cannot do something for the glory of God it is sinful. We ought to be asking:
· Can I read this book for the glory of God?
· Can I watch this film for the glory of God?
· Can I eat this film for the glory of God?
· Can I say this word for the glory of God?
Our whole life is a life of worship, and we do all to please God, and not to please ourselves.
III. There should be Preparation in worship. Look at how Elijah prepared the altar in verse 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”. Look at the preparation Elijah had for his sacrifice.
There is some good practical truth here. If you want God to speak to you Sunday morning, you’ve got to begin Saturday night. If you are out late and do not prepare for Sunday morning, then you are going to arrive late to church.
· It is not right to skip Sunday school because you’ve done Saturday night what could have been done some other time in the week.
· It’s not right to come into church late unless there’s been an emergency. You come to church late because you have not prepared yourself. You rush and try to beat traffic and then come into church with your mind spinning and unprepared.
· If you come to church with sin in your life, or unresolved conflict with family or fellow brothers or sisters in Christ, then you quench the Holy Spirit in the services. You may be hindering a blessing for our church.
On the positive side, if you will get a good night’s rest, come to church 15 minutes early, and come ready to serve and receive a blessing, you will most certainly be blessed. Come with your heart clean and your conscience clear!
IV. There should be Expectation in worship. Look at verse 34, “And [Elijah] 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. 35 And the water ran round about the altar; and he filled the trench also with water”. I believe Elijah was expecting God to work here. All in all Elijah got 12 barrels of water, one for each of the twelve tribes. You might wonder where he got all this water since there had been a drought. Remember that the Sea of Galilee was near by. Elijah had amazing faith in His worship. So much water was poured upon the altar, soaking the wood and the sacrifice. There seemed no way that God would consume it! It was clearly impossible to think that it could be done. But remember that God is not confined to the limits of humanity. He dwells in eternity.
To encourage you about having a growing, expectant faith, let me tell you the story of Abraham. Remember that God called him as a pagan from Ur of the Chaldees. And he was justified by his faith, because he left Ur and followed God. God promised him that he would have heirs that numbered the sand of the Sea.
But remember, he was 75 years old when God called him. Genesis 12:4, “So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.”
So he departed with Lot. Verse 2 God had said, “I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing”. There is no mention of Sarah here, so it is clear that Abraham believes his heir is going to come through Lot’s family, not his own.
Then later it seemed Abraham thought God would bless him through his eldest servant Eleazar’s family, and so he made Eleazar his heir.
Then Abraham took Hagar as a wife, and Ishmael was born. And God gives the promis. We read about it in Genesis 17:15, “And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. 16 And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her. 17 Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear? 18 And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee!”
Here is new information. Sarah will bear the son. He had never even taken this as a possibility. So he says, God I want you to do that which is possible, “O that Ishmael might live before thee!” But God responds in verse 19, “Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac”.
Finally Isaac is of age. And God tells him to sacrifice his son. And so he does not hesitate now! We read in Hebrews 11:17ff, “By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, 18 Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: 19 Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.” Come to God with expectation! Abraham anticipated that God would raise Isaac from the dead. What do you expect from God when as you live for Him?
Conclusion: Let me close by reminding you that we are at all times giving a sacrifice to God. It is either an acceptable sacrifice or a maimed sacrifice. Paul says that you are to “present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service” (Romans 12:1). Are you a living sacrifice? What are you giving to God? The problem with a living sacrifice is that it keeps crawling off the altar. My plea is that you would examine the sacrifice you are giving to God. Is it acceptable?