If the LORD is God

as the Lord, the God of Israel lives, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years except by my word.

And Elijah's challenge strikes at the false god Baal's core claim as the storm god who controls the rain, asserting that it's only Yahweh who controls life-giving rain and is truly alive. Under threat, Elijah flees. and hid, but the ravens fed him. Then a widow in Sidon provided for him through the miraculous supply of flour and oil. And when her son died, Elijah raised him to life and she declared his true identity. She says this,

now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord is in your mouth.

This is what sets the stage for the dramatic confrontation in chapter 18, where we are today. And really right at the center of this confrontation is a driving question in verse 21, where Elijah says,

how long will you go on limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him. But if Baal, follow him.

And it's that truth that is really the main focus of our text today. If the Lord is God, follow him. There are three different ways that our text gives models of what it looks like to respond to the identity of God as the one true God. First, obey his voice. Second, know his heart turning power. And thirdly and briefly, pray his promises persistently. So obey his voice, know his heart turning power, and pray his promises persistently. Let's look at our first point together. If the Lord is God, obey his voice. In the first 19 verses of our text, we're given three different portraits of obedience to the voice of God. The first one is Elijah and his public obedience, then Obadiah and then Ahab and his disobedience. Elijah's public obedience, our text opens with a word from the Lord. It says,

after many days, the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year saying, go show yourself to Ahab and I will send rain upon the earth. So Elijah went to show himself to Ahab.

It had been three and a half years of drought. That's how long it had been since Elijah first told Ahab that the rain would be withheld. And all that time, Elijah had been hiding from this very man who God now commanded him to reveal himself to. After all that time, God speaks one command, go show yourself. And Elijah obeys. And of course, maybe that seems overwhelmingly obvious. God speaks, Elijah obeys, but let's just state another equally obvious thing. Obedience is hard, especially risky or costly obedience. And this really was very costly for Elijah. Yet there's no record of Elijah asking for clarification, there's no protest, no delay, God speaks and Elijah moves. Immediate, costly obedience is not natural to our sinful nature. Our sin nature is self-focused, promoting self, entertaining self, preserving self, me, me, me. So the secret sauce, if you will, to obedience, it's not gonna come from looking within to just do more good, to obey God more. No, the reason that Elijah immediately obeyed the voice of the Lord, even at risk to himself, is that Elijah knew who was speaking to him. He knew the one who commanded him. The Lord is God. Elijah was being called to what we'll see was a very bold and public obedience. And yet the text immediately just after this gives another quieter, yet no less true example of obedience in Obadiah. Obadiah's obedience was risky and quiet. Verse three introduces him where it says,

now Obadiah feared the Lord greatly.

Right away, both from his name Obadiah, which means servant of the Lord, and from the description that he feared the Lord greatly, it's clear that this is a man of God. More striking, though, is his position. Obadiah was a high official in Ahab's court, ruling over his entire household. He was given enormous responsibility by Ahab himself. All the while he'd been living and working in the palace, surrounded by Baal worship and under the shadow of the evil queen Jezebel. Yet even under these immense pressures, we read this in verse four.

When Jezebel cut off the prophets of the Lord, Obadiah took a hundred prophets and hid them by fifties in a cave and fed them with bread and water.

Obadiah used his position as a custodian of the house of the most evil king that Israel had ever seen up to this point in order to hide and preserve the faithful prophets of God. And this hidden obedience was no less obedience to the voice of God than Elijah's coming very loud in public obedience. Highlights, perhaps, the various roles that the people of God have to play in the ultimate plan of God. The narrative continues in verse seven when he meets Elijah. He's shocked. He says,

is it you, my lord, Elijah?

And when Elijah tells him to go to Ahab, Obadiah balks. You can hear the fear in his voice. He knows that Ahab will kill him if Elijah doesn't show up when Ahab gets there. This isn't hypothetical fear. This is real risk. And yet, after Elijah reassures him in verse 15, what does Obadiah do? The text says,

so Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him.

He obeys the voice of the Lord through his prophet Elijah. Not with confidence, not without trembling, but nonetheless he obeys. Friends, it's possible to be afraid and still obey God. It's possible to feel weak and uncertain and still be faithful. God isn't looking necessarily for reckless confidence. He's looking for surrender. And like Elijah, it was the knowledge that the Lord was God and worthy of this risky obedience that fueled Obadiah. This is the theme that actually runs throughout the whole of scriptures. Jesus said in John chapter 10, verse 27,

my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me.

The sheep of Jesus obey the voice of their good shepherd Jesus as he knows them and as they know his voice. And of course, the voice of God today is chiefly manifested through his living and active word, which does accomplish the purposes for which God sent it out. Are we a people who are listening for the voice of the Lord through his word? Do we know the one who is speaking? Are we ready to obey what he says? Elijah shows us bold public obedience. Obadiah shows us quiet, risky obedience. And Ahab gives us a tragic portrait of hardened disobedience. And it's not subtle. From chapter 16 onward, Ahab was basically known for only one thing, idolatry. And here in chapter 18, despite three and a half years of divine silence, despite drought and famine and judgment, he had not repented. His heart was as hard as the dry, cracked ground around him. We also see Ahab's twisted priorities here. Look at verse five with me. It says,

and Ahab said to Obadiah, go through the land to all the springs of water into the valleys, and perhaps we may find grass to save the horses and mules alive and not lose some of the animals.

Just sit with that for a moment. The people of Israel are starving. Their children probably wasting away. And what is the king's focus? His animals. While the people suffer, Ahab is scheming on how to preserve his war horses. He's more worried about losing military strength than losing lives. This is what happens when the heart turns from the Lord. It doesn't just drift into harmless neutrality, it wrongly reorders everything. What should matter the most becomes dispensable. What is meant to serve becomes what is served. It's no accident that Ahab is off looking for grass to feed his horses while Obadiah is hiding God's prophets. The contrast couldn't be clearer. Then and finally, Elijah confronted him in verse 17.

When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, is it you, you doubter of Israel?

What stunning, stunning irony. The man whose sin has brought this judgment is now blaming the prophet of God for delivering God's word. This is what sin does. It refuses responsibility. It turns the truth teller into the enemy. But Elijah didn't flinch. He says,

I have not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father's house, because you have abandoned the commandments of the Lord and followed the balls.

Elijah indicted Ahab, not with opinion, but with the very word of God. So where does that leave us? Well, you and I are gonna look like one or more of these men in more ways than we may want to admit. Are we walking in bold obedience like Elijah, ready to speak, ready to act because we know the voice of the Lord? Are we walking in quiet, faithful obedience, yet risky obedience sometimes like Obadiah, risking reputation and safety for the sake of hidden obedience? Or perhaps in ways that maybe are obvious to you already or maybe ways that you haven't yet noticed. Maybe we're walking in the pattern of Ahab, letting idols steal our hearts, prioritizing comfort over compassion, blaming others while ignoring the voice of the Lord. Because the truth is this, everyone is obeying someone or something. Everyone is obeying someone or something. If you have ears to hear, hear this. If the Lord is God, obey his voice. The conversation between Ahab and Eliza is short and it ends with Elijah's proposed challenge in verse 19.

Now therefore, send and gather all Israel to me on Mount Carmel and the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel's table.

Let's move on to our second point. If the Lord is God, know his heart-turning power. If the Lord is God, know his heart-turning power. So we see in verse 20, the prophets of Baal were gathered. The drought had not yet broken, the sky was still closed, and the whole nation of Israel stood watching on this mountain of decision. And then Elijah spoke what we've already acknowledged is the central question which cuts to the heart of the matter in verse 21.

How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, then follow him, but if Baal, then follow him.

When Elijah asks how long will you go on limping between two opinions, he's not just describing some kind of harmless indecision. He's naming a spiritual disability. The word limping in Hebrew implies being crippled, dragging one foot behind the other, unable to walk in a straight path. It's the picture of a person who's torn in allegiance, trying to serve two masters, both Yahweh and Baal, and failing at both. From God's perspective, this isn't neutrality, it's betrayal disguised as devotion. And the response of the people, the text says,

and the people did not answer him a word.

Their silence betrayed their lukewarm hearts, neither affirming nor denying, perhaps just there for the spectacle of it all. The verses that follow here are full of all kinds of ironic contrasts. It begins with 450 prophets of Baal against the one prophet of Yahweh. Humanly speaking, this is far from a fair fight. And yet, Elijah goes on in verses 23 and on to lay out the ground rules for this test. In short, he says there's going to be sacrifices, bulls, wood, and altar, but no fire. That part must come from heaven. two altars, two gods, one entire nation there watching. Let the true God answer. The prophets of Baal went first. Verse 26 says,

and they took the bull that was given them, and they prepared it upon, and they prepared and called upon the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, O Baal, answer us. but there was no voice and no one answered.

This is actually meant to sound as sad and pathetic as it actually is. Crying out again and again, but there was no voice and no one answered. Again, it actually uses the same word as before, limp. It says

they limped around the altar that they had made.

If it wasn't clear already that their false worship was a form of spiritual disability, that the doubling down on the use of this uncommon word now to describe their worship itself confirms it. The world might look at what is happening and call it a dance, but God sees it for what it is, a limp that will ultimately lead to death. Elijah leaned into the sad irony of these false prophets and he mocks them. He says,

cry aloud for he is a God. Either he is musing or he is relieving himself or he's on a journey or perhaps he's asleep and he must be awakened.

This is just dripping with sarcasm. If your God's really there, what's taking him so long? Maybe he's sleeping or maybe he's too busy on the toilet to be bothered. Let's be clear, this isn't a justification for us as Christians to wave our mocking, scoffing superiority cards at the lost world. Doing that, it might get you a few followers online or a few laughs or snide remarks from your friends, but in most cases, mockery like this does not win hearts. There is, perhaps though, very seldom in cases like this a place for God-honoring sarcasm that's specifically aimed at exposing the futility of trusting in anything, anything at all, but the true living God. And that was Elijah's aim here. The actions of the prophets of Baal, they escalated in desperation in response to this. moving from sad and pathetic to what's honestly wildly painful and even heartbreaking to read. It says,

and they cried aloud and they cut themselves after their custom with swords and lances until the blood gushed out upon them.

All of their effort, all of their moaning, all of their wailing, it was all total vanity. Verse 29 says,

and as midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice, no one answered, no one paid attention.

The author could have just said it once, but instead three times, three ways, the same message. There was no voice, no one answered, no one paid attention. And the implications couldn't be clearer. Baal, just like every false god, cannot hear you, cannot answer your cries, cannot even speak. because there is no God but the one true God. And yet, don't be too quick to distance yourself from the sickness of heart that these men are afflicted with. For though our false gods cannot hear or answer us, we too limp between Christ, who is God, and our God of pornography. We limp between Christ, who is God, and the God of self. We limp between Christ, who is God, and the God of riches and power. Those false gods in our life, they are lifeless. They are voiceless. They are powerless to save us. They're dead. Here's the tragic irony of this. Just like these men. We keep limping toward gods who cannot speak, cannot save, cannot love us back, and in doing so, we die a slow death, clinging to what is already dead. The chaos ended with a chilling silence. Then Elijah stepped forward, not with frenzy, not with drama, but with quiet confidence in the Lord. Verse 30 says, he rebuilt the altar. He used 12 stones, one for each of the tribes of Israel, to remind these people what they had forgotten, who they were. They were God's covenant people. Then he took it further. He intentionally stacked the odds higher against God to make it undeniable when God acts. He dug a trench around the altar, and then he drenched the wood and the sacrifices with water three times over. Isn't this just like our God, though? Throughout the scriptures, God seems to love to show his ultimate victorious power from a place of human weakness. At the Exodus, God destroyed the powerful Egyptian army at the Red Sea. Gideon and his intentionally weakened army, down to 300 men, defeated the multitudes with the help of God. And of course, most powerfully, sin and death were defeated from a place of weakness and humiliation as our Savior hung on a cross. From this place of dependence on the Lord, Elijah cried out to God in prayer, not frantic and panicked like the worshipers of Baal, but confident. Verse 36,

O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word.

Elijah was confident that God was going to be known that day. Because Elijah hadn't acted on his own. He wasn't forcing some kind of dramatic conflict for his own whim and fancy. No, this was the plan of God. Elijah had done this at God's word. It was obedience. He continues praying in verse 37.

Answer me, oh Lord, answer me. that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God."

Elijah wasn't just praying for a dramatic moment. He was pleading for a revelation of who God truly is and what God alone can do. He wanted the people to know that the Lord isn't an idea or a tradition But the living, present, personal God who will not share his glory with idols. More than that, Elijah recognized that no one can see God unless God reveals it. That behind their turning hearts is the hand of God himself. His prayer concludes saying just that. He says

that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, that you have turned their hearts back.

This is the explosive center of the whole story. God doesn't just wait for wandering hearts to return. He takes dead, idol-chasing hearts and brings them back by his own power. As John Piper said,

when your heart turns back to the Lord, your heart is not sovereign. God is.

And explosively, full of power and fire, God does just that. Text says,

and then fire, the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood of the stones and the dust and licked up the water that was in the trench.

Everything that was on the altar was totally consumed by the power of God, even the water and the stones themselves. And the response of the people, it says,

and when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, the Lord, he is God. The Lord, he is God.

This is not just fire from heaven. This is God turning hearts back and reclaiming his people. They had been silent before, but now they praise the Lord. They had been limping, but now they bowed in prostrate worship. This is what God does. He turns hearts. We don't work ourselves into a frenzied obedience. We don't cut ourselves to get his attention. God is the one who acts in power. He answers in truth. He awakens our hearts. This is grace. And it's grace that can be seen all the more clearly and that these weren't a people that deserve to be given this grace. They had been unfaithful to God again and again and again. God did not have to do this. God did not have to reveal himself to his people. And this grace that we see here in this text, this is a grace that is offered freely to all of us who are here today. A grace that, like Philippians says, is seen most fully in the work of Jesus.

who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking on the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

He did not have to do this, friends. He did not have to rescue us, to humble himself, to suffer, to die. This is grace. Will you go on limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God and he is, if Christ is risen and he is, then follow him. The illusions of your lifeless idols and false gods, they're over. Align yourself with the reality of who Christ is and what he has done. If the Lord is God, then confess here, today, now, that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. For this grace that is present with us in this age, it will pass. And then, just like the prophets of Baal, a time of judgment and retribution will come. Verse 40 describes the prophets of Baal being seized, taken to the brook, and killed there as judgment. As an aside, we as a New Testament church, we don't enact the judgment of God in this way. We instead practice excommunication as a church, which we see an example of in 1 Corinthians chapter five. Now instead, we wait for the ultimate retribution of our God. For Jesus Christ, who right now extends heart-turning grace, will come again in the last days, but this time with a sword to strike down the unrepentant nations. All who have not been washed by his cleansing blood will face judgment. Ahab's response to this is also a warning to us. In verse 42, it says this, At Elijah's command,

so Ahab went up to eat and drink.

That's it. No response, no repentance, no prayer, just lunch. Ahab having witnessed the very fire of God, the defeat of false religion and the temporary turning of a nation's heart, he simply returns to his routine. He saw everything, everything that all of those people there saw, and yet he remained unchanged. It's one of the clearest warnings in this chapter. You can witness the power of God and remain unchanged. Ahab is a spiritual barometer of sorts to us. Because a true encounter with the reality of who God is, it should change us. And silence or a return to complacent routine, it's not neutrality, it's rejection. Let that be a caution to us. It is entirely possible for us to sit under the word, to be stirred emotionally, to sing loudly, and yet walk away as if nothing is any different. Do not harden your hearts like Ahab. Some of us don't need to see more of the power of God. We need to fall on our faces and plead for his mercy. To ask him to do what only he can do, to turn our hearts. Because when he does, we don't just watch the fire, we worship the Lord. If the Lord is God, then know his heart turning power. Lastly and briefly, if the Lord is God, pray his promises persistently. In verse 42, while Ahab walked away from his encounter unchanged, Elijah returned to his knees. If the Lord is God, then every word that he speaks can be trusted, every promise that he makes, sure. Back in verse 1, God told Elijah, I will send rain upon the earth. And so Elijah bowed not once, but seven times. James chapter five, speaking on faith-filled prayers, it uses Elijah as a key example for us on how to pray. And James's main point there is that Elijah is just a man whose prayer of faith was used powerfully by God. How? Elijah wasn't asking for direction, but for a promise that God had already given him. This wasn't desperation, it was confidence. He wasn't trying to change God's mind. He was holding fast to what God had already said would happen. And this is such a vital element of faithful prayer. Not vague, wishful, empty repetition, but hope anchored in what God has revealed in his word. Elijah kept praying because he knew who God is. He is the living God who does not lie, who does not forget, who does not tease us with empty words. He is faithful, and Elijah prays like it. And those prayers are effectual. And when the answer finally does come, it's not immediately a flood, but a cloud. That's what Elijah's servant describes. Small, barely visible. Verse 45 says that it was

a little cloud like a man's hand.

Yet immediately Elijah knows that this is the beginning of God's faithful response. That cloud was but a down payment of a coming torrential mercy. It's confirmation that the delay of praying seven times was not denial by God. That the waiting in our lives is often the workshop for faith. And that we as God's people, we might learn more on our knees in the gap between the promise and the fulfillment than we do when the skies finally open. This begs a question for all of us. Are we regularly, faithfully praying the promises of God? Are we daily pleading with the Lord for what he has already said that he delights to do? Are you praying for a life transformation as you read God's word? Because God has promised that his word is going to accomplish its purposes in our lives as he sent it out. Are you praying for endurance in trials? Because God has promised that his grace would be sufficient. Are you praying for bold witness of your faith? Because he has said that his spirit will give you words to speak Don't just wish, pray. God has spoken many, many promises throughout his word, so pray his promises to him. This isn't some kind of name it and claim it theology. You don't get to demand whatever you want and tack on in Jesus' name and then expect that God is going to make it so. This is simply taking God at His word as He has revealed it in scriptures and aligning our prayers with what He has already said that His will is. And therefore, we can and should have certainty that He will do it. So when a cloud does appear, when you see even the faintest sign of God's grace in God's hand, rejoice. It's not the finish line, but it might be the start of his thunderous grace. God did respond to Elijah. Verse 45 said,

the heavens grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain.

God did what he said he was going to do. He always does. And just to make sure that we know who is the one behind all of this, verse 46 says,

and the hand of the Lord was on Elijah.

This was not the work of Elijah, but of him to whom Elijah spoke and trusted in, the Lord God. So friends, if the Lord is God, keep praying his promises. Not because it's easy, but because he is faithful. Not because you feel strong, but because God has spoken. Not to get what you want, but to see him for who he is and to give him glory in your life. And when his promises feel slow in coming, look for the cloud. The sky will break. And the promised rain will fall because God said that it would. If the Lord is God, which He is, then obey Him, know Him, pray to Him. If the Lord is God, which He is, follow Him. Would you pray with me? O Lord God, You are God. There is none beside you, none like you. Tune our hearts to sing your praise. In Jesus' name, amen.