Scripture Daily

Context No. 1744 of 4322 · 1 Kings

Context · Reflection

1 Kings 18:30-35: in context

30Elijah said to all the people, “Come near to me!”; and all the people came near to him. He repaired the LORD’s altar that had been thrown down. 31Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the LORD’s word came, saying, “Israel shall be your name.” 32With the stones he built an altar in the LORD’s name. He made a trench around the altar large enough to contain two seahs of seed. 33He put the wood in order, and cut the bull in pieces and laid it on the wood. He said, “Fill four jars with water, and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood.” 34He said, “Do it a second time;” and they did it the second time. He said, “Do it a third time;” and they did it the third time. 35The water ran around the altar; and he also filled the trench with water.

On Mount Carmel, before the contest with the prophets of Baal, Elijah calls the people near and repairs the altar of the LORD that had been thrown down, building it with twelve stones for the twelve tribes. He arranges the wood and the sacrifice, and then does something startling: he digs a trench around the altar and orders the offering drenched with water, once, twice, three times, until the wood is soaked and the trench itself is full. Only then does he prepare to call on God for fire.

Elijah's drenching of the sacrifice is an act of remarkable faith. He was about to ask God to send fire from heaven to consume the offering; and rather than making that easier, he made it humanly impossible, soaking the wood and the sacrifice and even the surrounding trench with water, so that no natural fire could catch, no trick could be suspected, no human explanation could be offered. If fire fell on that drenched altar, it could only be God. Elijah left no room for doubt and no human fallback; he staked everything on God actually acting, and arranged things so that when God did, there would be no mistaking it for anything else. There is a bold faith here worth pondering. We are more inclined to hedge, to keep a human backup in reserve, to arrange things so that if God does not come through, we can still explain the outcome or fall back on our own efforts. Elijah did the opposite: he removed every human explanation, drenched away every fallback, and left the matter entirely to God, so that the glory, when it came, would be unmistakably God's. This is not a call to be reckless or to test God, but it is a challenge to a faith that dares to leave room for God to act, that does not so hedge its bets with human backups that God's hand, if it moved, could never be clearly seen. Sometimes faith means soaking the altar, removing our fallbacks, staking the outcome on God, so that when he acts, there is no doubt whose work it was. Elijah drenched the sacrifice, and the fire that fell could only be God's.

Do I hedge my faith with human fallbacks, arranging things so that God's hand, even if it moved, could never clearly be seen, or can I dare, like Elijah drenching the altar, to leave room for God to act unmistakably, staking the outcome on him so that the glory, when it comes, is plainly his?

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