Elijah’s Super Bowl 1 Kings 18: 1-2, 17-40
The word Almighty is used 56 times in scripture and it always refers to God; never to anyone else. God is all powerful, or omnipotent. There is nothing He can’t do. What a staggering thought. In today’s text God, through the prophet Elijah, demonstrates His superiority over the power of darkness – false gods and their prophets. This is the all-powerful God that we gather to worship. So how to you envision God? As timeless, in?nite, all-powerful, unchanging, glorious? Or do you see Him as one who can be fooled or manipulated by human hypocrisy? If one sees and believes Him to be one who has unlimited power and strength we can’t help but ?nd security in him to face any and all challenges and temptations in life. Today we are called to re?ect. How big is our God? If the Lord is God, then it’s time to follow Him.
Question: What is Baal worship?
Answer: Baal was the name of the supreme god worshiped in ancient Canaan and Phoenicia. The practice of Baal worship infiltrated Jewish religious life during the time of the Judges (Judges 3:7), became widespread in Israel during the reign of Ahab (1 Kings 16:31-33) and also affected Judah (2 Chronicles 28:1-2). The wordbaal means “lord”; the plural is baalim. In general, Baal was a fertility god who was believed to enable the earth to produce crops and people to produce children. Baal worship was rooted in sensuality and involved ritualistic prostitution in the temples. At times, appeasing Baal required human sacrifice, usually the firstborn of the one making the sacrifice (Jeremiah 19:5). The priests of Baal appealed to their god in rites of wild abandon which included loud, ecstatic cries and self-inflicted injury (1 Kings 18:28).
