Thinking about the conflict man has with
nature. 1 Kings Ch. 18
The circumstances
of the confrontation on Mount Carmel is not that different from the circumstances that we
face in our world around us. The northern kingdom was a nation that had a history
that was grounded in God’s revelation to them. They had a tremendous history of
truth, a tremendous past of great glory, freedom and prosperity under David and
Solomon, but once Solomon died and Rehoboam became
the king we saw that there was arrogance in his heart and soul. There was a tax
revolt but that was something that was the will of God because He was bringing
discipline upon that nation because of their paganism that had come in through
Solomon. The people had approved of that and were beginning to synthesize the
worship of Yahweh with these false
religions. So God had brought judgment on the northern kingdom as He had
outlined in Leviticus chapter 26, and that included that He would bring drought
and famine on the nation.
If we are going to do what
the Bible says in Romans 12:2, exchange the thinking in our souls for the
thinking of the Word and be transformed by the renewing of our minds, we have
to think. Most people don’t like to think, which is why they don’t go to good
Bible teaching churches too often, they just like to go where they can sit and
be entertained by various musicians and have a nice little prosperity,
feel-good message that is designed just to make them feel good about all of
their false thinking. So there is always this conflict that we have in history
and we see this great example of it in Elijah, the conflict between the truth
of God and the truth of man, which ultimately goes back to the same old battle
that we have had since the serpent in the garden, i.e. the truth of the creator
versus the truth of the creature. Are we going to worship the creator or are we
going to worship the creation? The Scripture says that is always the trend and
was the trend in Israel in the ancient world; they had succumbed to nature worship, to the
worship of the gods of fertility which was their path to prosperity. What was
so remarkable about all of Elijah’s miracles is that every single one was
designed to show that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob trumps the god of
Baal every single time; every single one was designed to show that Baal was
impotent.
The fire which came down on
the altar was just the beginning of the change which took place. This was no
surprise to Elijah; he understands the background, the various events in the
past where God had sent fire from heaven. 1 Chronicles 21:26 tells of God sending fire from heaven on an altar
that David built. In 2 Chronicles 7:1 God sent a fire from heaven consuming the
burnt offerings and sacrifices at the dedication of the temple. Leviticus 9:24, fire came from the Lord and consumed the burnt
offering and the fat on the altar. So this is not something new that was just
generated by Elijah, he was able to set up the contest because he basically
uses the faith-rest drill, he knows what the issues are. And the issues, then,
aren’t any different than what they are today.
This conflict of thought that
is occurring between the divine viewpoint biblical thought that is what gives
Elijah his courage, strength, power versus all of these syncretists
is the same battle we face in our soul every single day, challenging the human
viewpoint garbage that we have sucked up from the world around us. It is the
same battle we face when we deal with family members or friends or others in
our culture; they are just like the priests of Baal in more ways than we can
imagine. All of those Israelites up on Mount Carmel were not thinking about their lives biblically, and
it is the same thing today.
We need to ask the question:
how does the challenge on Mount
Carmel enable us to think
biblically about our relationship to God, man and creation. Creation we prefer
to use as a divine viewpoint category; nature really more of a human viewpoint
category. Secondly, what forms has the human viewpoint system taken today to shape
the thinking of our culture? Third, how much of that is in our soul, taken in
from the world around us?
One thing we see in human
viewpoint that goes back to probably the garden but it really got developed by
the Greeks a lot is called the great chain of being. Without going into this in
depth this really got developed and systematized by Aristotle and what he basically
said was that this chain of being is a continuity of being from top to bottom
and it includes everything in the universe. We could say as a definition that
it is a hierarchy of static unchanging forms with god who is being itself—sometimes
called the unmoved mover, the good, the absolute, and other terms—then angels,
plants, animals, down to the inanimate objects; all part of the same chain of
being. There is really no difference in kind there; it’s just a difference in
degree. This movement in the ancient world was from top to bottom but in the
modern world it is from bottom to top. To diagram this we start at the top with
God and God is in the box; He is part of everything else. Is that biblical? That
is how the ancient gods and goddesses were; they were part of creation, part of
nature, part of this whole chain of being so that their being was not
qualitatively different from our being. But God isn’t some just isn’t man blown
up big like some blow-up doll which just looks like Superman. Then there were
angelic beings or spirit beings out there, man under that, then animals, vegetation,
rocks, earth, water, etc. And they are all together, so we can’t do anything to
hurt them because then it hurts everything else! Then we have astronomical and
geophysical environment. That includes the climate and climate change. What you
say about the climate, how you interpret the data that you get, is going to be
determined a lot by the glasses you put on. If you put on those
Darwinistic, naturalistic glasses then you are going
to look at the data differently than if you put on your Old Testament and New Testament
glasses. The problem is we have a lot of regenerate, redeemed Christians who
because they have been at these pious platitude churches that are so shallow.
But do we think that we are going to overturn ten or one hundred thousand hours
of human viewpoint brainwashing from the public school system, television and
everything else with 45-50 minutes once a week? Talk about self-deception!
Romans chapter one tells
us that “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” Men suppress
the truth; they hate God and they’re worshipping the creation rather creator. Romans
1:25 NASB “For they exchanged the truth of God
for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who
is blessed forever. Amen.” The problem that we have with nature (and it is a
problem) isn’t because of the industrial revolution, because of hydrocarbons or
gasoline or any of these things, it is because of God. God did it, not man. God
cursed the ground, Genesis 3:17. There was a curse on the animals. But there is
going to be a real redemption, and that is indicated in the ministry of Jesus.
In the prophecy of the Millennial kingdom in Isaiah
11:6-9 we read that this curse is reversed. Isaiah 11:6 NASB “And
the wolf will dwell with the lamb, And the leopard
will lie down with the young goat, And the calf and the young lion and the
fatling together; And a little boy will lead them. [7] Also the
cow and the bear will graze, Their young will lie down
together, And the lion will eat straw like the ox. [8] The nursing
child will play by the hole of the cobra, And the
weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den. [9] They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, For
the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD As the waters cover the sea.”
It will be reversed, not by the environmentalists or the politicians, but when
Jesus Christ returns and not until then. The change is produced because Jesus
Christ paid the penalty for sin on the cross. That laid the foundation. When He
returns he can work out the results of that redemption upon creation. Romans
8:19-23 NASB “For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly
for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to
futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope
that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption
into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know
that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together
until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of
the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for {our}
adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.” That is our hope. The only hope
is Jesus Christ and nothing else.