New Days, Old Demons: A Study of ElijahShembull

Do Powerful Demons Run Religion and Government Through False Prophets?

The battle in Israel, just like the war in Heaven, was over who got to sit on a throne. The demonic king Ahab sat on David’s throne in Israel. God had been very clear that David’s throne was under His throne, as well as several traits regarding those who sat on David’s throne:

• Had to be a Hebrew who married a Hebrew
• Lived in obedience to the Word of God in the fear of the Lord
• Guarded his heart from the false trinity of greed, pride, and pleasure
• Cared for God’s children with the love that he had for his own children
• Led the nation in singular devotion to the Lord.

Ahab did exactly the opposite of everything God commanded. Ahab was not God and, unless he was a servant of God, the real God would remove him from the throne. The battle at Mount Carmel was ultimately spiritual warfare between God’s throne on earth, and whether He would permit Satan to occupy it through Ahab and Jezebel. The scene is very public, as this is an evangelistic moment. Elijah does not speak much to the false prophets. Instead, he speaks to the fearful people. In that day, many of God’s people were apostate, lukewarm, and living compromised lives. They saw the religious schools closed and religious leaders killed, so they decided to dilute their faith rather than destroy their life.

The people did not answer, because they wanted to see who won the fight before they declared their allegiance. They were living by sight, not by faith. However, God graciously and patiently pursues them as He does us. In this scene, we learn some important lessons about evangelism.

First, our faith is to be public and not private. Since God is Lord over our public and private lives, our worship of Him and witness for Him must be both private and public.

Second, some people come to saving faith through persuasion, and others through power. Those who come to faith through persuasion typically have a lot of questions and objections to be answered. Those who come to faith through power typically see God show up and do some sort of supernatural miracle that proves to them, through experience, that God is real. In this scene of Elijah’s evangelistic ministry, the people will need to see God’s power to convert. Like any battle, the terms are publicly stated so that the winner is obvious in the end, “…you call upon the name of your god, and I will call upon the name of the LORD, and the God who answers by fire, he is God.”

Elijah begins by honoring God through rebuilding the altar, which had belonged to the Lord, but had been destroyed when the worship sites for God were torn down. Elijah then has the entire sacrifice drenched in water (possibly salt water, which was available nearby, as fresh water was scarce from the drought) to show God’s power without question. Unlike demonic false prophets who sought to control through witchcraft, Elijah merely prays to God, who is free to do as He pleases and cannot be controlled or manipulated by anyone. God then sends fire from Heaven that consumes the bull, the stones, and even the water and dirt. This moment had to look something like a military airstrike from Heaven; exactly on target, arriving in an instant, reminiscent of the days when God did the same on Sodom and Gomorrah

What they really wanted was rain, and what they got was fire. God often works this way, giving us what we need before giving us what we want. The fire they needed came first and, as we will see, the rain they needed came next.

Elijah then had the 850 false prophets slaughtered. Why? Because they were so demon possessed that, like Judas many years later, they would never repent or change. They would only continue to do evil and invite the demonic back into Israel. Had this not been true, they would have fallen and worshipped the Lord with the people when fire came down from Heaven, but they did not. Evil does not stop itself, and so it must be stopped.

Today, although these people no longer live, their demons do. They continue their same work today, as they did in Elijah’s day, in everything from politics, to business, and religion. They continue to oppose, threaten, and even silence those who speak the Word of God truly and boldly as Elijah did. These same spirits cause the same fear in many of God’s people as they did in the past.

1.Look up the following Scriptures to see what Jesus, Paul, and John said about true versus false prophets: Matthew 7:15, 24:11,24; Acts 20:29-31; 1 John 4:1.