Most of us are so conscious of some lurking weakness, and so fearful of ourselves, that we are reluctant to pledge ourselves to any definite course of action. The fact is plain, we do not like to make up our minds. And yet there is this awful law working itself out in the case of every one of us, that, whether we like it or not, our minds are being made up day by day.
The Jews in the time of Ahab found it most convenient to go with the fashion of the time and worship Baal; and when the really critical moment came, there was not a man who was prepared to make his choice between truth and falsehood. "The people answered him not a word."
Let us take the warning of the story. If it be true that life's great matters are not settled by a single act of choice, but by the habit of choosing rightly; if it be true that one grand critical moment comes to but very few, and that that moment is only the last moment of a chain of other moments, each one of which is as important as its successor, then those who make the choice rightly are the men who look upon the two paths of principle and convenience, of interest and duty, as distinct as honour and shame, as good and evil. The Lord, He is the God, and Him they will serve.
Let us remember that every hour we must look upon as the deciding hour which we will serve, good or evil, Christ or Belial.
A. Jessopp, Norwich School Sermons,p. 87
I. Elijah's message was limited to his age. He was not a seer of the future; no prophecies, properly so called, have come to us through him. What strikes us specially in him is the remarkable unity of his aim. His one message was the assertion of the to us simple truth of the unity of the true God, and His sole absolute claim on His creatures. It was the union of a grand revelation with the intensest inward fire which formed the force that bore Elijah on.
II. We may learn from the history of Elijah: (1) that the rest we need is to be acquired only by secret communing with God Himself; (2) that strength sufficient to support us when we stand alone is to be found in that simple hold upon God which seemed to be the one truth of Elijah's teaching.
T. T. Carter, Oxford Lent Sermons,1869, p. 125.
Strange is it, if we think who God is, what Baal was, that such a choice should have ever had to be put to man; stranger yet that it should have had to be put to a people to whom God had declared His love for them, His individual care of them and of each soul among them.
Human nature remains the same now as then; God's claim on the sole allegiance of the creatures He has made remains the same; the temptingness of things out of God or contrary to God remains still the same; God's word speaks to our souls in histories: unlike in form, in their essence they are our very selves.
I. The world is still full of compromises. One might say, the world of this day is one great compromise. It hates nothing so much as Elijah's choice. The world is lax; it must hate strictness: the world is lawless; it must hate absolute, unyielding law, which presses it: the world would be sovereign, keeping religion in its own place, to minister to its well-being, to correct excesses, to soothe it, when wanted. But a kingdom which, though not of the world, demands the absolute submission of the world, must of course provoke the world's opposition.
II. Satan's temptations still begin by compromise. He repeats what was so miserably successful in Paradise: "Hath God indeed said?" He would take us on our weak side. He sees how essential to love and faith in God are humility and purity, and he is wise enough to begin his attacks on either from afar off: on purity by something not felt to be sin; on humility by thoughts of not being behind the age. You hear of the "reign of law" in all the physical creation; but of a reign of law over yourselves, to infringe which is to violate nature itself, of this modern philosophy teaches nothing.
III. Choose Him who alone is to be yours; choose to be henceforth wholly His. Other lords may have had dominion over you. Say this day, with His converted people, "The Lord, He is the God; the Lord, He is the God."
E. B. Pusey, Parochial and Cathedral Sermons,p. 369.
The "halting between two opinions" is one of the evils of the times, to some extent of all times. The world is singularly fond of compromises, and the same spirit finds its way into the Church. The appeal of the text has to do both with principles and practice.
I. It calls for decision as to the truth itself. "If the Lord be God" that was the first point on which the people were to satisfy themselves. The question which every hearer of the Gospel has to settle for himself is whether he will trust in Christ as his Saviour and serve Him as his Lord. The one condition laid down by Christ Himself, and, indeed, growing out of the nature of the requirement, is that the decision should be clear and absolute.
II. This decision should lead to entire consecration. "If the Lord be God, follow Him." The following of Christ means the consecration of the entire nature that is, the service of every separate part of the being, and the whole of each.
J. Guinness Rogers, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxviii., p. 41.
References: 1 Kings 18:21. Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons,3rd series, p. 63; W. Hay Aitken, Mission Sermons,1st series, p. 185; F. W. Robertson, The Human Race, and Other Sermons,p. 87; A. Tholuck, Hours of Devotion,p. 234; W. Anderson, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xiv., p. 309; W. Meller, Village Homilies,p. 219; Gresley, Practical Sermons,p. 319; H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Waterside Mission Sermons,1st series, p. 77; R. Twigg, Sermons,p. 136; Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. iii., No. 134; J. Natt, Posthumous Sermons,p. 155; New Manual of Sunday-school Addresses,p. 126; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. i., p. 73; Congregationalist,vol. viii., p. 138; Preacher's Monthly,vol. ii., p. 119, and vol. iv., p. 330; C. Wordsworth, Occasional Sermons,7th series, p. 131; Contemporary Pulpit,vol. vii., p. 64; W. M. Taylor, Elijah the Prophet,p. 96. 1 Kings 18:21-40. J. R. Macduff, The Prophet of Fire,p. 113.