The conduct of the priests of Baal is in many respects well fitted to put to shame the disciples of Christ.
I. Notice first their zeal. They were willing to suffer and cut themselves with knives and lancets till the blood gushed out. The zeal and self-devotion with which idolaters will act on their mistakes ought to put us to the blush for the lukewarmness and cowardice which we often display in acting on our truths. The men who cheerfully acted on the precepts of a sanguinary religion are confronted with those among us who will not submit to the precepts of a mild one.
II. Notice how the idolatrous priests persevered, in spite of the keen ridicule of Elijah. In the matter of religion there is nothing which men find it so difficult to bear as ridicule. It can never be said that the priests of Baal had better reasons for being staunch in their adherence to their idol than the servants of God for confidence in His power and protection. They may be brought up as witnesses against us at the last if we show deficiency either in zeal or courage.
III. These priests furnish us with another lesson by their importunity. They persisted in praying, though no answer was vouchsafed. The silence of their deity appears to have been with them nothing but a reason for greater importunity; they were all the more earnest because they had obtained as yet no answer. Thus they seem to have held fast the principle that the Divine unchangeableness is not an argument against, but for, the possible utility of importunate prayer. We must bring the supremacy of our God to the test to which the idolaters were ready to submit that of Baal. "The God that answereth by fire, let him be God." There are those amongst us who have other gods than Jehovah. But can they answer by fire? It is the promise, the characteristic, of the dispensation under which we live, "Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire."
H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit,No. 1514.
References: 1 Kings 18:28. J. T. Jeffcock, Sermons in Town and Country,p. 56. 1 Kings 18:30-40. Parker, vol. viii., p. 36. 1 Kings 18:36. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxxi., No. 1832. 1 Kings 18:38. A. J. Griffith, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxiv., p. 259. 1 Kings 18:38; 1 Kings 18:39. J. M. Neale, Sermons in Sackville College,vol. iii., p. 40. 1 Kings 18:39. G. Moberly, Parochial Sermons,p. 257; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons,p. 34. 1 Kings 18:40. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xviii., No. 1058; Ibid., Evening by Evening,p. 200; H. W. Beecher, Plymouth Pulpit: Sermons,10th series, p. 473. 1 Kings 18:40-46. W. M. Taylor, Elijah the Prophet,p. 112. 1 Kings 18:41-46. J. R. Macduff, The Prophet of Fire,p. 129; H omiletic Magazine,vol. xiii., p. 78. 1 Kings 18:42-44. Preacher's Monthly,vol. iv., p. 99.