[1 Kings 1:20-39]So Ahab sent word throughout all Israel and assembled the prophets on Mount Carmel. 21Elijah went before the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.” But the people said nothing. 22Then Elijah said to them, “I am the only one of the Lord’s prophets left, but Baal has four hundred and fifty prophets. 23Get two bulls for us. Let Baal’s prophets choose one for themselves, and let them cut it into pieces and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. I will prepare the other bull and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. 24Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the Lord. The god who answers by fire—he is God.” Then all the people said, “What you say is good.” 25Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose one of the bulls and prepare it first, since there are so many of you. Call on the name of your god, but do not light the fire.” 26So they took the bull given them and prepared it. Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. “Baal, answer us!” they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made. 27At noon Elijah began to taunt them. “Shout louder!” he said. “Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.” 28So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. 29Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention. 30Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come here to me.” They came to him, and he repaired the altar of the Lord, which had been torn down. 31Elijah took twelve stones, one for each of the tribes descended from Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, “Your name shall be Israel.” 32With the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord, and he dug a trench around it large enough to hold two seahs of seed. 33He arranged the wood, cut the bull into pieces and laid it on the wood. Then he said to them, “Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood.” 34“Do it again,” he said, and they did it again. “Do it a third time,” he ordered, and they did it the third time. 35The water ran down around the altar and even filled the trench. 36At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: “Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. 37Answer me, Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.” 38Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench. 39When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, “The Lord—he is God! The Lord—he is God!”

Elijah was the Martin Luther of the Old Testament. He experienced many of the same spiritual highs and lows that Luther experienced. They both lived at a time when God’s Word was obscured or absent altogether. At Luther’s time, the Bible was not available to the rank and file; it was chained in libraries and locked away in a language they couldn’t comprehend. The people were at the mercy of unscrupulous leadership, who extorted money from the common folk by requiring them to buy the forgiveness of their sins. God’s people were being led astray by corrupt leaders looking out for their own interests. At Elijah’s time, each new king who came to power elicited this evaluation in the Bible: “He did evil in the eyes of the Lord.” At just the right time God raised up champions of the faith like Elijah and Luther to speak His truth and reform His Church. This morning, we will look at:

Elijah and Luther: God’s Men of the Moment

Elijah stepped onto the scene as a man with a mission, intent on returning the Israelite hearts to God. Love and devotion to the Lord had dwindled to nearly nothing among the people of Israel. Enter Ahab, the most wicked king in a long line of cruel and wicked kings who married the notoriously evil and ruthless Jezebel. Jezebel wasted no time dotting Israel's hills with Baal's altars, exterminating the Lord’s prophets, and persecuting His people. With Jezebel promoting it and Ahab protecting it, Baal worship proliferated, entangling God's people deeper and deeper in the clutches of idolatry. 

When the world had seemingly forgotten the true God, it was time for God to step into the picture. With his fiery spirit, Elijah was God’s Man of the Moment. He burst onto the scene like a lightning bolt, with no backstory—just pure purpose. Out of the blue, he stood before Ahab, proclaiming a three-year drought, then vanished into the wind. After those years of famine, the prophet emerged again, spoiling for a spiritual showdown. The stage was set on Mount Carmel, where the false prophets and the entire nation would witness the ultimate battle: Jehovah versus Baal. With fiery zeal and unwavering faith, Elijah stood resolved and ready to demonstrate God's power, embodying the courage and conviction essential to lead Israel back from the brink of idolatry. Let’s dive into this epic tale, focusing on the traits that made Elijah a legend. As we celebrate the Reformation this weekend, we will also see that the Great Reformer Martin Luther shared those same legendary traits. Both Elijah and Luther were:

1. Men of Conviction

This is the last in the Saturday series on the Prince of the Prophets. With the people gathered together, Elijah took center stage. First, he charged them with compromise: "How long will you waver between two opinions?" he thundered. The prophet pinpoints the problem: Israel was willing to dance with the devil (Baal) or walk with the Lord whenever it suited them and whenever it was convenient for them. Elijah declared that this indecision and lack of conviction were huge mistakes. Elijah stood strong, unafraid of confrontation, and accused the people of compromise; then he proceeded to call them to unwavering commitment, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.” To waver between two opinions is to have no opinion at all, and it's sheer folly when it comes to choosing one's loyalty to God.

We can shift our tastes, opinions, and convictions in politics, sports, business, and countless other aspects of life. But faith is different: either we follow the Lord, or we follow another false god. Today, we are confronted with a similar choice: a choice between the true God or false gods, idols like profit, power, or pleasure. We can’t serve both. To remain undecided is the worst decision of all. In faith, there’s no middle ground. To waver is to flirt with disaster. Saints, pledge your allegiance to the Lord with conviction; vacillation can be eternally fatal.

Elijah was a man of rock-solid conviction. His name, meaning "Jehovah is my God," suited him perfectly. Elijah called on the people to cast aside their indecision and to make a bold commitment. “If the Lord is God, follow Him. If Baal is God, follow him.” Elijah set in motion a reformation with his unyielding conviction. Elijah called on all of God’s people to choose God and commit to Him with unwavering dedication. 

Luther also was a man of firm conviction. Because of his unmovable and unshakable conviction that the Bible is God’s inspired and inerrant Word, and because he had the courage of his conviction, and because he dared to speak what he believed, the church underwent a Reformation. Both Elijah and Luther were Men of Conviction, but they were also…

2. Men of Courage 

Elijah laid out his plan with dramatic flair. He proposed that the 450 prophets of Baal take a bull, cut it up, and place it on the altar without lighting a fire. Elijah would do the same with another bull. Then, they would each call upon their god—the prophets of Baal on their deity and Elijah on the Lord. The god who answered with fire would be the true God. The people agreed it was a fair test. Elijah turned to the prophets of Baal and graciously let them go first, “Choose one of the bulls and prepare it first since there are so many of you. Call on the name of your god, but do not light the fire.” It was pretty much one man against the world. He was outnumbered 450 to one, but numbers didn't faze him. He knew that one man with God is a majority. 

Luther, likewise, was up against the most powerful men in the world at his time, not to mention the most high-powered theologians of his day. Like Elijah, it was one man against the world. Luther never flinched. He never backed down. He took his stand behind the bulwarks of the Bible: “Unless I am convinced by Scripture…my conscience is bound to God’s Word…Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.” Luther didn’t budge an inch when it came to compromising the truth or authority of Scripture. Every generation and every land need people with Elijah's and Luther’s courage to keep this truth alive and front and center. 

3. Men of Confidence

After the spectacular failure of the prophets of Baal, Elijah summoned the people to himself. He carefully built an altar of twelve stones; then he had the people drench the altar with four barrels of water, not once, not twice, but three times, until twelve barrels had completely soaked the offering and the wood and the altar, even filling the trench around the altar.

Elijah's intent was crystal clear: no one could doubt that what was about to happen was the direct intervention of Almighty God Himself. Standing alone against all the false prophets of Baal, Elijah was now ready to call down fire. Failure meant certain death—the crowd would turn on him, crushing him with the very stones of his altar if fire did not descend. Yet, Elijah remained calm and confident. He knew his fate was in God's hands, and his unfaltering faith gave him the courage to stand firm and trust that God would answer his call. So there he stood, undaunted, ready to show the power of the one true God to a doubt-filled and divided people.

Elijah's unwavering confidence stemmed from his trust in God's Word. As he declared in verse 36, "I am your servant and have done all these things at your command." This profound trust in God's guidance allowed him to hold fast to his convictions, even when the majority strayed. Saints, it takes immense courage to declare, "Where He leads, I will follow," and to face overwhelming odds with a calm and confident spirit. 

Elijah was simply doing what God commanded, leaving the outcome in God's hands. This unbending faith and obedience have been the hallmark of God's fearless followers through the ages. They act on His Word and let the chips fall where they may, knowing that their confidence rests not in their own strength but in God’s strength. It's a timeless truth: those who follow God's Word with unflinching devotion find the courage and strength to stand firm, no matter what challenges they face. Let’s pray that God would give us that same resolve and strength to stand firm in the faith come what may.

Luther, too, remained calm and confident when he was called on the carpet and summoned to a hearing at the Diet of Worms in Germany in 1521, a meeting designed to expose Luther as a heretic and to compel him to retract his writings. When Martin Luther was summoned by Emperor Charles V to Worms for a trial, his friends feared he would be put to death and urged him not to go. But Luther, unwavering in his faith, declared, "If there were as many devils in Worms as there are tiles on the roofs, I would still go there." Sounds a lot like Elijah, doesn’t it? Both were leaders of monumental reformations against overwhelming odds, but their confidence wasn't in themselves—it was in the Word of God.

They trusted that God would fulfill His promises. Elijah expected fire to fall, so it was no surprise when, after his simple prayer of faith, flames descended and consumed not only the sacrifice but also the wood, the stones, the dust, and even the water in the trench. The sight left no doubt in the people's minds about who the true God was.

A revival blazed through the land, and the God of Israel was glorified. From the heights of Mount Carmel to the shadows of Mount Calvary, God’s presence moved powerfully, culminating in the ultimate sacrifice of His Son. Luther’s Reformation also caught fire, and the truth spread like a prairie fire throughout Germany and the world of his day.

Our own times are in desperate need of men of faith and a modern-day Reformation once again. Sadly, the battle for the Bible is being lost today as more and more mainline religions reject the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture and subject God’s Word to their finite human understanding and faulty human reason. In a world that is soft on sin, there is tremendous societal pressure to compromise the truth of God’s Word. More than a few churches tell people what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear. More than a few churches preach a social Gospel that focuses on making this world a better place to live instead of prepping souls for the world to come in heaven. By the grace of God and by the courage and conviction of men like Martin Luther, we are blessed to have the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ at Crean Lutheran. We subscribe wholeheartedly to the three solas of the Reformation. By grace alone. By faith alone. By Scripture alone. 

Saints, God’s got work for us to do! Important work! May we all be like the great Reformers Elijah and Luther, embracing and embodying conviction, courage, and confidence rooted and grounded in the Word of God. Let's stand firm, hearts ablaze, ready to set the world on fire with the Word once again. Amen.

Rev. Timothy A. Unke, Campus Pastor

Crean Lutheran High School

campuspastor@creanlutheran.org