It is poplar in today’s television culture to do shows on
supernatural themes. One such show is Sleepy Hollow. It is a show which mixes the fictional story
of Washington Irving’s Sleepy Hollow with oddly the book of Revelation and two
figures in the book known as witnesses.
If anyone has paid attention to any of the shows or movies dealing with
such themes they would know that Hollywood deliberately magnifies witchcraft to
any exalted state above the word of God represented by someone in the church. It is one of the ways demonic spirits who
undoubtedly operate in concert with these shows let it be known that they have
little to no regard for the church today.
In their world supernatural bad is always prevailing over simpleton
church folks who are more often than not characterized as impotent and intolerant or mean spirited bigots. Also, in these shows as with Sleepy Hollow
they are always trying to prevent the forces of evil such as Moloch in Sleepy
Hollow from taking over the world. However,
contrary to all these Hollywood shows Satan is not trying to bring on the
apocalypse as it would not serve his interest.
He like his human cohorts are vested in the continuation of this age in
order to prevent his demise and the end to their rule and reign.
What is also noticeable in these shows is that in the use of
witchcraft, the witches always have to use a big book of spells and do all
sorts of incantations to achieve whatever they are desiring. This is in contrast to prophetic
speaking. The last article looked at
Moses and his prophetic speaking and now I will look at Elijah. Elijah has always been a most mysterious
character to me because he seems to come out of nowhere, but when he does come
he comes at time when Israel is in spiritual apostasy-that is they have a king
over them who is idolatrous to his core and they are serving Baal. The king that has led Israel in their
idolatry is Ahab and his wife Jezebel and times for the prophets of Israel are
particularly hard, but where I will pick up the story is Elijah’s confrontation
of the people of Israel and his challenge to the prophets of Baal. Once again I will summarize the major
happenings and highlight the pertinent verse.
As stated before,
Israel under the leadership of another awful king and his odious wife is
serving Baal much as would be expected to God’s displeasure. In his first example of prophetic speaking
where he declared, “As the Lord God of Israel lives before whom I stand, there
shall not be dew nor rain these years except at my word, “ (I Kings 17:1)
Elijah is now back before King Ahab into a third year drought. He tells Ahab to gather all of Israel on
Mount Carmel along with the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the
four hundred prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel’s table. (I Kings 18: 18,19). He then asks an obviously schizophrenic
Israel, “How long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God,
follow Him; but if Baal, then follow him.” (vs.21) Elijah next lays down the challenge to the
many prophets of Baal regarding calling upon their god and he upon God to
consume a bull by fire.
One would think
that if you have 850 prophets calling upon a deity, that would get his
attention, but this did not happen for the prophets of Baal. Like the witches in Hollywood shows they went
through all sorts of gyrations until at one point they were cutting themselves
with knives and lances, until the blood gushed out on them. (vs. 28). Except unlike the exalted witches in Hollywood
their demons did not show up to validate their claims. On the other hand, Elijah stood patiently by
from morning to noon one against the many even throwing in a taunt or two
waiting for Baal to make an appearance.
Nada. Then to make the situation
even more challenging for himself, Elijah not only cut up the bull on the altar
of the Lord, but he drenched it with four waterpots including the wood. When show time came, Elijah prayed, “Hear me,
O Lord hear me, that this people may know that You are the Lord God, and that
You have turned their hearts back to You again.” (vs. 33, 37).
Without hesitation the fire of the
Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice, wood, stone, dust and it licked up
the water that was in the trench. (vs.38).
The difference between prophetic speaking and the kind
associated with witches and demons is that the prophetic person or people do
not need to take extra measures to get God to answer if He has sent you. It may appear that you need to do more or
that it is too simple just to speak, but what you witness with people who are
aligned with the kingdom of darkness is the fallen state of sweat by the
brow. They must toil to get what they
want out of the demonic world, whereas in God’s kingdom the spoken word is
enough just as it was with creation. Moses was not allowed to go over into the
promised land because he forgot this principle.
In a typical case of
Israel’s rebellion, the people grumbled about being thirsty in the desert of
Zin and God spoke to Moses and Aaron and told him to speak to the rock before their eyes and it will pour out its
water. (Numbers 20:7). But Moses instead struck the rock twice with
his staff but before doing that he exclaimed to the people, “ Listen you
rebels, must we bring you water out
of this rock.” (vs. 11) Here is where
Moses problem begin. First, there is no
“we”. There is the Lord. At this point Moses went from acting on
behalf of the Lord to acting on behalf of himself and substituted the arm of
the flesh for the spirit. God equated
this with a lack of trust in him and honoring of him as holy in the sight of
the Israelites.
Moses’ act was akin to appropriating the glory of the Lord
for himself and if God is one thing he is jealous for his name and his
glory. It is no doubt for even a man
such as Moses tempting to want to share the limelight of the Lord, but in
keeping with the theme of prophetic significance, one’s call in the Lord is never about the
aggrandizement of the individual. It is
however with Hollywood witches and followers of Lucifer. They generally have no purpose except the
exaltation of themselves.
Thus, what is observed from Elijah and Moses is that God
places a premium on following directions something very hard for people to
do. He doesn’t need fleshly
embellishments of men to fulfill his word.
He only needs for his directions to be followed with nothing of the
wisdom of men to be added.
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