Editor’s note: Yesterday, we shared a devotion from Unbreakable Courage by Max Lucado. You can read it here and then continue reading below.
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Who doesn’t love a “my dad will show you” story? You know the type. A kid is cornered by creeps who are twice his size. Then from behind them comes a deep voice: “Leave my son alone.”
The bullies turn, and to their horror there stands an enormous dad: nine feet tall in his stocking feet, biceps as thick as tree trunks. “You mess with my boy, you mess with me,” the father bellows. The bums don’t stay around for details. They scatter like scared mice. We love those stories.
I have one. The details are fuzzy as it has been nigh on six decades since it happened. The story has suffered from a case of apocrypha, for sure. But here is what I recall. We middle schoolers played football in a large field near the high school. It was cleaned and mowed so the band could use it for marching practice. On Saturdays we turned it into a football field.
Inevitably, a gaggle of high school-age punks would show up, swaggering onto the field, interrupting the game, and stealing the ball from us. They snatched our caps, stole our football, and tackled us to the ground. Thugs, they were.
I remember a friend warning the bullies: “One of these days my dad will show up and show you a thing or two.” The chumps laughed at him.
Boy, were they in for a surprise. One Saturday amid a hazing, the dad appeared. (Here is where the years may have embellished the moment.) He roared onto the field in a big truck outfitted with mud tires, fog lights, and a rifle rack. (Or did he walk on the field wearing boots, jeans, and a baseball cap?) He dared the older kids to pick on someone their own size. They turned and ran. We scurried over and stood by the dad.
It’s a good thing when the heat shows up.
Do you know the names of a few bullies? What trouble-making scalawags breathe down your neck? If only yours were just high school punks. But your tormenters are diseased cells that threaten to take your life. Your punk is bad news that threatens to take your peace. Your ruffians are a horde of godless politicians who, in your mind, are taking over. You can relate to the psalmist who asked,
How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?.. How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? — Psalm 13:1–2
That question could have been asked in ancient Israel. Remember, the land was special to God by covenant. He would bless the world through a descendant of Abraham, Jesus Christ. Consequently, Satan targeted Israel from the get-go. Like a bully who zeroes in on his victim, he set his sights on God’s children. Destroy the people and destroy the redeemer, right?
By the ninth century BC it appeared that Satan had succeeded. Monarch after monarch wanted nothing to do with God’s plan. They turned away from Him and embraced a satanic religion that called for prostitution worship and celebrated the sacrifice of infants. How far the people of God had fallen!
But then Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal to a duel on Mount Carmel. He dared them to call on Baal to send fire. From morning to evening they cried. Riff upon ridiculous riff. As pointed out in the last chapter, this was Satan, the fallen angel, versus Jehovah, the living God. Our Maker was proving his point. Any thought of Satan’s power was doused the day that Satan had no response on Mount Carmel. With the prophets of Baal exhausted and defeated from a day of unrequited frenzy, the stage manager of this drama spoke up:
Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come forward to me.” So all the people came forward to him. — 1 Kings 18:30 NASB
He had nothing to hide. There would be no trickery. No sleight of hand. No drama. Elijah didn’t shout. He didn’t cut himself. He didn’t dance himself into a frenzy. “He repaired the altar of the Lord, which had been torn down” (v. 30).
The altar, constructed in days past to honor God, was in rubble. Its scattered rocks reflected the collapsed faith of Israel. So Elijah rebuilt it. Thousands of Israelites and hundreds of exhausted prophets watched as he reassembled the place of worship. Rock by rock. Stone by stone. Twelve stones. Not eleven. Not thirteen. The twelve stones symbolized the twelve tribes of Israel, not divided as they were, but united as God intended. One boulder at a time. Then,
Elijah dug a fairly wide trench around the altar. He laid firewood on the altar, cut up the ox, put it on the wood, and said, “Fill four buckets with water and drench both the ox and the firewood.” Then he said, “Do it again,” and they did it. Then he said, “Do it a third time,” and they did it a third time. The altar was drenched and the trench was filled with water. — 1 Kings 18:32–35 MSG
The real offering of this sacrifice was not the bull but the precious water the crowd wanted to drink rather than offer to God. They saturated the altar three times so Elijah could make sure that everything was soaked: the wood, the bull, the platform. Why douse the altar with water if you want it consumed by fire? Because God was about to drive a truck onto the field.
We’ve seen this tactic before. It’s one of God’s favorites—showing up and showing off in a way that leaves no doubt who has the power. When the Israelites stood before the towering walls of Jericho, God took the city with a marching band (Joshua 6:1–5). When Gideon faced an army “thick as locusts” (Judges 7:12), God won the victory with three hundred men, a troop of trumpets, and some flashlights. And when the whole universe buckled under the weight of sin, God rescued you and me through a dirty manger, a homeless Rabbi, and a horrible death on a cross.
When it was time for the sacrifice to be offered, Elijah the prophet came up and prayed, “O God, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, make it known right now that you are God in Israel, that I am your servant, and that I’m doing what I’m doing under your orders. Answer me, God; O answer me and reveal to this people that you are God, the true God, and that you are giving these people another chance at repentance.” — 1 Kings 18:36–37 MSG
Elijah didn’t even request fire. But the Lord sent it.
Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood, and the stones and the dust; and it licked up the water that was in the trench. When all the people saw this, they fell on their faces; and they said, “The Lord, He is God; the Lord, He is God!” — 1 Kings 18:38–39 NASB
Heaven opened, and a blaze from Heaven fell. It consumed the water, the rocks, the wood, even the dust. All that was left was a charcoal-colored oval on the ground.
The people responded with repentance. Voices echoed off the rugged cliffs and rocky slopes. For the first time in three generations, the nation of Israel cried out to Jehovah. “The Lord—He is God!”
We’d move too quickly if we did not pause at this point and pray, Do it again, Lord. Let the fire of glory fall and convince all people that You alone are God! Soften our hard hearts. Bend our stiff necks. Purge us with Your cleansing flame yet again.
Then there is this: “Elijah commanded them, ‘Seize the prophets of Baal. Don’t let anyone get away!’ They seized them, and Elijah had them brought down to the Kishon Valley and slaughtered there” (1 Kings 18:40).
I do not know how a person could read that text without a wince. Most of the popular books on Elijah sidestep this moment. One can understand why. It does not sit well in our modern, westernized mindset to see a man of God brandishing a sword and executing several hundred men.
Except for the fact that these weren’t just men; they were disciples of the devil. They were demonic in their devotion to the cause of hell. They slaughtered infants and stole the purity of teenage boys and girls, all in the name of God. Under their leadership the people of God had abandoned their call. Any hope of a Messiah would soon be lost. God intervened. He wasn’t going to let the ship called Israel crash into the rocks.
Can you imagine such a moment today?
It will happen. In the final days God will lay “hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and [bind] him for a thousand years” (Revelation 20:2 NKJV).
All of creation will watch as an angel lassos old Lucifer and hog-¬ties him so he can’t lift his bony finger. And God will “cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more” (Revelation 20:3 NKJV). The unique feature of a bottomless pit is that it is bottomless. The devil will fall for a thousand years, never landing, ever spinning. The fallen angel will be the falling angel.
Those of us who gave our worship to God will reign with Christ. And we will see a world as God intended. No curse on earth. No chumps or bums from Satan’s cavern. And after a thousand years, Satan and his minions will be cast out into the lake of fire, never to be seen again (Revelation 20:10). History, yes, our history, is headed for triumph. Satan may seem to succeed; he may seduce some prophets here and there. But he is no match for the living God.
Elijah believed this.
Do you?
Mark it down: The truck is coming. The muscle is on the way. The Father, our Father, will read the riot act to our accuser. You and I will witness the moment in which he is cast into the bottomless pit.
Won’t we shout at that moment? Won’t we celebrate the incarceration of this cosmic punk? He masterminded your addiction. He conjured up all this division. He mapped out your seduction. He is the culprit who created the temptation, the frustration, the utter confusion that contaminates our planet.
Please hear me as I say this: Satan is our foe.
We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. — Ephesians 6:12 NKJV
Your enemy is not your Ahab. Your adversary is not your competition. Your foes are not the people who forgot or abused you. Your antagonist does not work in the Oval Office or a Hollywood movie studio.
Our enemy is the devil. And at the end of this age, his time will end. Until then expect our Father to show up. Don’t think for a moment that He will sit still while Satan seduces and harms His creation.
Can’t a Mount Carmel moment happen in our day? Our days are as dark as were the days of Elijah. Our God is as alive as He was in the days of Elijah. Dare we dream of a renewal that silences the stewards of Satan and reveals them for the frauds they are?
Then let’s imitate our hero:
Serve the Lord only.
Excerpted with permission from Unbreakable Courage by Max Lucado, copyright Max Lucado.
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Your Turn
When the enemy comes up against us, we get to say, “my Dad will show you”! The Lord has our backs and when the end comes, Satan will pay. So, let’s serve the Lord with all our hearts! ~ Devotionals Daily