My Wonder Studio

Recognizing Elijah, he dropped to his knees. “Is it really you, my lord Elijah?” he cried.

“It is,” said Elijah. “Go and tell King Ahab that Elijah is here.”

“I cannot,” said Obadiah. “King Ahab has been searching everywhere for you. There have been many false reports as to where you have been seen, and these reports have only further enraged the king. Now if I tell King Ahab you are here and he finds out that you have disappeared again, he will kill me.”

“As the Lord of hosts lives, before whom I stand,” said Elijah, “I will surely show myself to him today.”

Obadiah believed him, and rode off to find the king. Upon hearing the news, King Ahab went at once to the place where his servant had said he would find Elijah. The prophet was still there.

“Are you the one who troubles Israel?” King Ahab demanded as he drew his horse close to Elijah.

“I have not troubled Israel,” Elijah unflinchingly replied, “it is you and your father's house that have done so through forsaking the commandments of God and following Baal. Now, gather all of Israel to Mount Carmel to meet me there, and the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table, also.”

God had shown Elijah a plan. It was time for a confrontation. The people were going to have to decide once and for all whether they were going to serve the God of heaven or the false gods, whose idols had been set up all over the land. So the king sent out messengers, calling the people to assemble at Mount Carmel.

Soon thousands of men, women, and children were streaming toward the place of meeting. None of them were sure why they were going there, only that the king had ordered them to do so. Rumor had it that Elijah was going to be there, but nobody believed it. During the past three years, similar tales had circulated about the prophet, yet he had never made an appearance. Had not the king himself been looking for him all this time?

Pushing and jostling one another, the people trudged and stumbled toward the top of Mount Carmel until they covered the slopes and stayed all night long, awaiting the dawn.

Early in the morning, somebody cried, “There he is! I can see him! Elijah is here!”

The news swept through the waiting throng, and men and women strained to see the man who had dared to defy the king, while boys and girls shoved their way to the front to get a better view.

“Hush!” someone cried. “Hush! He's speaking. Elijah is speaking.”

Silence fell upon the crowd. Then from the mountaintop boomed that powerful voice once heard in King Ahab's court.

“How long halt you between two opinions?” cried the prophet. “If the Lord be God, follow Him: but if Baal be god, then follow him!”

No one spoke.

Elijah continued, “I alone remain a prophet of the Lord; but Baal's prophets are four hundred and fifty. Give us two bullocks, and let the prophets of Baal choose one for themselves, and cut it in pieces, and lay it on wood, and put no fire underneath, and I will do the same with the other bullock. The prophets of Baal may call on Baal, and I will call on the name of the Lord. The God that answers with fire, let him be God.”

“Well said. That's fair enough,” the people responded, thrilled that they were to see such a test of the powers of rival gods. From now on, they watched and listened with tenfold interest.

“Choose one bullock for yourselves,” Elijah said, turning to the prophets of Baal. “Dress it first, and then call on the name of your gods to send fire.”

Glad for the chance to prove that Baal was the greatest god on earth, his prophets seized their bullock, cut it up, and placed the prepared pieces on the altar they had built. Then they began to implore their god to send fire to burn the sacrifice.

“O Baal, hear us!” they cried, and began to leap around the altar. “O Baal, hear us!”

Still no fire came, nor any word from Baal.

All morning long, they kept dancing and shouting in a frenzy. At noon, Elijah mocked them, and said, “Cry louder! Perhaps he is away on a journey, or he is merely sleeping and must be woken.”

Upon hearing this, they cried still louder and began to cut themselves with knives until they bled. Midday passed, afternoon came, and then the sun began to sink. Still Baal had not answered.

Presently Elijah spoke again to the people, who were no doubt tired and disappointed in the failure of the prophets of Baal.

“Come near to me!” he cried, and the crowd surged forward. Then they watched him repair the forgotten altar of the Lord that had once stood upon this mountaintop but had been bro­ken down. Taking twelve stones, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel, he rebuilt the altar, and then dug a trench around it. Next, he cut the bullock in pieces and laid it on the wood.

“Fill four barrels with water and pour it on the sacrifice and on the wood,” he said to everybody's surprise.

Some probably laughed and said, “Does he expect it to burn, with all that water on it?” But if Elijah heard, he took no notice.

“Do it a second time,” he said, and they did.

“Do it a third time,” he said, and the sacrifice was soaked again until water poured into the trench and filled it. Now nobody could say he set fire to the sacrifice himself.

Suddenly a hush fell over the assembly as Elijah raised his voice in prayer. Everybody listened, even the prophets of Baal, who had ceased their shouting.

“Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel,” he cried. “Let it be known this day that You are God in Israel, and that I am Your servant, and that I have done all these things at Your Word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that You are the Lord God!”

Scarcely had Elijah finished praying when flames flashed from the sky and consumed and burned the sacrifice, along with the wood, the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. It was a marvelous, never-to-be-forgotten sight!

Terrified, the people fell on their faces, crying, “The Lord, He is the God! The Lord, He is the God!”

Elijah then commanded the people to capture the prophets of Baal and he led them to the brook Kishon, where he himself got rid of them all in order to purge the land of their wickedness.

Then, after Elijah had instructed King Ahab to prepare for rain, he climbed to the top of Mount Carmel and bowed in prayer.

“Go and look toward the sea,” he said to his servant.

“There is nothing,” his servant said upon his return.

“Go again.” He said this seven times.

At the seventh time, the servant returned and said, “Look! A cloud is arising out of the sea, as small as a man’s hand!”

Before long, the sky grew black with clouds and wind, and a great rain fell in answer to Elijah’s persistent prayer.

See “Heroes of the Bible: Elijah” for more on this fascinating Bible character.

Just as Elijah had prophesied, not a drop of rain fell and drought began to grip the land. As the sweltering months passed, the sun took its scorching toll on Israel’s parched earth. Crops failed, water supplies dried up, and famine set in. Eventually Elijah’s own water source, the brook Cherith, also dried up. But God was faithful, and on the very day that the brook ran dry, He told Elijah to go and dwell in Zarephath.

“See,” He said, “I have commanded a widow there to provide for you.”

Zarephath was over one hundred miles north of the brook Cherith, and Elijah had to make this dangerous journey by foot. After days of trudging through desert wastes, over rocky hillsides and mountain trails, he finally arrived at Zarephath, a coastal city of what is now Lebanon. Weary, hot, and caked in dust, as he approached the city gate he spotted a woman gathering sticks.

“Water!” he cried out to her. “Please fetch me a little water in a vessel that I may drink!”

Taking pity on the weary stranger, the woman rose to bring him some water.

“And please, could you also bring me a morsel of bread,” he called out to her again.

“As the Lord lives,” the woman said, “I have but only a handful of flour in the barrel and a little oil in a cruse. Look, I am out here gathering two sticks to cook with, to take home and prepare a final meal for myself and my son that we may eat and then die.”

“Do not fear,” Elijah told the woman, realizing that she was the widow that God had promised would feed and care for him. “Go and do as you have said, but make me a little cake from it first, and bring it to me; and afterward make some for yourself and your son.

“The Lord God of Israel promises that your barrel of flour will not be used up, nor will the cruse of oil run dry, until the day the Lord sends rain on the earth.”

The woman was amazed at this extraordinary proclamation, but because Elijah spoke to her with authority in the name of the Lord, she knew that he was a man of God, a prophet, and she believed him. She decided to trust God and to do as Elijah had instructed her, so she hurried home and scraped together the last handful of flour from the bottom of the barrel. Then she drained the last few drops from her cruse of oil.

After she had mixed the flour and oil together into dough and put it in her clay oven to bake for Elijah, she began to tidy the kitchen while the cake baked. Picking up the empty oil jug to put it back in its place, the widow gasped in surprise. “How can this be heavier than it was only moments ago?” As she barely tipped it, fresh oil dripped onto the kitchen floor. Rushing over to her flour barrel, she gave a cry of wonderment. Instead of the empty vessel it was just a few minutes earlier, it was now brimming with fresh flour. A miracle had taken place!

The widow’s heart overflowed with gratitude to God for such a wonderful manifestation of His blessing. And just as Elijah had prophesied, the barrel of flour did not empty and the cruse of oil did not run dry for the duration of the famine.

She had given what she could, and God repaid her beyond her wildest expectations.

See “Heroes of the Bible: Elijah” for more on this fascinating Bible character.