Study 11 - Encounter on Carmel

Mount Carmel is a fascinating place, a huge natural arena where people can gather in vast crowds and where a voice can carry easily. There’s a well there too. It contains water even when there’s severe drought. No wonder Elijah chose to bring the nation together there for his extraordinary showdown with the priests of Baal.

‘How long will you waver between two opinions? Let’s decide the issue once and for all,’ Elijah challenged them. ‘The contest is between the Lord and Baal, and we’ll worship and follow the winner – the one who answers with fire.’ So the priests of Baal danced, shouted, screamed and slashed themselves, but there was no answer from Baal. Elijah mocked and laughed at them and they shouted louder, but still there was no answer. Their agony lasted the whole day. Man-made gods never have answers. Generation after generation has created all kinds of deaf and hopeless gods who seem impressive until a real crisis comes along. Then they’re futile.

Freedom – the Baal of today
‘We want freedom!’ That’s the great cry today. People don’t want Christian morality. They hate the idea of constraint. They want to be free to ‘express themselves’, to get drunk, take drugs, lie, cheat, sleep around. Modern man regards Christian ethics as repressive and harmful. ‘Freedom holds the answers,’ they claim. Man is coming of age and must be released from old-fashioned restraints.

If freedom is the answer, then the more of it we get the better. But is this principle borne out in practice? Have the most ‘liberated’ people discovered the answer? If you really want to know, pursue them. Try calling on their gods. Look at those who’ve got themselves into freedom in a big way.

Cry to alcohol, ‘Have you got the answers?’ then observe the experts – the people who’ve indulged themselves the most. Do they look as though they’ve found the answer? Look! There’s one of them! He’s sleeping on that park bench under some old newspapers. His breath stinks of booze. He’s bound to know if drink is the answer.

Years ago that man was probably approached by a friend who said, ‘Let’s go out and have some fun. You’re free to enjoy yourself if you like. Let’s go and get drunk.’ It was good fun at first, but as time passed, the drink began to take over. The poor man was thrown out of his home and separated from his family. Now he walks the streets by day and sleeps on a park bench at night. He wanted to be free, so he cried out to drink. He sang and shouted and staggered around. But drink provided no answer.

So what about drugs? Do they have the answer? Some say, ‘Drugs should be made legal. Let’s experiment. Let’s have a few kicks now and then. It doesn’t do any harm. It really sets you free. Here, have a try. It’s like paradise.’ Is it? While I was living in London, a group of us used to spend Saturday nights evangelising in the West End. One evening I watched a young man preparing to inject himself. He told me that he knew he’d die before he was twenty-five. He wanted to be free, so he cried out to dope. But drugs offered him no answer.

Then there are people who want the freedom to gratify their sexual desire. ‘Let’s sleep around,’ they say. ‘And how about getting into intimate relationships with members of our own sex?

So they experiment. A social worker told me that homosexuals change partners much more often than heterosexuals; that’s why AIDS affects so many so fast. So it isn’t long before these advocates of free sex become enslaved by their freedom. They wander around hospital wards, longing for someone to find a cure to the virus, waiting to die. They wanted to be free, so they cried out to sex. But now they weep and curse the day when they began to experiment, because sex offered them no answer.

Others are experimenting with spiritualism. ‘Look, the glass has spelled out my name,’ they say. ‘There must be something in it. I think it’s about time I consulted that medium in town. Maybe she could read my palm or contact my dead relative. Wow! The occult is a fascinating subject. I really feel I could find some answers in it.’

Why, then, do so many of these occult worshippers live in such fear and feel that their lives are dominated by evil forces? Why do they explain to the media, ‘I heard a voice within urging me to do that awful thing’? Why do they commit suicide? They cried out to spiritualism, but it offered them no answer.

Shout as much as you like. Whip yourself into a frenzy. Scream out for answers. You won’t find any out there. Baal remains silent. And while he does, the prescriptions for drugs multiply at a phenomenal rate with many millions of people becoming dependent on them. That’s the price society is paying for abandoning Christian values in favour of a fruitless worship of freedom.

Quote
‘The lost enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded.’
C.S. Lewis