Elijah Confronting Evil

How is it that a Christian minister, or any Christian for that matter, should confront evil? We live in a day when we very much need to be able to do that very thing, when evil is rising up on every side. And so, as Christians we need just as much to learn to confront evil as we do setting forth the truth of the gospel to people. The two go hand in hand. People are sinners, and so they need to be told that they are sinners. But there are also people who lead other people into sin, even as Ahab led the children of Israel into sin, who need to be shown that there is only one true and living God, and He does expect them to worship only Him. Elijah was the man whom the Lord appointed to confront both Ahab and Israel with this great and all-important truth. This evening I want us to think together about how Elijah went about to do this; how he confronted Ahab with the evil that he was doing. 1st of all – He straightforwardly showed Ahab that he and his fathers were responsible for all of the trouble in Israel. 2nd – He straightforwardly presented the case to Ahab and all the people that Baal was a false god. And 3rd – He straightforwardly proved to the people that only God is God by calling down fire from heaven. Let us see if we can learn from this marvelous demonstration of the power of God, how we might better learn how to confront evil in our society and generation as well.