#ELIJAH’S APPEAL TO THE UNDECIDED
"How long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, then follow him."
- 1 Kings 18:21
IT was a day to be remembered when the multitudes of Israel were assembled at the foot of Carmel and when the solitary prophet of the Lord came forth to defy the 450 priests of the false god. We might look upon that scene with the eyes of historical curiosity and we should find it rich with interest. Instead of doing so, however, we shall look upon it with the eye of attentive consideration and see whether we cannot learn from its teachings. We have upon that hill of Carmel and along the plain three kinds of persons. We have first the devoted servant of Jehovah, a solitary prophet. We have, on the other hand, the decided servants of the evil one, the 450 prophets of Baal. But the vast mass of that day belonged to a third class—they were those who had not fully determined whether to fully worship Jehovah, the God of their fathers, or Baal, the god of Jezebel. On the one hand their ancient traditions led them to fear Jehovah, but on the other hand, their interest at court led them to bow before Baal. Many of them, therefore, were secret and half-hearted followers of Jehovah while they were the public worshippers of Baal. The whole of them at this juncture were faltering between two opinions. Elijah does not address his sermon to the priests of Baal. He will have something to say to them, by-and-by—he will preach them horrible sermons in deeds of blood. Nor has he anything to say to those who are the thorough servants of Jehovah, for they are not there. But his discourse is directed to those who are faltering between two opinions.
Now, we have these three classes here this morning. We have, I hope, a very large number who are on Jehovah’s side—who fear God and serve Him. We have a number who are on the side of the evil one—who make no profession of religion and do not observe even the outward symptoms of it. They are both inwardly and outwardly the servants of the evil one. But the great mass of my hearers belong to the third class—the waverers. Like empty clouds, they are driven here and there by the wind. Like painted beauties, they lack the freshness of life—they have a name to live and are dead. Procrastinators, doubleminded men, undecided persons, to you I speak this morning—"How long will you falter between two opinions?" If the question is answered by God’s Spirit in your hearts, may you be led to answer, "No longer, Lord, do I falter. But this day I decide for You and am Your servant forever!"
Let us proceed at once to the text. Instead of giving the divisions at the commencement, I will mention them one by one as I proceed.
I. First, you will note that the prophet insisted upon the distinction which existed between the worship of Baal and the worship of Jehovah. Most of the people who were before him thought that Jehovah was God and that Baal was God, too. For this reason the worship of both was quite consistent. The great mass of them did not wholly reject the God of their fathers, nor did they wholly bow before Baal. But as polytheists, believing in many gods, they thought both Gods might be worshipped and each of them have a share in their hearts. "No," said the prophet when he began, "this will not do. These are two answers—you can never make them one! They are two contradictory things which cannot be combined. I tell you that instead of combining the two, which is impossible, you are faltering between the two, which makes a vast difference." "I will build in my house," said one of them, "an altar for Jehovah here and an altar for Baal there. I am of one opinion; I believe them both to be God." "No, no," said Elijah, "it cannot be so! They are two and must be two. These things are not one answer but two answers. No, you Music Hall to worship God on Sunday! I went to the derby the other day—I go, on the one hand, to the place where I can serve my lusts—I am to be met with in every dancing room of every description and yet at the same time I say my prayers most devoutly! May I not be a good churchman, or a right good dissenter and a man of the world, too? May I not, after all, hold with the hounds as well as run with the hare? May I not love God and serve the devil, too—take the pleasure of each of them and give my heart to neither?" We answer: Not so, they are two answers! You cannot do it, they are distinct and separate. Mark Anthony yoked two lions to his chariot, but there are two lions no man ever yoked together—the lion of the tribe of Judah and the lion of the pit of hell. These can never go together! Two opinions you may hold in politics, perhaps, but then you will be despised by everybody unless you are of one opinion or the other and act as an independent man. But two opinions in the matter of soul-religion you cannot hold. If God is God, serve Him and do it thoroughly! But if this world is your god, serve it and make no profession of religion! If you are a worldling and think the things of the world the best, serve them— devote yourself to them, do not be kept back by conscience—spite your conscience and run into sin! But remember, if the Lord is your God, you cannot have Baal, too. You must have one thing or else the other! "No man can serve two masters." If God is served, He will be a Master. And if the devil is served, it will not be long before he will be a master and, "you cannot serve two masters." Oh, be wise and think not that the two can be mingled together! How many a respectable deacon thinks that he can be covetous and grasping in business and grind the faces of the poor and yet be a saint! Oh, liar to God and to man! He is no saint! He is the very chief of sinners! How many a very excellent woman who is received into church fellowship among the people of God and thinks herself one of the elect, is to be found full of wrath and bitterness—a slave of mischief and of sin—a tattler, a slanderer, a busybody, entering into other people’s houses and turning everything like comfort out of the minds of those with whom she comes in contact! She is the servant of God and of the devil, too! No, my lady, this will never do. The two never can be served thoroughly. Serve your master, whoever he is. If you profess to be religious, be so thoroughly. If you make any profession to be a Christian, be one! But if you are no Christian, do not pretend to be. If you love the world, then love it but cast off the mask and do not be a hypocrite! The double-minded man is, of all men, the most despicable. He is the follower of Janus who wears two faces. He can look with one eye upon the (so-called) Christian world with great delight. He can give his subscription to the Tract Society, the Bible Society and the Missionary Society—but he has another eye over there with which he looks at the casino, the dance hall and other pleasures which I do not care to mention but which some of you may know more of than I wish to know!
Such a man, I say, is worse than the most reprobate of men in the opinion of anyone who knows how to judge. Not worse in his open character, but really worse because he is not honest enough to go through with what he professes. Tom Loker, in Uncle Tom, was pretty near the mark when he shut the mouth of Haley, the slaveholder, who professed religion, with the following common sense remark—"I can stand most any talk of yours but your pious talk—that kills me right up. After all, what’s the odds between me and you? It is not that you care one bit more, or have a bit more feeling: its clean, sheer, dog meanness—wanting to cheat the devil and save your own skin. Don’t I see through it? And your getting religious, as you call it, after all, is a deal too mean for me. Run up a bill with the devil all your life and then sneak out when pay-time comes." And how many do the same every day in London, in England, everywhere else? They try to serve both masters, but it cannot be! The two things cannot be reconciled. God and Mammon, Christ and Belial—these never can meet. There never can be an agreement between them—they never can be brought into unity and why should you seek to do it? "Two opinions," said the prophet. He would not allow any of his hearers to profess to worship both. "No," he said, "these are two opinions, and you are faltering between the two."
II. In the second place, the prophet calls those who have wavered to an account for the amount of time which they had consumed in making their choice. Some of them might have replied, "We have not yet had an opportunity of judging between God and Baal. We have not yet had time enough to make up our minds." But the prophet takes away that objection and he says, "How long will you falter between two opinions? How long? For three and a half years not a drop of rain has fallen at the command of Jehovah. Is not that proof enough? You have been all this time, three and a half years, expecting, till I should come, Jehovah’s servant to give you rain. And yet, though you yourselves are starving, your cattle dead, your fields parched and your meadows covered with dust, like the very deserts—yet all this time of judgment and trial and affliction has not been enough for you to make up your minds? How long, then," he said, "will you falter between two opinions?"
I speak not, this morning, to the thoroughly worldly. With them I have nothing to do right now — another time I may address them. But I am now speaking to you who are seeking to serve God and to serve Satan. You who are trying to be Christian worldlings, trying to be members of that extraordinary corporation called the "religious world," which is a thing that never had an existence except in title! You are endeavoring, if you can, to make up your mind which it shall be. You know you cannot serve both and you are now coming to the period when you are saying, "Which shall it be? Shall I go thoroughly into sin and revel in the pleasures of the earth, or become a servant of God?" Now, I say to you this morning, as the prophet did, "How long will you falter?" Some of you have been faltering until your hair has grown gray. The 60th year of some of you is drawing near. Is not 60 years long enough to make your choice? "How long will you falter?" Perhaps one of you may have tottered into this place, leaning on his staff and you have been undecided up till now. Your 80th year has come—you have been outwardly a religious character, but truly a worldling. You are still, up to this date, faltering, saying, "I know not on which side to be." How long, sirs, in the name of reason, in the name of mortality, in the name of death, in the name of eternity, "How long will you falter between two opinions?" You middle-aged men said when you were youths, "When we are out of our apprenticeship we will become religious. Let us sow our wild oats in our youth and let us then begin to be diligent servants of the Lord." Lo, you have come to middle age and are waiting till that quiet villa shall be built when you shall retire from business and then you think you will serve God! Sirs, you said the same when you came of age and when your business began to increase! I therefore solemnly demand of you, "How long will you falter between two opinions?" How much more time do you need? Oh, young man, you said in your early childhood, when a mother’s prayer followed you, "I will seek God when I come to manhood," and you have passed that day—you are a man and more than that, and yet you are still faltering. "How long will you falter between two opinions?"
How many of you have been churchgoers and chapelgoers for years? You have been impressed, too, many a time. But you have wiped the tears from your eyes and have said, "I will seek God and turn to Him with full purpose of heart." And you are just now where you were! How many more sermons do you need? How many more Sundays must roll away wasted? How many warnings, how many sicknesses, how many tollings of the bell to warn you that you must die? How many graves must be dug for your family before you will be impressed? How many plagues and pestilences must ravage this city before you will turn to God in truth? "How long will you falter between two opinions?" Would God you could answer this question and not allow the sands of life to drop, drop, drop from the glass, saying, "When the next goes I will repent." And yet that next one finds you impenitent! You say, "When the glass is just so low, I will turn to God." No, sir, no! It will not answer for you to talk so, for you may find your glass empty before you thought it had begun to run low and you may find yourself in eternity when you did but think of repenting and turning to God! How long, you gray-heads, how long, you men of ripe years, how long, you youths and maidens, how long will you be in this undecided, unhappy state? "How long will you falter between two opinions?"
Thus we have brought you so far. We have noted that there are two opinions and we have asked you, how much time you need to decide. One would think the question would require very little time, if time were all. If the will were not biased to evil and contrary to good, it would require no more time than the decision of a man who has to choose a halter or life, wealth or poverty. And if we were wise, it would take no time at all! If we understood the things of God, we would not hesitate but say at once, "God is my God and that forever."
III. But the prophet charges these people with the absurdity of their position. Some of them said, "What? Prophet, may we not continue to falter between two opinions? We are not desperately irreligious, so we are better than the profane. Certainly we are not thoroughly pious but, at any rate, a little piety is better than none, and the mere profession of it keeps us decent—let us try both!" "Now," says the prophet, "how long will you falter?" Or, if you like to read it so, "How long limp you between two opinions?" (How long wriggle you between two opinions would be a good word if I might employ it)! He represents them as like a man whose legs are entirely out of joint—he first goes on one side and then on the other and cannot go far either way. I could not describe it without putting myself into a most ludicrous posture, "How long limp you between two opinions!" The prophet laughs at them, as it were. And is it not true that a man who is neither one thing, or another is in a most absurd position? Let him go among the worldlings! They laugh under their collars and say, "That is one of the Exeter Hall saints," or, "That is one of the elect." Let him go among the Christian people, those who are saints and they say, "How can a man can be so inconsistent? How can he can come in our midst one day and the next be found in such-and-such society, we cannot tell." I think even the devil, himself, must laugh in scorn at such a man! "There," he says, "I am everything that is bad. I do sometimes pretend to be an angel of light and put on that garb, but you excel me in every respect, for I do it to get something by it—but you get nothing at all by it! You do not have the pleasures of this world and you do not have the pleasures of religion, either. You have the fears of religion without its hopes! You are afraid to do wrong and yet you have no hope of heaven. You have the duties of religion without the joys. You have to do just as religious people do and yet there is no heart in the matter—you have to sit down and see the table all spread before you and then you have not power to eat a single morsel of the precious dainties of the gospel!"
It is just the same with the world. You dare not go into this or that mischief that brings joy to the wicked man’s heart. You think of what society would say! We do not know what to make of you. I might describe you, if I might speak as the Americans do, but I will not. You are half one thing and half the other. You come into the society of the saints and try to talk as they talk—but you are like a man who has been taught French in some day school in England—he makes a strange sort of Frenchified English and Englishized French and everyone laughs at him! The English laugh at him for trying to do it, and the French laugh at him for failing in it! If you spoke your own language, if you just spoke out as a sinner—if you professed to be what you truly are—you would at least get the respect of one side, but now you are rejected by one class and equally rejected by the other! You come into our midst, but we cannot receive you. You go among worldlings—they reject you, too! You are too good for them and too bad for us! Where are you to be put? If there were a purgatory, that would be the place for you—where you might be tossed on the one side into ice and on the other into the burning fire and that forever! But as there is no such place as purgatory and, as you are really a servant of Satan and not a child of God, take heed, take heed how long you stay in a position so absurdly ridiculous! At the day of judgment, wavering men will be the scoff and the laughter even of hell. The angels will look down in scorn upon the man who was ashamed to thoroughly acknowledge his Master, while hell itself will ring with laughter. When that grand hypocrite shall come there—that undecided man—they will say, "Aha, we had to drink the dregs but above them there were sweets, you have only the dregs! You dare not go into the riotous and boisterous mirth of our youthful days and now you have come here with us, to drink the same dregs—you have the punishment without the pleasure!" Oh, how foolish will even the damned call you, to think that you faltered between two opinions! "How long limp you, wriggle you, walk you in an absurd manner between two opinions?" In adopting either opinion, you would at least be consistent. But in trying to hold both—to seek to be both one and the other and not knowing which to decide upon—you are limping between two opinions. I think a good translation is a very different one from that of the authorized version—"How long hop you upon two sprays?" So the Hebrew has it. Like a bird, which perpetually flies from limb to limb, and is never still. If it keeps on doing this, it will never have a nest. And so with you. You keep leaping between two limbs, from one opinion to the other. And so between the two you get no rest for the sole of your feet, no peace, no joy, no comfort but you are just a poor miserable thing all your life long!
IV. We have brought you thus far, then. We have shown you the absurdity of this faltering. Now, very briefly, the next point in my text is this—the multitude who had worshipped Jehovah and Baal and who were now undecided, might reply, "But how do you know that we do not believe that Jehovah is God. How do you know we are not decided in opinion?" The prophet meets this objection by saying, "I know you are not decided in opinion because you are not decided in practice. If God is God, follow Him. If Baal, follow him. You are not decided in practice." Men’s opinions are not such things as we imagine. It is generally said, nowadays, that all opinions are right and if a man shall honestly hold his convictions, he is, without doubt, right. Not so! Truth is not changed by our opinions—a thing is either true or false of itself and it is neither made true nor false by our views of it. It is for us, therefore, to judge carefully and not to think that any opinion will do. Besides, opinions have influence upon the conduct and if a man has a wrong opinion, he will, most likely, in some way or other, have wrong conduct, for the two usually go together. "Now," said Elijah, "that you are not the servants of God is quite evident, for you do not follow Him—that you are not thoroughly servants of Baal, either, is quite evident, for you do not follow him." Now I address myself to you again. Many of you are not the servants of God, you do not follow Him. You follow Him a certain distance in the form, but not in the spirit. You follow Him on Sundays but what do you do on Mondays? You follow Him in religious company, in evangelical drawing rooms and so on, but what do you do in other society? You do not follow Him! And, on the other hand, you do not follow Baal. You go a little way with the world, but there is a place to which you dare not go—you are too respectable to sin as others sin—or to go the whole way of the world. You dare not go the utmost lengths of evil. "Now," says the prophet, pricking them upon this—"if the Lord is God, follow Him. Let your conduct be consistent with your opinions. If you believe the Lord to be God, carry it out in your daily life. Be holy, be prayerful, trust in Christ, be faithful, be upright, be loving. Give your whole heart to God and follow Him. If Baal is God, then follow him. But do not pretend to follow the other." Let your conduct back up your opinion. If you really think that the follies of this world are the best and believe that a fine fashionable life, a life of frivolity and gaiety, flying from flower to flower, getting honey from none, is the most desirable—carry it out! If you think the life of the debauched is so very desirable. If you think his end is to be much wished for, if you think his pleasures are right— follow them. Go the whole way with them! If you believe that to cheat in business is right, put it up over your door—"I sell trickery goods here." Or if you do not say it to the public, tell your conscience, but do not deceive the public—do not call the people to prayers, when you are opening a "British Bank." If you mean to be religious, follow out your determination thoroughly. But if you mean to be worldly, go the whole way with the world. Let your conduct follow out your opinions. Make your life tally with your profession. Carry out your opinions whatever they are. But you dare not. You are too cowardly to sin as others do, honestly before God’s sun. Your conscience will not let you do it! And yet you are just so fond of Satan that you dare not leave him wholly and become thoroughly the servants of God. Oh, let your character be like your profession—either keep up your profession, or give it up—do be one thing or the other!
V. And now the prophet cries, "If the Lord is God, follow Him. If Baal, then follow him," and in so doing he states the ground of his practical claim. Let your conduct be consistent with your opinions. There is another objection raised by the crowd. "Prophet," says one, "you come to demand a practical proof of our affection. You say, ‘Follow God.’ Now, if I believe God to be God and that is my opinion, I do not see what claim He has to my opinions." Now, mark how the prophet puts it—he says, "If God is God, follow Him." The reason why I claim that you should follow out your opinion concerning God is that God is God—God has a claim upon you, as creatures, for your devout obedience. One person replies, "What profit would I have, if I served God thoroughly? Would I be more happy? Would I get on better in this world? Would I have more peace of mind?" No, no, that is a secondary consideration! The only question for you is, "If God is God, follow Him." Not if it is more advantageous to you, but, "If God is God, follow Him." The secularist would plead for religion on the ground that religion might be the best for this world and best for the world to come. Not so with the prophet. He says, "I do not put it on that ground! I insist that it is your bounden duty, if you believe in God—simply because He is God— to serve Him and obey Him! I do not tell you it is for your advantage—it may be, I believe it is—but that I put aside from the question. I demand of you that you follow God if you believe Him to be God. If you do not think He is God. If you really think that the devil is god, then follow him—his pretended godhead shall be your plea and you shall be consistent. But if God is God, if He made you, I demand that you serve Him! If it is He who puts the breath into your nostrils, I demand that you obey Him! If God is really worthy of worship and you really think so, I demand that you either follow Him, or else deny that He is God at all." Now, professor, if you say that Christ’s gospel is the gospel. If you believe in the divinity of the gospel and put your trust in Christ, I demand of you to follow out the gospel—not merely because it will be to your advantage, but because the gospel is divine! If you make a profession of being a child of God—if you are a believer and think and believe religion is the best and the service of God the most desirable—I do not come to plead with you because of any advantage you would get by being holy! It is on this ground that I put it—that the Lord is God. And if He is God, it is your business to serve Him! If His gospel is true and you believe it to be true, it is your duty to carry it out! If you say Christ is not the Son of God, carry out your Jewish or your infidel convictions and see whether it will end well. If you do not believe Christ to be the Son of God, if you are a Muslim, be consistent and carry out your Muslim convictions, and see whether it will end well. But, take heed, take heed! If, however, you say God is God and Christ the Savior and the gospel true—I demand of you, only on this account—that you carry it out! What a strong plea some would think the prophet might have had, if he had said, "God is your father’s God, therefore follow Him!" But no, he did not come down to that. He said, "If God is God—I do not care whether He is your father’s God or not—follow Him." "Why do you go to chapel?" says one, "and not to church?" "Because my father and grandfather were dissenters." Ask a churchman why he attends the establishment and he will very often say, "Well, our family were always brought up that way. That is why I go."
Now I think that the worst of all reasons for a particular religion is that of our being brought up in it! I never could see that at all. I have attended the house of God with my father and my grandfather. But I thought, when I read the Scriptures, that it was my business to judge for myself. I know that my father and my grandfather take little children in their arms and put drops of water on their faces and say they are baptized. I took up my Bible and I could not see anything about babies being baptized. I picked up a little Greek. And I could not discover that the word, "baptized," meant to sprinkle. So I said to myself, "Suppose they were good men, they may be wrong. And though I love and revere them, yet it is no reason why I should imitate them!" And they counted me right, when they knew of my honest conviction. And it was quite right for me to act according to my conviction, for I consider the baptism of an unconscious infant is just as foolish as the baptism of a ship or a bell—there is as much Scripture for one as the other! And therefore I left them and became what I am today, a Baptist minister, so called, but I hope a great deal more a Christian than a Baptist! It is seldom I mention it. I only do so by way of illustration here. Many a one will go to chapel because his grandmother did. Well, she was a good old soul, but I do not see that she ought to influence your judgment. "That does not matter," says one, "I do not like to leave the church of my fathers." Nor do I; I would rather belong to the same denomination with my father; I would not willfully differ from any of my friends, or leave their sect and denomination.
But let God be above our parents! Though our parents are at the very top of our hearts and we love them and reverence them and in all other matters pay them strict obedience, yet, with regard to religion, to our own Master we stand or fall! And we claim to have the right of judging for ourselves as men and then we think it our duty, having judged, to carry out our convictions. Now I am not going to say, "If God is your mother’s God, serve Him." Though that would be a very good argument with some of you. But with you waverers, the only plea I have is, "If God is God, serve Him." If the gospel is right, believe it. If a religious life is right, carry it out. If not, give it up. I only put my argument on Elijah’s plea—"If God is God, follow Him—but if Baal, then follow him."
VI. And now I make my appeal to the falterers and waverers, with some questions I pray the Lord to apply. Now I will put this question to them—"How long will you falter?" I will tell them. You will falter between two opinions, all of you who are undecided, until God shall answer by fire. Fire was not what these poor people wanted who were assembled there. When Elijah says that, "The God who answers by fire let Him be God," I fancy I hear some of them saying, "No! The God who answers by water let him be God. We need rain badly enough." "No," said Elijah, "if rain should come, you would say that it was the common course of providence. And that would not cause you to decide." I tell you, all the providences that befall you undecided ones will not cause you to decide! God may surround you with providences. He may surround you with frequent warnings from the deathbed of your fellows. But providences will never decide for you. It is not the God of rain but the God of fire that will do it! There are two ways in which you undecided ones will decide, by-and-by. You who are decided for God will need no decision. You who are decided for Satan will need no decision. You are on Satan’s side and must dwell forever in eternal burning—but these undecided ones need something to help them decide and will have either one of two things. They will either have the fire of God’s Spirit to decide for them, or else the fire of eternal judgment will decide for them. I may preach to you, my hearers—and all the ministers in the world may preach to you who are wavering—but you will never decide for God through the force of your own will! None of you, if left to your natural judgment, to the use of your own reason, will ever decide for God. You may decide for Him merely as an outward form, but not as an inward spiritual thing which should possess your heart as a Christian, as a believer in the doctrine of Effectual grace. I know that none of you will ever decide for God’s gospel unless God decides for you! And I tell you that you must either be decided by the descent of the fire of His Spirit into your hearts, now, or else in the Day of Judgment. Oh, which shall it be? Oh, that the prayer might be put up by the thousand of lips that are here—"Lord, decide for me now by the fire of Your Spirit! Oh, let Your Spirit descend into my heart to burn up the bullock, that I may be a whole burnt offering to God! Lord, burn up the wood and the stones of my sin. Burn up the very dust of worldliness—ah, and lick up the water of my impiety which now lies in the trenches and my cold indifference, that seek to put out the sacrifice."—
"O make this heart rejoice or ache—
Decide this doubt for me!
And if it is not broken, break
And heal it, if it be.
O sovereign grace, my heart subdue!
I would be led in triumph, too,
A willing captive to my Lord
To sing the triumphs of His word!"
And may it be that while I speak, the mighty Fire, unseen by men, and unfelt by the vast majority of you, shall descend into some hearts which have of old been dedicated to God, by His divine Election, which are now like altars broken down but which God, by His Free grace, will this day build up! Oh, I pray that that influence may enter into some hearts, that there may be some go out of this place, saying—
"‘Tis done, the great transaction’s done!
I am my Lord’s and He is mine!
He drew me and I followed on
Glad to obey the voice divine!"
Now rest my undivided heart, fixed on this stable Center, rest! Oh, that many may say that! But remember, if it is not so, the day is coming—the day of wrath and anger when you shall be decided of God. When the firmament shall be lit up with lightning, when the earth shall roll with drunken terror, when the pillars of the universe shall shake and God shall sit in the person of His Son to judge the world in righteousness. You will not be undecided then, when, "Depart you cursed" or, "Come, you blessed," shall be your doom. There will be no indecision then, when you shall meet Him with joy or else with terror—when, "Rocks hide me, mountains fall on me," shall be your doleful shriek. Or else your joyful song shall be, "The Lord is come." In that day you will be decided. But till then, unless the living fire of the Holy Spirit decides for you, you will go on faltering between two opinions. May God grant you His Holy Spirit, that you may turn unto Him and be saved!