Moses tossed his staff a few feet away from his feet, watching as it twisted in mid air, became fluid, and fell to the floor no longer a rigid length of wood but a writhing snake. Alchemy. A mere magician’s trick—changing one form of matter into another. Several sorcerers stood by confident that they too possessed the power to throw down their staffs and create a nest of snakes.
One by one they tossed their staffs to the ground until the floor was awash in snakes. Suddenly, one snake drew back into a coil, raised its head high and struck at the snake closest by, devouring it quickly before winding its way to the next snake. By the end of the hour, Moses’ snake had consumed the sor-cerers’ snakes. Its belly full, it stretched out full length on the floor and shapeshifted back into the form of a staff.4
The sorcerers imitated almost every trick Moses had up his sleeve. Moses launched a plague and the sorcerers, attempting to one up Moses, ironically added their power to the purpose of God and extended the plague, duplicat-ing it in other regions of Egypt. In the end, however, they admitted that they could go no further. They had come to the end of their ability to imitate God’s power and turned and walked away.
Saul, devastated in heart and spirit, longed for a word from the prophet Samuel who had anointed him king in the first place. The problem: Samuel was dead. God didn’t seem to be speaking with Saul in his hour of need. No
other prophets nearby held any words of comfort for Saul. He felt alone, abandoned, afraid of the days to come. In the absence of any other prophets in the area, he sought out a medium, hoping she would channel the spirit of Samuel. She dwelt in a cave, hiding her profession because Saul had con-demned mediums and spiritists to death. So, she was dubious at first to grant Saul an audience; but she went ahead because she did not recognize that it was Saul who stood before her.
She sat back, closed her eyes, spoke a few unintelligible words of incanta-tion, calling out to the spirit of Samuel, hoping that his familiar spirit would show up, a spirit that could, at best, imitate Samuel’s voice and knew intimate details of Samuel’s life. Suddenly, she felt the presence of another in the cave.
Out of the darkness, a figure emerged. She gasped and cried out in shock. It wasn’t the familiar spirit of Samuel. It was Samuel himself, raised from the dead. Then she realized Saul was her client and she became very afraid.5
Elijah felt like the time was right. The land and the people had suffered enough from drought and famine. It was time to release the sound of the coming of rain. But first, he had to recapture the hearts of the people of God and make them realize that God was alive and powerful, more powerful than the false prophets who bowed the knee to the Baals. The Baals had already failed to provide rain, failed to prosper the land and make it fertile. No mat-ter how much they sacrificed, danced, prayed, and gave themselves over to increasing debauchery, the Baals failed to come through for the people. It was time to reveal the power of God. Perhaps the people would listen now that they were getting desperate.6
Elijah called for a showdown on Mount Carmel. One prophet of God against hundreds of prophets of Baal. The showdown would prove who’s got the power—God or the false gods.
He prepared an altar and poured water over the sticks until they were sat-urated. There would be no lighter fluid, nothing to jump-start the fire or even light it by using natural means. Who would light the fire—God or Baal? The prophets of Baal did everything they could to get the fire going.
They danced, called out to their gods, and slashed themselves until their blood splattered the dust. For hours on end they wailed and waited for Baal
to come through and show his power. Elijah patiently waited. Every once in awhile he taunted them just as they had taunted him in the past, mocking the true prophets of God. Slowly, the people warmed to Elijah, their hearts turn-ing toward all that he stood for. Elijah seemed so confident that the people’s faith increased as their fears that God had abandoned them abated.
“If God is God, then follow Him!” Elijah pleaded with the people—not the people given over to the world system of Baal in that day, but his own people, the children of God, God’s chosen, the church of that day. “But if Baal be god then follow him. Choose you this day whom you will serve.”
Elijah lifted his eyes to Heaven and the prophets of Baal dropped to the ground exhausted from their efforts to entreat their gods. The fire of God crackled from Heaven to earth, consuming not only the sacrifice that lay on the altar but burning so hot that it consumed the altar itself—a nuclear blast from Heaven. And the people grew very afraid. They realized that God is alive and present, that God is the God of authentic power. Great anger rose up in them as they also realized how deceived and frightened they had be-come during the years of Jezebel’s reign of terror, under the misguidance of prophets who offered only self-abuse and destruction, false hopes, and unre-ality. And in that anger, boldness arose. They sided with Elijah, rose up as a people, and destroyed the false prophets.
One of the most interesting encounters between a prophet/apostle and a sorcerer happened in the New Testament Book of Acts. A sorcerer drew the attention of the people with his magic tricks, his predictions, the way he touched people, and their shrieks of delight when they realized that they were healed. The people loved him. But then another came their way, an apostle who had been with Jesus. He too touched the people and they were healed. And yet he offered the people something more, some power that caused them to speak in other languages, and become overwhelmed as they felt the love and power of God moving in their lives. Even the sorcerer tasted of that power and knew it was good; so good that it intoxicated him. And he wanted more. He wanted it so badly that he went up to the apostle and asked how much it would cost him to purchase that anointing of power. He knew that his own power of sorcery was nothing in comparison.7
The apostle set him straight. God’s power was not for sale. It was (and still is) a gift from God to those who inherited salvation and a Kingdom that was not of this world. God, it seemed, was no longer in the Old Testament mode of slaying the prophets of Baal, sorcerers, mediums, spiritists, alchemists, and diviners. Instead, God wanted to release His authentic power to seek and save all of the lost—including those who had become entranced by occult power and lured into the kingdom of darkness. Whereas the showdowns of the Old Testament often turned into bloodbaths, the showdowns of the New are revelations of the power of God’s love.
We may be entering a time in history when another showdown with the prophets of Baal is imminent. What will this encounter look like? Will the showdown occur inside the Church or out in the world, on the streets com-plete with miraculous displays of power? Today’s prophets have much to say on the topic. And they all seem to agree on one thing—the showdown is al-ready happening in our midst and it’s going to get weirder than anything we’ve seen or read. But first of all, a showdown must occur within ourselves as we step out of the shifting shadows of confusion regarding the source of supernatural power operating in individual lives and step into our callings as Christians to release the presence and power of God wherever we go.