In this piece, we want to look at something that I believe is going to help us. We want to look at something from the Book of the Kings. So, we will start our thinking together from the Book of 1st Kings, and we want to consider something that has been titled, Being Between Two Opinions. There is a chance, there is a possibility that somebody is here, and the person is between two opinions. And we want to see, is that the best place we can be? Or is there a better place? Is there the will of God for His people? Or does God have a different agenda for us? So, we want to look at the Book of 1st Kings chapter 18. So, that we don’t read too many verses, I will just talk about what happened from verse 1.
God had appeared to Elijah and God told him, go and talk to Ahab, because it is time for rain to be set upon the land. So, he had appeared to Ahab and the pattern that God gave to him. I'm sure we know there was a reason why God pronounced a drought upon Israel. The people had gone away from God, in fact, the king of the land had gone away from God, so the entire kingdom was given to the worship of idols.
So, at this point, God made them to go through an experience. If their gods were powerful, they should have interrupted the drought that God pronounced; by making rain to fall. So, rain didn't fall for three years. So, Elijah said, gather the prophets of Baal together on Mount Carmel, and he assumed that he was the only one and that he was going to defend God on Mount Carmel.
So, let's go to 1st Kings chapter 18 from verse 20, we will read a few verses and then, we jump. From verse 20, the Bible says, 20 So Ahab sent for all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together on Mount Carmel. 21 And Elijah came to all the people, and said, “How long will you falter between two opinions? How long means they've been there for a very long time, and we are aware that at least they've been there three years. But we also know that before the drought was pronounced by Prophet Elijah, they were also faltering between two opinions. In fact, that was what brought them to that situation where they had to face famine.
So, there are many instances in life that we go through difficult situations. And we wonder what is going on? It is possible that our being between two opinions is the reason why we go through certain things in life that are not necessary for us.
If they had been on one side, not in between two opinions, it is possible that they wouldn't go into famine. But because they were in-between two opinions, the judgment of God came upon them, and God pronounced drought. God pronounced that there will be no rain on the land. So, Elijah spoke to them. He said, how long will you falter? How long will you be like somebody that is doing like this, moving here today, coming here tomorrow, between two opinions?
What are the opinions? He said, if the Lord is God, follow Him. But if Baal, follow him; but the people answered him not a word. I don't know what the people were thinking, maybe they were angry with him. You were the one that made sure that there was no rain in our land. And now you are telling us this, maybe they were angry or maybe they were overwhelmed by the reality confronting them.
Your situation thus far has been because you have been between two opinions. If the Lord has been God to you, and you had followed Him, you wouldn’t be in this situation. But do we say that other nations around them that were not given to worshiping God, that rain didn’t fall there? God didn't disturb those people. So, if they had been given to Baal or given themselves to Baal, at the appointed time, God would have judged them and Baal. But these are people that said, we belong to the living God, and yet they were worshipping Baal.
So, they were worshiping God, they were worshiping Baal, and that became an aberration. And what is the instruction? “If the Lord is God, follow Him”. Now, when we are here, we assumed to be followers of Jesus Christ. And we understand that Jesus is the Son of God and Jesus is God. So, you are a follower of Jesus, that makes you a disciple of Jesus Christ.
If the Lord is God, be His disciple. But if you think Baal is god, then be a disciple of Baal. But far be it from you, who is a disciple of God to also be a disciple of Baal. Far be it from you, who follow God, who listens to God, who copies God, to also be copying Baal. Far be it from you, who get inspired by God, to also get inspired by Baal.
It must not be said among us, that as God leads us, Baal also leads us. It must not be said that in the morning, we are led by God, in the evening we are led by Baal. It must not be said of us that when the month is ending, we are giving to Baal. When the month has started, we are giving to God, so it depends on the day of the month. The first week of the month, God, why? I just received salary. And the last days of the month, Baal, why? I'm looking for money. And for somebody's life, this is not a normal behavior of people that profess to be Christians; they say put Christianity aside, this time, I need to pay the school fees of my children.
So, even though other people could do it, the Bible says, you who profess to belong to God, you must never do it. Why? If you do it, even though others could be doing it and they are spared, you will not be spared, I will not be spared. There is a Scripture that is a little bit alarming in Hebrews.
Hebrews chapter 6 verses 4 to 6, 4 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame.
It says, it is impossible! Of course, we know that unbelievers; people who don't know God, they do all manner of things. And when we preach to them, God saves them. Now, what that Scripture is telling us is that, it is difficult or impossible for you and I, who have tasted the things of God. I don't know if we have all tasted the heavenly gifts. I don't know if we have all partook or we have all partaken in the Holy Spirit. I don't know if we have all tasted the Word of God.
There were times you were in darkness, and the Word of God came as light upon you. I don't know if we have all enjoyed the powers of the age to come. If that had been for you, it is impossible for somebody like you to backslide and to be won back again. So, what does that put us? Look at it, you have never tasted God before, it is easier for you to be saved. You have tasted God before, it is difficult to save you again. What does that put us? That there's something peculiar about us and we cannot afford to be carried away.
The other kingdoms were doing fine. It's only when the cup of their judgment become full that God judges them. But these people who had chosen to follow God, there were times that they had offered sacrifices to the living God, there were times when they had worshipped God, there were times when they said as for us and our children we shall be for God. Because they've been in that moment, God therefore becomes particular and jealous over them. That means what others could do and they will go scot free, if they do it, God will punish them.
Let's do a little practical, how many of us realize that we get angry a little bit with people that are closest to us than people that are farthest? Have you ever gotten angry with the President of America before, like it was a serious anger, it took people to separate two of you? It has never happened because you don't know him, and he doesn't know you. So, we usually have issues with people that are close. And the more people get closer, what happens? We take what they say to us, either for or against us very seriously. Do you know somebody outside can just do something to you, whatever it means in your culture, and then you are fine. But you wouldn’t want somebody that knows you very well, knows your home, and knows your family to do this to you. Do we understand? The same thing, but you treat it differently based on the relationship that exists between you.
So, when you don't belong to God, you may be just on your own until the devil is ready to maybe prey on you and the judgment of God comes upon you and the devil. But if God is interested in your life, that means there is an established relationship between you and God. That also means, not just anything goes with you; not every thought goes with you, not every relationship goes with you, not every transaction goes with you. You can’t just do what everybody is doing. They may be doing it and really, they may be fine. But, once you do it, you will not be fine.
The Bible says, why do you falter between two opinions? Can you find a word that can describe opinion? Stronghold! Fortress! Refuge? Hiding Place? Comfort Zone! Your abode! It is like when you have an opinion, it is like a place you live in, it is a place you find safety, and you find comfort. If they ask you, “what is your opinion on so and so matter?” You will say, “my opinion is…” That has been your opinion for a while and that in your opinion is going to remain your opinion.
So, people came and checked you in your house last week. When they still come next year, they may still find you in the same house. People don't change houses every day, except it is an hotel room. You stay in your house. That's how opinions are. That means you can be in an opinion for the rest of your life. You can have an opinion that you will not be great, and you won’t be great because that's your opinion. You have this opinion that people of your nature; of your kind can never succeed, can never be above, they are meant to be like this, you cannot live a life that is contrary to your opinion.
There was a time when I was in university, I caught my wife, then my friend; I caught her somewhere and I was trying to advise her on something that I thought I didn't like her doing. And after listening to me for many minutes, I thought I was really on fire, like I was making a lot of sense. And she told me, “alright, Gboyega, thank you, for your opinion, I have heard your opinion.” And I keep telling her for many years that, that thing really broke me. Number one, I thought, I was important to her; like a good friend and I thought I was making sense. But she said everything I've said is my opinion, and that means, it is a different opinion from her own. And guess what? Her opinion is as good as mine.
So, peace be unto your opinion, and peace be unto my opinion. People don't normally leave their opinions. You realize why God had to make them go through famine; lack of water for three years. It takes God to shift a man's opinion because he may not be able to change it on his own. So, maybe we can start asking ourselves now, what are our opinions? What are our strongholds? What are our shields? Our defense mechanisms? The things we have built up over time and we’ve told ourselves, we can never get out of this. Maybe it's also like a comfort zone, a place you can never cross. You know, I just have this opinion that, this is how I should behave in my house as a wife; I just have it as an opinion. I just have this opinion that this is the kind of wife I should be.
Now, while your opinions could govern you; because opinions are like principles, they're like laws, they don't bend, they don't break. You cannot break them, otherwise they will break you. You can come up with an opinion, but later, the opinion will be coming up with you. I was listening to a message of Bro. Gbile today, and he said somebody had possessions and the person was possessed by the possessions. And he said, you will be possessed by the numbers of your possessions. And I was like, I need to pray. In fact, I prayed over this matter. May I never be possessed by what I possess, because where it starts is us thinking, I'm the one having this possession, later on the possession becomes our possessor. See the Scripture he was using, where your treasure is, there your heart is.
So, what happened first? Your treasure is. Who put the treasure there? You! You put the treasure there, but where is your heart? You are the one that put the treasure, now, your heart is no more indirectly in you, your heart is now with the treasure. So, I was meditating on it and that really brought the story of Solomon. Solomon was full of God. He loved God, he feared God, he did everything to God. But he ended up having seven hundred wives and princesses and three hundred concubines. So, he thought he was marrying them, he was possessing them. But what happened? They all possessed him. Their gods became his own god, do we see it?
So, opinions are things that we come up with, they are things that people suggest for us, and we agree over time. And usually we don't break our opinions, we don't violate our opinions, we build our lives around them. The children of Israel have been between two opinions for years, God decided to pronounce upon them- there will be no rain. Three years again, no rain, they didn’t still change their opinions. If God had left them like that, they will die in their opinions.
They will be living for the Lord, they'll be living for Baal and God will not be pleased with them. Yet, they will think they are God's people. When people ask them, who are you? They will say, we are children of God. That's on the surface, but they themselves know they also make sacrifices to Baal in the high places. So, God called that being between two opinions. And the man of God said, how long will you be there? And that question is coming to us, it is like God has been enduring our lingering in between opinions for years.
From the time we left university, we left secondary school, till date, we’ve been between opinions and God has been forgiving us, God has been “calming down” in that manner of speaking, God has been waiting that one day His daughter, one day his son is going to come out of two opinions, to having an opinion. But for many of us, we have not left the opinions. Another way of saying it is, the things that we thought was right to do, we have been doing them since then till date.
Whether God was happy or not, we don't really care. Do you know why? Because in our minds, we gave to God what belongs to God, we gave to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. We tell ourselves, we are not completely evil. We still go to church; we still pay our tithe and offerings, we still do this and that, we are in a unit in our church. But we know it deep within our heart, we are still offering sacrifices to Baal. God is calling that being between two opinions.
You could have been there for twenty-five years, that doesn't mean you must die there. God is asking, how long will you be there? He has been calming down for the last thirty years, twenty-five years and fifteen years, will He continue to calm down? Now, so that we know that question that Elijah asked, was not supposed to be a small question, when the exercise was finished, the prophet of Baal; four hundred of them, they call unto Baal from morning till evening but Baal did not show up.
They were cutting themselves, blood was coming out. Elijah was telling them, cry very well, maybe Baal has gotten somewhere. I think there was a place he even said, maybe Baal is meditating somewhere. Cry very well, maybe he is busy! Cry very well, maybe Baal is on a journey. Cry, so that he can hear you, perhaps he is sleeping. And the Bible says they began to cut themselves with knives, blood was coming out but Baal did not show up. When they did all that, Baal didn't show up. He told them to calm down, he repaired the altar, poured enough water inside it and he called down fire. He asked God that God should show Himself to be the true God and God sent down on fire.
Now, when fire came down, you would have thought that it was a small thing for a people to be in-between two opinions. It is not small. The reason is this, the prophet of Baal were not spared. Who were in between two opinions? The children of Israel! But the Bible is making us to realize that they did not get into the two opinions on their own. Some people led them into it; the prophets Baal. Another word for prophets of Baal are the marketers of Baal. Those who do propaganda for Baal. Those who say, “see your life, you could be better if only you go for Baal. Have you seen Baal before? See, yesterday I was with Baal and in fact, Baal was so great to me.” That’s it! Those are the prophets of Baal.
And the word of the Lord that came through Elijah is that they should not allow any prophet of Baal to escape. The Bible says, they executed all the four hundred of them. What was the reason? To prevent the people from being between two opinions again. How long are you going to be between two opinions? If it is a small matter, those prophets will not be killed. They were killed because God does not want his people to be between two opinions.
Let's go to the Book of Matthew chapter 6, we read verse 24, “Jesus said, no one can serve two masters. For either he will hate one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other.” You cannot! Do we remember that place in Hebrews that says, for it is impossible? Another difficult thing now is, you and I cannot serve God and mammon. What was the word we saw in 1st Kings? Baal! But, this time around, Jesus used another word, He said, mammon. Some people will call mammon, the god of money.
And Jesus is saying, you cannot serve God, you cannot be loyal to God, you cannot be inspired by God, you cannot be led by God, you can’t be comforted, and still serve mammon. When somebody is going problem, you say it is well with you, that's comfort by the word. The person is like, “please, don’t comfort me with the word, if you can just get me money, I will be comforted.” Imagine a bad thing happens to somebody, maybe an accident or an aircraft crashes, and then they now want to comfort the family, they now say they give them ten (10) million naira. Does the ten million comfort them? So, just leave comfort, look at any other word, whatever God have been doing for you, for some people, it is money and other accessories of money that does it for them.
If you tell Bro. John, leave where you are now, go to Iraq. Bro John will say, “do you want to kill me?” If the word of God says, “stand up from where you are now and go to Iraq” and Bro John is saying, “do you want to kill me, God?” Or a company just hired him online now and they say he needs to be in Iraq and his money is $50,000. Will Bro John tell the company, “Do you want to kill me?”
And so, do we get it? Whatever God normally does to us; money can also do it. Money may not come on its own, money may come through people, money may come through opportunities, and money may come through organizations. But the very thing God has been telling you to do, if only they put money beside it, don't you think you would do it without complaining?
So, the Bible is saying, don't mix it together, in this your discipleship, it must be clear to God and the host of darkness that you are either for God or you are for them. Let it not be said that the two of them are with you and you are for the two of them. Imagine a woman that God has been telling, this is your husband, this man, is your husband, when he comes to propose, say yes. And then you look at the man from up to down and you're like, “never, God! Never!” Let's play another scenario, the same brother comes to you on his own and he's showing the key of Lexus. And you've come to realize that he is working with the bank; he is the branch manager. And he says, “hi babe, what’s up? Are you going to say never? Or you are going to say yes?”
So, many times God speaks to us, we refuse. I'm almost saying maybe it's because money has not been added to it. Okay, let me say something that I have been saying before, I used to tell some people that the church will become cleaner, and will become more refined, if you take money away from the church.
So, if you mention money inside church again, you're going to hell, everybody knows it. You don't give, you don't collect money about the church, anything around church, no money. How many people will say God has called me to ministry? So, it's easier to respond to the call, why? Money is following you. Take money out of it, can you still be led by God? I don't know if we are understanding it?
Jesus said, you can't be led by God and mammon at the same time. Do you know why many of us are thinking like this? We are like, but the will of God for my life is to do the ministry and then money is coming behind, is it not to help me do it? When you get there, who will you be loyal to in the ministry? Because the money will be demanding loyalty and God will be demanding loyalty in the ministry.
Will you always be for God, or you will be for money? You know I am using money as an example now. But Jesus said, you cannot serve God and mammon. Elijah said, you cannot serve the Lord and Baal. So, what is the lesson that we can take home from here? Has God being speaking to you since 2005 and you’ve been saying no? Are you sure that if they bring money, you won’t say yes? Okay, if you say yes now, don't you realize that God has been brought under the money? You are saying you are obeying but you are obeying because in your heart, you've put God under the money.
So, if God wants to speak to me, let money come first, then I follow God under the money. But can it be that God speak to you now, no money, but you respond to God, and then money comes there. So, even though money has left there, you still know that God told you to be there. Some of us, we can attribute the presence of money, to be presence of God. They are not the same. God can be there and there is no money. And again, the money can be there and there is no God. You know the song that says, whose report will you believe? This one is whose leadership will you follow? Because it started with, why are you faltering between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him, that's the point.
Don't follow God and Baal together. We have been doing it together. Let us check ourselves, in any way we have been following God and something else and we know God is not pleased with the something else. This is time for us to drop it aside because what became of the prophet of Baal, it must not become of us. If we will not be executed in judgment of God, then we must put aside Baal. Let it not be that when God comes to judge us, money will not be able to save us. Baal couldn’t save them, they cried! We must not be between two opinions. Don't tell yourself I will do it simply because you will make money there. If God is telling you to do something, you can’t see money, see God.
If you can see God where you don't see money, money will come. God came to Solomon and asked him, what do you want from Me, you’ve pleased me? And Solomon didn’t ask God for money, even though he needed money. He asked God for wisdom. God said, since you have asked for wisdom, you didn't ask for the neck of your enemy, you didn't ask for riches, all these things you didn't ask for, I will give you. And the Bible says, Solomon became the richest. He didn't ask for money. He asked for the wisdom of God to rule the people, not that he can make money, but the money came.
So, what are the other things that we've been trying to hold, and hold God together? Let's drop those things and hold God. The Bible says, but seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and every other thing, including money shall be added. The Bible says, it is the Lord’s blessing that makes a man rich, He doesn’t add sorrow to it.
