Why Geography Matters at Mount Carmel

[Opening shot: standing on Mount Carmel, looking out over the Jezreel Valley and surrounding landscape.]

Look around you.

This is Mount Carmel.

And when you stand here, you begin to understand something about the Bible that is easy to miss when we simply read the words on a page:

Geography matters.

The Bible isn't just telling us what happened. It's telling us what happened here—in a particular landscape, on particular mountains, in particular valleys.

And at Mount Carmel, geography helps us understand one of the great confrontations in the Old Testament.

[Pause. Look toward the surrounding hills.]

For the ancient peoples of Canaan, mountains and high places were associated with worship.

Again and again, the Old Testament describes pagan worship as taking place on the "high hills" and "under every green tree."

Why?

Because people believed their gods were associated with particular places. The high places became places where people went to meet and worship their gods.

And Israel was constantly tempted to adopt that way of thinking.

But the God of Israel was different.

He wasn't simply a god of this mountain or a god of that valley.

He is the God who rules over all of it.

And that brings us here to 1 Kings 18.

[Transition: wider shot of Carmel.]

By the time Elijah comes to Mount Carmel, Israel has wandered deeply into Baal worship.

And Elijah calls the people of Israel to a showdown.

The prophets of Baal build an altar and call on their god to send fire.

They cry out. They dance. They plead.

But nothing happens.

And then Elijah repairs the altar of the LORD.

He pours water over it.

And he prays.

And the fire of the LORD falls.

The point isn't simply that Elijah won a religious competition.

The point is that the LORD is God.

Baal doesn't control this mountain.

The LORD does.

In fact, that's one of the reasons geography matters here.

This mountain that had become a place associated with pagan worship becomes the stage on which God demonstrates that He alone is sovereign.

[Pause. Look out over the landscape.]

But there's another geographical detail that becomes important.

After the victory on Mount Carmel, Elijah runs south.

And eventually he finds himself at Mount Horeb.

And there, Elijah tells God that he is the only one left.

He's seen the prophets of Baal defeated.

He's seen God's fire fall from heaven.

And yet he feels completely alone.

"I, even I only, am left."

But God tells him something Elijah couldn't see.

There were seven thousand in Israel who had not bowed the knee to Baal.

And I think that's one of the great lessons of this landscape.

[Look toward distant hills and valleys.]

Mountains are easy to see.

Valleys are easy to see.

But God's people aren't always.

Sometimes we look at the landscape of our world and think, Where is everybody who still follows God?

Sometimes faithfulness seems small.

Sometimes it seems hidden.

Sometimes we may even feel like Elijah:

"I'm the only one left."

But Elijah wasn't the only one.

There was a remnant.

God was at work in ways Elijah couldn't see.

And that brings us back to the mountain.

[Final wide shot.]

Mount Carmel reminds us that God doesn't reign only in the places where His people are most visible.

He reigns over every hill and every valley.

He reigns where His people are numerous, and He reigns where they seem few.

He reigns where faith is publicly celebrated, and He reigns where faithfulness seems hidden.

The mountains may be impossible to miss.

The faithful remnant may be much harder to see.

But God's sovereignty is never in question.

That's why geography matters.

Because when you stand here, you don't just remember what happened on Mount Carmel.

You remember who is Lord over the mountain.

And He's still Lord over every hill and every valley.