Focus: Halt The Halting!

Text: 1Kgs.18:21

"And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word."

Elijah's name means literally 'God himself.' Two names of God are brought together - El and Jah. El is the name of God, and so is Jah - Yah or Yahweh. The two names together speaks of emphasis, of intensity and immensity. Hence the meaning of 'God himself.' Elijah was called to stand in God's place, confronting Israel for their religious indifference and unhealthy spiritual mixture.

Elijah was making it absolutely clear that God's people should not be halting between two opinions. It is not right for His people to be keeping two things together that do not belong together, and God cannot tolerate that. We cannot serve God and Mammon. We cannot take the center place, trying to pull together two things that have no business being together.

Elijah asked, "How long halt ye between two opinions?" In other words, 'You have been doing this for so long, and it has got to stop. You just can't afford to keep God on one side and idols on the other side. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't show character and consistency. It doesn't reflect sound moral conviction.' 

When it appears God is working, we serve, and when it seems He's failing we turn to other gods. That's being transactional in our relationship with God. Keeping God and other gods in our lives is insulting to our God. He would not tolerate any form of religious syncretism in the lives of His people. That's spiritual waywardness. That's perversion of the holy. That's spiritual confusion. That's a huge insult against the throne of the supreme Lord of the universe. That's lack of trust in God.

Fear and doubt create multiplicity of deities in our consciousness, and these fear and doubt make us bow at the altar of these false gods.

One thing we must know is that the Dagons of this world will always collapse before the ark of the covenant of our God.

Read for yourself what happens when we try so hard to make the God and all other gods coexist.

The Scripture says, "When the Philistines took the ark of God, they brought it into the house of Dagon, and set it by Dagon. And when they of Ashdod arose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the earth before the ark of the LORD. And they took Dagon, and set him in his place again. And when they arose early on the morrow morning, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the LORD; and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold; only the stump of Dagon was left to him" (1Sam.5:2-4). 

The gods cannot stand beside or before our God. They would fall flat on their faces. Religious syncretism is not allowed by God in the lives of His people. John writes, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen" (1Jh.5:21). God alone will have all the glory in our lives, nothing and no one else. Halt the halting! It's neither right nor gainful. Keep a pure faith! Stop messing up your spiritual life!

by Bishop Moses E. Peter