1 Kings 18:38

All day they tore their throats, if not the heavens, with their cry, "O Baal, answer us." They waved their arms like madmen. They leaped about on the altar and cut themselves with knives till the blood gushed out on them. But the sheer excess of their efforts showed how useless they were. There was no reply. Elijah was different. Though he stood alone, he was fully confident in Jehovah. He even took elaborate precautions to rule out every suspicion of human help. The altar and the sacrifice were repeatedly drenched with water. Then, in answer to his prayer, the sacred fire fell from the cloudless sky and consumed everything. Humanly speaking, God acted under the least favourable conditions for the glory of His name.

The time when the prophet drew near should be noted. It was the hour of the evening sacrifice. That fact declared where Elijah rested for the sign he asked for. He rested not in his own services or prayers, but in the value of the burnt offering, which pictures the sacrifice of Christ... The Lord heard and answered the prayer of His servant.

A holy God must deal with all evil by the consuming fire of judgment. This nation is steeped in that very evil. How can they escape? Here is an issue that no fervent prayer of a righteous man can meet. If the guilty nation is to be spared, an altar must be built and a sacrifice provided. That sacrifice will stand for the guilty nation under the eye of God, and the judgment they have deserved can fall on it. And so it happened, for we read, "The fire of the LORD fell and consumed the burnt offering." The judgment falls on the victim, the nation goes free.

The fire stands for the righteous judgement of God. It might well have fallen on the disobedient nation. Or, passing the nation by, it might have fallen on Ahab and his hundreds of idolatrous prophets, all servants of the Devil. But it did nothing of the kind. The fire fell on the innocent bull that Elijah had placed on the altar! What a picture of the great sacrifice of Calvary! There the righteous judgement of God fell — not on the wicked masses of men, and not even on the corrupt leaders who were mainly to blame for setting up that cross. The judgement of God in all its terrible severity fell on the Holy One who hung there. It forced from Him the cry, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

The fire fell on the victim as an atonement for the sins of the guilty people. Not one Israelite was touched by that fire... Years have passed since then. The grace of God provided a sacrifice and sheltered the guilty people from the fire of judgment, and that grace has been forgotten. The sacrifice has been despised, and now, once again, the fire falls on the hilltop. But this time there is no victim between a holy God and a sinful people. Instead of falling on the victim, the fire falls on the guilty people in overwhelming destruction.

In his day, God empowered Elijah to call down fire from heaven. That fire bore witness to the true God and exposed the worship of an idol. What Elijah did by the power of God, Antichrist will imitate by the power of the devil. His aim will be to turn people from the true God to worship an idol, or image of the beast.