In Isaiah, chapter forty-one, verses twenty-one through twenty-four, “Produce your cause, saith the LORD; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob. Let them bring them forth, and shew us what shall happen: let them shew the former things, what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare us things for to come. Shew the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods: yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold it together. Behold, ye are of nothing, and your work of nought: an abomination is he that chooseth you.” In these theme verses, God challenges the nations to foretell the future by their idols as accurately as Isaiah did by the Spirit of the Lord in the Old Testament.
In First Kings eighteen, Elijah was sent by God to Mount Carmel to confront the people of God who followed Baalim. He was called to defend the true God of Israel. This is what Elijah said to them, beginning in verse twenty-three to twenty-four, “Let them therefore give us two bullocks; and let them choose one bullock for themselves, and cut it in pieces, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under: and I will dress the other bullock, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under: And call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the LORD: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said, It is well spoken.”
In verses twenty-five to twenty-six, “And Elijah said unto the prophets of Baal, Choose you one bullock for yourselves, and dress it first; for ye are many; and call on the name of your gods, but put no fire under. And they took the bullock which was given them, and they dressed it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any that answered. And they leaped upon the altar which was made.” These prophets of Baal continued from verses twenty-seven through twenty-nine, but nothing changed. Only hurting themselves physically.
When it was Elijah’s turn to demonstrate, he had the people there repair the altar and prepare for his God to manifest, in verses thirty to thirty-six. He begins, ” Hear me, O LORD, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the LORD God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again. Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.” Elijah believed, he said it, God did it.