I Kings 18: 26 & 28 states, “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. And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them.”
“Crazy Cat” was a black tomcat that came from the Cascade Mountains. While I was making a pastoral call on Joe and Edith Pope at their cabin on White Pass, our daughters were playing outside and discovered some wild kittens. Joe said they could have one if they could catch it. That’s how we got Crazy Cat. In no time the girls had tamed him. They dressed him in doll clothes and pushed him in their little stroller. He didn’t mind being smothered with their attention, even as he reached full size. I was shocked when the neighbor told me how mean that cat was. “I saw him last night in the alley fighting with another cat. They charged each other from 20 feet apart, jumped and met each other in the air. Fur was flying everywhere.”
Satan—the crazy cat—is dangerous. “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, [a big cat] walks about, seeking whom he may devour” (I Peter 5:8). He loves religion and wants to be worshiped. On a high mountain, he tried to get Jesus to worship him (Matthew 4:9).
Paul warns of false apostles in II Corinthians 11:13&14, “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.” The prophets of Baal in our text were false prophets. We wonder how they could be so stupid as to worship man-made images and a god of their own imagination. It is because the crazy cat had got ahold of them.
The crazy cat is working in “churches” today, drawing people that don’t study the Bible and think for themselves. Paul also warns in Ephesians 4:14, “That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;”
Finally Paul warns in II Timothy 3:1-5, “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.”
In our text we see how the crazy cat caused the prophets to leap on the altar, cutting themselves. They were soon to die in their sin, victims of THE CRAZY CAT!
