God of Miracles—Their Circumstances
Life of Elijah, Part 3
By Pastor Matt Black
26
August 2007
Lord's Day evening
1 Kings 17:1-16
Introduction: Open your Bibles to the book of I Kings 17:1-16. Once you’ve found that please stand. We are continuing on in our series on the life of Elijah. The title of this evening’s message is “God of Miracles”. The title of this evening’s message is “God Always Provides”. This is Part 3 in a miniseries I’ve entitled “Life of Elijah”. If we have time we’ll deal with more than the first 16 verses, but let’s go ahead and read 1 Kings 17:1-16, “And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the LORD God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word. 2 And the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, 3 Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. 4 And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there. 5 So he went and did according unto the word of the LORD: for he went and dwelt by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. 6 And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook. 7 And it came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land.
8 And the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, 9 Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there: behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee. 10 So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering of sticks: and he called to her, and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink. 11 And as she was going to fetch it, he called to her, and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand. 12 And she said, As the LORD thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die. 13 And Elijah said unto her, Fear not; go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son. 14 For thus saith the LORD God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the LORD sendeth rain upon the earth. 15 And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah: and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days. 16 And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the LORD, which he spake by Elijah.”
[Prayer for guidance]
Last week we talked about the circumstances. It was a dark time in Israel. It had been only fifty-eight short years since Solomon’s death. Just after Solomon went off the scene the Davidic Kingdom split in two. Elijah steps on the scene 58 years after King Solomon’s death. We are going to see a man that has no fear of anyone because of his prayer life. During those 58 years of spiritual blindness—7 kings had reigned over the northern kingdom—all were wicked to the core and followed in the footsteps of the first king in the era of the divided kingdom, Jeroboam.
All the sudden we see Elijah on the scene in 1 Kings 17. No credentials. He’s virtually unknown. All we know is that he’s from Gilead. He’s nothing spectacular. We do know that he’s a perfect candidate because as 1 Corinthians 1:27 says, “God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty”.
Here was a man that had no fear of man. He went before the compromised pagan king of the land. He had already been praying for six months for drought. And he tells King Ahab whose married to Queen Jezebel—that the drought’s going to continue for another 3 (three) years.
This was God’s message for this wicked King, and then God took Elijah and fed him and protected him. Where was that? By the Brook Cherith. Who fed Elijah? The ravens and the brook. But it was all by the hand of God!Every morning and every evening Elijah had to trust God. He had to trust God just like the Jewish people had to trust God for manna each morning.
But something happens in verse 7. There’s a huge turn of events. Look at 1 Kings 17:7, “And it came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land.”
The Brook Cherith dried up. It was probably a mountain stream that dried up. Now we come to this Brook and we realize that God is a God of miracles.
Miraculous provisions are very common for the children of God. Those who walk with God live lives full of miracles. Now tonight were not going to get into the miracles themselves, but we are going to talk about the soil of miraculous living. God will miraculously provide for you and work on your behalf. But there are certain conditions that we want to look at. Let’s look at the first principle.
I. 1st Principle: Miracles often happened when there is an extreme or sudden change in circumstances. The brook was flowing for Elijah, but we read very clearly in verse 7 that “after a while…the brook dried up”. But we ought to be ready for this.
A. We should expect change because this world is passing away. “The fashion of this world passeth away” (1 Corinthians 7:31), and therefore “here have we no continuing city” (Hebrews 13:14). We are commanded to not be in love with this world system. This world system is a system of comfort and ease. Are you in love with your ease? There is sometimes change and upheaval in life. But would many times God reveals Himself powerfully in times of crisis. We should not think that God is going to simply leave us alone when we get saved. You will have plenty of trials to test your faith so that you will persevere and get to know God better. So we should be prepared for sudden and unexpected changes in life.
B. We ought to be ready for things to change because God wants to reveal His all-sufficiency to you, and He uses a variety of ways to do it. God can use manna or ravens to provide. We are going to find shortly, that God wants to miraculously provide using a widow’s oil and a handful of meal. If you’ve walked with God long at all, you know that God is the one that opens and shuts doors, and He’s the only one that can do it.
C. This change in Elijah’s circumstances (the brook drying up) was due to God’s judgment on an ungodly nation. Sometimes the change in circumstances doesn’t seem fair. But God is more concerned about the trying of your faith than your comfort. And no redeemed human being can ever have a conversation with God about fairness. We live lives under God’s constant mercy which is outside the realm of what fairness is. Remember Psalm 34:19, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all.”
Of course at this point many people ask, why does Elijah have to suffer? He’s the prophet! He’s doing right! Why do the righteous suffer? And I think the answer is that God uses suffering of all kinds to build our faith. As James 1 says, “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; 3 Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience” (James 1:2). Joy is not in the trial itself, but in the fact that God is going to use the trial to build your faith. The truth of the matter is though you are living an obedient life, you do not get a free pass from trials. And also, if God were to leave us at the Brook Cherith for too long, we might begin trusting in the Brook instead of trusting in the Lord.
Application: Are you trusting in the Lord, or are you resting in the gifts of the Lord. A car and a job and a bank account are fine. But money and provision does not come from your ability to work or drive a car or have a job or open a bank account. All blessings flow from Christ. When the brook dries up, there’s need for God to work again. God is a God of miracles.
So what was principle number 1? 1st Principle: Miracles often happened when there is an extreme or sudden change in circumstances. That could be a death in the family. It could be a serious financial or a health need. Maybe you are going through this right now, and you say, why is God allowing this? The answer is that God has not loved you less. In fact, He’s trying your faith so that you can trust Him more.
II. 2nd Principle: Miracles often occur when obedience to God’s Word is exercised. Remember, Elijah had obeyed before and had seen this miracle. Verse 4 God had said, “I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there.” God provided at the Brook Cherith, and there was (verse 6), “bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook.” If you are always doing what God says, obeying him, He will often work something out of the situation you never imagined.
Of course God could have let Elijah out the easy way. He could have brought rain. But He tells Elijah now in verse 8, “And the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, 9 Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there: behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.” Now Elijah did not know how or in what way he would be sustained, but He did know that God would use the woman in some way.
Verse 10 we read, “So he arose and went to Zarephath…” In wilderness wandering there was a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of could by night. 1 Corinthians 10 intimates that that cloud was the very presence of Christ among God’s ancient people. The life of faith is always guided by Jesus Christ Himself. You can trust the nail scarred hand to guide you in the right way.
So when things are getting hard—when it is easy to give up and become unfaithful, that’s the very time you need to be trusting in the Lord. Let’s learn a few things about this obedience.
A. Obedience is easier in the good times, but it is essential in the hard times. Are we fair-weather Christians? Or is God worth trusting in the difficult times as well as the good times? Psalm 27:14 we read, “Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.”
B. Obedience leaves no room for clever scheming. Our human scheming is worthless. Jeremiah said in chapter 10:23, “O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” Or Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. 6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths”.
C. Then we see that Obedience is good because it crosses our deceitful wills and requires what is contrary to our natural inclinations. James 5:17 tells us that Elijah “was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly”. In prayer Elijah daily surrendered His will for the Lord’s will.
III. 3rd Principle: Miracles often occur out of humble circumstances. Verse 9 we read, “Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there: behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.”
A. Humble circumstances are often a place of refining. The name of the place to which God ordered Elijah to go is quite suggestive. "Zarephath" means "refining," the root of the word is “crucible”—the place where metals are melted. Job said in the midst of his trial in Job 23:10, “But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.”
B. Humble circumstances often require a demand so great on the physical body and the emotions of the heart and mind that at the end we can only say that it was only by the grace of God. You see to go from Cherith to Zarephath involved a journey of seventy-five miles across the desert.
C. Humble circumstances often put us in a place where we meet undesirable people that God wants to save. You see it should be noted that Zarephath was "in Zidon". Where was Zidon? Zidon was a Gentile city, and the home of none other than Queen Jezebel! It was a land of the undesirable Gentiles quite a ways north of Israel. Turn over to Luke 4:25-26, Jesus says, “But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of [Elijah], when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land; 26 But unto none of them was [Elijah]sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow.” Now look at the instruments that God often uses. He first used humble ravens. Vultures essentially. Then he uses a woman that is getting ready to die. When Elijah encounters her in verse 12, she says, “behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” She was gathering sticks for a fire for one last meal.
God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble (1 Peter 5:5). He uses humble instruments. Some of my favorite verses are found in 1 Corinthians 1:26-29, “For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: 27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; 28 And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: 29 That no flesh should glory in his presence.”
It is truly strange sometimes when we think of the people and the things that God uses. He uses things we throw away! He uses donkeys and poor Gentile widows and ravens. God did not send Elijah to one of the rich merchants of Zidon, but a poor widow. Elijah wasn’t provided for by the King of Zidon, but by a penniless woman who could barely provide for herself and her son.
Application: Are you worried about your pension, Medicare, or social security? Are you worried about the rising costs of health care and prescription drugs? Are you concerned about whether you can afford a car if this one dies?
Look at Isaiah 41:10. Here we have the answer to every thought of unbelief that may go through your mind. Here we have in God’s Word an anchor for your soul in the time of trial: “Fear thou not; for I am with thee; be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of My righteousness”. We are dependent not on our finances, but on the sure Word of our God who promises to strengthen us and help us and uphold us with His righteous right hand!
Conclusion: As we close I want you to consider the difficulties Elijah faced.
Ø He was required to leave the land of his fathers and sojourn at the headquarters of Baal-worship.
Ø He went to a place he was unfamiliar with.
Ø He was tired when he got there (75 mile journey)
All these things stood against him. If I could leave you with one thing it is this. In trials, you must decide to give God unquestioning obedience, not excuses, because God will not work miracles on behalf of a dirty vessel. So determine in your heart when all the trials are coming your way never to compromise. In compromise you may get a temporary release from stress, but you will not see God work any miracles! Determine to obey!
Closing Hymn: 38 How Great Thou Art (first and last)