1 Kings 17:2

You know, if you look at the Hall of Fame of Faith, which is found in Hebrews 11, you will never see Elijah explicitly named though arguably he is one of the greatest of the prophets of Israel. I say he's not named explicitly but if you read the descriptions of some of the people in Hebrews 11 I think he is there. If you read all of Hebrews 11 whose names are given as people of faith. But then there are some descriptions of people. People who shut the mouths of lions.

Who would that be?

Daniel. People who quenched the fire.

Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego. And then in Hebrews 11, verse 35, it says, Because women received back their dead, raised to life again.

That's Elijah. And Elisha. But I think Elijah is in mind here. And we're going to find out today that he, in fact, in his life, was involved with helping a woman receive back her dead son.

Last week, we began our study, and I'm calling our study, Learning to Live Like a Child of the King in a Land of Unbelief. Profitable insights. Profitable insights. Elijah the prophet. Profitable insights.

And I made the connection last week. And if you weren't here, I want to be sure you get it. The lessons we learn through the life of Elijah as he lived his life in a very pagan land, a land of unbelief, are lessons we need to learn today for our own land. which I would submit is largely a land of unbelief. So don't just think of these stories as ancient history.

Think of them as ancient history that teaches us very valuable lessons for today. Last week we began with Act 1 in Elijah's life. And Act 1 was really one verse, 1 Kings 17, 1, where we were introduced to a number of people. And Elijah made a very important announcement or pronouncement to the king. And the pronouncement was, for several years, there will be no rain in the land.

It was God's judgment on the land. and it was God's way of setting up a great contest. The contest between Baal, who was the god of the storm, the god of lightning, the god of thunder, who supposedly controlled the heavens, and the god of Israel, who says there will be no rain. And the tension in the story is who is really king? Who is really God?

Is it Baal or is it the god of Israel? And we're going to find out, is it going to rain or is it not going to rain? The God of Israel says it's not. Is Baal strong enough to overcome the God of Israel's pronouncement? We're going to find out in the story who is king.

The key figures we were introduced last week were Ahab and Jezebel. Ahab, the eighth king of the northern kingdom of Israel, who did more evil in the sight of the Lord than the previous seven kings of the northern kingdom. Primarily his great evil is that he marries this woman Jezebel, a foreigner and a pagan that he should never have married, who herself was likely a priestess of this god Baal and who influenced her husband to bring Baal worship into the kingdom of Israel. To the point that the prophets of Baal were on the government payroll. They were eating in the king's palace.

and this God would not tolerate without judgment and he sends that judgment in several ways one of which being there will be no rain the second person or entity we were introduced to was Baal and his prophets Baal being the this pagan god of thunder and lightning the third person we were introduced into is Elijah the Tishbite. Elijah whose name means my God is the Lord and that is the message that he comes with to the people of Israel that my God the God of Israel really is the Lord. It's not this pagan God you're worshiping. And then we were introduced to the God of Israel and I would submit it is the God of Israel who is the central figure throughout the story central earthly figure through the story. Now let me say a word here because we're getting ready to go to act two in the story. In act two I call the act of seclusion and preparation.

First Kings 17 verses 2 through 24. When you read the Old Testament there are a lot of stories, A lot of what people call narrative.

And let me tell you the distinction between a narrative passage and a didactic passage. A didactic passage is a passage with direct teaching. Where God makes a direct statement about the faith or a direct statement about how we are to live. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. A didactic passage teaching us that purity of heart is what God wants.

You shall have no other gods before me. A teaching passage that tells us we're not to have any other gods besides one true God. That's a didactic, a teaching passage. But then we have narrative passages. And narrative passages are really passages that are just stories.

We get these great stories of the Old Testament. But when you're reading a story, the writer often doesn't stop to say, here's the point you're supposed to learn from the story. Here's why this story is recorded in Scripture. But anytime we read a story in Scripture, we need to stop in these narrative passages and say, is the lesson. What am I supposed to learn from this passage?

Now we have to be careful. We don't want to draw wrong conclusions because the story doesn't stop to tell us exactly what the lessons are. But I think when we read these stories, lessons begin to pop out in how God acted in a certain situation, how His people responded in a situation, and we need to learn. These are great for teaching all ages, particularly start by teaching children, don't we, the stories of Scripture? They need to know the story about Daniel and the lion's den. But there's a lesson from the story, right? They need to know the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. But then there are lessons from the story. I have two great concerns in the Christian world today. Number one, we don't know the stories anymore.

There's so many people who can't tell us or know the stories of Scripture. And when we don't know the stories, we don't know the lessons. So as we go through the life of Elijah, we're going to tell the story, but then we're going to try to learn the lessons. And I hope if you haven't spent much time or any time reading in the Old Testament, maybe you'll take some time to go back,

Samuel and read up through 2 Kings and that will kind of take you through the era of both before and after Elijah's period. But that stuff in 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings and 2 Kings is good stuff. I mean that's David and Goliath stuff in there, you know, those great stories. And we can learn a lot from those stories. Okay. We're now to act two in the story of Elijah. This man from nowhere, from Tishbe, goes and tells the most powerful man in the nation, King Ahab, no rain.

No rain. That's verse one of chapter 17. And then what happens in verse two?

This is scene one of act two. Just pick up with me and let's read verses two through seven. First King 17. Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah. Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kareth ravine east of the Jordan.

You will drink from the brook and I have ordered the ravens to feed you there. So he did what the Lord had told him. went to the Kareth ravine east of the Jordan and stayed there. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook. Sometime later, the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land.

Isn't it interesting that after this great pronouncement to King Ahab, the very next verse God says go hide get away from there go over to the Kareth ravine which is east of the Jordan river and go hide there

now if I had been Ahab and I had just announced to the king there was going to be no rain I'd want to give him the left hook I'd be ready to give him the right hook you know come on God let me give him one more But God says, go hide. I think there are two reasons for that. I think the first reason is that it was a practical thing. Ahab was likely going to be after Elijah, and God, in a very ordinary way, was protecting him. Go hide in a remote region of the country.

But I think Ahab was not only going to try to kill Elijah, but God, by sending Elijah into the Kareth ravine, was sending Elijah into a place of seclusion where Elijah himself could learn some lessons. A preview for next week. There's a great contest, a great confrontation that's coming. It's going to take great fortitude and courage to stand for God in our next week's lesson. Elijah is the one that has to stand there.

And before he goes to that confrontation, God sends him into seclusion, takes him out of the public arena, puts him into a place where he's alone, so he can begin to learn. And listen. And be prepared for the next part of the story. For act 3. He goes into seclusion.

This is an interesting story. He goes to the Kareth Ravine. Some translations have it Cherith Ravine. That word is interesting. That word means to be cut off.

The word Kareth means cut off or cut down. and Elijah who is this man of God who's made this great announcement to the king is now in a place that is called cut off and in a sense he really is cut off he is secluded and he's going to be cut down he's going to be very dependent in this setting to the point that he has to have food and water supplied to him in a miraculous way. And here we have one of those miracles of Scripture where the ravens, the birds themselves, morning and evening are bringing food to Elijah. Because he was in a location and a place where he really couldn't provide for himself. So God provides for him.

And then he has the water from the brook that he drinks. So his bread and his meat come supplied by ravens. His water is from the brook and that's where he lives for the better part of three years. But then finally the brook dries up. No rain for a long period of time in the land and the brook finally dries up.

So in scene one of act two, Elijah is in seclusion. He's isolated. He's in a place where he is inactive. He is a place where he is dependent. He can listen and learn, but it is in many ways a fearful place because he is so dependent on having things provided to him.

And it probably really gets fearful when there's no more water, when the brook dries up. Okay, that's the story. We're going to get to the lessons in a minute. But everybody got a picture of scene one, Elijah in seclusion. Well, when the brook dries up, we move to scene two.

and God says okay Elijah there's no more water in the brook but that's okay I'm going to take care of you and we go to scene two Elijah and the poor widow let's pick up at verse eight then the word of the Lord came to him go at once to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food so he went to Zarephath when he came to the town gate a widow gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink? As she was going to get it, he called, And bring me, please, a piece of bread. As surely as the Lord your God lives, she replied, I don't have any bread, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son that we may eat it and die.

Elijah said to her, do not be afraid. Go home and do as you have said, but first make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me. And then make something for yourself and your son. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel says. The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord gives rain on the land.

She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah. I want you to do something for me if you can. And if you have one of those study Bibles with maps in the back, I want you to flip back and see if you can find a map that is of the time of Elijah.

And if someone near you has one, kind of look over someone's shoulder. I have a map in my Bible that says prophets in Israel and Judah, and it shows the land of Israel. How many of you have a map that shows, looking on my map, up sort of toward the top in the area of Phoenicia, there's a town called Zarephath.

Anybody found Zarephath? Raise your hand if you got it. Okay, look at all these people got it. Okay, now I want you to look with me. I want you to see where Elijah was. He was in the

If you look on your map, you will see it's the Sea of Galilee. On the map at the time period I have, it's called the Sea of Kinnereth. But you've got a little body of water, and the Jordan River flows down to the Salt Sea, which is the Dead Sea. How many of you see the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea? Okay.

Well, just to the right of the Jordan River, about a little more than halfway up from the Dead Sea, up toward the Sea of Galilee, that's where the Kareth Ravine is located. And on my map, it actually shows, it says, Elijah fed by ravens here. So everybody get the location. He was east of the Jordan River, down from the Sea of Galilee. But then he travels over 100 miles up to the town of Zarephath, which is in the land of Phoenicia.

You've got to understand what's happening. God is taking Elijah from the Kareth ravine. He's sending him to Zarephath. Who is the king over the area of Sidon and this area of Phoenicia? Do you remember?

There's a woman who came from this area. Her name is Jezebel. This is where she's from. Her daddy is the king of this area. King Ethba.

So God says to Elijah, look, the water's run out, so I've got a plan. My plan is you're going to walk 100 miles. Number two, you're going into the land of King Ethba, father of Jezebel. Not a very friendly territory. And number three, oh yeah, I'm going to provide for you by sending you to this poor widow.

If I had been Elijah, I'd say, wait a minute, God. A hundred miles is a long way on foot. It's a dangerous place. King Ethba will not be a friendly person to me and that territory will not be friendly. That's not your people up there, God.

Those are the pagans. And God, a poor widow, widows in our day and time, God, have nothing. broke how's she going to provide for me she probably can't even provide for herself god says start walking i just says yes sir and he walks and he meets the widow now god had prepared in advance for elijah he said i have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food and when elijah travels there sure enough he meets this widow and he asks for food and water. He's walked a long way. He's been in a place where the brook was dried up. He wants food and water. And she says, as surely as the God of Israel lives, I have no bread. I haven't gotten anything to take care of you. Widows in this day were on the lowest rungs economically of society.

It was one of the greatest tragedies that could befall a woman in this day that she lose her husband and have no one else to marry. Because it was a day and time where women were so dependent on the care from a male figure. She had a son, we know that, likely a young son, who was not able to provide for her like a husband would have been able to provide for her. But it's here, in this place where a woman is totally poor, that God is able show his power. When there's nothing left, when there are no other resources, when it's to the point there's not even enough food and water to feed Elijah the widow and her son, it's when God's power can be seen. And Elijah directs the woman, you go make a cake for me and here's God's promise.

the flour in the jar and the oil in the jar will not run out until the rain returns to the land. In other words, until you're able to have water to raise crops, God is going to care for you day by day. And the text says there was food every day. It's like the manna of the Old Testament. when every day the people needed to eat the manna was there the same is true for elijah and the widow and her son every day when they needed food it was there now the text indicates they weren't able to store up food every day they had just what they needed but no more give us this day our daily bread was their prayer and God answered it.

But day by day by day by day. So every day they had to go look in the flour jar and in the oil jar and trust that God would provide for that day. And he did. Another miraculous provision. So scene one, Elijah's in seclusion.

He goes to Zarephath and in scene two, he meets the widow and God miraculously provides. the morning is the death of the widow's son. Verses 17 to 24. Sometime later, the son of the woman who owned the house became ill. He grew worse and worse and finally stopped breathing. She said to Elijah, what do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?

Give me your son, Elijah replied. He took him from her arms, carried him to the upper room where he was staying and laid him on his bed. Then he cried out to the Lord, O Lord my God, have you brought tragedy also upon this widow I am staying with by causing her son to die. Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried to the Lord, O Lord my God, let this boy's life return to him. The Lord heard Elijah's cry and the boy's life returned to him and he lived. Elijah picked up the child and carried him down from the room into the house. He gave him to his mother and said, look, your son is alive. And I'm sure that the text is very cryptic here when the woman said, now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth.

but I can just see that mama dancing and shouting while she's saying it because her son is now alive.

This was a tremendous loss for the widow. It would be a tremendous loss for anyone. I've lost a son. Some of you have lost loved ones. To lose a child is a devastating, tragic, bone-crushing, crawling-over-glass kind of event.

and for a widow to lose the only relative that was likely to ever be able to provide for her was a terrible loss. But again, it's in the middle of loss that we get to see the power of God. And Elijah takes the child to the upper room and in the houses of that day there was typically a room on the roof. That's where Elijah stayed. It helped avoid scandal that at least he stayed in another room up on the roof apart from where the widow lived.

And it was a good place for people to stay. A little cooler up there. Maybe with some breezes flowing. But he takes the sun up there. And he stretches out on the sun three times.

It's kind of odd. The text doesn't tell us why he does that. I speculate he did it because of a triune God. And the text says he prayed three times. Oh Lord my God let this boy's life return to him.

So I think he prayed in the name of the Father. Oh Lord. Oh, Lord, he prayed in the name of the Holy Spirit. Oh, Lord, that's my speculation for why he does it three times. So the text doesn't pause to tell us why.

And we see for the first time in recorded scripture, someone raised from the dead. This is the first time from the beginning of scripture up until now. We've not had a recorded event where God raised someone from the dead. But right here, God teaches Elijah and the widow a lesson. and he teaches them that he is the God who is all-powerful even to the point of having power to conquer death.

It's an important lesson for Elijah. It's an important lesson for the widow. And seeing this great miracle, the woman is then convinced and she exclaims, you are now a man of God and I know that the word you speak is the truth. So this miracle was the confirmation for her and for us that Elijah was really a prophet of God. So three important scenes.

A scene of seclusion by the care of the ravine. A scene with the widow who has nothing to provide to a hungry and thirsty prophet but God provides. And then a third scene, the loss of a son. And God powerfully brings that son back to life. So what are the lessons?

Those are the stories. What are the lessons? There are probably others, but here are my lessons for today that I draw from this story. Lesson number one. Today's life lessons, I call them.

God sometimes prepares us for service by leading us into lonely or difficult places or circumstances. There's something important about getting alone with God in our lives. Where it's just us and Him. When there's no one else, nothing to interfere. Where the TV is off.

Where the noise of the world is sort of pushed away. And we can just be there with God. And listen. But sometimes God has to get us to those places, doesn't He? Sometimes He gets us to those places where we're just with Him by sending us very difficult circumstances.

to the point that we are overwhelmed and finally we turn to him and talk with him, who we should have been talking with all along. I think of people like Moses who was sent to the desert of Midian where he worked for many years before he saw the burning bush. I think about David, the shepherd, on those lonely nights watching the sheep and having to protect them from the bears and the lions. And his opportunity, though, in that place of solitude to commune and talk with God. Don't we need times when we are not distracted to just be with God and focus on God?

One of the great problems, I think, in our culture, particularly in the U.S., is we are so hurried and so busied and there's so much noise, we don't stop to listen. to learn. I have found that God gets me to learn by sending me those difficult circumstances where I finally realize my dependence and that it really is just me and God. And I'm finally to the point I have to trust in Him. Sometimes God makes our brooks dry up, doesn't He? There's no more water, God. My brook is dry.

All I can in this situation, God, I am worn out. I have no more reserves. I don't know what to do. I do not know where to turn. I am utterly and completely incapable myself of dealing with this situation.

What am I going to do? And God says, now you're in a position to learn. Now you're going to find out who I am. we've got to get beyond this notion of we can do it ourselves and be independent we need to learn to be dependent first life lesson sometimes it's the lonely and difficult places that God leads us to prepare us for service number two we often encounter difficult circumstances in life because God loves us and wants us to be more of what he wants us to be This was one of my hardest lessons in life.

After losing Joshua, I was angry with God for a long time. And I didn't think God much cared for David Rogers. And it was many years later that I finally saw it was the difficult moment that came my way by God's providence. That was the clearest sign of his love for me. Because he had something bigger in mind.

Something more important that was greater than even the tragedy that I had experienced. My message to some of you out there who are experiencing difficult times is do not believe that the difficult experience means God is against you. In fact, it may be the surest sign that God loves you. because it is in that experience He's going to draw you tighter to Him and closer to Him than you have ever been in your life. Without the pain, sometimes we don't experience the glory, but it's in the pain that we often do see the glory of God and draw closer to Him.

It has been the experience of God's people throughout the centuries that sometimes He doesn't widen our territory sometimes he drastically narrows them. And it's in the narrows, in the straits of difficulty that we learn to trust him more completely. And the next lesson from the story today is God is the sovereign shepherd. Even in the most difficult of times, we should always trust in him. We are to live lives of complete trust Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

As Christians, we need to be people who are free from the worry and fear that most people live in. We ought to be people who can live with a sort of joyous abandon, facing whatever may come, but trusting that the sovereign shepherd will help us through. There are some great passages of Scripture. I think I gave them to you in your handout. Let me just read a couple of these.

And this sort of deep trust in God that we see, for example, in Habakkuk 3, verses 17 to 19, where the writer Habakkuk, a place we probably rarely read, but the writer Habakkuk says, Though the fig tree does not bud, and there are no grapes on the vine, though the olive crop fails, and the fields produce no food, Though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet will I rejoice in the Lord. I will be joyful in God my Savior. The sovereign Lord is my strength. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer. He enables me to go on the heights.

Or Psalm 91, 1-4. He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

The second story, the second book that Elizabeth Elliot wrote about the loss of her husband, Jim Elliot. You remember the story. He was one of five missionaries. In 1956, they went down to witness to the Aka Indians in Ecuador, and these five men were slaughtered. Five women were left widows.

Nine children were left fatherless. And Elizabeth Elliot would write about that experience. Her first book was Through Gates of Splendor. And then her second book was In the Shadow of the Almighty. And it came from this passage.

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

No matter how deep the valley or how dark, trust in the Sovereign Lord. He is the Sovereign Shepherd. We should always trust in Him. Number four, we should obediently do whatever God calls us to do, knowing that with God's direction will come God's provision. vision. That's what Abraham, what Elijah did. When God told him to go to the Kareth ravine, he went and God provided miraculously. When he told him to go to Zarephath, he went knowing that God would provide what he needed. I think too often we hold back in the Christian life because we see all of the difficulties of the journey and we don't trust that when God directs us to go in a certain path, He will provide.

And we need to live lives that have more of that abandon to God's will, more of that willing obedience and that trust that God will provide whenever we face difficulty. Lesson number five. God sometimes uses surprising ways to care for us. Who would have thought? Ravens to bring food.

widows are going to be the source through which this hungry thirsty man is fed could some of us not tell stories that when things looked very difficult God in a unique way provided just what we needed when we were in Costa Rica one quick story we were we needed to get somewhere by cab on a Friday morning we were a good ways out of town I had no Colonis, Costa Rican money. I only had dollars. And I told the family, I'm going to go see if I can find a cab. And I had to walk up this hill. And as I went, I said, Lord, we need a cab.

And we need one soon because we need to be at a certain place at a certain time. And I don't have the right kind of money to get a cab. So how about helping? I need a cab. And I need a guy who will take dollars instead of Colonis.

I get up to the top of the hill, and I have said this prayer two or three times, and then here comes a cab. And I wave him down, and he stops. And as he pulls by me and stops, on the back window of his cab is a fish.

One of those Christian fishes, you know. And I said, I have no Colonus. We've got about a 45-minute drive to get where we need to go. Some cabs didn't like to go that far away. Can you get us there and will you take dollars?

He said, no problem. I said, are you a Christian? He said, I am. I said, great, let's go. I asked that question because I was kind of shocked when I saw the fish on the back of the cab.

So I told Louise and the children later, I prayed, and he didn't just send a cab, he sent one with a fish and a Christian driver. It's a small lesson, but you know what? Too often we don't trust God in the big things or in the small things. And part of my life's journey has been to trust Him more every day, in every way, in every circumstance. Number six, there's no power in heaven or earth or anywhere that is greater than the power of God.

He has even the power to conquer death. This is a lesson Elijah is going to need for Act 3.

because he's going to have to trust in that power. And lastly, number seven, the miracles recorded in Scripture are a confirming reality that God is who He claims to be. They confirmed Elijah as a man of God who spoke the truth. There are many today who would argue the miracles of Scripture aren't true. They're just made-up stories.

People who tell you that, particularly if they speak from a pulpit, please find someone else to listen to on a regular basis. Those people do not have your best interest in mind because they do not believe in a God who is a God who can perform miracles. The God we serve often acts in very ordinary ways to provide for us. He gives us jobs and families and so forth. But He is a God of power who can do the great and the miraculous.

And it is through the miracles of Scripture that are recorded by witnesses who were there or who were told of events that we have the confirmation that this God we serve is an all-powerful God. So, some good life lessons from a time of seclusion and preparation for the prophet Elijah. But next week comes confrontation. and that's where we go next week for your homework read 1 Kings 18 starting at verse 16 through the end of the chapter that's your homework for next week as we see one of the great moments of scripture one last lesson the word Zarephath where Elijah went means to melt or to smelt it's like refining metal That's what God did for Elijah. That's what he often does for us in difficult circumstances.

He refines us. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for the lesson of Scripture. May we take it to heart, apply it to our lives, and live each day in a sort of fearless, courageous stance because we know we serve a sovereign shepherd. Forgive us for our timidity.

fear. Forgive us when we don't trust you. Help us to be a people who more and more, day in and day out, live in a deep, abiding trust in an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-seeing God who is omnipresent throughout this earth. For it is in Christ's name we pray. Amen.