When Your Brook Dries Up”
Elijah at Cherith
I Kings 17:1-16
Last week we talked about desperate times.
This week we want to talk about disappointing times.
If you open the paper, turn on the TV, attend a family reunion
Go to church or just go home.
Life is filled with disappointment.
I’m not even going to talk about the upcoming campaign.
Even Children are disappointed.
A little boy was looking forward to going to work with his dad.. Although usually shy, he seemed eager to meet each co-worker. On the way home, the little boy appreared sullen. When the father asked why he seem disappointed? HE said: "Well, dad, I never got to see the clowns you said you worked with."
I have been disappointed this week.
Planned Parenthood the nation’s largest abortion provider,
is offering T-shirts for sale that proclaim "I had an abortion."
Since when did we become proud about killing unborn babies
that we wear it on our T-shirt.
The church can be disappointing.
I know a couple who have stopped coming to our church and when I called on them,
They said it was because we were not friendly and
they were not treated equally as others..
Maybe some of you have been disappointed with me as your pastor.
I. LIFE IS FULL OF DISAPPOINTMENTS
Almost every month I visit a young women in the hospital who
Has to deal with chronic pain.
Fainting and blackouts and disabling headaches.
Doctors can’t seem to find anything to help.
But I am amazed at her ability to trust God and sustain life at a pain level of 5 or 6
Our youth had a great trip to Mexico,
But there was some great disappointment
When some of them came back sick and we had
parents who were at wits ends dealing with
The unknown illness in their family member.
Some of you have dealt with the disappointment of cancelled wedding.
Others with children born, who need some corrective surgery.
Others whose children have been arrested for drug dealings.
Terrible things are happening in Iraq and Afghanistan
but terrible things are happening at home too.
Just this week we had to deal with the death of a young
Man who was murdered. The best years of his life ahead.
The dreams of his parents destroyed..
I know this morning many of you are facing disappointments.
I see the tears streaming down your face.
I see the grief in your eyes.
I see the confused and frustrated looks that life leaves.
I wonder what can we offer.
Yet after the service.
many of you will thank me for the service,
because you discover hope in the presence of the living God.
You reach out to his Love, grasp hold of his grace.
And you experience the Sweet spirit.
That God is in control.
And if we trust in him.
There is nothing that can separate us from his love.
If we stop to think about it.
Without Gods hope and help.
We could be like Ahithophel-brother of foolishness.
. Ahithopel was an prophet giving advice to Absalom when he chased King David out of Jerusalem and was taking over the throne. Ahithopel gave Absalom correct advice that would make him the knew king and bring him victory but the bible says Absalom rejected it.
2 Samuel 17:23 When Ahithophel saw that his advice has not been followed, he saddled his donkey and set out for his house in his hometown. He put his house in order and then hanged himself. So he died and was buried in his father’s tomb.
II. DISAPPOINTMENTS CREATE A CHOICE -CROSSROADS
We can stop and be defeated,
Or we can act and be obedient.
Disappointment can bring out the worst in us or the best in us.
For Israel it was the time of the WORST KING
And THE GREATEST PROPHET.
People had a choice.
King Ahab and his wife Jezebel wrote the book on evil and Idolatry.
Jezebel had introduce the worship of Baal the weather God.
God sent Elijah to correct them.
To awaken them from their evil and idolatry.
"As the Lord, the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, surely there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word" (I Kings 17:1).
The drought lasted three and a years (James 5:17–18).
Instead of repenting Jezebel was enraged.
This meant disaster for an agro-based economy.
This meant disaster for her false religion.
Because Baal--Baal-Melqart---was the God of thunder, rain and good crops.
Her gods couldn’t produce rain,
Elijahs true God shut it down when he prayed.
Baal was false and impotent.
The Baal prophets were liars and they worshiped dumb idols
It is Yahweh who created and sustained the world.
Does Jezebel repent like Nineveh in sackcloth and ashes?
NO- Jezebel retaliates and slaughters the prophets of God
She was now hunting for the prophet Elijah.
What a disappointment when God’s love is rejected.
When his grace is spurned.
And we see someone continue down the road to destruction.
This could have been a time of great renewal in Israel.
They missed it.
Are you disregarding the word of God
in your personal or social life, in your family, your dating or , business?
Friend it will come to bit you and destroy you..
Choose to serve God and obey him.
I. LIFE IF FULL OF DISAPPONITMENT
II. DISAPPOINTMENTS CREATE CHOICES
III. CHOICES GIVE OPPORTUNITY FOR GOD TO DO MIRACLES.
We must never loose our eternal perspective
In the midst of our greatest disappointment there is always anther possibility.
I King 17:2 Then the word of the LORD came to Elijah: 3 "Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. 4 You will drink from the brook, and I have ordered the ravens to feed you there."
Their will always be those who try to kill our spirit or discourage us.
But don’t fret just stay faithful and obedient.
I was reading about a pastor who was having a tough ministry.
His church was not going very well.
Things were falling apart, finances failing.
After one bad Sunday sermon he received an anonymous note.
“The last train out of town leaves Sunday at 2p.m.: Be under it.
Elijah could have given up and died.
But he Put on his seat belt.
AND God took him for a ride down miracle lane.
Consider Elijah’s food.
4 You will drink from the brook, and I have ordered the ravens to feed you there."
First of all a running brook in a sever drought quite a miracle.
Second: He didn’t have meals on wheels.
He had meals on wings, fresh two times a day.
6 The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.
Did you ever think about how they fed Elijah?
Ravens are scavengers.
They feed off the flesh of the dead,
Did they regurgitate the food?
Or did they just carry their meat from the road kill they found?
God ways may be a little strange,
But he will always provide the resources to accomplish the task he asked of you..
Our choices give God the opportunity to do Miracles.
The Jezebels of our world are not in charge.
The Ahabs of the world do not control our future.
God is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.
This summer Donna and I stopped in Dixon, the home town of Ronald Reagan
In his autobiography, An American Life,
He writes: My mother had a sense of optimism that ran as deep as the cosmos – she told me that everything in life happened for a purpose, …even the most disheartening setbacks, and in the end, everything worked out for the best. If something went wrong, she said, you didn’t let it get you down: You stepped away from it, stepped over it, and moved on. Later on, she added, something good will happen and you’ll find yourself thinking - "If I hadn’t had that problem back then, then this better thing that did happen would’nt have happened to me."
Ronald said: After I lost the job at Montgomery Ward, I left home again in search of work. Although I didn’t know it then, I was beginning a journey that would take me a long way from Dixon and fulfill all my dreams and then some. My mother, as usual, was right.
Notice How God leads Elijah.
A) Elijah was directed - " Go there "
B) Elijah was provided - " Eat there "
C) Elijah was perfected - " Trust there "
D) Elijah was motivated- " Leave there "
IV. CHOICES GIVE OPPORTUNITY FOR MIRACLES.
V. CHOICES MAKE US GROW
THE CHOICES IN OUR LIVES BRINGS US OUR GREATEST GROWTH.
7 Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land. 8
When God pours out his judgment on this world in answer to Christians prayer.
IT rains judgment on the just as well as the unjust.
The only difference is that
God uses your trial to grown your faith, test your obedience.
God uses the non-Christians trial to call him to repentance.
Then the word of the LORD came to him: 9 "Go at once to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food."
(1 Kings 17:7-9).
The other day I went to the frig to get a drink of Diet pop.
I had opened the liter of pop about a week before.
It just poured out flat and fissless.
Now some of us are sitting around getting FAT and FISSLESS
But God is more concerned about you getting FLAT and FISSLESS.
God knew Elijah needed rest and relaxation and food,
but God knew if he left him sitting by the creek,
not only would the creek have dried up but also his Spirit.
God moved him from Cherith—to cut off separate
To Zarephath literally means “fiery trial.” Crucible.
And he provided a widow woman there to care for him.
Quite an upgrade from the Ravens.
Elijah could trust God,
But he had lost all trust in human nature.
And God wanted to restore his trust and he did it with a widow.
Don’t think just because your a widow you don’t matter to God.
It was the widow who brought humanity back to Elijah.
Zarephath, was in Lebanon today.
The drought was there too.
Elijah was hungry he is used to having two meals a day.
He saw the widow.
He tells her to bring some oil and bake some bread
Widow was making her last meal for her son and then they were going to die.
But she too was obedient.
Made the cake for Elijah, at the expense of sacrificing her son.
The miracle was that her oil and meal lasted three more years.
Old Prophet has been touched by humanity again.
Becomes a man of compassion and love.
When the widows son died.
She came to Elijah and said “My son is dead.”
Elijah says: Give me your son and he takes him into a room
and began to pray for him.
And God hears his prayer.
And raises the child back to life.
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.
I Kings 17:22-23
Maybe your brook has dried up?
You Finances are bad
health is waning
Your children have been a disappointment.
Your marriage is not what you expected.
School has been hard.
Business is slow.
You spirit seem flat and fissless
Don’t despair remember Elijah.
And when your brook dries up:
I. Trust and obey,
II. Listen to the voice of God.
III. Hold on to your faith.
IV. Be ready for action.
V. Expect a miracle.
FOR GOD WILL TAKE CARE OF YOU.
