WHEN YOUR BROOK DRIES UP
1 Kings 17:1-16
Elijah is one of the most colorful personalities found in the entire Bible. Here in 1 Kings chapter 17, he appears suddenly upon the scene, he doesn’t have a huge introduction, and not a lot is said about his life previous to here in this passage. He comes on the scene during some of Israel’s most troubling times. Ahab, the son of Omri, was now king. He is described in 1 Kings 16:30 as having “done evil above all that were before him”. When you consider some of the ones who ruled before Ahab, this makes him very wicked indeed. Jereboam lead Israel away from the worship of Jehovah into golden calf worship, Baasha killed Nadab, Jereboam’s son as well as all the others of the house of Jereboam and ascended the throne of Israel by blood, Omri, Ahab’s father, was the first king of the northern kingdom to pay tribute to the Assyrians. He was threatened by the Assyrian empire so he sough to solidify his reign by foreign treaties with pagan nations. In so doing, he imported their gods to Israel and built idols to mislead the people. Remember that Ahab is described as being worse than all those before him. One of Omri’s treaties involved the northwestern kingdom of Sidon, where his son, Ahab married the princess Jezebel. These two together worked to make Baal the major god of Israel, attempted to supplant the worship of Yahweh by killing all the prophets of God. Some years ago, at Meggido, a temple of Baal and Ashtoresh (Ash-tor-esh) Baal’s wife was found. Behind the temple was a cemetery filled with the remains of babies who had been sacrificed to their worship. Under their reign, it became illegal to worship God in Israel due to the influence of Jezebel. The reign of Ahab and Jezebel was one of the darkest periods of history in the Old Testament. Right in the middle of this darkness, God had His man who was Elijah.
Here Elijah seemingly comes from out of nowhere and rebukes the king. He tells Ahab that there will be no rain, nor even dew according to his word. One of the great judgments that God said He would send against His people if they did not keep His word was drought. Deuteronomy 11:17 And then the LORD’S wrath be kindled against you, and he shut up the heaven, that there be no rain, and that the land yield not her fruit; and lest ye perish quickly from off the good land which the LORD giveth you. Elijah is delivering the word of God’s judgment against Ahab. He withstands the king and is no doubt under the king’s anger. Then the word of the Lord comes to him and gives him direction. God tells him to go east and hide by the brook Cherith. It is interesting that Cherith means in the Hebrew a “cutting” or more literally a separation. Elijah is going to serapate himself from Israel and hide under God’s protection. 1 Kings 18:10 (Obadiah, Ahab’s servant to Elijah) As the LORD thy God liveth, there is no nation or kingdom, whither my lord hath not sent to seek thee: Elijah went to Cherith and while he was there, he was able to drink from the brook and every day God commanded the ravens to bring him food to eat. While I was studying for this message I discovered that ravens are not noted for being good parents for they will often leave their young without, yet when God commands, even the ravens obey.
What I want you to see is this, God was taking care of His prophet. Most Biblical scholars believe that Elijah stayed by the brook for around 2 years. Everyday the ravens brought him food and everyday he drank from the brook. What I want you to see is this, Elijah had it made. His needs were being taken care of, he was hidden, he was fed, and he had water to drink while the rest of Israel were under the judgment of severe drought. However, in verse 7, we find where the brook dried up.
Did you know that sometimes that happens in our lives as well? Our brook may dry up. We may not be eating steak and potatoes every night, we may not be living high on the hog, but our needs are being taken care of, but then just suddenly, our brook dries up. Our job may not be the best but our needs are being taken care of, our marriage may not be the best, but our needs are being taken care of, things may not be the best, but our needs are being taken care of, but then suddenly, without warning, our brook dries up. What we thought was going to continue, what we took for granted, suddenly is gone. Some scholars believe that the ravens may have just brought Elijah bread and some type of meat, some think that the ravens may have partially digested the food and regurgitated it for him to eat. Whatever it was it sustained him for a long period of time but then suddenly the brook dried up. The Bible says that this occurred because there was no rain in the land, but what I want you to see was that God was still in control. If God can command ravens, He could have commanded that brook to continue to flow, even during dry times. God watered a million Israelites and their flocks in the desert with enough water, surely He could have watered one man for a period of time. However it was not the will of God that Elijah stay at Cherith, for there were still greater miracles to perform. Elijah doesn’t raise the dead at Cherith, he does where God is calling for him to go. There were greater miracles in store for Elijah and that was why God was moving him from Cherith to someplace else.
When your brook dries up, it may well be because God has some greater miracles in store for you and that may be the only way God has of getting you to move. I want to share with you several lessons found in this passage of scripture on when your brook dries up. These are lessons that we need to learn if we ever expect the blessings of God to rest upon us.
I. THE IMPERATIVENESS OF OBEDIENCE.
1. It is imperative that we learn obedience to God.
1 Kings 17:5 So he went and did according unto the word of the LORD:
1 Kings 17:10 So he arose and went to Zarephath.
2. We could say a lot about the type of person Elijah was. Just a couple of weeks ago, I preached on Elijah from out of the book of James. James described him as being a man “subject to like passions,” just as we are. I told you then and I’ll tell you now, that Elijah was no super duper man. There were times that he struggled with discouragement and there were times that he struggled with depression, even to the point that he wanted to die. He was a man that struggled with a lot of the same things that we do, he had his highs and they were very high and he had his lows and they were very low.
3. However, there is one thing that I want you to see about Elijah, his life was marked by obedience. Every time that God said to do something, Elijah did it.
If God told Elijah to stand and rebuke kings, even with his own life on the line, Elijah did it, if God told Elijah to hide, Elijah did it, if God told Elijah to move, then Elijah did it. His life was marked by total obedience to God. As I studied this message, I could not find one time in Elijah’s life that he directly dis-obeyed God.
4. I have encountered several people over the years who have said that God has called them to an Elijah ministry. All I have to say is this, their lives had better show complete obedience to God for Elijah’s did.
5. Here’s a couple of things to note about Elijah’s obedience.
a. It was immediate.
When God spoke, Elijah moved. There was not argument, there was no discussion, his obedience was immediate.
6. I had a professor in seminary who told about his early childhood. It seemed that his father was extremely harsh with him. If he had to ever tell him to do something more than once, he would take either a belt or a stick and beat him with it and he could never understand why his father wasn’t more patient with him. He finally moved out on his own, married and had his own family. One day his father called and wanted to eat lunch with him so he agreed. During lunch the father begin to cry and told him that he didn’t want to be so harsh, and then he gave his reason why. The father had been called to the ministry as a young man and for years he ran from the call of God. He suffered the heartache of being disobedient to God. He told his son, “The reason I always whipped you if I had to tell you twice is because I never wanted God to have to tell you twice what He wanted. If God called you I wanted you trained to answer the first time, not the second. I didn’t want you to suffer the way I did for disobedience.”
7. I believe that God will speak to us if we will be just listen. God will give us direction, if we will but just listen. When our brook dries up, when things have changed and we don’t know the reason why, we are still expected to obey God when He speaks. We know that God speaks to us from His Word, and He will speak to our hearts if we will but listen.
8. God did not give Elijah the total plan, He just sent His word and Elijah obeyed. We can not wait around for God to tell us the next step, when we have not obeyed the first one. That’s what we like isn’t it? “God, I understand that You want me to do this, but what about next?”
b. It was inclusive.
9. By inclusive, I mean that Elijah did whatever God wanted him to do. We’re good at doing what we like to do. “God, I have no problem with doing this, but I don’t know about that”. We want to pick and choose what we can be obedient in.
10. You might remember this from a couple of weeks ago. Elijah’s name is an important name. It comes from two words, "el" (El Shaddai, or El Qannah” & "yah." from the unpronounceable name of God, we believe it is pronounced Yahweh. It is translated in the KJV as Jehovah. When you put El and Yah together and it means "Jehovah is God." If Jehovah (Yahweh) is God, then it means He is to be obeyed. In our society today, we have the premise that we obey only the least amount possible. God calls for total obedience.
11. God told Elijah to go to Zarephath, he didn’t go part of the way and stop, but he went all the way to Zarephath.
12. One of the things we find is that when Jesus healed in the NT, He sometimes healed by just speaking the word, however there were other times when He told someone to do some specific something and then they would be healed. The blind man had to wash at the pool, the man with the withered hand, had to stretch it out toward the Lord. Obedience was often required to demonstrate faith.
II. THE ILLOGICALNESS OF FAITH.
1. As I have already mentioned, God did not tell Elijah His entire plan, Elijah was just to obey. We are told that the just walk by faith. I have shared with you this several times in the last few weeks, but four times in the scripture we are told that the just live by faith.
2. I’m saying all this for wouldn’t it be great if, when God speaks to us, if He always made sense. However, if we walk by faith, there will be times when we are going to scratch our heads and want to tell God, “God, are You out of Your mind? That makes no sense whatsoever.”
3. To obey by faith is not always going to be the most logical thing to do. I mean, it’s not logical to attack a city by marching around it 13 times, it’s not logical for a small shepherd boy to fight a great, seasoned warrior for the liberty of an entire nation. These things didn’t make a lot of sense.
4. Right here, in the life of Elijah, comes one of those commands from God, that if ever would have caused Elijah to question God, this would have been it. God told him to arise and go to Zarephath.
a. Elijah went by an illogical path.
5. First of all, Zarephath was over a hundred miles away. Remember that Elijah was east of the Jordan river. Zarephath was in the extreme northwest and it wasn’t even located in Israel or Judah. From where Elijah was located, to get to Zarephath meant he had to go through the mountains of northern Israel to get there.
6. What I trying to get you to see is this, it wasn’t an easy place to get to from where Elijah was located. Even if he traveled north along the Jordan for a while, he still had to cross those mountains. How guilty we are of always wanting God to lead us in the easiest way possible.
7. It’s like, God, I want You to work in my life, but don’t inconvenience me. One of the sign of our religious life in America is that of an easy, inconvenient lifestyle. We want God to operate, but only in our comfort zone. Elijah may have not have everything he wanted at Cherith, but he certainly was in a comfort zone. He had meals on wings provided for him and he was comfortable. THAT is the biggest obstacle to having our needs met by God. Our own comfort level. We’d rather deal with the hassles of old problems than the challenge of new solutions. True our present situation isn’t all it should be…but at least it’s familiar and it is comfortable! Remember that God had bigger miracles in the life of Elijah, Elijah is going to raise the dead at Zarephath, not Cherith. But to get to that place of greater miracles, God may lead us in a way that we don’t necessary like. He may take us the most illogical way possible, He may take us the very way that we don’t want to go, but He has His purpose.
b. Elijah went to an illogical place.
8. Zarephath was located in Zidon, or Sidon. Why would it had been an illogical place?
1 Kings 16:31 And it came to pass, as if it had been a light thing for him (Ahab) to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshipped him.
9. Remember that Ahab was married to Jezebel, and Zarephath was located in her home country. Some have even said that Zarephath was her home town. God was not only sending him out of Israel, He was sending him right to the heart of Baal worship, to Jezebel’s home town. Her father was still the king of Zidon. Ethbaal was the king, it was like going into a lion’s den. Of all the places for Elijah to go, I’m sure that Zarephath would have not been on his list of hiding places.
10. Now the name Zarephath meant a smelting-shop, or a workshop for the refining and smelting of metals. Zarephath was noted for the furnaces where skilled craftsmen worked with metals. It was a smoky, smelly place. I remember as a boy, I never liked going through Birmingham, because of all the smoke from the steel mills. Zarephath was a lot like that. God was sending him to Zarephath. It was like putting your hand in a snake pit and wondering if you’re going to get bit!And if that wasn’t enough… God was sending him from Kerith, which means "to cut, to break or separate", to Zarephath, which means "smelting furnace" - Lit. he was moving, "Out of the frying pan, & into the fire!"
c. Elijah was sent to an illogical person.
11. God told Elijah that not only was he going to Zarephath, he was being sent to a widow. We might could understand if he was going to a palace where his needs could have been taken care of, but he was being sent to a widow, and a poor one at that.
12. Remember no social security, nor retirement benefits existed at this time. A widow was considered among the poorest of the poor. A woman at this time found her substance through her husband’s provision. A widow did not have that method of income.
13. When Elijah makes it to Zarephath, just after he entered the gate of the city, he saw and notice what the scripture says, the widow, not a widow. God led him right to the right widow. He saw the widow gathering sticks and he spoke to her and first asked her for some water. As she was going to get him some water, he then spoke up and said to please bring him a piece of bread. The widow replied that she only had a handful of meal and that she was gathering sticks to make a fire and cook the little meal she had left and then she and her son were going to die.
14. That must have sounded really comforting to Elijah, he’s just crossed mountains with search parties out looking for him to come to Zarephath, his enemy’s home town, to be supplied by this widow.
15. An illogical path, an illogical place and an illogical person. Most of us would have said, “God, You’re crazy, You don’t know what You are doing.” But remember that God doesn’t do things our way, He does them His for He is God and faith recognizes that God is God. That’s what faith is, recognizing God is God and He knows what is best. So Elijah obeyed and walked by faith. Faith = obedience.
III. THE IMMENSITY OF GOD’S PROVISION.
1. Remember that the brook drying up started Elijah on this journey, God has moved him out of his comfort zone. We wonder and question God when our brooks dry up. Maybe it’s a job that plays out unexpectly, maybe it’s health problems that crop up unexpectly, or maybe it’s a crisis that drys up the tranquility of our lives, remember that God is still in control.
2. God provided for Elijah at the Brook Cherith for God was his source, and at Zarephath, God provides for Elijah for He is still his source.
3. Not only is Elijah walking by faith, the widow is about to learn to walk by faith. This widow is a Sidonion, she’s not even a Jew. After she tells Elijah that she is about to make a small cake for her and her son and then she will die, Elijah does something that seems strange. He tells this widow to make the cake for him first, and then for her and her son.
4. I’m sure she must have thought, “Didn’t this guy hear me? I only have enough for just my son and I, that’s it”. Most of us would have said, you’re not getting my share. Let me share a great truth with you, write this down…You can’t get a blessing without being a blessing!"
5. This sounds almost selfish doesn’t it? Here’s Elijah asking this poor widow to go and make a cake for himself first and then one for her and the boy? But what we don’t understand is that Elijah was standing before her as God’s representative and telling her to put God first.
6. If you want to see God’s provision in your drought… put Him first in every area of your life… physically, emotionally, spiritually and financially.
7. As she obeyed God, she found that when she went back, there was just enough meal and oil to make another cake. And each day, for about 1 ½ years, she found just enough to get through one more day. When you put God first, God will make amazing provision for you.
