Alone with God (1 Kings 17:1-7)
Elijah: Peaks and Valleys • Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 1,510 viewsNotes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
· Please turn to 1 Kings 17.
· Well, we are now in week six of the stay at home orders. Feeling lonely yet?
· The columnist Burton Hillis once said, “One of my friends can always tell when he has reached the crisis stage of being lonely—it’s when he opens his junk mail and actually reads through it.”
· Maybe a few of you have reached the “crisis stage” of being lonely. Even the junk mail has become interesting. It’s probably actually more edifying than some of the cable news shows out there!
· This morning we start a new series on the prophet Elijah. He was a man who came to know great loneliness too. But he also learned that God is powerful, is a great provider and he will share his glory with no one.
· We will pick up the story with Elijah isolated from his family and friends, discouraged by an immoral society, and bracing for economic collapse. But in that moment, Elijah discovers an important lesson: that God will always take care of his chosen people. What a lesson we need today!
· Read 1 Kings 17:1-7
Who is This Man?
Who is This Man?
· In v. 1, we’re introduced to two of the major players in our story this week and the weeks ahead. The first is Elijah. The other is Ahab.
· Elijah is a Tishbite, from the region of Gilead, a hilly country east of the Jordan River.
· More important than where he is from is his actual name. His name is Elijah. A compound word. Eli is the shortened form of Elohim, a general name for God, the creator of the universe, the personal, yet all-powerful God of Genesis 1. Jah is a shortened form of Yahweh. So Elijah’s name literally means, “Yahweh is God.” And his name represents his mission. He will be proving that Yahweh alone – not Baal, or Asherah – or any other deity, is the true God.
· Elijah is one of the greatest prophets of the Bible. These are the classic Sunday School stories. Replenishing the jars of oil for a widow, or challenging the prophets to a duel on Mt. Carmel. Riding to heaven on chariots of fire and horses of fire.
· It was prophesied that John the Baptist would come “in the spirit and power of Elijah” to make ready for the Lord a people prepared (Mal. 4:5; Lk 1:17).
· Will be seen by Peter, James, and John, standing next to Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration, talking with him. (Mt. 17:3).
· We are going to study his life in the weeks to come. I have entitled this series, “Peaks and Valleys: Life Lessons from the Prophet Elijah.”
· What happened to our 2 Corinthians study? Saving for when we regather as a church. Like playing a song, but ending before the very last note. No resolve. “Comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace…Greet one another.” I am symbolically leaving this last sermon until we gather back together. Like a jigsaw puzzle with one last piece to put in, or a song waiting for the last note to be played, this sermon is symbolic to me of our desire to be back together. And Lord willing, we will be back together soon.
· Ahab, on the other hand, is a king. He is the 8th king of the northern kingdom, known as Israel. No details are given about him in verse 1, because the author already spent the last part of chapter 16 introducing him. And the description was anything but positive.
· Read 1 Kings 16:29-33.
· Jeroboam had been evil, Nadab had been evil, all of them had been evil. But Ahab exceeded them all, doing things that would make even the wicked kings before him blush. The level of idolatry, corruption, sexual immorality, and spurning of God’s law has now reached record proportions.
The Curse
The Curse
· Notice what Elijah the prophet says to King Ahab.
· “As the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word” (v. 1)
· Very bad news. We who are on the west coast are familiar with droughts. We had a pretty major drought starting in 2012 and lasting for several years. Many of our lakes and reservoirs dried up. Farmers had to cut back food production. Wildfires became more common. Severe water restrictions were put in place.
· But this is more than a meteorology report. This is a declaration of God’s judgment.
· God had made a wonderful promise before Israel entered the land. Deuteronomy 11:14–17 he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. And he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full.
· But with it came a warning… Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them; then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and he will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and you will perish quickly off the good land that the Lord is giving you.
· LIFE LESSON #1 – God Takes Sin Very Seriously
· Your sin is not a minor defect. A slight blemish that can be covered up with a bit of makeup. It is a fundamental flaw that shapes your very nature and has infected every part of our lives, including what we think, how we talk, what motivates us, and yes, how we behave.
· Romans 3:10–11 as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.Romans 3:18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
· What about our own present pandemic? Is COVID19 a judgment on America?
· In one sense, yes. All natural disasters, including plagues and fires, flash floods and earthquakes, can be traced back to man’s sin and God’s curse in Genesis 3.
· Romans 8:22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.
· John Piper – Coronavirus and Christ. A free ebook you can read today. He notes how sin is moral evil, and yet God has chosen that part of the curse is a physical judgment on this world. He then asks a good question: “Why did God bring a physical judgment on the world for a moral evil? [in other words, why is the whole creation groaning if the human race are the ones who sinned?] Here’s my suggestion: God put the physical world under a curse so that the physical horrors we see around us in diseases and calamities would become a vivid picture of how horrible sin is. In other words, physical evil is a parable, a drama, a signpost pointing to the moral outrage of rebellion against God. Why might that be fitting? Because in our present condition, after the fall, blinded by sin, we cannot see or feel how repugnant sin against God is. Hardly anyone in the world feels the horror of preferring other things over God. Who loses any sleep over our daily belittling of God by neglect and defiance? But, oh, how we feel our physical pain!... Physical pain is God’s trumpet blast to tell us that something is dreadfully wrong in the world. Disease and deformity are God’s pictures in the physical realm of what sin is like in the spiritual realm.”
· Share the gospel here. There is only remedy for sin, and that is Christ. This virus should remind you of your own mortality, that even the world’s great civilizations, in all their splendor are still just a house of cards if God decides to blow them over. And this physical disease is a picture of the great spiritual horror of your sin in the eyes of God. Your only hope is to turn to Christ, confessing your sins, and trusting in his death and resurrection.
· But back to our story. Elijah has just announced a famine to King Ahab. Now God makes an announcement to Elijah in verse 2.
Elijah By the Brook
Elijah By the Brook
· Read vv. 2-3
· I have a cousin who lives up in Montana. She and her husband named their daughter Cherith. A couple years later, they had a son a and named him Alijah. Both of them are named after this story right here.
· God says when you get there, the brook will provide your water supply, and the ravens will be a source of food.
· But note the raven are not the food. Ravens were an unclean animal according to the Law. They will bring the food. And if you know anything about ravens, you know just how astounding this is!
· Ravens are highly intelligent, but they are also quite cunning and pesky. Saw one at TMC hopping around on a car hood, fighting something. As I got closer, I realized it had grabbed the windshield wiper and was pulling off the rubber blade. They can be quite destructive. They are scavengers. Out here in the desert, they are becoming an invasive species and threaten our desert tortoise population. How could a raven possibly be of any good? And yet God had enlisted the ravens to become Elijah’s couriers and supply line.
· But why is Elijah here at all? Alone with God, and a few cackling birds, in the middle of nowhere? This brings us to our second life lesson for the day…
· LIFE LESSON #2 – God sends trials to refine our character and prepare us for greater service.
· Elijah’s life at this moment is anything but comfortable. God is keeping him safe through a drought and famine, but it is far from comfortable. And God seems to be preparing him for something else.
· Often, God prepares us for service by testing and refining us. Like an ax blade that must be sharpened, so our lives must be heated and filed and cleaned to be most effective.
· Moses had to spend 40 years in the desert tending sheep before he was ready to lead God’s people out of Egypt. David had to tend stinky sheep and fight off hungry lions before he was ready to battle Goliath. Amos too had to be a shepherd before he was ready to be a spokesman for Yahweh. Paul had to endure daily hardship if he were to have credibility as an apostle to the Gentiles. Even Jesus had to endure 40 days of temptation in the wilderness before he was ready for his public ministry to begin.
· FB Meyer writes, “God is never at a loss. The land may be overrun with sin; the lamps of witness may seem all extinguished; the whole force of the popular current may run counter to His truth; and the plot may threaten to be within a hair’s breadth of entire success; but all the time He will be preparing a weak man in some obscure highland village, and in the moment of greatest need will send him forth”
· There is more than one way to prepare for life and for ministry. Certainly, education is important. But not all education takes place in the classroom. A large part of your learning, and your training, occurs in the crucible of life.
· We all say we want to be more like Christ. But do you know what it’s going to take to produce that? Suffering.
· Romans 5:3–5 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
· How does one grow in love? By spending time with people who are hard to love. By serving those who may give you nothing in return. By being insulted, biting your lip, and choosing to turn the other cheek. By overlooking people’s flaws and shortcomings, even when they drive you crazy. By caring for those who are sometimes unkind, thoughtless, even harsh and ungrateful. By turning from self-pity to compassion and service of others. These will begin to grow you in love.
· How Firm a Foundation: “When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie, My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.”
Conclusion
Conclusion
· Our two life lessons for today
· LIFE LESSON #1 – God Takes Sin Very Seriously
· LIFE LESSON #2 – God puts us through trials to refine our character and prepare us for greater service.
· Even the brook could become a source of pride or dependence, and so it too dries up. Elijah must learn to depend not upon the means, but upon the God who provided the means.
· And so next week, we will see God send Elijah 100 miles to the north for an unexpected encounter with a widow who is preparing to eat her final meal and then die.