1 Kings 17:1-6
1 Now Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.”
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.”
5 So he did what the Lord had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there. 6 The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.
In our last study we began to look at the ways the Lord educates his children. Another lesson for us to learn is that in order to give out we first have to take in. And in order to take in it may be necessary for the Lord to drop us out of our busy ‘Christian life’ in order that we may really spend time with him, to hear what he is trying to tell us.
For Elijah, the Lord needed to spend time preparing him for his future ministry so he didn’t allow him to go back to his busy life, instead he led him into a place of seclusion.
Maybe we feel that the Lord is leading us into some new avenue of ministry, or we may simply feel the need to really recharge our spiritual batteries, if that’s so then shouldn’t we try to find some place where we can really seek the Lord without other distractions? Where we may really spend ‘quality time’ in his presence?
What did Jesus say to his disciples when they found they were unable to drive out an evil spirit? Look at Mark 9:28-29
28 After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”
29 He replied, “This kind can come out only by prayer.”
What did he mean by that? (not just a prayer when you are faced with a problem, but a lifetime spent steeped in prayer)
Where did Jesus go to pray?
Matthew 14:23
23 After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone
Luke 5:16
16 But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.
Luke 6:12
12 One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.
Luke 9:28
28 About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray.
If Jesus found it necessary to spend time alone with his father it is wrong of us to presume that we can do without some place where we can get away from the noise and busyness of this earthly life to spend time with him. And it needs to be a conscious deliberate action: ‘You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart’. (Jeremiah. 29:13)
The next lesson to learn is to trust God completely
Look back at 17 verse 4. There is a strong emphasis on the word 'there'. I have ordered the ravens to feed you there. Knowing the area, Elijah might have preferred other hiding places to Kerith – after all it was only a wadi, and would be expected to dry up soon.
Surely the main Jabbok river to the south, or the Yarmuk river further north, would be better choices. But Kerith was the only place to which the ravens would bring his supplies, and as long as he was there, God had promised to provide for him.
Our first thought should be 'Am I where God wants me?' Or have we put off doing what he has told us because we are afraid that we will not have the resources needed?
Look at Luke 9:2-3: if Jesus sends us out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick, he may also say: ‘Take nothing for the journey—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra tunic’.
Can we really believe that if the Lord sends us, we will have all the resources we need?
When God sends his soldiers to war he does not expect them to be concerned with setting up their own supply lines. If we do his will on earth as it is in heaven, he will give us our daily bread. Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Mat 6:33)
Some people may have niggling doubts whether the story of the ravens is actually true. Why question that miracle if we can honestly say 'Our Father'? Surely if we believe in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus, other lesser miracles recorded for us by God in his word should be easy to believe.
But if we still need proof then we need simply look at the experiences of living people, who have had all their needs supplied in ways that are just as miraculous.
Having got Elijah to Kerith the third lesson can continue. 1 Kings 17:7
7 Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land.
We can only imagine what condition the Promised Land was in after the first few months of drought. The rough patches of grass that had been on the limestone hills were scorched as if they had been burnt; the wooded valleys were dusty and silent, the leaves shrivelling on the trees; the lowland fields were dry and brown.
The rivers and streams shrank in their beds, every day becoming more shallow and still; there was no rain to revive the vegetation, or fill the ponds; the sun rose and set for months in a sky, the blue of which was unflecked by a single cloud and the heat was unbearable. There was no dew to moisten the parched, cracked earth; and Kerith began to dry up.
Each day marked a visible reduction in its flow. Its width became measurably thinner, until its bed became simply a course of stones, baking in the scorching heat. The brook dried up.
What did Elijah think? Did he think that God had forgotten him? Did he begin to make plans for himself? Or did he fall on his knees and like David in his deep suffering say 'I wait for you, O LORD; you will answer, O Lord my God.' (Psalm 38:1-15)
Note the phrase at the end of verse 5: 'and stayed there'.
This is where this lesson becomes so difficult.
It’s possible that from time to time we may find ourselves sitting by drying brooks. What do I mean? What things have we grown to trust and enjoy which now appear to be drying up?
It is hard to sit beside a drying brook - much harder than to face the prophets of Baal on Carmel.
But it is there that we must listen carefully for God's word 'Go at once to . . . '.
Of course we may have settled comfortably in our current situation. Doing something we have grown accustomed to and which needs little effort from us.
And then we become aware that all is not well. Is God nudging us towards a change?
We will look at this next time.
