Trusting God When He Speaks

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Transcript:

First Kings chapter 17. We talked this morning a little bit about Elijah’s life and his ministry. And one of the things that impressed me was the kind of courage that Elijah had as he fulfilled God’s call in his life.

And if you’ll remember back to what I said this morning, I’ve heard courage described not as the fact that you are not afraid, but a willingness to stand and do the right thing even when you are afraid. And I submit to you that the reason Elijah was able to have the courage that he had in going forward and doing God’s work and standing against the king and rebuking the people and opposing the prophets of Baal was because nothing great, nothing good about Elijah himself, but it was the faith he had in God and knowing that God was in control, that God had sent him to do the things that he was there to do, and he was not acting on his own accord. And as I was studying some more on the passage, I don’t remember if I told you this morning or not, but I came prepared this morning and tonight both to preach messages on Matthew chapter 7.

And we may save that for next week. But as we were back there in Sunday school, something kept impressing on me, Elijah, Elijah, Elijah. So that’s what we looked at this morning.

And I went back and studied at Sommar this afternoon. And it strikes me that Elijah was not the only one in this period, in this passage, who exhibited this same kind of faith in God and this same kind of courage in the face of the adversity that we talked about this morning. There were a few people here who really demonstrated some faith in God that I think we could learn from.

You know, I have a handful of friends that I can call or send messages to and just talk to about life, complain sometimes maybe a little bit, maybe a little bit too much, and have done that this week and have had them tell me, you know, you just need to trust God. Well, I know I need to trust God. Thanks for that.

But when you get right down to it, they’re absolutely right. And I told, you know, once I got past the thought of I know that already, that’s not helpful, I told one of them yesterday, you know, I’m glad that you would say that to me because I preach that all the time, and I remind other people of that, and I know that up here, but sometimes I need to be reminded as well, just like everybody else needs to be reminded, even though we know it, be reminded, you know, in this situation, God can handle it too. This situation is not out of his control.

This situation, you can have faith in God, and quite frankly, I’ve told them, most people I know wouldn’t say that to the preacher. just listen and go on. But then again, I guess most preachers don’t go around, well, maybe they do go around complaining to their friends.

I won’t ask you if you do or not. But, you know, a lot of people are afraid that, well, he already knows that. Well, yeah, even as a preacher, I already know that, but I need to be reminded too.

So I’m glad for friends who would remind me of those things. And I see that in this passage, you know, there is nothing that is outside of God’s control. There is nothing that God can’t handle, if I can say it that way.

Starting in 1 Kings chapter 17, verse 1, it says, And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word. This is what I alluded to this morning, that God sent him to go tell King Ahab, It is not going to, because you have neglected God, because you’ve turned your back on him and his commandments, there is not going to be rain in this kingdom anymore until I say so. And that was only, you know, Elijah couldn’t say, I’m just going to make it not rain.

God had sent him there for that purpose. And the word of the Lord came unto him saying, get thee hence and turn thee eastward and hide thyself by the brook Cherith that is before Jordan. So even Elijah went and hid for a little while, as I mentioned that the other prophets had but God told him to go and go to a certain area by the brook Cherith that is before Jordan.

He said in verse 4, And it shall be that thou shalt drink of the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there. Now wait just a minute. Wait just a cotton-picking minute.

I’m supposed to go hide in the desert, and you’re going to send birds with food. This sounds to me, I mean, I would think I was going crazy if I heard such a thing as this, God telling me, go hide in the wilderness, I’ll send birds to feed you. It sounds a little like Cinderella, you know, where the mice and the birds make the dress and such.

How is that even going to work? But God, you know, as I said this morning several times, God is in the business of doing things that only he can do. So he went and did according to the word of the Lord.

That takes a lot of faith right there to say, okay, you told me to go out in the desert where there’s no food and you’ll take care of me with birds. Sounds logical, I’ll do that. For he went and dwelt by the book Cherith That is before Jordan.

And God, true to his word, made sure that it came to pass, as he said, as he promised. God is always true to his promises. In verse 6, it says, And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning and bread and flesh in the evening, and he drank of the brook.

And it came to pass after a while that the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land. And this is kind of similar to what we see with the Israelites and the manna that God provided to them while they’re in the wilderness. They were told, don’t store up massive quantities of manna.

God will provide as much as you need day by day. And the purpose of that was for them to learn to rely on God, not to store things up for themselves. They could store it up for the Sabbath, but other than that, don’t store up extra.

It’ll be rotten the next day. Well, God didn’t send the ravens in one massive Berlin airlift type of operation and say, here’s all the food you’re going to need for however long you’re going to be here. The ravens came in the morning, the ravens came in the evening, and God supplied through them just what he needed for that period of time.

And then when it came to a point where the brook that he was sent to live by had dried up because of the no rain, then God says, okay, I’ve got something else prepared for you now. And it said in verse 8, And the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.

And she ends up, later on in the passages, we’ll see, she ends up demonstrating a little bit of anxiety herself about being able to feed Elijah. This is a story that I remember very clearly hearing as a small child in children’s church in Sunday school, and have read the story numerous times, but did not recognize until today that it actually says God had spoken to this woman ahead of time. Elijah didn’t just go in there blindly and say, hey, feed me.

And by the way, God will take care of it. And she has to make the choice. Then is this guy for real?

No, God has already spoken to her. And so she’s not just going off Elijah’s word. She has to make the choice.

Am I going to take God at his word or not? He says, behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain me. And verse 10.

So he rose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering of sticks. And he called to her and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel that I may drink.

Of course, she doesn’t answer here, what are your legs broken? So many of us would. She goes and gets him some water.

And as she was going to fetch it, he called to her and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand. Now, in all fairness, he does ask nicely. I think I pray thee is a way of saying please.

So as she’s going to get the water, he says, Would you please bring me some bread as well? And she said, As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but a handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruz. And behold, I am gathering two sticks that I may go in, and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it and die.

Okay, just to give you a little indication there of how dire her situation was anyway. See, this famine, this drought that God had sent that had caused a famine, didn’t just impact the king, it impacted everybody. So here this woman was suffering as well, and she has no food.

He says, will you bring me some bread? And she says, I don’t have any bread made. As a matter of fact, all I’ve got is a little bit of meal, a little bit of flour, and a little bit of oil, and I’m going to make a cake.

We can deduce something here from how much bread she’s going to be able to make that she’s gathering two sticks. Now I’ve never run an oven off of wood before, but two sticks are not going to provide all that much heat. Now we don’t know how big the sticks were, but it wasn’t going to provide all that much heat.

So we’re probably talking a small morsel of bread here that she was going to be able to make with this handful of meal and a little bit of oil. And it was so little apparently that she looks at it and says, you know, I don’t think we have time enough here for conditions to change. We’re going to eat this last bit of food we’ve got, and it’s not going to be enough to sustain us until conditions change sufficiently for us to have food again.

We’re going to eat this, and then there’s nothing else. We’re just going to starve to death. If that gives you any indication here how dire the woman’s situation was.

Now, whether God sent me or not, I’ve got to imagine he feels guilty. I know I would be feeling guilty at this point asking her this. But he said unto her, Fear not, go and do as thou hast said, but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son.

So just, you know, this tiny little cake that’s not going to be enough to keep a bird alive, that you and your son are going to have to split, make me a little one first, and then make yours, and it’s going to be all right. He says, For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruise of oil fail until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth. Now to make a request like this of someone, you’ve got to be absolutely certain that you’ve heard God correctly in what He has promised.

And she went and, you know, to her credit, she doesn’t, at least as far as it’s recorded here, she doesn’t stand around and argue, she doesn’t hem-haw about it, doesn’t question, weigh the options here. God has already spoken to her. This man comes in and makes a request she goes and does it.

It says in verse 15, and she went and did according to the saying of Elijah, and she and he and her house did eat many days, and the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruise of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by Elijah. And I mentioned to you this morning that the same God Elijah served is the same God that we serve today, the same God who’s the father of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, we take for granted the story of the feeding of the 5,000, I still don’t understand how he fed 5,000 men plus their families. It’s not just the feeding of the 5,000.

There were more there than that. But the feeding of the 5,000 men and their families with just a little bit of fish and bread. But if he can do that, it shouldn’t be a surprise to us at all that these three would be able to eat for the rest of the drought off of one barrel of meal and one cruise of oil.

I mean, God can do incredible things that are outside of the realm of our understanding. And so they, she trusted God and God was true to his word. In verse 17, and it came to pass after these things that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house fell sick and his sickness was so sore that there was no breath left in him.

And so what he’s saying here is an understatement. The boy was sick or may have been a young man was sick and he was so sick basically that he died. And she said unto Elijah, what have I to do with thee?

Oh, thou man of God, Art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance and to slay my son? Are you here to punish me for something that I’ve done, that you would take my son? And he said unto her, Give me thy son.

And he took him out of her bosom and carried him up into a loft where he abode and laid him upon his own bed. And he cried unto the Lord and said, O Lord my God, hast thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourned by slaying her son? And he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried unto the Lord and said, O Lord my God, I pray thee, let this child’s soul come into him again.

And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah and the soul of the child came into him again and he revived. And Elijah took the child and brought him down out of the chamber, out of the chamber into the house and delivered him unto his mother. And Elijah said, see thy son liveth.

Now again, somebody who believed that God could do the impossible is what any of us would have done. Probably even if God had said, I can heal him, Just go pray over him. Most of us probably would have said, you know, just focused on comforting her in her bereavement.

You know, you’ll see your son again one day. All the things that we say now. And Elijah instead says, we’re going to do something about this.

Takes the boy upstairs and prays and prays and prays. And God honors the prayer. And the woman said unto Elijah, now by this I know that thou art a man of God and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth.

I’d like to think I would have been convinced after the oil and flour thing. But she said, now I know. I know that what you’re saying is true.

And again, as I said this morning, when Elijah prayed in chapter 18 and said, Lord, let them know that you’re real and let them know that I’m your servant. That wasn’t about vindicating Elijah and saying, God, tell them I was right and I told them so. That was about saying the words that you commanded me to speak, they need to hear and they need to believe because it’s your word.

Let them know that I speak for you. and so when she says here now that I know the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth this again was not a vindication of Elijah and saying Elijah is so wonderful now we should believe him it was about a focus on God’s word that was coming from Elijah and it came to pass we’re not going to go through all of chapter 18 because we looked at some of it this morning and it came to pass after many days that the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year saying go show thyself unto Ahab so what we have here is a three year gap since he’s gone and told Ahab that there was going to be a drought. Go show thyself unto Ahab, and I will send rain upon the earth.

And Elijah went to show himself unto Ahab, and there was a sore famine in Samaria. And the area of Samaria was around where the royal court of the northern kingdom of Israel was. And so their power and their wealth and their prestige had not been able to spare them from the judgment of God here.

They were even suffering the effects of the famine. It reminds me, I was watching a program about North Korea the other day, and how for decades, even though there’s been a famine in the country, they’ve tried to keep the capital as a showcase, a showpiece for foreigners, and said even though the people in the country are starving, let’s concentrate all the food and all the wealth here in the capital, so we bring foreigners in, and they’ll see how prosperous we are, and it’s a propaganda thing. Well, the program I was watching or listening to yesterday was talking about how things are in such dire straits now that they can’t even keep the illusion going in the capital. There are shortages of food, electricity, fuel, everything in the capital. They were in the same boat here.

There is, even in their capital, even in their showpiece, even in the center of power, they were not able to escape the shortages, the famine, the judgment of God that Elijah had been sent to proclaim. And Ahab called Obadiah, verse 3, which was the governor of his house. Now Obadiah feared the Lord greatly, for it was so when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the Lord, that Obadiah took a hundred prophets and hid them by fifty in a cave and fed them with bread and water.

This is what I was talking about this morning when I said that there was not a mistake in here when Elijah says, I’m the only one left. The Bible faithfully records what Elijah actually said, but Elijah was not correct, I think, in his assessment of what was going on. There were still a hundred prophets of the one true God who were in hiding, But Elijah said, you know, for Elijah, as far as being there at Mount Carmel, being out in the open, out in public, I’m the only one left.

The other guys still are alive, but they’re in hiding. And then I think to Obadiah. He was the governor of the royal household.

He feared God. There’s also got to be some terror of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, knowing what they’re capable of. Queen Jezebel had a man murdered because she wanted his vineyard.

Knowing what these people are capable of, when she says we’re going to slaughter the prophets of the one true God, the governor of her household says that’s not right and takes a hundred of them and hides them in two sets of caves. His neck is very much on the line here for what he’s done. And yet so great was his fear of God that he was willing to do that.

And Ahab said unto Obadiah in verse 5, Go into the land, unto all the fountains of water, and unto all the brooks. Peradventure we may find grass to save the horses and mules alive, that we lose not all the beasts. and it just occurs to me, he’s concerned about his mules, his horses, his possessions.

Where is his concern for finding food for his people? I’m sorry, that thought just occurred to me as I’m up here reading this again. So they divided the land between them to pass throughout it.

Ahab went one way by himself and Obadiah went another way by himself. And in verse 7 is where we picked up this morning that Elijah and Obadiah met, leading to Ahab saying, are you the one who troubles Israel? And Elijah’s response basically, in my paraphrase, is if you want to know who’s troubling Israel, you need to look in the mirror.

And when Elijah runs into Obadiah, he says, go tell the king I want to see him. And Obadiah’s response is, why would you do that to me? Why would you put me in that position?

And Elijah reassures him and says in verse 15, Elijah said, as the Lord of hosts liveth before whom I stand, I will surely show myself unto him today. And Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him, and Ahab went to meet Elijah. We remember there that he has the standoff with the priests and prophets of Baal. And at the end of that, after they have slaughtered the false prophets, which we talked about this morning, Elijah tells Ahab in verse 41, we skipped ahead just a little bit.

I know I’m skipping around a little bit tonight, but I’m trying not to go back over what we talked about this morning. Elijah said unto Ahab in verse 41, Get thee up, eat and drink, for there is a sound of abundance of rain. And I just have this picture.

I wish somebody, you know, I don’t want to see somebody make a movie out of this like they did Noah, where if you like the book, you’ll hate the movie. But I would very much like somebody to make a movie out of this that’s true to the scriptures, because I can see Elijah’s character, you know, after they have just exacted justice on the false prophets of Baal. And Ahab is there slumped in disbelief. And Elijah walks past him and says, get up, it sounds like rain.

I mean, that would be a moment where I would be in the theater and just cheer. That’s what’s going on here. He says, get up, it sounds like rain.

Because he had told Ahab, you have no idea how bad it’s going to get. It is not going to rain. God has said it’s not going to rain in the kingdom anymore until I say so.

And then Elijah says, it’s going to rain. There is a sound of abundance of rain. And then there’s the story of where they went out to look for the clouds, and we won’t go into all of that tonight.

But just in this brief overview of some things in Elijah’s life, I’m reminded of the various ways that he and other people had to trust God. And folks, this is not just a Bible story. and I say that with all intended respect.

When I refer to it as a Bible story, I don’t mean like a fairy tale type story. Some people hear the word stories and think, oh, fairy tale. I believe these things really happened as the Bible records that they did.

And I don’t intend it that way. It just sounds a little pretentious to say the narrative all the time. The story, these are not just stories as the world thinks of the term.

These things really happened. These were real people like you and me who got the experience of seeing God do incredible things. And yet we’ve got to be reminded, these were real people like you and me who had very real doubts and fears and problems and difficulties and still had to trust God through all of this.

And I’m reminded as I read these stories today of the phrase in the Declaration of Independence, I believe it’s in the Declaration of Independence. If not, it’s something that someone said involved in the signing of it, that they pledged together their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. The men who signed the Declaration of Independence, and this is not a message about them, but they were saying, we have to have faith that what we’re trying to set up is going to work.

We have to have faith that this experiment, that this independence, that this revolution is going to work, otherwise we lose everything. It took faith for them. We’re putting everything on the line.

Our lives, they were going to lose their lives if the revolution had failed. They were going to lose their fortunes. Many of these men stood to lose everything.

It wasn’t about making profit for their sacred honor. They were going to be pariahs for the rest of their lives if all of this failed. And I think to that that these people, Elijah and Obadiah and the widow woman, pledged to God their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

I don’t know about you, but I would much rather pledge my life, fortune, and sacred honor such as it is, such as it may be. to God rather than to other people. Because they were in a very real risk of the revolution failing, of falling apart.

But when it comes to God, there’s nothing outside of his ability to handle. And my only reason, you know, I said this was not a message about the founding fathers. My only reason for bringing that up is because I so love that phrase, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

It doesn’t matter how difficult the circumstances seem to be that we’re in the middle of right now, we can trust those things to God. But I could lose everything following God. Well, then so be it.

He can handle it better than we can. I could get, do you realize you could get killed serving God? Maybe not here, but you could get killed serving God.

So be it. It’s in his hands anyway. And I don’t mean to sound flippant about it, but it really is in his hands.

We could lose our fortunes. It could, I mean, it could cost us. We could lose everything financially serving God.

So be it, it’s his anyway. We could lose our sacred honor, our good name. We could be reviled and mocked and made a laughingstock.

So be it. They could have lost everything by serving God, and yet they had faith that God is true to his promises. And he demonstrated again that his track record of faithfulness is absolutely certain.

God, folks, God does not and cannot fail on his promises. Do you believe that tonight? God does not and cannot fail on his promises.

To ask him to fail on his promises is to ask him to stop being God. And as I’ve mentioned so many times, you’re probably tired of hearing it. There are some things God can’t do, and to stop being God is one of those at the very top of the list, I think.

He cannot stop being who he is. And I look at these things that they entrusted to God. Elijah, you know, very, very much put his life on the line going to King Ahab in the first place, because the king, not liking what he had to say, could have just killed him right there.

He put his life on the line in the first place going to speak to the king, and yet he did it because he had faith that he was doing what God called him to do. There was the matter of his sacred honor, to keep using the phrase. I would be afraid if I were him, not because of doubting God’s promises, but doubting.

. . My problem is not so much that I doubt God’s ability to do things.

My problem is that I doubt whether or not I’ve correctly heard God in what he said. Okay, I’m going to go and make this blanket statement. It’s not going to rain again in Israel until I say so.

What if I got that wrong? Nobody’s ever going to believe a word I say again. And here I say it’s going to rain again.

This morning we talked about how he said, you know, my God can send down the fire on the altar. I’m wrong about any of these things. It’s a pretty big It’s a pretty big deal. Nobody’s ever going to believe anything I say again.

His fortune, as far as his livelihood, he had to trust that he could go out into the desert and God would send birds to feed him. None of this makes sense from a human standpoint to put ourselves in this kind of risk and trust that it’s going to work out. And yet we serve a God who has an absolute track record of faithfulness to his promises.

The woman here who was, Elijah didn’t just show up in her house as some silver-tongued devil and talk her out of the last of her food. You know, there are some people who could do that, who could just charm people into doing whatever they wanted. That’s not what happened here.

God had already spoken to her and said, a man of God, a servant of mine is going to come to your house and you’re to take care of him. And by the way, I’ll take care of you for doing that. All she had left was this little bit of flour and a little bit of oil.

She could have hoarded that or she could give it away and say, Okay, I’m going to trust God that I’m not going to die here. I’m going to trust God that I’m not going to starve to death and that my child is not going to starve to death. And she decided to trust in God and his absolute track record of faithfulness.

And Elijah, believing that God could raise the boy back from, I keep saying boy, it could have been a young man, that God could raise him back to life. And said, you know what, I’m going to stake my reputation on believing that God can do this, what no one else can do. I think of Obadiah and the situation he was in.

he could have lost his life, he could have lost his livelihood. He was in the lion’s den, if you want to put it that way. Being someone who trusted in God and being in the court of Ahab and Jezebel, it would be like if the number two guy in Al-Qaeda decided to become a follower of Jesus Christ. You talk about a dangerous situation.

And yet Obadiah says here, I’m going to do the right thing. I’m going to hide these prophets. At my own personal expense, I’m going to make sure they’re fed and cared for and try not to get killed by the king and queen in the process.

And I’m going to speak with the prophet Elijah, even though I know Ahab wants him dead. And even though I’m thinking, why would you put me in this position? He still trusted God that, okay, I’ll do what you say.

I could lose my job. I could lose my livelihood. I could lose my life.

But God, if you say so, you have a track record of faithfulness. And it reminds me that my piddly little problems are nothing. And I don’t say this to make light of it.

Your little problems are nothing as far as God’s concerned. And I don’t mean that as though he doesn’t care because they’re nothing. I mean, he’s in control.

He’s got this. And again, I mean no disrespect by saying your little problems because my little problems are little problems too. The problem is when we’re in the middle of the storm, it is when it looks the biggest because it’s all around us.

And yet, as we talked about with Nahum a few weeks ago, God has his way in the wind and in the whirlwind. And when God says, you do what I tell you to do, you stand where I tell you to stand, you say what I tell you to say, even if you stand and speak alone, you do what I tell you to, and I will take care of you, we can trust that God has an absolute track record of faithfulness to his promises. Now his provision, his care for us may not always look exactly like what we imagine, because we have in our minds that God’s provision and care for us means a house with a white picket fence and 2.

4 children and sunny days all the time, and that’s not necessarily how things work out. And yet God cares for us, and God protects us, and God watches over us. And most importantly, God grows us and conforms us to his will when we follow him and we trust him.

And this evening, I just want to remind you in closing, as we look at these folks, including Elijah and surrounding Elijah, that God has an absolute track record of faithfulness. And as they were able to trust Him in the big things, so we can trust Him in the big things. And if we can trust Him in the big things, we can trust Him in the little things too.

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