Most Unlikely and Almost Unbelievable
Notes
Transcript
You Know What’s Coming
You Know What’s Coming
Do you ever hear your parents’ words coming out of your mouth when you talk to your kids?
I do. All the time. My mom.
A lot of what she told me about raising kids I’ve passed on to my kids.
She’d been down that road, single mom, working to support us, had experiences that helped me in my dealings w/ my kids.
My grandfather taught me about car maintenance. Not repairs. I’m no good w/ tools.
But, the regular oil changes, tire rotations, tune ups.
He’d been down this road. Now, I’ve been down that road so I have a pretty good clue what is coming down their road.
My grandfather was big on car maintenance. B/C, if you maintain it, it will last longer and it’s a whole lot cheaper than buying a new one.
I just had my Yukon in for the 100,000 mile tune up. Not cheap!
Plugs, plug wires, fluids front and rear, transmission, front brakes and rotors.
Everything on that vehicle is expensive to replace.
But, it’s so much cheaper than replacing it.
A new transmission is ridiculously expensive.
Just before we moved out here, we owned a 2003 Ford Explorer. Nice vehicle. 4-wheel drive.
100,000 miles and I had already rebuilt the transmission once.
My son in AR wanted to buy it from me. And I wouldn’t sell it to him.
Young man wants a truck or SUV to drive. None of the sissy sedans.
I told him, even if he could afford to buy it at my discounted price, he couldn’t afford to maintain it and fix it.
Tires alone on an SUV are expensive.
I told him to go out and spend the same money buying a car but something cheaper to maintain.
Young just married, kids in the plans, don’t tie yourself up to an expensive vehicle.
He didn’t take my advice.
I didn’t take all my family’s advice. I don’t want to be too hard him here. I did it, too.
I don’t know the future for sure, I’m not right all the time, but I was this time.
He went out anyway, and bought a used SUV.
Wouldn’t you know, as soon as he drove it off the lot he discovered he needed to replace the tires, brakes and rotors.
Tires alone are $300/ each.
It happens to all of us.
To his credit, he sold that SUV quickly and got out from it. He leaned his lesson. It was expensive, but he learned.
BTW, that Explorer we had, we traded it on the Buick that Sara drives now. And, it’s a good thing it was downhill into the dealership parking lot.
B/C, by the time we got there, I had lost 4th gear and overdrive. The transmission was down to 3 gears and shot.
My point is, we know these things happen. Transmissions wear out. Tires wear out. Brakes,
We do our best to prepare our kids for it and help them budget for it. My son will prepare his kids when they get there and he will have a lesson to draw on.
The point is, I know I know what to expect b/c things like that happened to me. We all go thru this stuff.
So, as parents we prepare our kids b/c we know it’s coming.
Cars break. Houses break. There are bad bosses everywhere and jobs will get lost.
Our bodies break and lives will come to an end.
We don’t know when. And, some of this can be avoided. But we all have be prepared for it.
If we know that these things are coming w/ our limited knowledge, think how much more God knows about what’s coming and how He can prepare us for it.
God will provide for us now, prepare us for what’s next, and is powerful enough to give us new life.
And, He will do it in unexpected places, in unexpected ways, using unexpected people.
We’re in 1 Kings 17 today. The series is about making sure you are following the right leader.
B/C there are all kinds of ppl who are trying to influence you to follow them. And, if they are not going where you need to go, you need find a different leader.
Nowhere is that more evident in the series of events we are going to begin to look at today where Elijah who goes up against Ahab, the king of Israel, his wife Jezabel, who’s not Jewish, and the god she worshiped, Baal.
Ahab is a terrible king. Jezabel is a worse influence. And God is about to get their attention to show them that He is the only 1 true God.
Elijah confronts them with the consequences to their disobedience and lack of faith in God.
Should Have Known
Should Have Known
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.”
Remember God’s deal w/ Israel.
He got them into the land and set them up.
Then, He said if they would believe in Him, live faithfully and obediently, He would protect them and provide for them and they could stay in the land.
The climate would provide the rain and the land would produce the crops.
Ahab had become the king of Israel, the northern tribes. Ahab married Jezabel.
She was not Jewish. She worship Baal and pressured Ahab to lead Israel to give up on God and go after Baal.
The problem is now obvious.
Israel, as a nation, no longer believed in God, followed God, worshiped God, we committed only to God.
They broke their end of the deal.
So, the consequence was no rain or dew.
A severe drought came to the middle east and everything dried up.
God is still the God of Israel whether they believe it or not. Belief does not determine truth.
They can believe in Baal all the want to. But that does not make him god.
Baal was one of the Canaanite gods. They had several. The land was the Canaanites before God gave it to Israel. Israel did not run everyone out of the land, intermarried among them, and adopted some of their gods as their own.
Baal was the god of storms; rain, thunder, lightening. Think Thor.
Which, in an ag culture weather was very important.
So, what did God do?
God who does control the climate, hit them right where they believe Baal lives and works.
You think Baal controls the climate? Watch this.
This made Ahab and Jezabel very angry. Elijah had to run for his life.
They hadn’t come after him yet, but God told him where to go b/c they were about to try to hunt him down and kill him.
They hated the message and would seek to kill the messenger.
God prepared him for it by showing where to hide.
Unlikely Ways
Unlikely Ways
Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah: “Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. You will drink from the brook, and I have directed the ravens to supply you with food there.”
So he did what the Lord had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.
God sends him to this obscure, little ravine and there was wadi there.
Wadi is a dry river bed.
This brook would only run in the rainy season.
We know exactly what that looks like.
If not, go look at the culvert behind the church. It’s dry as a bone most of the year.
It might have a little water in it now, but it only runs when it’s raining and the snow is melting.
There was a severe drought in the middle east. There was not water in any river bed, brook, or culvert except the one where God told Elijah to go and hide.
And, God chose ravens to feed him.
On the surface, that’s miracle enough. But, when you consider that ravens don’t even feed their young, let them fend for themselves, this becomes an ever greater miracle.
The birds provided bread and meat.
Nobody was eating this good. Their grain crops weren’t producing.
No one had grain to make bread or feed their livestock.
So, God, knowing that Ahab and Jezabel were going to try to hunt him down, provided for Elijah in very unlikely ways.
This nourished him physically and spiritually. B/C it proved to him that God would provide for him when no one else was getting it.
It seemed impossible in so many ways.
Not only did this take care of him that day, it also prepared him for what was coming next.
If God can provide water and feed him from ravens then he’s ready for the next challenge.
God sent him an unlikely place where he was helped by an unlikely person.
More Unlikely
More Unlikely
Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land. Then the word of the Lord came to him: “Go at once to Zarephath in the region of Sidon and stay there. I have directed a widow there to supply you with food.” So he went to Zarephath. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, “Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?” As she was going to get it, he called, “And bring me, please, a piece of bread.”
“As surely as the Lord your God lives,” she replied, “I don’t have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die.”
Zarephath was not in the PL. It was not a Jewish area.
It was the heart of Baal territory. So God sent Elijah to a most unlikely place, the heart of Baal worship.
This was Jezabel’s hometown.
Then, God prepared this widow, who is not Jewish to provide him with food and water.
Elijah sees her at the town gate. She had to have been just skin and bone.
Widows were among the poorest. They had to beg for what they had. And, at this time, nobody had anything to spare.
She was gathering sticks to make one last fire for the last of her flour and oil for a last meal for her and her son.
All that was left was for them to starve to death.
There was nothing she or Baal could do.
When there was a drought, the ppl bel’d Baal was dead. Obviously, he wasn’t doing his job. And what could possibly prevent him from doing it?
He had t/b dead.
Which was true, all the time.
Then, when it would rain again, they bel’d another god had brought him back to life so he could do his job.
Notice what the widow said about Elijah’s God. “As surely as your God lives,”
She had faith that God was alive and Baal was dead.
How would she know any different?
If you can remember back that far, think about what you believed about God when you first came to faith.
You had faith in the right things about God to save you, but there was so much you didn’t know you were supposed to believe.
Over time, we’ve all learned. Good preaching, bible study, mentors all have helped know what more it true about God that we didn’t that first day.
We start Kindergarten and don’t know what we don’t know.
We learned to sing the Farmer in the Dell.
Primary colors. Count to 100. Maybe we learned to recognize a few letters and words.
Then we get to college and the numbers and words and colors take us to photosynthesis in our biology class. When and how grass turns green.
W/out the building blocks and preparation from K-12 we’d never be ready for college.
This widow didn’t have much faith. But, it doesn’t take much as long as it’s placed in the right object. She could learn the rest.
And, God provides for those who believe in Him and have faith.
Look at v.14
For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the land.’ ”
The ravens and babbling brook took care of Elijah until he came to Zarephath.
Then, God used a simple jar of flour and jug of oil in the hands of a woman who started out w/ a limited faith.
All of this not only provides for this small group of people. It prepares them for what happens next.
Baal could do nothing. They believed he was dead. Of course, he was all the time.
But the next issue required what only the One True Living God could do.
Unlikely to Unbelievable
Unlikely to Unbelievable
Some time later the son of the woman who owned the house became ill. He grew worse and worse, and finally stopped breathing. She said to Elijah, “What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?”
“Give me your son,” Elijah replied. He took him from her arms, carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his bed. Then he cried out to the Lord, “Lord my God, have you brought tragedy even on this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?” Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried out to the Lord, “Lord my God, let this boy’s life return to him!”
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!”
Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth.”
Every one of these miracles prepared them for the next. Each next one stretched their faith farther than the last one.
And, the one I’ll be talking about next week will stretch them even farther. But, that’s for next week.
The widow’s son got sick and died. It seemed completely hopeless. He could have grown up and supported her.
Widows were not allowed to get jobs. But she could have lived w/ her adult son and his family. But, then, he was gone.
Once again, her future looked bleak.
Baal could do nothing. He could not bring himself to life, much less a poor widow’s son.
And, the widow in her young faith felt guilty, that it was her fault, her sin that brought about her son’s death.
She had no experienced grace enough to cover this ever before.
Elijah took the boy into an upper room, cried out to God, and God answered.
Elijah delivered to boy back into his mother’s arms alive.
This was the first instance in the bible of a dead person coming back to life.
And, remember, they are not Jewish.
When Jesus brought this example up the religious leaders were seriously offended. He couldn’t come up w/ a Jewish example.
But, God didn’t send Elijah to a Jewish widow, though there were many possibilities.
Nor was it connected to the boy’s faith. Dead boys have no faith. This was an object for whoever was paying attention.
How do we know that God can do what He claims He can thru his messengers?
Words are cheap and easy. Actions are costly and hard. Well, not for God.
He proved He could do what He said He could do by giving us object lessons.
Just like in the NT, the miracle is never the point. It has a point. But, its point, points to the main point which is
God will use unlikely ppl in unlikely ways and in unlikely places to provide for us now, prepare us for what’s next, and show us He has the power to give us new life.
Elijah’s message was that God is the only One True God and was still alive, Baal was not.
God was still involved in the lives of individual people of faith regardless of bloodline.
Yes, a foreshadowing of the future church. But, God was always available to non-Jews to experience new life by faith given by a gracious God.
Applications
Applications
God is providing
God is providing
It may not be meat and bread from ravens and your flour jar and oil jug might dry up.
But, He is providing everything you need to do what’s facing you today.
He is giving you the words to say.
He is giving you the direction to go.
He is even giving you the courage to act on it.
All you have to do is take the first step and utter the first word and the rest will follow.
Do what you need to do today believing God has provided everything you need to do it.
You are prepared
You are prepared
The lessons we learn on a day to day basis are important and life-changing.
But, when God is involved it’s never just about today.
While yesterday He did prepare you for today. Today He is preparing you for tomorrow.
Never doubt that you can handle what God has led you into because He has totally prepared you for it.
He might be using you
He might be using you
If you sincerely believe you are the most unlikely person that God could use then you are perfect for the job.
He might be using you right now to provide something vital to someone else and prepare them for what they are facing next.
God doesn’t make mistakes. So, if he has chosen to use you then you are perfect for what He wants you to do.
Believe in God. Believe in the gifts and abilities He has given you. And, believe that he can use you in lives of others.
My family did their best to provide for me and prepare me for my adult life.
I’m sure, yours did their best, too.
And, if we can do this for our children, think about how much more God can do for us given his unlimited knowledge of the past, present, and future.
God will use unlikely ppl in unlikely ways and in unlikely places to provide for us now, prepare us for what’s next, and show us He has the power to give us new life.