1 Kings 17:12 Death

 “So she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I do not have bread, only a handful of flour in a bin, and a little oil in a jar; and see, I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.”” ‭‭I Kings‬ ‭17‬:‭12‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

a. As the LORD your God lives: This polite address showed that she respected God, yet recognized that the God of Israel was Elijah’s God and not her own.

b. I do not have bread: Elijah quickly found out that she was not only poor, but desperately poor. Elijah found her right before she was going to prepare her last morsel of food for herself and her son, and then resign themselves to death. (Guzik)

Death

When we are young we rarely think about death but when we are old we think about death more often.

“whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.” James‬ ‭4‬:‭14‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

If you are reading this, then the good Lord has given you and blessed you with another day! 

“For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” ‭‭Romans‬ ‭8‬:‭38‬-‭39‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

I plan on holding on to the love of God knowing that the earth is not my home and will continue to point people towards Christ Jesus.

What will you do with the rest of the time you have left?

Blessings 

1 Kings 17:10-11 Grace of God!

 “So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, indeed a widow was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, “Please bring me a little water in a cup, that I may drink.” And as she was going to get it, he called to her and said, “Please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.”” ‭‭I Kings‬ ‭17‬:‭10‬-‭11‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

a. Indeed a widow was there gathering sticks: This showed that she was a poor woman, gathering meager scraps for firewood. Elijah perhaps thought that God would lead him to an unusual rich widow, but God led him to a poor Gentile widow.

i. “You learn this from the fact that she had not even firewood. Now, there was no reason why she should not have had that even in time of famine of bread, for there was no famine of wood, unless she had been extremely poor.” (Spurgeon)

ii. God told Elijah (1 Kings 17:9) that He commanded a widow to feed the prophet. Yet this woman seemed unaware of the command. This shows how God’s unseen hand often works. “She does not appear to have been at all aware that she was to feed a prophet. She went out that morning to gather sticks, not to meet a guest. She was thinking about feeding her son and herself upon the last cake; certainly she had no idea of sustaining a man of God out of that all but empty barrel of meal. Yet the Lord, who never lieth, spoke a solemn truth when he said, ‘I have commanded a widow woman there.’ He had so operated upon her mind that he had prepared her to obey the command when it did come by the lip of his servant the prophet” (Spurgeon).

b. Please bring me a little water in a cup… Please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand: Elijah boldly put this request in faith. Common sense and circumstances told him that the widow would not give so generously to a Jewish stranger, but faith made him ask.

i. “This was certainly putting the widow’s faith to an extraordinary trial: to take and give to a stranger, of whom she knew nothing, the small pittance requisite to keep her child from perishing, was too much to be expected.” (Clarke)

ii. God indeed chose this woman, but He chose her for more than a miracle. He chose her for service. “The choice of this woman, while it brought such blessedness to her, involved service. She was not elected merely to be saved in the famine, but to feed the prophet. She must be a woman of faith; she must make the little cake first, and afterwards she shall have the multiplication of the meal and of the oil. 

So the grace of God does not choose men to sleep and wake up in heaven, nor choose them to live in sin and find themselves absolved at the last; nor choose them to be idle and go about their own worldly business, and yet to win a reward at the last for which they never toiled. Ah, no! The sovereign electing grace of God chooses us to repentance, to faith, and afterwards to holiness of living, to Christian service, to zeal, to devotion” (Spurgeon).

(Guzik)

Grace of God!

The sovereign electing grace of God chooses us, He does so expecting an orderly fashion to repentance, to faith, to holiness, to service, to zeal, to devotion! 

I have to admit that when I go into service to God, physically my body runs out of steam after a year! But recently my wife and I have been leading a Life Recovery Bible group at our church for the last two years and three months and the zeal and devotion continues. During group some of the men thanked us for leading this group. The Lord put on my heart to acknowledge and thank them for the encouragement to continue to lead this group. 

How long will it last? As long as the Lord wants, because it’s His ministry not mine. We will continue to give Him all the glory of what happens within this group.

Are you choosing a life of repentance or going about worldly business?

Blessings 

1 Kings 17:8-9 Transplanting

“Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. See, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you.”” ‭‭I Kings‬ ‭17‬:‭8‬-‭9‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

a. Arise, go to Zarephath: God led Elijah from the dry brook to a Gentile city. This was an unusual and challenging move for Elijah to make.

i. God kept transplanting Elijah: From home to Jezreel to Cherith to Zarephath. This transplanting made him stronger and stronger.

ii. We should also remember that this was the general region that the wicked queen Jezebel was from. “Elijah was visiting enemy territory and showing the power of God in an area where Baal was worshipped, though ineffective through drought” (Wiseman).

b. See, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you: Widows were notorious for their poverty in the ancient world. God told Elijah to go to a Gentile widow and receive provision; it probably seemed to make more sense to wait beside a dry brook.

i. When He was rejected by His own people, Jesus used this example of Elijah’s coming to the widow of Zarephath as an illustration of God’s right to choose a people to Himself: Then He said, “Assuredly, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own country. But I tell you truly, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a great famine throughout all the land; but to none of them was Elijah sent except to Zarephath, in the region of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow” (Luke 4:24-26). (Guzik)

Transplanting 

“This transplanting made him stronger and stronger.”

God often transplants His children for His purposes, for His kingdom, for His glory! God transplanted the hearts of my wife and I into a life of adoption. 

Like Elijah, to some it made more sense to stay by the brook and to live our lives for ourselves but after witnessing a friend’s daughter give up her child because she preferred a life of drugs and alcohol it opened our eyes and hearts to the needs of orphans.

Have you gotten a new heart or ever been physically transplanted by God?

Blessings 

1 Kings 17:7 The Drying Brook!

 “And it happened after a while that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land.” ‭‭I Kings‬ ‭17‬:‭7‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

a. After a while that the brook dried up: Elijah saw the flow of the brook slow down until it dried up. His source of water was gone.

i. “Ah, it is hard to sit beside a drying brook - much harder than to face the prophets of Baal on Carmel.” (Meyer) Meyer also mentioned different kinds of drying brooks we might experience:

· The drying brook of popularity, ebbing away as from John the Baptist.

· The drying brook of health, sinking under a creeping paralysis, or a slow consumption.

· The drying brook of money, slowly dwindling before the demands of sickness, bad debts, or other people’s extravagance.

· The drying brook of friendship, which for long has been diminishing, and threatens soon to cease.

ii. Moved below…

b. Because there had been no rain in the land: This was the drought Elijah prayed for. He did not pray for rain to come again, even for his own survival. He kept the purpose of God first, even when it adversely affected him. (Guzik)

The Drying Brook!

“Why does God let them dry? He wants to teach us not to trust in His gifts but in Himself. He wants to drain us of self, as He drained the apostles by ten days of waiting before Pentecost. He wants to loosen our roots ere He removes us to some other sphere of service and education. He wants to put in stronger contrast the river of throne-water that never dries.” (Meyer)

Two years ago in January the brook dried up at our church when a staff member retired. He had managed and led a twelve step program on Thursday evenings. My wife and I volunteered to be a stop gap program for the church and continue with the Life Recovery Bible twelve step program. It is God’s ministry not ours and we will continue to lead it until He decides it’s time for the brook to dry up or for the river of throne-water to change course.

Have you experienced the drying brook in your life?

Blessings 

1 Kings 17:6 God’s Raven

 “The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening; and he drank from the brook.” I Kings‬ ‭17‬:‭6‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

a. The ravens brought him bread and meat: Every bit of food that came to Elijah came from the beak of an unclean animal. Elijah had to put away his traditional ideas of clean and unclean or he would die of starvation. Through this, God taught Elijah to emphasize the spirit of the law before the letter of the law.

i. Charles Spurgeon drew two points of application from this event, likening the food the ravens brought to spiritual food. First, he recognized that God may bring a good word to us through an unclean vessel, spiritually unclean, like a raven. Second, that one can bring spiritual food to others and still be unclean spiritually themselves. “But see, too, how possible it is for us to carry bread and meat to God’s servants, and do, some good things for his church, and yet be ravens still!” (Spurgeon).

b. Bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening: As faithfully as He provided manna for Israel in the wilderness, God provided for Elijah’s needs. He came to trust more than ever in the miraculous provision of God.

i. “A little boy, having read this incident with his widowed mother one wintry night, as they sat in a fireless room, beside a bare table, asked her if he might set the door open for God’s ravens to come in; he was so sure that they must be on their way. The burgomaster of that German town, passing by, was attracted by the sight of the open door, and entered, inquiring the cause. When he learnt the reason, he said, ‘I will be God’s raven’; and relieved their need then and afterwards.” (Meyer)

(Guzik)

God’s Raven 

There are occasions in our life when we witness a widow and an orphan in need and God puts on our hearts to be His raven. We have several widows in our community and have had the pleasure of being God’s raven. 🐦‍⬛ 

“Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.”

‭‭James‬ ‭1‬:‭27‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

Have you had the pleasure of being God’s raven? 🐦‍⬛ 

Blessings 

1 Kings 17:2-5 Cherith

 “Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “Get away from here and turn eastward, and hide by the Brook Cherith, which flows into the Jordan. And it will be that you shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.” So he went and did according to the word of the Lord, for he went and stayed by the Brook Cherith, which flows into the Jordan.” I Kings‬ ‭17‬:‭2‬-‭5‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

a. Get away from here and turn eastward, and hide by the Brook Cherith: The drought announced by Elijah in the previous verse was a great threat to the northern kingdom of Israel and the reign of Ahab. Therefore, his life was in danger, and God sent him to the Brook Cherith for his own safety.

i. God led Elijah one step at a time. He did not tell him to go to Cherith until he first delivered the message to Ahab. He did not tell him to go to Zarephath until the brook dried up at Cherith. God led Elijah by faith, one step at a time, and Elijah followed in faith.

ii. Hide by the Brook Cherith: Through this, God taught Elijah the value of the hiddenlife. He had just become famous as an adversary of Ahab, so mighty that his prayers could stop the rain. At the moment of his new-found fame, God wanted Elijah to hideand be alone with God. “We must not be surprised, then, if sometimes our Father says: ‘There, child, thou hast had enough of this hurry, and publicity, and excitement; get thee hence, and hide thyself by the brook - hide thyself in the Cherith of the sick chamber; or in the Cherith of disappointed hopes; or in the Cherith of bereavement; or in some solitude from which the crowds have ebbed away’” (Meyer).

iii. “Elijah could not be alone, so long as he had God and himself to converse with. A good man is never less alone, than when alone.” (Trapp)

b. And it will be that you shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there: The escape to the Brook Cherith was for more than protection. It was also to train Elijah in dependence upon the LORD. In a season of drought, he had to trust that God could keep this brook flowing. He also had to accept food from the ravens, which were unclean animals.

i. The name Cherith comes from the ancient Hebrew root meaning, to cut away, to cut up or off. This shows that God had some cutting to do in the life of Elijah during this period.

ii. I have commanded the ravens to feed you there: There is an emphasis on the word there. God promised that the ravens would feed Elijah as he stayed at Cherith. Of course, theoretically the ravens could feed him anywhere - but God commanded that it be at Cherith. Elijah perhaps wanted to be somewhere else, or be preaching, or doing anything else. Yet God wanted him there and would provide for him there. (Guzik) 

Cherith 

Meyer’s comment above reminds us that the Father tells us to hide thyself in the Cherith from the busyness of life and to commune with Him while He prunes away parts of us so we can bear more fruit! 

“Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.”

‭‭John‬ ‭15‬:‭2‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

It’s the brook of Cherith where the Father does His greatest transformation within us especially when we are experiencing trials because it draws us closer to Him just as a child runs to their Father.

When was the last time you hide thyself in the Cherith?

Blessings 

1 Kings 17:1 Paralysed with fear!

“And Elijah the Tishbite, of the inhabitants of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, except at my word.”” ‭‭I Kings‬ ‭17‬:‭1‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

a. Elijah the Tishbite: At this crucial time in the history of Judah and Israel, the Prophet Elijah suddenly appeared. He became the dominant spiritual force in Israel during the dark days of Ahab’s apostasy.

i. The name Elijah means,Yahweh is my God. In the days when Ahab’s government officially supported the worship of Baal and other gods, even the name of this prophet told the truth.

ii. It was a crucial time in the history of Israel. It looked as if the worship of the true God might be completely eliminated in the northern kingdom. “The land swarmed with the priests of Baal and of the groves - proud of Court favour; glorying in their sudden rise to power; insolent, greedy, licentious, and debased. The fires of persecution were lit, and began to burn with fury” (Meyer).

iii. “The whole land seemed apostate. Of all the thousands of Israel, only seven thousand remained who had not bowed the knee or kissed the hand to Baal. But they were paralysed with fear; and kept so still, that their very existence was unknown by Elijah in the hour of his great loneliness.” (Meyer)

b. There shall not be dew nor rain these years, except at my word: This was a dramatic demonstration against the pagan god Baal, who was thought to be the sky god, the god of the weather. Elijah showed that through his prayers to the God of Israel, Yahweh was mightier than Baal.

i. “The old religion against the new; the child of nature against the effeminate child of the courts; camel’s hair against soft clothing; moral strength against moral weakness.” (Meyer)

ii. Elijah was not merely the prophet of this drought – in the sense of prayer – he was the cause of the drought. He prayed and it happened. James 5:17-18 makes this clear: Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.

c. As the LORD God of Israel lives, before whom I stand: This statement of Elijah shows the source of his strength. It is specifically said Elijah was a man with a nature like ours (James 5:17). Yet he showed a strength greater than most of us in our life with God. We must pay attention to these indications to the source of Elijah’s strength.

i. As the LORD God of Israel lives: Everyone else felt that the LORD was dead, but for Elijah the LORD lived. He was the supreme reality of Elijah’s life.

ii. Before whom I stand: He stood in the presence of Ahab, but he was conscious of the presence of someone greater than any earthly king. Gabriel himself could not choose a higher title (Luke 1:19). (Guzik)

Paralysed with fear!

During Covid people were paralyzed with fear. The government ordered us to stay home, closed churches while unbeknownst to us, some government officials went to select restaurants, hair salons and even parties.

Some churches though, were like Elijah and didn’t bow the knee to the Ahab’s in government and suffered consequences for choosing to stay open. 

Elijah showed great faith in the Lord during a time when his country and king didn’t, but later he runs in fear and the Lord sends him an angel. If only he ran to the Lord instead!

When life gets you down don’t be paralyzed in fear, run to the Lord instead!

Blessings