Simply Trusting Every Day

First Kings chapter 17. 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.”

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. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.

And it happened after a while that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land.

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.”

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.”

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.”

But Elijah said to her, “Do not fear. Go and do as you have said, but make me a small cake from it first, and bring it to me. And afterward make some for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘The bin of flour shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run dry, until the day the Lord sends rain on the earth.’”

So she went away and did according to the word of Elijah. And she and he and her household ate for many days. The bin of flour was not used up, nor did the jar of oil run dry, according to the word of the Lord which He spoke by Elijah.

Now it happened after these things that the son of the woman who owned the house became sick. And his sickness was so serious that there was no breath left in him. So she said to Elijah, “What have I to do with you, O man of God? Have you come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to kill my son?”

And he said to her, “Give me your son.” So he took him out of her arms and carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his own bed. Then he cried out to the Lord and said, “O Lord my God, have You also brought tragedy on the widow with whom I lodge, by killing her son?” And he stretched himself out on the child three times, and cried out to the Lord and said, “O Lord my God, I pray, let this child’s soul come back to him.”

Then the Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and the soul of the child came back to him, and he revived. And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper room into the house, and gave him to his mother. And Elijah said, “See, your son lives!”

Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now by this I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.”

James 5:17:

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.

It would be hard to imagine anyone stepping on the stage of biblical history more dramatically and more impressively than did Elijah the Tishbite. Out of nowhere he seems to come, and he strides boldly into the presence of King Ahab with this startling announcement.

“As the Lord God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except at my word.”

Now there’s no doubt at all that Elijah the prophet is one of the truly great men of the Bible. Did you know that his name is mentioned in the New Testament no less than thirty times? He was the model for John the Baptist, who went before our Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah. And he’s also the model for one of the two witnesses who will prophesy at the end of the age.

And because Elijah is so great, and because of the amazing miracles that are associated with his life and ministry, there’s a temptation for us to think of him as some kind of a superhuman person, a kind of a spiritual Superman who can leap tall buildings in a single bound or outrace locomotives. And we need the reminder that James gives us in James chapter 5, the verse which Joel read a few moments ago.

That Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, or as the old King James Version has it, Elijah was a man of like passions as we are. To put it very simply, Elijah was a human being just like you and me. But says James, he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months.

Please understand therefore that when Elijah strode into the presence of King Ahab to announce that there was to be no rain, this announcement was the direct result of his prayer and his faith. You see, the law of Moses had warned the children of Israel that if they turned away from God, God would withhold their rain. And they had turned away from God.

Under King Ahab they were worshipping the false god Baal. And what Elijah basically did was to pray to God to do what God had already said that He was going to do. And may I suggest just in passing that this is the real secret of effective prayer.

Effective prayer is prayer that is based on the Word of God. Effective prayer is not me thinking of something that I would like to do and then asking God to do it. Effective prayer is not me making a big plan and then asking God to bless it. The core of effective prayer is for us to pray that God will do the things that He promises in His word that He will do.

Now I have no idea how Ahab reacted initially to this stunning announcement from Elijah. Maybe he laughed at him. Maybe he told his attendants, “Get this crazy man out of my palace.” But according to the next chapter it wasn’t very long after that that Ahab was desperate to locate Elijah.

You see, when day followed day and week followed week and month followed month and there was no rain, just as Elijah had said there was to be no rain, then Ahab was desperate to locate Elijah. According to the next chapter he searched everywhere he could think of. He sent messengers through all the surrounding countries and made them swear that they didn’t know where Elijah was.

And because God knew that Ahab would be looking for Elijah very soon, as soon as he had made this appearance before Ahab, God speaks to him again. And God says to Elijah, “Get away from here and go eastward to the Brook Cherith and hide there. And it will be that you will drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.”

No mention here of hiding in a cave behind you. No mention of hiding in a forest. Just go sit by a brook and hide there. And as if that were not bad enough, the ravens will bring you your food. Since when do the ravens feed anybody except themselves in their own yard?

I think you will agree with me that this piece of information did not make a lot of sense. And yet Elijah goes and does exactly what God is asking him to do.

Now let’s admit that we don’t really know where the Brook Cherith was located. Probably to the east, on the eastern side of the River Jordan somewhere. And for all I know there might have been a cave there. For all I know there might have been some woods too, Elijah. But that’s not the point, is it?

You see, wherever God chooses to hide us, that’s where we will be hidden, even if it’s right out in the open. Remember the story that is told in Genesis 19. The men of Sodom were trying to break down the door of Lot’s house to get to the two men who had come to visit him, not realizing that these men were angels.

And you remember that these two men pulled Lot in through the door. Then they struck the men of Sodom with blindness so they couldn’t find the door. I mean it was right there, folks, and they couldn’t locate it. And the Bible says they wearied themselves trying to find the door. But in the end they gave up and had to leave.

And don’t you see? If God decides to hide me right out in the open or by a brook or in my office or wherever it may be, I’m perfectly safe there. And if God is not hiding me, I’m not even safe in a deep dark cave.

So there was Elijah hiding just as the psalmist said. You remember that “He shall hide me in His pavilion. In the secret place of His tabernacle He shall hide me. He shall set me high upon a rock.” The book of Proverbs says, “The name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous run to it and are safe.”

God alone can hide us from trouble, difficulties, distresses, enemies. He is our hiding place. And the exact location on earth is not all that important.

So there Elijah was, hiding by the Brook Cherith and being served in the history of the world. I’d like to call it Raven Caterers Incorporated. And mind you, folks, the Raven Caterers did not just pull in at nine o’clock once a week and dump on him all of the food that he would need for that week. Neither did they call on Elijah once a day and give him all the food for the day.

You see, in Bible times it was customary to eat two meals a day, one in the morning and one in the evening. So when the time for the morning meal came, there were the ravens bringing bread and meat for Elijah. And when it came time for the evening meal, there were the ravens again bringing bread and meat for Elijah.

And because Elijah was a man with passions like ourselves, because he was like us, it would have been very natural for him to say after the morning visitation by the ravens, “I wonder if they’re coming back tonight.” And after the evening visitation by the ravens, “I wonder if they’ll be back in the morning. How long can this go on?” But he didn’t need to worry, because God had said, “I have commanded the ravens to feed you.”

Now don’t you see that Elijah, who had already prayed in faith to God that God would shut up the heavens, is learning a new method of living? He is learning that he can rely upon God to provide for him, not just week by week, not just day by day, but meal by meal.

And I don’t care how much food you’ve got at home. Even if you have only a little bit, you have probably more than I do. Maybe you have a full icebox or a full pantry. And maybe you have a freezer full of meat. But I want to remind you of something. When you sit down at supper tonight, it is God who provided that meal. When you sit down at breakfast in the morning, it is God who provides that breakfast. And the same for lunch and the same for supper.

And God doesn’t want you to eat only from the materials that you have stocked at home. If your house burns down, God can still give you a meal with a neighbor, with a friend, with a relative. Who knows where? And it’s important for us to learn the lesson that Elijah was learning here, that God provides for us on a need-by-need basis, day after day, meal by meal, according to our need.

And then something happened that was rather alarming. One day Elijah looked at the Brook Cherith and there wasn’t as much water in it as before. And the next day there was even less. And before you know it the brook was all dried up. And since Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and since he was a man of like passions as ourselves, he probably said, “What now? Where am I going to get my water from now? Are the ravens going to have to bring me water as well as food?”

God’s word comes to Elijah again. And God says, “Get up, go to Zarephath, which is not far from Sidon, and live there. Because I have commanded a widow woman to provide for you.”

New plans. Is God Plan B? The brook is dry. The ravens have done their job. And now I’m going to provide for you through a widow woman. And you see, my friends, God often changes the ways in which He provides for us because our danger is that we will learn to trust the means that He uses rather than to trust Him who is the Provider.

Suppose there have been years and years that you’ve relied on a certain person to help you in a certain way. Maybe when you’re married you rely upon your spouse for certain things. And then that person is gone. Well, the means that God used is gone, but God is still there.

Suppose that for years you’ve had a certain job and you’ve earned your living from that job. And you know that God has provided that job. And suddenly the job is gone. Well, the job is gone, but God is with you.

And don’t you see that Elijah also learned that God is not shut up to any one particular means of providing? When He’s finished with the ravens, He’s finished with the ravens. And now He moves on through this widow who would take care of you.

Now there was a considerable journey involved from wherever Cherith was, off the eastern side of Jordan, up to Zarephath. Because Zarephath was on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and it was north of Israel, and it was some miles south of a prosperous city called Sidon. And so Elijah had to make this long journey by foot.

And I’m suspecting that as Elijah was on his way there he thought to himself, “Well, I’m probably going to go to the home of a widow who’s fairly well-off if she’s going to have to provide for me. After all, most widows are dirt poor. But there are some widows who have been left pretty well-off by their husbands. And if God is going to make this widow provide for me, no doubt this widow has some means.”

Well, with that perfect timing that is so often characteristic of God, when he gets to the gate of the city of Zarephath, he meets a widow. And she’s gathering sticks. Now it apparently occurs to Elijah that this might be the lady. But this is not a good sign, folks. When a widow is well-off she doesn’t gather firewood at the gate of the city.

And so Elijah says to the widow, “Would you please get me a little drink of water in a cup?” Very graciously the widow goes off to do that. And then Elijah says, “Oh yes, and would you bring me some bread?” And at this point the widow turns around and she says, “As the Lord your God lives, I don’t have any bread. As a matter of fact, all that I have is a handful of flour in a bin and a little oil in a jar. And I was gathering sticks for firewood, and I was going to cook the last meal for myself and my son, and then we’re going to die.”

Oh, oh, oh. This is not a widowed woman of wealthy means. This is not even a widowed woman with moderate means. This is a widow woman who is at the end of her rope. And she is just about to prepare what she regards as her last meal. And after that she doesn’t have any hope, and she expects to die with her son.

And Elijah says, because the word of the Lord comes to him now, “Do not be afraid,” he says. “Go and fix me a cake and bring it to me first, and then go back and fix some for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘The bin of flour shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run dry, until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth.’”

Do you see that Elijah has been promoted by the Brook Cherith? He’s all by himself, folks. And he’s learning by himself to trust God on a daily basis. And now God has said to him, “In fact you’ve learned that lesson. Go teach it. Go teach it to a widow who is at the end of her rope. She doesn’t have any hope. Give that widow My word and teach her to trust Me.”

May I say this? If God can teach you to trust Him in the difficulties and distresses and needs of life, God will use you to teach other people the same lesson. But if you never learned that lesson, don’t expect to be able to teach it to somebody else.

So what did the widow woman do? Well she went and she fixed Elijah a cake and brought it to him. And then she started back toward the bin of flour. And I don’t know what she was thinking, but I bet I can guess what she was thinking. She was thinking, “The only reason I’m going back to this bin of flour is because he told me to. But my own eyes saw that I took the last handful of flour out and I poured the last bit of oil out of this jar and I made him a cake. There’s no way there’s anything left for me and my son.”

And lo and behold, when she got back to the bin there was enough for her and her son. And there was enough oil coming out of the jar to bake the cakes of flour and cook them properly in the oil. And apparently, folks, this is what happened from then on. Every day, every meal, she used the last amount of flour in the bin and the last amount of oil. When she came back to the next meal there was more there, and more there, and more there.

Because God’s provision for us, our resources may run out, but God’s provision never, never fails. Wonderful experience she was getting here, right? But let’s face it, folks, real monotonous. Real monotonous. I mean for the first meal of the day, flour cakes baked in oil. And for the second meal of the day, flour cakes baked in oil. And the next day, flour cakes baked in oil, morning and evening. And the next day, morning and evening, for many days.

By this time Elijah was probably thinking to himself, “I wish I had some of that meat the ravens used to bring.” This is a monotonous menu. This is worse than the Dean Ornish diet that I’m on. I mean I can eat all sorts of fruits and vegetables and grain. I’m having a feast compared to Elijah and this widow woman and her son.

And then think of Solomon. You remember how Solomon was provided for according to 1 Kings. This is a little hard to take in at this point, but every day, mind you, the supply for Solomon and all of those who ate with him, his cooks used more than thirty measures of fine flour and sixty measures of meal. And they prepared ten fatted oxen every day, and twenty oxen from the pastures every day, and a hundred sheep every day, not to mention deer and gazelles and roebucks and fatted fowl. A feast every single day for Solomon and everybody who ate with him.

And Elijah the prophet of God is eating cakes baked in oil morning and evening, morning and evening. Who was better off? Solomon was not. Elijah was. You see, in the midst of all of the plenty and blessing that God gave to King Solomon, Solomon’s heart turned away from God. And part of the reason obviously is he no longer had a sense of need of God.

And Elijah had to remain true to the Lord his God to the very end of his life. And God made him depend on Him for every day, for every meal, for every provision.

Remember the words of James in James chapter 2. He says, “Hearken, my beloved brethren. Has not God chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which God has prepared for those who love Him?”

If you happen to be a person here today that God has poured out all sorts of material blessings on you, come up to me afterwards and I will give you my sincere sympathy, my condolences. Because you see, the more you have the harder it is for you to trust God. And the less you have, the more you are compelled to lean on God and on His provision.

God has chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He has prepared for those that love Him.

Well everything was going along fine, if you could stand the menu. And then something very alarming. Yeah, the widow woman’s son got sick and he died. And to her credit the widow woman doesn’t blame God. She blames her own sin.

But to Elijah, “What have I to do with you, O man of God? Have you come here to bring my sin to remembrance by killing my son?” She feels guilt. And Elijah is stunned. And he says, “Give me your son.” So he takes her son into his arms. He goes up to the upper room where he would stay. He lays the son on the bed.

And then Elijah prays to God. He says, “O Lord my God,” notice not the God of Israel now. This is personal between Elijah and God. “O Lord my God, have You brought tragedy upon the woman with whom I dwell by killing her son?”

Now please understand that Elijah had no promise of the Word of God that would guarantee through him that this son would be raised to life again. But he believes that God will do something in this situation. The God that he has come to know is a God he believes will not want to bring this kind of tragedy on the woman who has been his hostess all these days.

And so he lies down on top of the little boy as if to try to get the warmth of his body into the lifeless form of the boy. And he cried out to God, “I pray that this child’s soul will return to him.” Nothing happened. He lies down again. Then he prays again. Nothing happened. He does it a third time. But remember, three is the Bible’s number of resurrection.

And this time when he prays something happened. And the little boy’s spirit comes back to him, and he revives. And God has raised the little boy from the dead.

Can you see what an amazing lesson Elijah has now learned? The God who was able to shut up the heavens and stop the rain, the God who was able to feed him with the ravens, the God who was able to feed him from the bin of flour that was exhausted, is the God also who raises the dead.

His God is a God of resurrection. And God can triumph over the worst tragedy of human life, which is death itself. And when we sit here this afternoon let’s not forget that the God we worship is a God of resurrection.

We are remembering the Lord Jesus Christ and His death, that His body was broken for us, that His blood was shed for us. But are we also not remembering that God raised Him from the dead on the third day and that He’s alive forevermore? And even though God only rarely, even in the Bible, raises people from the dead, it is important for us to know that even death itself is something over which the power of God is able to triumph.

And can you imagine the thrill that Elijah had as he brings this boy downstairs? And in a triumphant voice as he says to the widow, “See, see, your son lives!”

Now remember that this woman lived in a pagan city. There’s no evidence here that she was a Jewish woman. And it may very well be that during all the time that Elijah was there she was surrounded, remember, by all sorts of pagan superstitions and false beliefs. And maybe she sort of thought of what was happening with the bin of flour and the jar of oil as a form of magic, you know, kind of mixed up, not really clearly seeing the hand of God in there.

But this was unmistakable to her. This was something that she saw the reality of. And her response to it is, “Now I know, now I know that you are really a man of God and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.”

And God has used Elijah to bring a pagan woman through to the true and living God, and to know Him in His reality, to know Him in His power, and to have confidence in His word.

And listen, Christian friends, there’s a big world out there of people who don’t know the God that we know. And if God is able to teach you and me the lessons of faith so that we know how to trust God, we will be able to teach other people to know the true and living God through Jesus Christ His Son.

You’ll have to forgive me for closing my talk by telling a story I’ve told before. It’s one of my favorite stories, and I would hate to think that the day would ever come that I’ll actually have to usher a story in and never tell it again. And it’s the kind of story that fits this particular passage perfectly.

It’s a story about a man some years ago named W. L. Douglas who eventually became a nationally known shoe manufacturer. And this story comes from his early struggling years. He had been out of work so long that he was down to his last dollar. But on Sunday he put half of it, fifty cents, in the collection basket at church.

The next day he heard about a job that was available in a distant city. And he went down to the railroad station to buy a ticket to that city. And he found that the ticket to that city cost one dollar. So now it appeared that he had been foolish to put half of his last dollar into the collection basket at church.

But when they hadn’t bought a ticket they would take him halfway using the fifty cents that he had left. Then when he got to the end of that route he got off in the city that was there. And he started walking in the direction of the distant city where he heard about the job.

But he had not gone one block before he heard about a factory in this very city where he was that was hiring men. And within thirty minutes he had a job in that factory that paid him five dollars more, which was quite a bit of money in those days, which paid him five dollars more a week than he would have earned in the distant city.

Now there are a lot of lessons from a story like that. But one of them is this. That when we have reached the end of our rope, when we have run out of our own resources, God is there. When the brook runs dry, my friend, when the flour bin is out of flour, when the little boy is not only sick, he is dead, God is just beginning the work.

And He invites us in all of the situations of life like that to put our trust in Him. The song writer got it so beautifully. “Simply trusting every day, trusting through a stormy way. Even when my faith is small, trusting Jesus, that is all. Trusting as the moments fly, trusting as the days go by. Trusting Him whate’er befall, trusting Jesus, that is all.”