A Look at The Life of Elijah
God’s Plan of Provision
1 Kings 17:1-24 (Focal 8-24)
- Review: Last week we looked at God’s work in Elijah’s life in the PLACE OF
A Look at The Life of Elijah
God’s Plan of Provision
1 Kings 17:1-24 (Focal 8-24)
- Review: Last week we looked at God’s work in Elijah’s life in the PLACE OF PREPARATION
- 1 Now Elijah the Tishbite, from the Gilead settlers, said to Ahab, “As the Lord God of Israel lives, I stand before Him, and there will be no dew or rain during these years except by my command!”
14 I will provide rain for your land in season, the early and late rains, and you will harvest your grain, new wine, and oil. 15 I will provide grass in your fields for your livestock. You will eat and be satisfied. 16 Be careful that you are not enticed to turn aside, worship, and bow down to other gods. 17 Then the Lord’s anger will burn against you. He will close the sky, and there will be no rain; the land will not yield its produce, and you will perish quickly from the good land the Lord is giving you.
- 2 Then a revelation from the Lord came to him:
3 “Leave here, turn eastward, and hide yourself at the Wadi Cherith where it enters the Jordan.
4 You are to drink from the wadi. I have commanded the ravens to provide for you there.”
5 So he did what the Lord commanded. Elijah left and lived by the Wadi Cherith where it enters the Jordan.
6 The ravens kept bringing him bread and meat in the morning and in the evening, and he drank from the wadi.
7 After a while, the wadi dried up because there had been no rain in the land.
- God’s Recognized Plan – Specific for Each of Us…we all have a THERE
- God’s Required Part – Obedience…we have to do it
- God’s Released Provision – He gives what we need as we obey
- God’s Revealed Purpose – He moves us when it’s time to go
- We asked last week why God would allow the brook to dry up, here is a perspective from one of my favorite authors, Watchman Nee:
§ “Because of our proneness to look at the bucket and forget the fountain God has frequently to change His means of supply to keep our eyes fixed on the source.”
§ Elijah was about to learn what God could do with empty vessels!
o Bible Exposition Commentary (BE Series) – Old Testament
· Introduction: Elijah Leaves the Comfort of the Country (8-10a)
8 THEN the word of the Lord came to him: 9 “GET UP, GO TO Zarephath that belongs to Sidon, and stay THERE. Look, I have commanded a woman who is a widow to provide for you THERE.”
10a So Elijah GOT UP AND WENT to Zarephath.
· Then – at the right time in accordance with God’s plan
o Often I want things to happen in my “then,” but God has the perfect “then.”
§ We might carelessly run ahead of God at times.
§ We might cautiously h