Turn with me in your Bible, if
you would, to the book of 1 Kings. Again, I want to look back at
chapter 17 a little bit in detail with you today. 1 Kings chapter
17. We kind of took it out of order
by looking at chapter 18 last week, but I want to go back now
and look at chapter 17 with you. And I've entitled, this week's
message I've entitled, God's Provision for His Elect. God's
Provision for His Elect. I wanna read the first 15 verses
here with you, if you would like to join me. First Kings chapter
17, verse one, 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. And the word of the Lord came
unto him, saying, Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide
thyself by the brook Kirith, that is before Jordan. And it
shall be that thou shalt drink of the brook, and I have commanded
the ravens to feed thee there. So he went and did according
unto the word of the Lord, for he went and dwelt by the brook
Kirith, that is before Jordan. 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 the word of the Lord came to 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. So he
arose 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. 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. 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 cruise. 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. And Elijah said to 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. 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. 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. Now, in this text of
scripture that we just read, what we have here is a constant
reiteration of this phrase here, by the word of the Lord. Notice
in verse one, he says, this was Elijah telling Ahab, he said,
there would be no dew nor rain these years, but according to
my word. And the word of the Lord came
to him saying, And so this phrase, the word of the Lord is repeated
here in this text of scripture many times and throughout the
ministry of Elijah, the word of the Lord. And what we're gonna
see here is that this is God's provision. By His Word, in His
Word, He has made a provision for His people, and He gives
them what they need for life, what they need for life, not
just physical, but spiritual and eternal life from God's Word. God's Word says that's where
their life will come. It'll come through His Word,
and He gives them that life through His Word. So that's the first
thing I want us to notice here, is that this whole passage that
we just read is God's provision for His elect according to His
Word and in His Word, by His Word. Now the name Elijah is
made up of two parts, and you probably recognize them. The
first part is E-L-I, Eli, or that just means God, and J-A-H,
which is Yah, or Jehovah, which means, his name means God, Jehovah,
or Jehovah God. And so you see here that in the
name of Elijah, And as well as not just his name, but in his
lack of genealogy, the Lord is teaching us about another one,
even about the Lord Jesus Christ. Because the Lord Jesus Christ
is God, Jehovah. He is Jehovah God. It says in
Matthew 1.23, his name shall be called Emmanuel, which means
God with us. And in Jeremiah chapter 23 and
verse five and six, it says that the Lord Jesus Christ would be
the one who would come through David and he would be called
Jehovah, our righteousness. So the Lord Jesus is God Jehovah. He's Jehovah God. In Colossians
chapter two and verse nine, it says, the fullness of the Godhead
dwells in him. All that God is, the Lord Jesus
Christ is. And so it is appropriate that
his name is God, Jehovah. And here, Elijah is a prophet. And we know that God said the
Lord Jesus would be a prophet. In fact, in Hebrews chapter one,
it says that God in these last days has spoken to us by him
or in him, in his son. That's the way He speaks to us.
And then in Ephesians chapter 3 and verse 9 it says, God created
all things by Jesus Christ. And in Colossians 1.16 it says,
all things were created by Him and for Him. So in all these,
we see that Jesus Christ is God, Jehovah, that He created all
things, that He created them for Himself. And so that in this
revelation from God, what we're learning is that God reveals
Himself in Christ, and this is the reason why God designed this
world and created it, was to make himself known to his people
in his Son. And that's phenomenal. Everything
that God, when we talk about our prophet, everything that
God wants to say to his people, he gives them that message through
the prophet. But the prophet's words are one
way that he does that, but the other way is that through the
prophet's life, his circumstances, his name, his character, everything
about the prophet is designed to convey the message of God. And this is true in the case
of Elijah, but it's preeminently true in the case of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Because what we see that in the
Lord Jesus Christ as the one in whom God has spoken, that
God makes himself known in his name, in his character, in his
word, in his words, in his works. In all that he is, Jesus told
his disciples, if you've seen me, you have seen the Father.
And in John chapter one, it says, no one has seen God at any time.
The only begotten son who is in the bosom of the father, he
has declared him, made him known. And so we know from all of these
texts of scripture that Jesus Christ is the living word. of whom the scripture or the
written word speaks. So here when it says the word
of the Lord came to Elijah, he's talking about preeminently the
Lord Jesus Christ, God Jehovah, who gave the message to Elijah
in this historical context by this scripture to us, his people. This message, all of scripture
was written to tell us about the Lord Jesus Christ, and in
telling us about Him, God reveals Himself to us. That's the Word
of God. That's God's provision for His
elect. The provision of God for His
people in this life is the Word of God concerning Christ. Christ
himself is that life. He is the way, the truth, and
the life, and therefore God's word testifies of him. And this
is repeated throughout scripture. Over and over again in the New
Testament, Jesus said, these things were written concerning
me. I came to do the will of God.
In the volume of the book, it is written of me. The Moses in
the law and the prophets and in the Psalms were written of
me. And in 1 Peter 1, he says, the
prophets of old. inquired and searched diligently
to find out what the Spirit of Christ that was in them did signify
when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and
the glory that should follow. So God has determined to lift
up His Son and exalt His Son in all of creation, in all of
providence, that means God's dealings with us in the circumstances
of our life and ordering the affairs of this world to bring
about His will, and most preeminently in our salvation. And this is
all revealed to us in the Bible, the word of God, the scriptures.
And so we see this. Now, so this man's name means
God Jehovah. He's a prophet. And in this way,
he is a representation of the Lord Jesus Christ coming to his
people here in this section of scripture. Elijah the Tishbite,
notice, Just like with Melchizedek in Genesis 14 and in Hebrews
chapter 7, there's no mention made of the genealogy of Elijah. Elijah just somehow he pops on
the scene here. Elijah the Tishbite, who was
he? Who were his father? Who was his mother? Scripture
doesn't mention it. And then if we go forward, if
we run the tape forward or fast forward through his life, what
do we find at the end of his life? Not only does he have no
mention of his genealogy, but he has no mention of how he died
because he was caught up in a whirlwind and taken up into heaven. He
was brought from a life in this world directly into heaven without
passing through death. And so in these things also what
we see is that Elijah represents our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ
as the prophet who comes to his people, represented here in this
chapter by the widow, and later in the whole nation of Israel,
and he comes to them with this purpose to provide for them they
are God's elect. And the way that we see this
is not only in his name as God Jehovah, but in the fact that
the Lord Jesus Christ himself is eternal. He had no beginning
of days, and he has no end of life. And so Elijah was taken
up into heaven, no end of life, and he has no mention of his
beginning here in this text of scripture. It's not by no accident
that these things are put in scripture, and it's by no, it's
of great blessing that God has revealed these things to us in
other places of scripture to teach us this is how we are to
understand God's word. And that's what happens in the
case of Melchizedek, and we see that here in the case of Elijah. So now we see that God has sent
his messenger, Elijah, in this case, this man. He's a prophet. He brings God's message. God
communicates his message in his name. by his word and through
the actions of his life, the circumstances of his life, and
how he comes to this person, these people, here in this chapter,
to this widow. Now, what we see here in the
beginning is that God had told Elijah what he would do. He put
it in his heart, as we saw last week, to pray that there would
be no rain. And he prayed, and God answered
his prayer. It was his will. He withheld
rain this three and a half years. Now, no rain for three and a
half years is a long time to be without rain. In fact, it
caused a great famine because there was nothing that could
grow. The animals would also die. So there was a great famine,
a great distress. This whole thing was because
of God's word. It was because of God's purpose.
And last week we saw that the reason that God did this was
to take away all confidence in the things that we would naturally
trust as the way we get things which are false. The people of
Israel were under idolatry, they lived in idolatry, they trusted
their idols to provide for them, and God took away everything
by simply withholding rain. But this is also true in our
day. It's been true throughout history.
Throughout history, the world has been full of sin and idolatry. In John 1, it says, the Lord
Jesus Christ, though He created the world, when He came into
the world, the world did not know Him. The world knew Him
not. He came to His own, and His own
did not know Him. They didn't receive Him. So he
came into the world, the world was made by him, but the world
knew him not. He came into his own, his own
received him not. And this is the way that it was
in the days of Elijah. This is the way it is in our
day. And if this is the way, if God
was pleased to leave it this way, this is the way the world
would end. It would end in total destruction. But by God's mercy, he doesn't
leave this world to their own devices. Not all in this world. He has a people that he determined
to save. And he saves them by choosing
them in His Son, in Christ, to salvation. He chose His Son to
be their Savior, to be Christ, to do all for them, and He chose
them in Him, as we just heard Brad read in Ephesians chapter
1. He has blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places. Everything All spiritual blessings
in heavenly places God has given to His people in Christ. Those two words are so significant
that we should always hold them up when we come to the Lord in
our heart, when we confess the gospel before people. It's all
in Christ. Every purpose of God, all the
work of His people, all of God's glory, God has accomplished His
will, He has accomplished His work, He has revealed His glory,
the very character and the eternal purpose of God are all in, deposited
in, and entrusted to the Lord Jesus Christ. And in so doing,
God has given His people to Him to save. And the Lord Jesus Christ
did all of the work. Nothing was left to them. He
did it all. And he did that work himself.
And so we see that in the outset here as we think about how the
word of the Lord was scarce. God withheld the word. He withheld
rain, which signifies his word. In Amos chapter 8 and verse 11,
it says this, behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that
I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a
thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord." Now,
God himself is taking the physical blessings of rain and food and
comparing them to the provision of his word. And he says, God,
there would be a famine in the land, a thirst, and that thirst
wouldn't be for water and food, just like the world today. I
mean, how many people are really starving? There are some, but
mostly in the world, we have what we need. God has seen fit
in his goodwill to provide for mankind across the globe. And people live and they live
their lives. God has provided for them. God
did that, and it's meant to teach us to honor the one who gives
us life and sustains our life. But more importantly, it's meant
to teach us that God, through His Word, gives us life in the
Lord Jesus Christ and sustains our life through that Word. And
so we see here that God's Word is the way through which God
sustains us. And he compares that here to
rain. Now, God taught Elijah to pray
that it would not rain. I'm convinced Elijah understood
that when he did that, he himself would be subject to the same
drought. Don't you know? And when he did
that, he recognized that it would bring great suffering upon the
people who were of his nation, the nation of Israel and throughout
the land. And yet this was God's will.
And God teaches his people that they have one real mission in
this life. And what is that? To preach Christ. But in so doing, in living our
lives, we also recognize that the troubles and the afflictions,
the trials and the hardships that come in a physical way are
meant to excite in us a sense of our own helplessness and utter
dependency on God, and to see that dependency ultimately needs
to be met in God's saving grace in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
so God's people, God's people and his ministers pray that God
would take the troubles. that are brought on us and use
them for our salvation. And so Elijah's prayer here,
he had that in view, but he himself would suffer also with it. And
that's what we see here coming up. He says in verse two, and
the word of the Lord came to him, to Elijah saying, get thee
hence and turn thee eastward and hide thyself by the brook
Kirith, that is before Jordan. So here right away we see that
God has directed Elijah to go into this wilderness place, sort
of in hiding, but also in dependence. He himself is going to live in
dependence upon God's provision. The one who was sent by God to
tell God's message, the gospel, that one was put in utter dependence
upon God himself. And that makes sense to us. If
you've ever tried to communicate the gospel to someone, You find
that the only thing that you can really say is what God has
taught you in your own heart and conscience. That you yourself
found yourself a sinner before God and without any strength
you tried all the things that you that you labored to do throughout
your life in order to set things right, to remove the guilt of
your conscience, and to establish something by which God could
accept you. And God removed all of those things you trusted in
until He left you empty and without hope, and then He preached Christ
to you. And that's what God is doing
here with Elijah. Elijah was given God's word.
He was obviously a believer. He was God's servant. He was
a man who trusted God. It says in James 5 that he was
a righteous man. The earnest, fervent prayer of
a righteous man availeth much. So Elijah was God's servant,
God's prophet, and a righteous man. And who preeminently was
God's servant, God's prophet, and God's righteous, the righteous
man? But the Lord Jesus Christ. And
what did He do when God sent Him into the world? Well, he
had to depend on God's word too, just like his people would. He
endured everything they endured. Satan came and tempted him and
he says, man, it is written, man, when the devil tempted him,
he says, prove that you're the son of God by turning these stones
into bread. Jesus didn't take the temptation. He said, it is written, which
means he was God's prophet, speaking God's word, and he himself depended
on that word, man shall not live. by bread alone, but by every
word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. See the Lord Jesus
Christ here, he himself who was sent by God to do his will and
to declare the gospel, he himself was put under the law and made
as a man, a servant of God, a servant to his people, the righteous
man who himself depended on God's word. And if this is good for
the master, how much better is it for us who are his disciples? We have to live by the same way
that he lived. And how did he live? He was a
man, he lived by faith in God's word. That was his way of life. He lived, his delight was to
do God's will. And so we see here, Elijah is
sent out into the wilderness in order to make him understand
what it means to live in dependence on God's word. God put it in
his heart to pray for the drought, and God sent the drought, and
God has put us, has put us in this world, this world which
is a drought. There's no gospel in this world.
Turn on the news, read the newspaper, look in the magazine, search
the internet. You will not find any wisdom in this world that
will profit your soul, none. It is without profit to you. The only thing, the only revelation
of truth and the only life is in the Word of God concerning
Christ. And otherwise, it is a total
drought, a famine. But God has put his people in
this world, in this drought, and he has provided for them. This is a great mercy. Look at
Revelation chapter 12. I want you to see this mercy
that God has given us. He speaks in the book of Revelation
of Christ's victory throughout the book for his people and their
victory by him and how they live their life in this world depending
upon him. Look at this in Revelation chapter
12 and get there. In Revelation 12, you can see
from the chapter that this chapter is a type, a figure. of the church
and of Christ who was born, and he was born through the woman,
and he came into this world, and while he was in this world,
he actually overthrew the power of Satan, and he was cast out
of heaven, and yet God's people were left in this world. If you
read the first few verses here of this chapter, look at verse
six. the woman fled into the wilderness where she has a place
prepared of God that they should feed her there 1,203 score days.
That's 1,260 or 1,260. If you consider a month to be 30 days
and divide those two numbers, you get 42 months or three and
one-half years. Do you see that? For three and one-half years, God had it so that the woman
would flee into the wilderness and God would provide for her
what he had prepared for her there for three and one half
years. Now, does that sound anything
like what we were reading in 1 Kings 17? Exactly, doesn't it? Elijah prayed,
and for three years and six months, three and a half years, God withheld
rain. But during that time, what did
God do? What did he tell Elijah to do?
You go into the wilderness to the brook Kirith, and then he
sent Elijah where? to the widow woman, okay? So
here we have a direct correlation. It says in verse seven, there
was war in heaven, Michael and his angels, which means Christ
and his angels fought against the dragon and the dragon fought
and his angels. And verse eight, and prevailed
not, neither was their place found anymore in heaven. And
the great dragon was cast out, that old servant called the devil
and Satan, which deceived the whole world. He was cast out
into the earth and his angels were cast out with him. This
is talking about when Christ came. He told his disciples in
Luke 17.10, he says, I beheld Satan. When they returned from
preaching the gospel, he said, I beheld Satan fall as lightning
to the earth. That's what he's talking about
here. And remember, in his own temptation, he said, get thee
behind me, Satan. And he told them later, he says,
how can you spoil the strong man of his goods unless you first
bind the strong man? And then you can spoil him of
his goods. And so Christ came, he bound Satan, and then he took
from him his people and delivered them and translated them into
the kingdom of God. And now look at verse 10 of Revelation
12. And I heard a loud voice saying
in heaven, now has come what? Salvation, when Christ bound
Satan and cast him out. Salvation and strength and the
kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ. For the accuser
of our brethren is cast down. which accused them before our
God day and night. And they, God's people, the elect,
the woman, in other words, they overcame him by what? The blood
of the lamb, the work of Christ, by the word of their testimony,
that's the gospel, that's what we say. We preach Christ and
him crucified, and they loved not their lives unto death. They
had nothing in themselves. They mortified their flesh by
looking to Christ. All of my salvation is in Him.
The life that I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God.
He lives in me, it's not me, it's him. Verse 12, therefore
rejoice you heavens and you that dwell in them, woe to the inhabitants
of the earth and of the sea for the devil has come down to you
having great wrath because he knows that he has but a short
time. Look at verse 14, and the woman,
to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle that she might
do what? Fly into the wilderness, into her place where she is nourished
for a time, and times, and half a time. In other words, one plus
two plus a half, which is three and one half. You see that? 1260
days, three and a half times, or three years and six months. And this reflects, in other words,
the widow woman in 1 Kings chapter 17, And Elijah are representative
of the work of Christ for his people, him himself going into
the wilderness and depending upon God to provide for him at
the brook Kireth during this drought, this withholding of
the word of God, this famine. And yet in that famine, in the
very midst of that famine, God provides for his servant and
he provides for this widow woman. just like God provides for his
people because of Christ's work on the cross throughout the rest
of time until the end of time. Now, this is fantastic, isn't
it? This shows us that God provides for his elect. Look at Luke chapter
4. In Luke chapter 4, this is also
brought out here. In fact, this is really the main
exposition of 1 Kings 17 to teach us what's going on here. In Luke
chapter four, in verse 16, Jesus came to Nazareth. While you're
turning there, I'm just gonna summarize. Jesus came to Nazareth,
where he had been brought up, and his custom was to go into
the synagogue on the Sabbath day. He stood up to read, and
there was delivered to him the book of Isaiah, where he read,
in verse 18, he says this, the spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to do what? preach the gospel. Isn't that what a prophet does?
The Lord Jesus Christ, the prophet, was sent to preach the gospel.
He's the one in whom God has spoken. God cannot be known except
in His Son. And yet in His Son, God is fully
known. God staked His will and His glory
on the performance of His Son. He staked His people and their
salvation on His Son. And here, Christ obediently like
Elijah in type, he comes with the Spirit of the Lord upon him.
The Spirit of the Lord was on Elijah. Remember, Elisha said,
this is what I want. If you see me going up to heaven,
Elijah told Elisha, then the answer to your request will be
to give a double portion of the Spirit on you. And here Christ
is given all without measure. The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me. He has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, like
the widow, had nothing, and sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to preach deliverance to the captives, recovering the sight
to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach
the jubilee, the acceptable year of the Lord. He closed the book,
he gave it to the minister, he sat down, the eyes of all them
that were in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began
to say to them, this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.
all bear him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded
out of his mouth. And they said, is not this Joseph's
son? How could he be able to do this?
And he said, you will surely say to me this proverb, physician,
heal thyself. Whatsoever we have heard done
in Capernaum, do also here in thy country. And he said, verily
I say unto you, notice, no prophet is accepted in his own country,
but I tell you of a truth. Many widows were in Israel in
the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years
and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land.
But unto none of them was Elijah sent, save unto Sarepta, a city
of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And what was the response? If you read on down. They rose
up and, verse 29, thrust him out of the city, led him to the
brow of the hill, whereupon their city was built, that they might
cast him down, but he passing through the midst of them went
his way. Elijah's ministry, go to this
woman, first to the brook, then to the woman, three and a half
years. preach to this woman, provide
meal and oil for her. Do you see that? What a wonderful
revelation this is, that in the wilderness of this world, when
there is no light, no word of God, God has given his elect
people the gospel. Do you see the privilege we have?
Do you see the blessing that we have? But in this, we can
tend to be exalted in our own pride. We might think, well,
see, I have it, and they don't. But that's why God sent Elijah
first into the wilderness himself. because he was a man subject
to like passions like we are. He could easily have thought,
well, I have the word of God, and God's not gonna send rain
but by my word, and he takes care of me, he might have become
lifted up in pride because we're sinners. And so what God does
though in sending him into the wilderness is he teaches us that
in this drought, the purpose of this drought is not only so
that God would withhold the rain from this world, but that he
would withhold it from his people so that they would learn an utter
dependence upon him to provide life in the gospel to them during
this wilderness sojourn. And they would not be lifted
up in pride, because as Elijah, he himself would have to learn
the same thing, that he lived and he depended on the gospel
in his life. Elijah learned to live by faith
in Christ. And so then he would go to the
widow and together they too would also live together by faith in
Christ. That's what we're gonna see here.
So to keep us from the idolatry of this world, what does he do?
He sends trouble into our lives. He makes it hard for us. We wonder,
am I saved? Am I lost? I don't know where
I am. Confusion sets in. Sin seems
strong. Our faith seems weak, even impotent,
without strength. Our prayers are so small that
we wonder if we've ever prayed, and what does God do? Just like
Elijah, he points us to Christ and Him crucified again. There,
there to Him. Do not trust your prayers. Do
not trust your sorrow. Do not trust your tears. Look
to His prayers and His sorrow and His sufferings and His obedience. You see, this is what God's Word
is constantly teaching us. And so Elijah had to go. He had
to go learn what we have to learn, but preeminently what we see
here in Elijah is the Lord Jesus Christ. When Elijah was there
at the brook Kirith, what did he do? He drank of the brook.
He drank the water in the brook. And what did God do to send him
food? He sent the ravens. to Elijah to bring him meat,
morning and evening. Notice he says here, he says
in verse four, it shall be that thou shalt drink of the brook,
and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there. So he went
and did according to the word of the Lord, for he went and
dwelt by the brook Kirith, that is before Jordan, and the ravens
brought him bread and flesh in the morning, bread and flesh
in the evening, and he drank of the brook, okay? And it came
to pass after a while that the brook dried up. because there
had been no rain in the land. Now, first of all, isn't it amazing
that when there was no rain, God sent Elijah to live by a
brook of water? Where was this? Somewhere, somewhere,
we don't know exactly where. I mean, I don't know where, God
does, and so does the writer of the scripture here, but I
don't. Some place called Kirith before Jordan, but it was a small
place. No one was there. Elijah was
there. He was drinking of the brook.
That's the first miracle. God made a brook in famine, in
the drought. The second one was that God sent
these ravens to Elijah, to bring him meat. Now if you know anything
about ravens, you know that they're very greedy birds that will take
flesh from whatever is fallen and they attack it and they make
these horrible noises and they're scary because they're so greedy
and loud and vicious. But these ravens were commanded
by God to feed Elijah. That's a second miracle. Ravens
don't naturally even feed their own children, their own babies.
It says in scripture in a couple of places that God provides for
the young of the ravens. We won't go there now, but in
any case, the point here is that there was a miracle performed
in two ways here. First, that there was a brook
in the drought where God fed Elijah with his water. And secondly,
there was meat brought to Elijah morning and evening by these
ravens, which are naturally not givers, but takers. And what
this teaches us is that opposite, the things that normally are
not used to do this, God used. He calls those things which be
not as though they were. He makes alive. He gives life
to the dead. God turns things so that it will
be proven that in our lives, God's provision of the gospel
is to God's glory, not because of our work or our merit or our
whatever, our intelligence, our inclinations. I know I've told
you this before, but I remember someone at work telling me they
learned something from what I said, that I was a believer. And they
said, well, I'm a very spiritual person. I thought about that. I didn't
want to cast judgment on them, but that's the way we naturally
think, right? I'm in with God. I'm spiritual. But God saves
us in a way, and this is a principle, that we will not get any glory
from it. He will prove that we were utterly
dependent upon him and helpless and hopeless. And then he saves
us like he did Elijah here and like he did the widow woman next.
And this is by design. But notice here that Elijah as
a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ is doing something that we cannot
miss. And I want you to see this in
the book of John. Look at John chapter four. He's
about to be sent to this woman, right? This widow woman. And
he's about to go to her to depend on her. God sent her, sent him
to depend on this widow woman. Now look at this in John chapter
four. In John chapter four, in verse
four, it says, Jesus must needs go through Samaria. He had to,
God sent him there. Then cometh he to a city of Samaria,
which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that
Jacob gave to his son Joseph. There's much to be said about
that. I won't say it now. Now, Jacob's well was there.
Jesus, therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on
the well, and it was about the sixth hour. And there cometh
a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, give me to
drink. He was thirsty. He came to the
woman. He was thirsty. He asked the
woman for drink. And what does she do? Well, there's
this back and forth between her and Christ. Jesus answered, verse
10, said, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that said
to thee, give me to drink, you would have asked him and he would
have given you living water. Now look at verse 34. In verse 31, it says, in the
meanwhile, his disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat. Because
they came back, and here he was talking to this woman who had
left. Verse 32, he said to them, I have meat to eat that you know
not of. And they wondered, hmm. Then
therefore said the disciples one to another, hath any man
brought him ought to eat? Jesus said to them, my meat is
to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work." Now,
go back to Elijah, 1 Kings 17, God made Elijah live by the brook,
Kirith, and live on the food brought to him by ravens. The
Lord Jesus Christ came into this world and what did he live upon? Well, he told Satan in that temptation,
man does not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. And
we just saw here in John 4.34, his meat and drink was to do
the will of him that sent him. And what was that will? It was
to save his people. He came to this woman in Samaria
and he said, give me to drink. But he himself actually drank
in his soul and fed in his soul by doing the will of God, which
was to save her. So that when she was asked by
Christ for a drink, she didn't believe him at that point. In
the end, he made himself known to her and by giving himself
for her in the atoning work of his cross and giving himself
to her in the revelation of himself, he himself drank in his soul
and he fed in his soul because this was the will of God. He
loved it and he couldn't live without it. He had to have his
people. And here we see Elijah also going
to the brook, living on the water God provided and the meat God
provided, picturing our Lord Jesus Christ living in this world
upon the work God gave him to do. Now, what is it that was
given here to the next part of this story in 1 Kings 17? It was the provision of God to
his elect. God provided for his son, here's
the work I want you to do. What was that that he provided
for his elect people? The work of Christ, that we would
live upon him. God sent ravens opposite to their
nature to provide for Elijah. He created this brook in the
drought opposite to what you would expect in order to provide
drink to Elijah. And so God takes those things
against our nature. And what does he do? He works
in us by his spirit to do what? To give us life from the dead? And what is the result of that
life? To live upon Christ by faith. So that you see that in
all of this, we see both Christ and his people, the very opposite
of what you would expect water and meat to come from, God uses,
and he turns that against his nature in order to bring his
provision to his people. And so God uses his spirit to
uphold Christ to us. so that we who naturally do not
live upon Christ now in this world, in this wilderness, in
this desert, we feast upon him. Do you see this? This is incredible. The great miracle here is not
that God created water in a brook or ravens that brought meat to
Elijah. The great miracle here is that
Elijah himself feasted on Christ and him crucified in the wilderness. just like the Lord Jesus Christ
feasted on doing the will of God. And then the widow woman
now is going to eat. She's going to eat the meal and
the oil and forever, as long as the drought lasts, she's going
to live by God's word on the word of God concerning Christ.
What a glory this is. Provision for God's elect in
the wilderness of this world. God told Abraham that he himself
would provide the lamb. So he is God who sees, God who
provides. Now, what we see here is that
the brook dried up, and when the brook dried up, Elijah, it
says, it came to pass, there had been no rain in the land,
and the word of the Lord, verse eight, the word of the Lord came
to him saying, arise and get thee to Zarephath. I get the two words mixed up,
because in the New Testament, it's Zarepta, and here it's Zarephath.
It's the same city, just a Hebrew versus a Greek. But notice here,
the brook dried up. Now, what is that? Well, in God's
good time, in the providence of Elijah's life, God dried up
the brook. And what would you do if you
were a believer and God dried up the brook? Well, you'd say,
there's no more water here. God must have abandoned me. I
mean, there was a time when I believed, but now there's no water. Obviously,
God isn't taking care of me anymore. That's the way we think, isn't
it? But throughout scripture, the Lord reveals that when things
seem to be the opposite of what we would expect from Him, they're
actually exactly according to His will and His revealed word. And this is what we don't realize,
but you see this ultimately in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It was completely unexpected. But when God gave, I mean, the
disciples, they were told, but they didn't believe it. And when
it happened, they fled and Peter denied him. So many things happened.
They were completely taken by surprise. On the road to Emmaus,
they still didn't believe, but here the thief on the cross,
he sees it all. He says, Lord, when you come in your kingdom.
So what we see is that we do not live our lives by trying
to discern God's will in the providence of our lives. I've
heard people say, well, I know that God wants me to do this
because here I have a job, I have a house, and things are going
well, and I'm just going to do this because this is what God
has for me. It's clear by the providence of God's hand in my
life. But here we see something that
in verse 8, the word of the Lord came to him saying, providence
is a voice. But you can't understand God's
providence by your own discernment. How do you understand it then?
By the word of the Lord. The only way to know what the
meaning is, is what God has said in His word. And the problem is that when
we live by our sight, when we live by looking at things and
trying to decipher God's mind and will from the circumstances
of our life, what happens? Well, we'll have to judge ourselves
either to be okay or not okay. based on those circumstances.
But God never uses that. He always uses his word concerning
Christ. So what we see here is God's
provision for his elect is teaching them to not depend on what we
see, on the experiences of our life or the circumstances of
our life, but to insert God's word as the lens through which
everything else must be judged. The world lives by circumstances.
Things are going well. God must be happy with me. Things
are going bad. God must be unhappy with me,
or whatever. No, this is what they do. God is happy with me
when things are good, and God's unfair because things are going
bad. So they judge God to be unfair in one case, and they
judge themselves to be worthy in the first case. When I was
an engineer, People were always seeing problems
and we would have to get to the root cause. Almost inevitably,
they would look at the symptoms of a problem and they would draw
a conclusion that was wrong because you had to understand really
what was under the problem. So when we do the same things,
we're really poor judges of what's happening, God's mind by what's
happening in our lives. Look at the government of the
United States. It's rotten to the core, we might
say. Yeah, because, and we might draw
conclusions. You cannot live by that. We live
by the Word of God, and the Word of God tells us that we live
by faith on the Son of God. We overcome by the blood of the
Lamb, the gospel of our testimony, and trusting Christ. That's what
Revelation 12 has just taught us. So here, we learn, we do
not understand providence by providence alone, but by God's
Word. That's the only way we can understand
it. Elijah is sent, he says here,
verse nine. Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and
dwell there. Behold, I will command a widow
woman to sustain thee there. So now Elijah, this great prophet,
think about this, is going to learn to depend on God through
a widow woman. Isn't that humbling? Wouldn't
you think that he's too great a prophet to really have to live
in dependence on a widow woman? That's what he's saying here.
Isn't that amazing? Remember, John the Baptist said,
and Jesus said he was the greatest prophet. He said, he, Christ,
must increase, but I must decrease. And whenever God is working in
your life, you can take it to the bank. He's always gonna work
this way. You are gonna be brought low,
and Christ is gonna be left alone, uniquely exalted. And so that's
what's happening. Verse 10, so Elijah arose and
went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate
of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering two
sticks. And he called her and said, fetch me, I pray thee,
a little water and a vessel that I may drink. That's what Jesus
said to the woman at the well, right? Give me to drink. And as she was going to fetch
it, he called her and said, bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of
bread in thine hand. 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 cruise. And behold, I'm gathering two
sticks that I may go in and dress it for me and my son that we
may eat and die. So now what is she doing here?
Well, she says, she sees the prophet of God coming. She doesn't
know he's a prophet. He says, you need to give me
a drink. So she starts to go to get the drink. But then he
says, now also bring me a cake. But I only have a little meal.
I only have a little oil. And I was just getting ready
to make my last meal for me and my son so that we could die.
I'm out here gathering two sticks for that. What is this? When
the Lord Jesus Christ comes to us, what does he say to us? Like the woman at the well, give
me to drink. Give me to drink. You came here for water, give
me to drink first. What is God saying in this? This
is God's provision for His elect in their hearts. In order for
Him to give us His life, He first has to show us that our way is
not going to sustain us. This woman was gathering two
sticks, she had a little meal, bread, or flour in a vessel,
and she had a little oil in a cruise. She thought, I'm doing everything
that I can, it's only enough for one more meal, and then we're
gonna die. Because when we live in dependence
upon our own works, and our own merit, and our own intellect,
and our own faith, what are we doing? We're gonna run out. We're going to be left with nothing.
God's blessing to us is that that will leave us empty, barren,
and dead. And so Elijah comes to her at
the point where she's ready to die. She has been depending upon
all that she could do for herself and her son. She's thinking of
herself first, which we do naturally. And he tells her, no, you need
to give to me first. And how did the woman at the
well first give to the Lord Jesus Christ? she became the object
of his saving grace. He revealed himself to her, and
in revealing himself to her, she gave to him what he came
into the world to do, to save a sinner. So here we are. We're objects needing salvation
from first to last. The Lord tells us, you forsake
all and follow me. In other words, leave the meal,
leave the oil, you've been working at gathering sticks, you're gonna
die. When you trust those things,
it'll never be enough. But when you find your all in
me, you'll never run out. Because when you find Christ
to be all, then you have all, even though in this life you
have nothing. And so the Lord is teaching us this through this
widow. She has nothing. That's evident, but she's still
working, trying to gather together enough to live on. The prophet
of God, the Lord Jesus Christ in representation, he comes to
her and he says, give me first. Listen to my words, look to me
and be ye saved all the ends of the earth. For I am God and
there is none else. Isaiah 45, 22. And when the Lord
lifts us, He causes us to see that we have nothing in ourselves,
we're dying, dead in sins, no understanding, no prayers that
God could accept, no sorrow that's good enough, no sincerity in
all that we are, and we realize, I'm lost and helpless, I'm worse
than the worst of men. And then God points us to Christ
and say, look at this bread of life. Look at the oil of my spirit
that takes the bread of life and applies it to you and gives
you life. Look at John chapter 7, and I'll
stop here. John chapter 7, in this chapter,
Jesus has gone up into Jerusalem for the feast of, let's see,
I can't remember the feast. I think it was the Feast of Tabernacles.
It's ironic though, at the very end of this time, in John chapter
7 and verse 33, John 7 verse 33, Jesus said to them, the officers
were sent to take him. Jesus said to them, yet a little
while am I with you and then I go to him that sent me. Remember
Elijah? He was in the earth a little
while and God took him. You shall seek me and shall not
find me. Where I am, thither you cannot come. They sought
for Elijah after he was taken up. They couldn't find him. Then
said the Jews among themselves, whither will he go that we shall
not find him? Will he go to the dispersed among
the Gentiles and teach the Gentiles? Well, that's what Elijah did.
What manner of saying is this that he said, you shall seek
me and shall not find me? And where I am, thither you cannot
come. Now, in the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus
stood and cried saying, if any man thirst, isn't that the exact
opposite of what you would expect at a feast? You don't go to a
place where everyone has cars and clothes and boats and houses
and everything and say, anybody hungry? No, that seemed like
the foolish thing to do. But these people had no water
of the gospel in their heart. And so he stands up in this feast.
Is there anyone here who is thirsty? He says, if any man thirst, do
what? Come to me and drink. That's
what he's saying to this woman here in Elijah. He that believeth,
that's drinking, on me, as the scripture has said, out of his
belly shall flow rivers of living water. And he says this, notice,
but this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him
should receive, for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because
that Jesus was not yet glorified. Many of the people, therefore,
when they heard this saying, said what? Of a truth, this is
the prophet. That's what the woman said. This
is Elijah, God sent him, God's word. Isn't it amazing? The Lord
Jesus Christ says to us, are you thirsty? Come to me and drink. This is God's will that I give
myself for the life of his elect people and then bring the gospel
as the prophet and preach it to them. This is their life,
and this is the way he lived, doing the will of God, and our
life is trusting him who did the will of God. Let's pray.
Father, thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom you gave
your spirit without measure to preach the gospel to us, who
are poor in ourselves. We have nothing, though we don't
know it, until you change us by nature so that we see that
in ourselves we have nothing, so that we might learn to feast
on Christ, our bread and our water of life, because he gave
himself for our sins. He made us the righteousness
of God in Him when He laid His life down for us. What a blessing. Help us, Lord, to live forever
on Him in this life and to preach His gospel as those who have
been taught to depend on Him alone, to take no boast in ourselves,
but to realize that all the trials and troubles of our life are
meant to reteach us and bring us again to Him. What a blessing
of your grace to do so. Now, we know this comes to us
by your word through the gospel, so we pray, Lord, that you would
not take away your word from us, put it in our hearts, make
it go deep. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.