Well, I want to turn your attention
to the first book of Kings and chapter 17. And my reason for
coming here is because I look at society today and all around
us, and I know we all do, and Peter in his prayer mentioned
dark days. Yes, we live in dark days, very,
very dark days. Gospel influence feels in our
society is abandoned. In my lifetime, when I was a
lot younger, below say the age of 30, gospel influence, even
though many people didn't believe, the vast majority didn't believe,
yet gospel influence governed the way we lived in this land.
There was much more influence of the gospel, but now it's virtually
abandoned. The politics that we see in the
middle of this election It's corrupt. So much of it is corrupt. It's a pack of lies on so many
fronts. It's just evil wheeler-dealering
to try and get people to put them in Downing Street and put
them in positions of power. And in our laws, what's happened
in the last few years, that which is evil, according to the Word
of God, is called good. There are now, in our laws, legal
sanctions against the things that the Word of God declares.
Legal sanctions. There are things which, if I
say them publicly now, people could come and have me arrested
and put in court for preaching things that are true to the Word
of God, yet our society has decided, we don't like that, we're not
going to allow that, we're not having that. But, you know, as
bad as it appears, As the book of Ecclesiastes says, there is
nothing new under the sun. Nothing new at all. It's always
been the same. Always been the same, because
the hearts of men and women have always been the same. If you
go back to about eight or nine hundred years before the birth
of Christ, to the kingdom of Israel. And David had been king
in Jerusalem and had reigned for 40 years in Jerusalem. And
then his son Solomon reigned in Jerusalem. And the kingdom
was the reflection of what God's word said it should be. In the
books of Moses, in the law of Moses, it depicted the gospel
of grace. David was a man, despite being
a sinner, David was a man after God's own heart. and David believed
the God of gospel grace and he looked to Christ and his son
Solomon had found grace in the eyes of the Lord and in the first
half of Solomon's reign he was He was a pillar for the truth
of God's grace, and the things he wrote in the Song of Solomon,
and in Ecclesiastes, and in the Proverbs. He wrote gospel truth. And when they built the temple,
the magnificent first temple that Solomon was commissioned
to build, there was the gospel on display. And Solomon's prayer
from his heart stands as a beacon in the scriptures of a man who
knows the truth. But Solomon was a sinner. And
Solomon departed from following the Lord. And Solomon's heart,
given all the riches he had, was filled with lust. It said
he had thousands of women. He was adulterous in his heart. And that adultery that he had
in his physical lusts, turned to adultery in spiritual things. And he followed after idolatry.
And because of it, God said, the kingdom's going to be split.
It's going to be split, and it was split into the two tribes
in the south, Judah and Benjamin, around Jerusalem, and then the
ten tribes in the north, around Samaria. And instead of there
being one king of a united kingdom, there were two kings, Rehoboam,
the son of Solomon in the south, and Jeroboam in the north. And
Jeroboam, was a wicked king and a line of wicked kings followed
from him in Samaria. We read again and again in the
scriptures that he walked in the steps in the sins of Jeroboam. He walked in the sins of Jeroboam.
What were the sins of Jeroboam? It was false worship. In what
respect was it false worship? It was do-it-yourself worship.
It was make-it-up-as-you-go-along worship. It was walk out on the
truth of God. Where is the truth of God? In
Jerusalem, at this time. The gospel, the truth, the picture
of the gospel was in Jerusalem. It was in the temple. Sacrifice
could only be made in the temple. I've told you before, I'll tell
you now. You know why the Jews have no animal sacrifices now?
Because there's no temple in Jerusalem. According to the law
of God, animal sacrifice is only in the temple in Jerusalem. Christ
said it would be destroyed. A.D. 70 it was destroyed. The
Roman Emperor took it away and flattened Jerusalem. And now
what's there is an Islamic mosque. All that's left of it is the
wailing wall where the Jews go to pray. But animal sacrifice
which pictured the gospel of grace, which pictured the blood
of Christ for the sins of his people was all taken away. Jeroboam walked in false worship
in that he set up his own do-it-yourself version in the northern kingdom.
The truth was he should have stayed true to Judah and Jerusalem
and where those things were. He walked contrary to God's word. And then there was a line of
wicked kings who walked in the sins of Jeroboam. They were always
going after idolatry. They were always doing things
which God had said not to do. And they all picture any, in
religion of any sort, who walk out on the truth of the gospel
of grace. Because man doesn't like, man
in his flesh doesn't like the truth of the gospel of grace.
Because the gospel of grace is a gospel of particular redemption. It's a gospel of sovereign grace. God is sovereign. God will be
gracious to whom he will be gracious. What's the greatest glory of
God? Moses asked him, show me your glory. This is what God
said. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious. And I will
have mercy on whom I will have compassion, on whom I will have
compassion. And the heart of man says, I
don't like that. I'm in charge of what I'm going
to do. I don't like that. I will not have this man, this
God to rule over me. I'll do my own thing. I'll build
my own Tower of Babel. I'll get to heaven in my way.
And that was the sins of Jeroboam. False religion. Corrupted religion. And then comes along this man,
Ahab, the son of Omri. And you notice that Omri did
evil worse than any that was before him. And then his son,
Ahab, did even more evil, worse than even his own father in terms
of the evil that he did. Look in 1 Kings chapter 16 and
verse 30. It tells us there, and Ahab,
the son of Omri, did evil in the sight of the Lord above all
that were before him. Plain statement. And what was
his evil? It was the same thing as the
sins of Jeroboam. It was that false religion. Because Israel, the covenant
people of God, symbolically was the place where gospel truth
in this fallen world was to be maintained and upheld. And he
walked out on it. And he took all the people with
him. That's why, that's why he did evil. And it came to pass,
verse 31, as if it had been a light thing, you know, well we'll just
do this, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the
sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, he took to wife Jezebel. the daughter of Eth Baal, king
of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal." Do you know why
God constantly told Israel not to let their sons marry the daughters
of the pagans around them, and why they were not to let their
daughters marry the sons of the pagans all around them? Because,
he said, They will persuade you to go away from the truth of
the gospel you believe. That's what they will do. And
they did. And Jezebel was the worst of them all. Jezebel was
from a land of Baal worshippers. What's Baal worship? It's perfectly
reasonable human religion. It's perfectly reasonable man-made
religion. It's that religion by which man
thinks he can get himself into a state of eternity. how man
himself can deal with death. Don't think it's some weird voodoo
that you'd spot a mile off. It's the religion that the majority
of what call themselves Christians in this country, they would go
and worship Baal rather than that which is the truth of the
God of Scripture. And it's happening all around
us in these dark days. Baal worship. False gospel masquerading
as reasonable religion. And look what else he did, verse
34. In his days, in Abel's days,
did Hiel, the Bethelite, build Jericho? And he laid the foundation
of it. Joshua chapter 6, verse 26. You know when Joshua fought the
battle of Jericho and the walls came tumbling down? know as they
were going into the promised land and Jericho was the first
city that they came across that had to be conquered and Rahab
the harlot was rescued from that city and from Rahab from Rahab
came David came Obed, Jesse, David. From David came our Lord
Jesus Christ. From Rahab, one of the citizens
of that wicked city, who was saved by the grace of God, came
our Lord Jesus Christ. But that city was destroyed.
And that city, as a mark of its evil, Joshua adjured them at
that time. Joshua warned them sternly. Joshua warned them as strongly
as he could at that time, saying, Cursed be the man before the
Lord that riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho. But Ahab,
he had the city rebuilt. What do I care about what God
said? I'll do what I want to do. It seems reasonable to me.
I've gone after Baal, that seems a reasonable religion. I'll now
have the city of Jericho rebuilt." And he had the city of Jericho
rebuilt. Men's hearts, do you know, are
exactly the same today. When we talk about living in
dark days, do you know the only thing that's different is the
technology that we have. Isn't it? We've just got flashier
technology. We've got more technology. That's
the only thing that's different, but men's hearts, women's hearts,
are exactly the same today as they were then. And but for the
restraint of the grace of God, for his people, but for the restraint
of the laws of civilization, we would do exactly what they
did then. We tend to despair. It's easy
to despair. You look around. You say, oh,
we're very few in number this morning. I know. I know. It's
easy to despair, isn't it? But God is the same. The God
who is our God today is the same God that was Elijah's God. He's
the same God that was Abraham's God. He's the same God as he
will be in the future. Today, yesterday, and forever. He is the same. And I've got
two points this morning. God raised up Elijah, and God
provided for Elijah. In these dark days, God must
have his truth, however dark it becomes, God must have his
pure truth of gospel grace upheld. So I've called this message,
Truth Upheld in Dark Days. How did he do it? God raised
up Elijah. We read nothing of him until
chapter 17 and verse 1. 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. Cometh the hour,
cometh the man. When the time needed it, when
the day, when history needed it, God raised up his man for
the situation. His name, Elijah, is Jehovah
my God. Here is a man dedicated to the
service of God in everything he did. And when things seemed
as bad as they could get, Ahab had even contravened that edict
of God that Jericho should never be rebuilt, and he rebuilt it.
When things had got as bad as they could get, Elijah the Tishbite. God raises him up. Elijah the
Tishbite. You know in the revelation of
God, in the 11th chapter, we see a picture of God's testimony
by the hand of his prophets. And there are two symbolical
prophets. And one of them is the prophet that caused the plagues
in Egypt. Egypt is always a symbol of this
sinful world, right? That's nothing against any Egyptians
today, but Egypt, the country, in biblical terms, is a symbol
of this world. And one of the prophets is the
one who caused plagues in Egypt, Moses. Moses, that's what it
was referring to. The other one of the prophets
in Revelation 11 is the one who stopped the heavens from raining
for three and a half years. And that's Elijah. Moses and
Elijah. But it doesn't literally mean
Moses and Elijah, it means they're just symbols, they're symbolical
of how God speaks in this fallen world. And do you know what happens
to those two prophets in Revelation 11? The world around kills them. And they lie dead in the streets.
They lie dead in the streets for a time. And the people of
the world rejoice over the fact that they've killed them. Oh,
we've got rid of this. We don't have to bother about
this anymore. Let us cast their yoke from us. Why does the heathen
rage and imagine a vain thing against the Lord and his anointed?
And they've cast off this, we don't need this God, we won't
have this God to rule over us. And they have parties and they
send presents to each other. This is what Revelation 11 says.
But, when it got to the ultimate stage of them thinking, this
is it, we've dealt with it. The Spirit of God comes upon
those dead prophets and they rise up and they stand up on
their feet and they proclaim the truth of God. This is what
God did here. He raised up the literal Elijah
at this time in history for the sake of proclaiming his truth. He was the man for the moment. In all ages, God raises up men
with his message of salvation, however bad things get. Let's
not lose sight of that. God raises up men with his message. What's the height of however
bad it can get? The thing that grieves me most
of all, and it should grieve you, is where you see those churches
that once held a beacon for the truth of the gospel of grace,
now wholly gone over to what is the effective equivalent of
modern-day Baal worship. It's that which seems reasonable
in their sight. How do we know they've done it?
Well, we're having a conference in less than a month's time.
Well, what's going to be proclaimed? The gospel of God's grace. And
they've been invited to it? And what's their reaction to
it? I won't publicise it and I'm not coming to it. No, oh,
to completely ignore it. or to just hope it goes away
and pretend that it's not happening. They will not have this message. They will not have anything to
do with it. That's how we know they've gone over completely,
completely. But God raises up men with his
message when the time is needed. Our Lord Jesus Christ said, when
he spoke to the Samaritan woman, and at the end of that he's teaching
his disciples, and he says, look, he said, the fields are white
to harvest. The harvest is ready. You know
now, you go for a walk in the countryside, the fields are green,
it's not ready for harvest. But you go in August, and the
wheat will be standing two or three feet high in the fields
with great big ears of corn on it and it will look ready. Well, our Lord Jesus Christ said,
look it's ready. The harvest of men's souls is
ready. What do we need? Laborers. Pray the Lord of the
harvest that he will send laborers into the harvest. Pray for preachers
to be raised up by God. I've put a an article by Joe
Terrell on prayer on the back of the bulletin. Read it. Pray. Persistently. Pray. Not that
we'll be heard for our much speaking, but pray. We should pray for
this. That God will supply the men for the moment we know of
very few in this land. The ones that we do know who
are preaching the truth. The majority of them are preaching
out of envy and strife and won't have anything to do with us over
silly, trivial, secondary matters. But let's pray, the God of the
harvest, that he will send laborers into this harvest. And what are
they? Preachers of the gospel of grace. Secondly, Elijah, he
was not only a man, the man for the moment, God's man for the
moment, but he knew God in Christ. Why did Elijah do what he did?
Is this just sort of Old Testament history and nothing to do with
the church and the gospel today? He knew God in Christ and looked
to Christ. He was looking to the salvation
of God which was in Christ and Him alone. How do we know that?
1 Peter chapter 1 verses 10 and 11, where Peter is speaking about
the prophets of the Old Testament. And he said, and the salvation
that is in Christ, of which salvation The prophets have inquired and
searched diligently. Who prophesied? What did the
prophets, Elijah and all of those others, what did they prophesy
of? They prophesied of the grace that should come unto you. Searching
what? Or what manner of time the Spirit
of Christ, which was in them, did signify, listen, when it
testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that
should follow. What was Elijah looking to? He
was looking to the sufferings of Christ and the glory that
should follow. Why was he looking to the sufferings
of Christ? Because he knew God's justice
must be upheld. He knew God's justice, God's
law must be satisfied. What does God's law say? The
soul that sins, it shall die. Who's a sinner? All of us. All
we like sheep. His people, his covenant people
have gone astray and have turned everyone to his own way. But
what did God do? The Lord hath laid on him, on
his Messiah, on his Christ, the iniquity of all his people. That
he should satisfy law, for law says be perfect, or die. We cannot be perfect. We are
not perfect. What must happen for us sinners? There must be
a death. Can you die that death? Not without going to an eternal
death, but he has died in the place of his people. He has died
that law might be satisfied. Elijah was looking to that fulfillment
of the justice of God in the law, in the coming of the Messiah.
And why was he so Outraged, is that the right word, against
Ahab? Because his wickedness and his false religion was flying
in the face of everything God had revealed concerning the gospel
of grace and how he saves his people. He knew God in Christ
and looked to him. Oh that we might have preachers
who know God in Christ. O that we might have preachers
who are determined like Paul to know nothing else among you
except Jesus Christ and Him crucified, who proclaim the whole counsel
of God, because that's what the whole counsel of God is, Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. And Elijah knew God's word. Why
did he do what he did? Why did he go to Ahab and say
there's going to be a drought and it's not going to end until
I say so? Why did he do that? Deuteronomy chapter 11 verses
16 and 17. What was his rule? The word of
God. the word of God, the revelation
of God. What does Deuteronomy reveal?
Jesus said, these are they which speak of me, these scriptures
they speak. It's all about the gospel of his grace. And in Deuteronomy
11 verses 16 and 17, here's a warning. take heed to yourselves this
is to the people as they're going into the land of Canaan into
the promised land take heed to yourselves that your heart be
not deceived and ye turn aside and serve other gods and worship
them and then the Lord's wrath be kindled against you listen
and he shut up heaven that there be no rain and that the land
yield not her fruit, and lest ye perish quickly from off the
good land which the Lord giveth you." God had warned by the voice
of Moses that if they departed from the truth to idolatrous
worship, this is what he would do. He'll stop it raining. And
what does it mean when we say, oh, look, it's raining today?
I'll tell you, as a gardener, I'm so pleased it rained last
night. My garden was as dry as dust. I'm delighted it has rained.
Yes, we all like dry weather, but not too much, please. We
like it to rain, because if it doesn't rain, nothing grows. We run out of water, nothing
grows. There's economic hardship, we can't eat. God has warned
these people, you stay true to what you've been taught, or I'll
stop the heavens. Elijah knew God's word. Elijah
knew God had said that. So what did he do? He believed
it. He saw Christ in God's word. He knew he alone, Christ alone
could satisfy the law. He knew that what Ahab was doing
was a complete contradiction of the gospel of grace as it's
revealed in Christ. He knew what God had said if
they went to idolatrous religion, away from the truth of God in
Christ. And so he said, Lord God, you've
said you will stop the heavens from raining. I pray you now,
do it. Look at the situation. And he
pleaded and pleaded and pleaded with God. He knew God's word
and he prayed in accordance with God's word. Because Jesus said,
whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do. Right? So you could ask for a
new car, or you could ask for something flashy to happen. That's
not asking in his name. Asking in his name is asking
in accord with his word. Asking in accordance with the
gospel of his grace. Whatsoever ye shall ask in accordance
with the gospel of my grace, that will I do, that the Father
may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in my
name, I will do it. And Elijah did. Elijah did. Turn
to James chapter 5. James chapter 5. It tells us
there what Elijah did. James chapter 5 verse Verse 16, James chapter 5 verse
16, confess your faults to one to another and pray one for another
that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer
of a righteous man availeth much. Read that article. Verse 17,
Elias, that's the New Testament Greek name for Elijah. Elijah
was a man subject to like passions as we are. He was a sinner He
was a man of up and down emotions just like we are and he prayed
earnestly that it might not rain and it rained not on the earth
by the space of three years and six months and we'll jump forward
and he prayed again after three years and six months and the
heaven gave rain and the earth brought forth her fruit but he
had to pray many times He had to be importunate, he had to
be persistent in his praying. But Elijah prayed in accordance
with God's word. He prayed in accordance with
God's word. And the heavens were stopped. And God said to him,
yes, I'm going to do it. Go and confront Ahab. Why did
he go and confront Ahab? Why? Because the salvation of
God's people was at stake. How was it to be accomplished?
The Redeemer must come to satisfy the law. How is the Redeemer
going to come? The way that God had promised.
Acts 3, 25. Peter preaching to the Jews in
Jerusalem. After Christ has ascended and
the spirits come down on him, he says, you are the children
of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with our fathers,
saying to Abraham, and in thy seed from this country, from
this people, shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed. One
is coming who must come from this people. And if this idolatry
that Ahab's doing carries on, he won't be able to come. He
must come from Israel. But how could he come if the
covenant people of God had wholly gone over to falsehood and idolatry? Let's bring it forward to our
day. How does it please God? to save people who believe. This
is how, by the foolishness of preaching, by the foolishness
of the message preached, by the truth of the gospel grace message,
this is how it pleases God. How will it please God to save
if preaching is diluted with political correctness, with modern-day
evangelical ecumenicalism. You say, that's a contradiction
in terms. Evangelicals are not ecumenical. Oh, I tell you, there's
an evangelical church association ecumenism that's as bad as anything
that you've seen in other mainstream religions. There's a complete
abandonment of the truth of God, of the gospel of his grace. How
is it going to please God to save anyone? if preaching is
diluted in that way. So he raises up Elijah to come
and to say, there's going to be a drought. We're going to
stop this. God is going to stop this. God is going to halt this
in its path. How is he going to do it? What
would do it? A drought would do it in those
days. Or whatever the equivalent would be in these days. Economic
or other hardship. Felt pain. The people must feel
pain. Why? To drive them to repentance. And it did. It did. We'll see
as the weeks unfold. It drove them to repentance.
He had prayed fervently and God had told him, yes I'll do it.
Go and tell Ahab. So, God raised up Elijah. Now
my second point. God provided for Elijah. God provided for him. Think about
this. This is highly relevant. Elijah
has gone to this wicked king with an even more wicked wife,
totally gone over to idolatry, and he has said, it's not going
to rain until I say it's going to rain again. I'm bringing down
tremendous hardship upon this land because of you and your
idolatry. He now needs somewhere to hide. He now needs to go somewhere
where Ahab can't kill him. Because Ahab's reaction is to
want to kill him. He knows about Elijah, he's heard
him, he's one of the prophets of the Lord. And he doesn't like
him, and now he's coming saying, I'm going to make life really
difficult for you and all the nation. And he now needs somewhere
to hide. Do you know when our Lord Jesus
Christ walked this earth in his ministry, do you remember he
kept saying, my hour is not yet come? When they tried to kill
him, he escaped from them. He walked no longer in Judea
because the scribes and the Pharisees sought to kill him. So he walked
in Galilee and preached and ministered there and went to different places.
Why? Because his hour had not yet
come. And then he went to Jerusalem
when his hour was fully come. In the same way, Elijah's hour
for the confrontation that would lead to the repentance of Israel
and the restoration of gospel grace, it had not yet come. He
had to be hidden. He had to be hidden. He had to
get out of the way of evil men and women seeking to kill him.
And he also needed to be sustained, because you see, this drought
was going to be common in its effects on everybody, including
Elijah. Don't think for one minute that
believers don't suffer when God brings judgment on the world,
because they do. Believers live in this wilderness
world. We suffer the storms and the
earthquakes. If there are any true believing
Christians in Nepal, I'm sure they heard the earth shake and
felt the earth shake. We suffer these things, the storms,
the droughts. We're subject to the same sicknesses
as all men and women are. We experience the same pains. The Gospel, the true Gospel,
the Gospel of the God of Scripture is not one like that false Gospel
of health, wealth and happiness. Don't think for one minute there
is such a danger in thinking that the blessings of God are
only seen in the good things that happen to you. Count the
blessings of God in the things that make life difficult. Because
God's true blessings are to teach us to cling less and less to
the things of this world, and more and more to the things of
eternity. When God comes in judgment, as
with this drought, his people feel it too. And Elijah was going
to feel it. So he had to be hidden. But he
had to be hidden where he would be sustained with, the word is,
enough. Enough. Not luxury, not abundance,
but enough. Enough. We live in a world, I
doubt whether most, people of our kind of social status have
never been so rich in the history of the world. The abundance of
the things that we have. But oh how false it is, as the
New Testament tells us, to think that our blessings subsist in
the abundance of the things that we have. He sent Elijah to a
place where he would have enough. He sent him to Cherith's brook. Verse two, the word of the Lord
came to him saying, verse three, get thee hence and turn thee
eastward and hide thyself by the brook Cherith that is before
Jordan. A little stream, and its name
implies that it's surrounded by reeds, you know, reeds, tall,
tall grasses. and it is a little stream that
flows into the River Jordan. And there's also a hint that
its name implies drought, because it was the first stream that
used to dry up. Whenever it stopped raining,
you know we had some droughts in the 1990s, and I remember
the River Mimran in Welwyn effectively drying up for about three years.
I mean now it's been flowing freely now for the last 15 years
or more, but there were several years when every summer it completely
dried up. This brook had a reputation for
being one that dried up. God sent him there. God sent
him to Cherith's brook. There was somewhere to hide amongst
the reeds, and there was a trickle of water. There wasn't an abundance. He couldn't have a daily bath
or shower. but he had enough to drink to
sustain his life. He could hide amongst the reeds.
He didn't have abundance, but he had enough. What's the lesson
of the Word of God? Godliness with contentment. Do you want to be rich? Yes,
you say, I want to be rich. The Apostle Paul teaches us how
to be rich. Godliness with contentment is great gain. If you have a
godly mind, taught by the Gospel of Grace, and you're content
with whatever. I have learned in whatever state
I am, said Paul, both to abound and to be abased. I have learned
in whatever state therewith to be content. If you've learned
that, you're rich. And there he is. God doesn't
suffer his children to go begging bread. No, he doesn't. We may
yet know real hardship, but we'll have enough. Let's apply it spiritually
to our situation as a fellowship. We'd love a big congregation.
We'd love a lovely building. We'd love a settled situation.
But we have enough to feed our souls, don't we? Do we have enough? We have enough week by week to
feed our souls. And he gave him daily supplies. God gave him daily supplies.
He didn't give him a weekly barrel of water or a monthly lake reservoir
of water. He didn't give him a great store
cupboard and a fridge stacked to the roof with food. No. He gave him his daily bread. Morning and evening. The ravens
brought him food. Morning, and it ran out. That
was just enough. And then the evening. That was just enough.
And then the next morning. Like the manna that came down
in the wilderness wanderings. Give us this day our daily bread. Cause us not to look too much
beyond that. Give us this day our daily bread. When the manna
came down, it was a miracle. And no doubt people were amazed
when they saw the miracle. But then gradually they became
familiar with the daily miracle, and that which was an amazing
miracle became commonplace. And what does it say about familiarity? Familiarity breeds contempt.
And the people ended up saying, our soul loathes this light bread. And some of them tried to keep
it to the next day, gather too much and keep it, gather more
than a day's worth and keep it. And it bred worms, and it smelled
bad. And they couldn't do that. So
with earthly treasures, moth and rust corrupts. Let's learn
to be happy with daily supplies of what we need. And these supplies
came from the most unlikely sources of sustenance. Cherith's Brook,
as I've said, it was usually the first to dry up. Why didn't
he send, why didn't God send him to the River Jordan? That
was probably the last to dry up. Why did he send him to Cherith's
Brook? to teach him, to trust, day by
day, with enough, with enough. He needed somewhere to hide,
and he needed water to drink, and the ravens were sent to feed
him. It's the testimony of God's servants in very trying times,
and we know nothing of this, but you read the account of William
Huntington and John Walburton of the times of poverty. William
Huntington wrote a book called The Bank of God, and it's his
testimony of how he was amazed in extreme poverty how he was
sustained by the most unlikely sources in the most unlikely
circumstances. The ravens brought Elijah flesh
and bread in the morning. What an unlikely source. Ravens
are not nice birds. Ravens are birds of carrion. They don't kill for their food. When we were away this week,
we saw a magnificent sight of an osprey, a male osprey, fish
eagle, going off. We didn't actually see it catch
its fish, but we saw it come back and land on its perch and
eat its fish. It caught something live. Ravens
don't do that. They eat that which is already
dead. They eat that like vultures, which something else has already
killed it, or it's been run over on. That's what ravens, and yet
God ordered the ravens to feed Elijah with what he needed, with
enough to sustain his life for about a year. it would seem from
the words in the scripture, it was about a year. God commands
all things. Look what he says, I'll read
this to you, in Isaiah 40, where am I, Isaiah 46. Remember the
former things of old, for I am God and there is none else. I
am God and there is none like me, declaring the end from the
beginning and from ancient times the things that are not yet done,
saying my counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure
calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth
my counsel from a far country. Yea, I have spoken it, I will
also bring it to pass. I have purposed it, I will also
do it. God causes all things to work
together for good to those that love him, who are the called
according to his purpose. And there's an aside here, I'm
running out of time, in fact I probably won't mention this
at the moment but I'll come back to it next time we meet. This
brook went on for a year. It was limited in time because
we read that the brook dried up. Go there and you will be
sustained and he did and the ravens brought him food It was
limited in time. The brook dried up. There was
no rain for a year. Of course the brook had dried
up. Don't get too settled is the message of this. God doesn't
allow his people to become too comfortable. The church of Laodicea
in the New Testament, in the book of Revelation, John in his
vision sends the message of the risen Lord Jesus Christ One of
the seven churches is Laodicea. Real place, but symbolical of
churches in all ages. Revelation 3, 17. What did the
Laodiceans think of their situation? Because thou sayest, I am rich,
and increased with goods, and have need of nothing. And they
didn't realize they were spiritually poverty-stricken. God doesn't
allow us to become too settled. There are churches that have
become too self-satisfied. There are churches that have
a name, that they are rich. They've become too self-satisfied.
They haven't realized that the brook has dried up. They haven't
realized. It's stopped. What was once a
brook that sustained them, it's stopped. It's dried up. Look
at the evidence around the country. There are thousands of such churches
that have been taken away. They're now converted into dwelling
places or small businesses or whatever else it might be. Their
brook of spiritual water, which was enough, has dried up. and expect change to come. Don't
be surprised by it. Rest in the provision of spiritual
water, but expect God will dry that stream up and then there'll
be another one. Revelation 3, 18 and 19, following on from
that thing led us here, I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried
in the fire, that thou mayest be rich, and white raiment, that
thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do
not appear. And anoint thine eyes with eye
salve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and
chasten." And then remember, we're sojourners, we're travelers
in this wilderness world. How long does Revelation 12 tell
us we're here? Time, times, and half a time. Three and a half times, what
does that mean? for a long time. And then it seems like it's double
that long time. I mean, I think we're in that
double that long time now. And then it goes on again and
you think it's going on forever and then all of a sudden God
cuts it short. That's the half time. And then, for his people,
eternal glory. We're just travelling through.
This world is not my home. If you're a child of God, I'm
just traveling through. Remember that. Look to Him. Look
to God to guide when the brook does dry up. Just look on in
verse 8. And the word of the Lord came unto him when the brook
had dried up, saying, Arise, get thee to Zarephath. See? God
comes up with something else. Our God, our Lord Jesus Christ,
is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Elijah's God is
the God we worship.