God Can Series

“Breakthrough to Blessings” March 28-29, 2009

“GOD CAN” Bethany South Campus

“Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?” (Ps. 78: 19, NKJV)

“I have commanded the ravens to feed you THERE…” (1 Kings 17: 4)

 The “wilderness” is a place where you have to trust God for supply. Israel had to believe Him for food, water, clothing, and protection.

 Elijah and Elisha lived in a time of famine. They learned the lessons of provision. When we go through “wilderness times,” we learn them also.

1. “GOD CAN spread a table in the wilderness” (1 Kings 17: 4)

• Elijah obeyed God and went into the wilderness, hiding from Ahab and Jezebel. God commanded ravens to feed him bread and meat twice a day.

• Your “supply” will be at the place called “THERE.” As long as I am where God wants me to be, He obligates Himself to provide.

• After while, the “brook dried up” (v. 7). You cannot expect the same sources and resources to last forever. You have to be ready to move when those resources are gone, because often God guides us by the drying up of resources.

• God uses simple things and simple people to provide. The widow (v. 9) was willing to let God make her a channel of blessing to Elijah. Her support for the kingdom of God became her source of survival.

2. “GOD CAN reverse the curse” (2 Kings 2: 19)

• Jericho was a city of a curse. The water supply had become polluted so that crops would not grow.

• Satan seeks to “poison” your environment, to introduce an element into your business, your neighborhood, or your family that ruins your productivity. Elijah focused on the “source” of the poison and purified it with “salt.”

• If you have allowed Satan access to your finances by bitterness, withholding from God, theft, or deception, a curse must be “reversed.” “Salt” represents repentance and grace” and was the original method of purifying a wound.

3. “GOD CAN stretch your resources” (2 Kings 4: 43)

• This chapter has a story about a woman with only a pot of oil (v. 1), and 100 men with only twenty loaves of bread (v. 42). We often find ourselves with insufficient resources for the needs.

• In both cases, God took what they HAD and s t r e t c h e d it to meet the need. There was “no lack” and they had “left over.” The blessing of God “stretches” resources that would never meet a need to be “more than enough.”

4. “GOD CAN restore what the enemy has stolen” (6: 1)

• Satan is a thief: resources, money, time, relationships.

• The “ax-head” represents your “cutting edge,” your livelihood. It was the main tool for their expansion project. If Satan can steal your main “tool” of your livelihood, he can shut you down.

• Lost wages, lost business, lost value, and lost investments all seem to be “gone.” Elisha put in a “stick” (a symbol of the cross), and the ax-head rose from the bottom.

• Job “lost” his family, his money, his business, and his health but GOD CAN restore double what the enemy has stolen (8: 6)