Hidden Hurting Healed
(Note to pastors this message is available on my church website in audio and PDF format. The PDF file includes embedded graphics I used in the powerpoint for this message. The PPT file is available if you contact me directly. Blessings. http://www.plymouthcf.org)
1 Kings 17:1-9 Now Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, "As the LORD, the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, surely there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word."
2 And the word of the LORD came to him, saying,
3 "Go away from here and turn eastward, and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan.
4 "And it shall be that you shall drink of the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to provide for you there."
5 So he went and did according to the word of the LORD, for he went and lived by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan.
6 And the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he would drink from the brook.
7 And it happened after a while, that the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land.
8 ¶ Then the word of the LORD came to him, saying,
9 "Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and stay there; behold, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you."
I believe the Lord wanted me to bring an encouraging word this morning, can anybody use an encouraging word?
In the next two weeks From this passage of scripture we going to see the Lord encourage two very special people, both of which probably struggled with whether or not the Lord cared about their situations.
The widow woman by far had the more issues going on, but Elijah also had things I believe he struggled with.
I am going to make 3 main points from this passage of scripture:
Hidden
Hurting
Healed
We are going to see how both of these people God’s care for them was hidden, and yet it was there all the time.
We are going to see the great struggle that hurt them.
And we are going to see how God put their lives together in a marvelous way to bring a measure of healing to both.
Today we will only deal with the first point:
Hidden
This weaving is displayed in the home of Corrie Ten Boom. She often would use it in talks, and if you go on a tour of her house the guide always shows it underside first.
The following poem is read
Life is But a Weaving By Corrie Ten Boom
My life is but a weaving
Between my God and me.
I cannot choose the colors
He weaveth steadily.
Oft’ times He weaveth sorrow;
And I in foolish pride
Forget He sees the upper
And I the underside.
Not ‘til the loom is silent
And the shuttles cease to fly
Will God unroll the canvas
And reveal the reason why.
The dark threads are as needful
In the weaver’s skillful hand
As the threads of gold and silver
In the pattern He has planned
He knows, He loves, He cares;
Nothing this truth can dim.
He gives the very best to those
Who leave the choice to Him.
After the reading the other side of the weaving is shown.
Often times the work of God is hidden in our life. In our story Elijah is specifically told to go and hide himself. Many commentators believe it was for his protection this was done. (See I Kings 18:5-15)
That may have been part of the reason, but I think there were other more important reasons, that had to do with the tapestry God was weaving in Elijah’s life. God could have protected Elijah anywhere, but for the other things He was doing Elijah had to go through a season of hiddenness.
There were 4 things Elijah encountered in his time of hiddenness and they are crucial to the making of every man and woman of God.
1. Lost Productivity
2. Limited Provision
3. Learning Patience
4. The Lords Purposes Revealed
1. Lost Productivity
1. There shall be neither rain nor dew. For the prophet either. We must be willing to be set aside to be used.
No rain is one thing, no dew is quite another. What was happening in the natural was paralleled by what was happening in the spiritual.
Elijah went from a prominent ministry to nothing. From sensing God moving in mighty ways to nothing. From flowing in the Spirit to almost complete inactivity. From being used to seemingly being abandoned. Could your faith take God saying “Elijah you are pretty much done for the next three years”?
If God could saw it necessary to shut Elijah down what makes you think you should be exempt?
Did you ever feel like God was moving and then the next thing it was like God pulled up stakes and the whole thing has been shut down?
From fervent ministry, to a recluse. From lots happening spiritually to nothing happening. From doing great things to doing no thing.
Every man God lifts up, He also cuts down. Moses, spent 40 years of celebrity life as the son of Pharoah and then 40 years on the backside of the wilderness. (KJV) I like how the KJV renders it, “the backside of the wilderness.” As if the front side was bad enough. (Back side actually stands for west side, but backside conveys something akin to what Elijah must have felt. Not just in the wilderness, but in the most far off removed part of the wilderness.) Moses may have well asked, “what in the world am I doing here in this desert wilderness? What possible benefit could it serve God? Hmmm 40 years learing the ways of the desert I wonder if that was useful in the Jews 40 year wanderings in the desert? Desert place weave in our tapestry ways that are unknown to us but very obvious to God. David, was used mightily by God to destroy Goliath and then sidelined for a long season. John the Baptist, filled with the Holy Ghost in the womb, but spends years unknown and unseen by man. He went from filled and announcing the Savior to wild locusts and honey in the desert. Paul, has a dramatic encounter with Jesus on the road, struck blind, marvelously healed, and then spends 3 years in the desert. Every man God lifts up, he cuts down.
Why? To keep you from falling into pride. I have commanded a widow woman to feed you. How many sermons have you heard by money grubbing preachers who say send them your money first and God will bless you, and this woman is one of the greatest people ever, because that is what she did. She did what she did because God caused her to, not because of any great benevolence in her heart. God commanded her to feed Elijah, she may not have been aware of it, but to ascribe her generosity to some benovolence in her own person is a mistake. Don’t get me wrong, she probable was a very giving person, but her generosity in this case is directly stated to be the action of God on Elijah’s behalf. If a person gets saved the preacher didn’t do it, God did. It is important for preachers and Christians to know that fact. So God put Elijah in hiding to humble him, by doing nothing, he learned that without God he could do nothing. Pride is a great pitfall for many people, when we take credit for what God does we do so at our own spiritual peril. To help prevent that, God often strips his servants of any self-confidence and self-importance and deserts are a very common way in which He does that.
2. In a time of hiddenness your importance to God, and His love for you may be greatly obscured because it is often a season of limited provision.
In Elijahs case there were three things that were limited:
Hearing a fresh word from the Lord
Physical location, a time of confinement
Material supplies. Food was in short but ample supply.
Hidden times are a time of limited provision to test if you will stay true to God.
I have commanded the ravens to feed you. Say what?
How much food does a raven bring in his mouth?
What kind of food does a raven bring in its mouth?
What happens to food that has been carried in a ravens mouth?
God don’t you know ravens are an unclean bird, as a Jew I am supposed to stay away from them.
In a time of hiddeness you will find out God doesn’t always fit in your box. Limited provision for a prolonged season should be cause for much rejoicing, but that isn’t the response the Lord often gets.
Consider Elijah’s limited provision:
Illustrate: Gabriel ok you three birds front and center.
You distract the cook and you two swipe the food. (I personally think the ravens stole the food for Ahab’s table where it is said, Jezebel fed 450 prophets of Baal) Regardless, it was a miracle that he was fed by ravens.
I have commanded a widow to feed you. All right a nice old lady with a lot of cash. I’m sick of the bird delivery service. Boy was Elijah in for a surprise! She only had a little food to make pancakes of some sort. No more meat!
Little provision is just as wonderful as much provision. Elijah was no less a man of God when he was fed by Ravens as when he was fed by angels. It took a miracle to feed him. Sometimes we only see the miracle in much, but there is also a great miracle in little, after all it could be none.
Illus: Pilgrims progress and stones across the slough of despond. Pliable wanted a bridge to cross finding none he turned back. Evangelist then explains to Christian God has placed small stones which are barely visible for pilgrims to cross the slough. Christian had to be willing to be a child and step gingerly across the stones. Many people have turned back on God, because they didn’t think His provision was up to their expectations. They wanted a 4 lane bridge without any hint of personal danger, He provided small stones that took faith to trust. Elijah fed by ravens was learning of daily bread, learning to remian in a place of physical deprivation required a level of obedience, in God’s eyes learning obedience is more important than creature comforts. Elijah also had to learning and to face the fact that sometimes those that eat @ Jezebel’s table eat better than the saints of God. Sometimes the devils crowd eats better than God’s servants. Obadiah’s prophets only got bread and water, but they didn’t compromise. Better is a little with the righteous than much in wickedness. Elijah will you stay where I want you? A prophets job is to do what God wants, even when it is uncomfortable to the prophet.
3. Learning Patience.
After a while the brook dried up: literally in the Hebrew it is "at the end of days."
Thank God all trials have a start date and an ending date. At the end of the appointed time for the brook it dried up. But what was next?
Day by day Elijah found it harder and harder to get water. At the end he was probably drinking mud as much as he was drinking water. Elijah was learning this important truth:
God’s plan is seldom revealed in advance. Elijah had no idea what God is going to do next and neither do we. There is a time to let the fish nibble and there is a time to yank on the pole. A lot of fish are lost because of our impatience and premature yanking on the pole. Hiddeness teaches us the value of waiting on our words. As apples of gold in a setting of silver so is a word fitly spoken. Patience is learned and the tapestry grows in beauty.
4. The last thing we learn from a season of hiding is the reason why, or God’s purposes in it.
Elijah is not told why he was hidden but we can figure it out.
Isa 30:20 And [though] the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers:
This text teaches that God’s prophets are removed when God is judging a nation. In other words when people stick their fingers in their ears and don’t want to hear God says, “OK you don’t want to hear I won’t speak.” To him that hath will more be given, and to him that hath not, even what he has will be taken away. But God isn’t simply doing this in a vindictive manner it is also redemptive in nature. God prefers coldness to lukewarmness. Why? A spiritually cold person has a greater likelihood of seeking help.
Silence from God is the breeding ground of hunger for God:
Ho 3:4 For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and [without] teraphim:
Ho 3:5 Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; and shall fear the LORD and his goodness in the latter days.
Close: Some of you have been in a season of hiddenness where there has been little spiritual dew or rain. Elijah preached two great messages in his life:
1.God is withholding the rain to reveal His anger at sin.
2.When we respond in the right way, God will respond with an abundant rain. I see a cloud the size of a man’s fist. Get moving for there is the sound of abundance of rain.
In every Christians life there will be seasons of hiddenness and seasons of abundance of rain.
I prophesy to you today of spiritual rain returning.
Job 14:7 ¶ "For there is hope for a tree, When it is cut down, that it will sprout again, And its shoots will not fail.
Job 14:8 "Though its roots grow old in the ground, And its stump dies in the dry soil,
Job 14:9 At the scent of water it will flourish And put forth sprigs like a plant.
