Introduction:
A. During mail call at a Marine Corps boot camp, a young recruit received several letters from home.
1. The drill instructor was getting irritated at having to keep calling his name.
2. The drill instructor barked “You must have a lot of people at home who like you, huh?”
3. The recruit shouted: “Sir, no, sir!”
4. “Oh, so you're calling me a liar?” goaded the DI.
5. As a Marine, the young recruit was being taught to think quickly on his feet, so he yelled out, “Sir, creditors, sir!”
6. The drill instructor had to leave the room so the recruits wouldn't see him laughing.
B. I’ve never been in the military, but those who have been understand what boot camp is all about.
1. The drill instructor will often say, “I’m going to cut you down to size!” And he meant every word he said, and he kept his promise.
2. The young recruits arrive at boot camp as an unorganized, ragtag bunch of seventy or so young men and women of every conceivable size and background.
3. They are thrown together in a strange place, having little real idea of what is ahead of them.
4. But during the months that follow, every shred of self-sufficient arrogance, every hint of independent spirit, and all thought of rebellion are driven out of them.
5. Any indifference toward authority is replaced by a firm commitment to do only as they are told.
6. The disciplined regimen of boot camp – day after day, week after week – brings about remarkable changes in every recruit.
7. The isolation of the location, the absence of all creature comforts, the relentless, monotonous drills, the demanding repetition of inspections, and the constant harassment of the drill instructors yields amazing dividends.
8. Almost without realizing it, while learning to submit to the training and trainers, the recruits ultimately find themselves physically fit, emotionally composed, and mentally ready for whatever they might face in combat.
C. That kind of raw recruit training is precisely what the Lord had in mind when He sent His servant Elijah from the court of King Ahab to the brook Cherith.
1. Little did the prophet know that his being hidden away at Cherith would prove to be his boot camp experience.
2. There he would be trained to trust his Leader so that he might ultimately do battle with a treacherous enemy.
I. The Story
A. Let’s look again at our text for today’s sermon: Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah: 3 “Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. 4 You will drink from the brook, and I have ordered the ravens to feed you there.”
5 So he did what the Lord had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there. (1 Kings 17:2-5)
1. As we read those words, try to consider how Elijah might have reacted to God’s plan.
2. In Elijah’s mind, the most logical arrangement, seemingly, would have been to keep Elijah there in the king’s face – to use the prophet as a persistent goad to press the monarch into submission to God.
3. So, it only made good sense to leave Elijah there in the court of the king, right? Wrong.
4. While we might have chosen to leave Elijah there, that was not God’s plan.
5. God had other important things to accomplish deep within Elijah’s inner life that would prepare him for the challenges he faced ahead.
6. So God immediately sent Elijah to a place of isolation, hidden from everyone, where he would not only be protected from danger, but would be better prepared for the mission.
7. For the godly hero to be useful as an instrument in God’s hand, he must be humbled and forced to trust the Lord.
8. In other words, Elijah had to be “cut down to size” at boot camp.
B. Often in the Old Testament the original names of places carry symbolic meanings.
1. This is certainly the case with the Hebrew name “Cherith.”
2. Although no one can identify the location of that brook today, we do know that it derived its name from the original verb Cha-rath, which means “to cut off, to cut down.”
3. The word is used both ways in the Old Testament: as being cut off from others or from the blessings of a covenant; and also of being cut down, as one might cut down a tall tree.
4. And so, while at Cherith, Elijah would be “cut off” from all involvement and activities that were normal and interesting, and at the same time, Elijah would be “cut down” to size as his Lord used this uncomfortable situation to force him to trust God for his daily survival.
C. At this point, Elijah had been a spokesman for God, but he was not yet, completely, a man of God.
1. Last week, we noticed that 1 Kings 17:1 called him “Elijah the Tishbite,” but by verse 24 after all that he had been through at Cherith, he is addressed as “a man of God.”
2. So Elijah learned a lot and grew a lot between verses 1 and 24.
3. Let’s look more closely at Elijah’s boot camp experience.
D. Any recruit who has been through boot camp can tell you that every hour of the day someone is ordering you where to go, when to be there, what to do, and how to survive.
1. God did the same for His prophet in training.
2. He told Elijah exactly where he was to go, what he was to do when he got there, and how he would manage to survive.
3. But the plan must have seemed a strange one to Elijah.
E. Look again at verse 3: Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan.
1. Wow, the first thing he was supposed to do was hide.
2. Elijah must have thought: “But I’m a prophet! Prophets don’t hide, they preach!”
3. For many people, the most difficult command to hear and obey would be the command to hide.
a. Being commanded to leave the public spotlight and to go into quiet seclusion would be a real challenge for a people person, or a get-the-job-done kind of person.
b. Sometimes sickness forces that kind of a situation for a person.
F. In the next verse, God explained how Elijah would survive during this period of hiding.
1. “You will drink from the brook, and I have ordered the ravens to feed you there.” (1 Kgs 17:4)
2. Try to picture Elijah explaining to someone what he was about to do.
a. Imagine the conversation he might have had with an inquisitive person as he left town with a knapsack over his shoulder.
b. “Hey, where are you going, Elijah?”
c. “Some place called Cherith.”
d. “Where is that?
e. “I’m not really sure, but God’s gonna show me. I think it’s over there, east of the Jordan somewhere. There’s a small brook running through it.”
f. “What are you going to do there?”
g. “I’m going to drink from the brook.”
h. “What will you have to eat?”
i. “Actually, God told me that the birds are going to be my catering service.”
3. God truly moves in a mysterious way!
G. As I mentioned earlier, God had at least two reasons for commanding Elijah to hide himself:
1. First, He wanted to protect Elijah from Ahab and Jezebel.
2. Second, He wanted to train Elijah to be a man of God.
3. A.W. Pink, writing about Elijah said: “The prophet needed further training in secret if he was to be personally fitted to speak again for God in public…The man whom the Lord uses has to be kept low: severe discipline has to be experienced by him…Three more years must be spent by the prophet in seclusion…How humbling! Alas, how little is man to be trusted: how little is he able to bear being put into the place of honor! How quickly self rises to the surface, and the instrument is ready to believe he is something more than an instrument. How sadly easy it is to make of the very service God entrusts us with a pedestal on which to display ourselves.”
4. When I think of Elijah needed more training, I can’t help but think of Luke Skywalker in the movie The Empire Strikes Back.
a. Luke helped save the day in the first movie, Star Wars, but he did so with luck and instinct, so he truly needed further training.
b. Luke went to Dagobah, to find Yoda, the Jedi Master for training.
c. Yoda was reluctant to train Luke, because he found that Luke had the same anger and recklessness which caused Darth Vader, his father's downfall.
d. Yoda relented and began the training, but before Luke finished the training, he discovered his friends were in danger.
e. And so ignoring Yoda and Obi-Wan's warnings that he was not ready to face Vader and was being lured into a trap, Luke left but promised to later return and complete the training.
H. Fortunately, Elijah was not like Luke Skywalker: Without one moment’s hesitation, Elijah obeyed, and he didn’t even ask why.
1. Verse 5 says: So he did what the Lord had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there.
a. Elijah didn’t just take a day trip off the beaten track, rather he obeyed and went to the place of isolation and lived there for an extended time.
2. And then what happened? Look at verse 6: The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.
a. What an incredible experience that must have been!
b. If you have ever been in the dessert, then you know how scarce food and water can be.
c. Yet, God provided His prophet with fresh water from the brook, and bread and meat in the morning and evening.
3. So in that sense, things were pretty good, and then something happened, verse 7 says: Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land.
a. I’m guessing that the brook dried up over a period of time.
b. Perhaps one morning Elijah noticed the brook wasn’t gushing over rocks like usual.
c. And since that stream of water was his lifeline, he kept an eye on it.
d. Over the next few days he watched it dwindle and shrink, until it was only a trickle.
e. Then one morning, there was no water at all, only wet sand.
4. This put Elijah in a tough spot.
a. It was a life-threatening spot. The brook had dried up. Elijah had nothing to drink!
b. Do you think Elijah might have wondered if God had forgotten him? Do you think he felt abandoned?
c. I’m sure he did. That’s the way we often feel when the brook dries up in our lives.
I. Before we go anything further, this is a good place to pause and reflect.
1. There are two important things we must understand at this point.
2. First, We must understand that the God who gives water can also withhold water.
a. This is God’s sovereign right.
b. Our human thoughts and feelings tell us that once God gives something, He should never take it away – that just wouldn’t be fair.
c. But when God does take away something that He once gave…when our brook dries up we must remember that God is still alive and well, and that He knows what He is doing.
d. Surely if God led Elijah to the brook, then He knows what to do when the brook goes dry.
3. Second, We must understand that the dried up brook was a direct result of Elijah’s own prayer.
a. James 5:17 tells us that Elijah prayed earnestly that it might not rain and it didn’t rain on earth for 3 ½ years.
b. So Elijah was personally experiencing the result of his own prayers.
c. Have you ever had that happen to you?
d. Have you ever heard someone say, “Be careful what you pray for?”
e. We pray that God might make us into godly men and women, but we ask that it not hurt too much.
f. We pray for stronger faith, but we don’t want it to include struggle or suffering.
g. We want patience, but we want it right now!
h. God’s spiritual boot camp doesn’t work that way.
i. God’s spiritual boot camp is designed for our development, not our comfort.
II. The Application
A. Lord willing, next week we will come back and see what God does to take care of Elijah after the brook dried up, but for now let’s consider four lessons from Cherith.
B. First, We must learn to be as willing to be set aside as we are to be used.
1. Sometimes we need a little down time to draw closer to God.
2. Sometimes God calls us out of the game and has us sit beside Him on the bench.
3. Sometimes He asks us to serve in hidden ways rather than public ways.
3. Other times, God asks us to play second string rather than first string.
4. We must learn to be willing to be and to do whatever God wills.
5. Elijah was willing to obey God by confronting King Ahab, and then Elijah was willing to obey by hiding in the wilderness while awaiting his next assignment.
C. Second, We must learn that God’s direction includes God’s provision.
1. God’s commands always come with the provision and power to carry them out.
2. How cruel it would be for God to give us a command without the necessary provision for carrying it out.
3. God told Elijah to go to the brook and that He would provide, and God certainly did.
D. Third, We must learn to trust God one day at a time.
1. We have all heard that so many times before, haven’t we?
2. In reality, though, we must learn to live today. We must not try to live in yesterday, or tomorrow.
3. Did you notice that God never told Elijah what the second step would be until he had taken the first step?
a. God had told Elijah to go and confront Ahab…then what? I will tell you later.
b. God then told Elijah to go to the brook…then what? I will tell you later.
c. God didn’t tell him the next step until after the brook dried up.
4. Can we learn to trust God that way – one day at a time, one step at a time?
5. We want to know all the “then whats,” but God just wants us to trust Him each step of the way.
E. Finally, We need to learn that a dried-up brook is often a sign of God’s pleasure, not disapproval.
1. In other words, don’t assume the dried-up brook is a sign of God’s judgment or punishment, it more likely is a sign of His acceptance of us and investment in us.
2. God wants the very best for each of us, sometimes the very best for us is a free-flowing stream, and sometimes it is a dried-up brook.
F. As we experience God’s boot camp training, we need to understand that there are three primary obstacles that God is trying to help us to overcome.
1. The first obstacle is pride.
a. If we don’t learn to conqueror pride, it will destroy us.
b. In the place of pride, God wants to help us develop a humble and submissive spirit.
c. That’s the being “cut down to size” part of boot camp.
2. The second obstacle is fear.
a. Fear can be so crippling.
b. Through our boot camp training God wants us to learn to fear nothing and no one except Him.
c. And when we fear nothing and no one but God, then that fear is replaced by trust.
d. We learn to trust God and walk by faith.
3. The final obstacle that God wants to help us overcome is resentment.
a. Resentment can tie us up into such knots.
b. Resentment usually is based on the rights we think we deserve that we aren’t getting.
c. Resentment begins to build when we don’t get the kind of salary we think we deserve.
d. Resentment begins to build when we don’t receive the kind of treatment the we deserve.
e. Resentment begins to build when we don’t get the comforts we think we have a right to.
f. In spiritual boot camp, God works on us to mold us and shape us and cut us down to size, until we finally say, “Okay, okay. You are God and You are in control. I release everything to you. I give up all my rights. I will be thankful for anything you give me, for I don’t have a right to anything.”
G. In a very real sense, God has designed a boot camp for His children, but it doesn’t last just 8 weeks or 10 weeks.
1. God’s boot camp can’t be crammed into a weekend seminar or even a two-week camp.
2. God’s boot camp takes place periodically throughout the Christian life.
3. And there, in the very center of obstacles and pain and solitude, we come to realize how alive God is in our lives – how alive and in charge God is.
4. God will work long and hard with us to reduce us, break us, and mold us so that we will become the people He intends us to be.
5. All of us are in one of three places or stages in the periodic boot camp cycle.
a. We are either just about to go into boot camp training.
b. We are in boot camp training.
c. Or we just emerging from some boot camp training.
d. In each of the stages we need to be ready to cooperate with God.
H. Elijah went to Cherith as an energetic spokesman for God.
1. He emerged from Cherith as a deeper man of God.
2. All this happened in that secluded place beside the brook that dried up.
I. So where are you in God’s boot camp training?
1. God’s boot camp is hard and challenging; it is never fun or enjoyable.
2. But when we cooperate with God, and submit to His training, the results are life-changing and eternal-life-changing.
3. May each of us allow God to train us and equip us in boot camp – Just like Elijah did.
Resources:
Elijah: A Man of Heroism and Humility, by Charles Swindoll, Thomas Nelson, 2000.
