The Hunger Games – Pt. 3
Brooks and Biscuits
Introduction:
Over the last couple of weeks I have been challenging your hunger levels. Are you placing any demand on God’s supply or have you allowed apathy to overtake your appetite? Then I asked you what reveals your desperation level? Is it your worship? Is it your giving? Is it your service? If desperation drives God to action, which I believe it does, then how can He tell you are desperate? I also challenge you that we cannot allow blessing and breakthrough to be used up on us! We are the distribution channel that God desires to use to take the leftovers to the left out. So, let’s wrap this thing up and go a little further!
Text: 1 Kings 17:2-23
God then told Elijah, "Get out of here, and fast. Head east and hide out at the Kerith Ravine on the other side of the Jordan River. You can drink fresh water from the brook; I’ve ordered the ravens to feed you." Elijah obeyed God’s orders. He went and camped in the Kerith canyon on the other side of the Jordan. And sure enough, ravens brought him his meals, both breakfast and supper, and he drank from the brook. Eventually the brook dried up because of the drought. Then God spoke to him: "Get up and go to Zarephath in Sidon and live there. I’ve instructed a woman who lives there, a widow, to feed you." So he got up and went to Zarephath. As he came to the entrance of the village he met a woman, a widow, gathering firewood. He asked her, "Please, would you bring me a little water in a jug? I need a drink." As she went to get it, he called out, "And while you’re at it, would you bring me something to eat?" She said, "I swear, as surely as your God lives, I don’t have so much as a biscuit. I have a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a bottle; you found me scratching together just enough firewood to make a last meal for my son and me. After we eat it, we’ll die." Elijah said to her, "Don’t worry about a thing. Go ahead and do what you’ve said. But first make a small biscuit for me and bring it back here. Then go ahead and make a meal from what’s left for you and your son. This is the word of the God of Israel: ’The jar of flour will not run out and the bottle of oil will not become empty before God sends rain on the land and ends this drought.’" And she went right off and did it, did just as Elijah asked. And it turned out as he said—daily food for her and her family. The jar of meal didn’t run out and the bottle of oil didn’t become empty: God’s promise fulfilled to the letter, exactly as Elijah had delivered it! Later on the woman’s son became sick. The sickness took a turn for the worse—and then he stopped breathing. The woman said to Elijah, "Why did you ever show up here in the first place—a holy man barging in, exposing my sins, and killing my son?" Elijah said, "Hand me your son."He then took him from her bosom, carried him up to the loft where he was staying, and laid him on his bed. Then he prayed, "O God, my God, why have you brought this terrible thing on this widow who has opened her home to me? Why have you killed her son?" Three times he stretched himself out full-length on the boy, praying with all his might, "God, my God, put breath back into this boy’s body!" God listened to Elijah’s prayer and put breath back into his body—he was alive! Elijah picked the boy up, carried him downstairs from the loft, and gave him to his mother. "Here’s your son," said Elijah, "alive!"
A. Dry times are supposed to be a season, not a permanent stop.
Some of you have become too comfortable with dryness. You are so convinced that it will always be like this that you are no longer hungry. You have given up. The brook you were drinking from is dry and you want to die right there! Some of you are still holding on for ravens and God has moved on to widows! Some of you are trying to get nourishment from stuff that quit feeding you a long time ago. You are hanging out with folks that don’t feed you anymore. You are investing in relationships that are draining you not feeding you.
Don’t hang out in the dry forever! He has someone or somewhere He can nourish you! However, you have to be willing to quit crying over what God is finished with . . . move on! Some of you are missing the provision of God because it doesn’t look like or taste like the brook you had grown comfortable with! Some of you have even been instructed by God to move on and then you wonder why you are starving to death. Get up and move. Food is linked to His Word! Until we obey His Word we will have no nourishment.
B. What we have now is the basic ingredient to a miracle.
Did you hear what the widow said? I only have enough for a biscuit. A little oil. I am going to use this up on me and then die. She underestimated what she had and failed to realize that it was the key ingredient to a miracle. What she had was key to her filling!
Sounds like us. I only have a little faith. I only have a little cash. I only have a little time. I only have a small gift. What we fail to realize is that if we would use/give what we have that act of obedience leads to miraculous results. We should know this . . . a small lunch is given to Jesus and thousands are fed. A simple act of obedience results in a dangerous haul. A simple act of faith results in healing.
But when it comes to us we are waiting on the spectacular act of faith that we can exhibit. We wait on the heroic step we can take. While we sit around starving to death refusing to do the basics. Give out of our need. Serve out of our busyness. Obey when it is painful. Worship in spite of our feelings.
Miracles are birthed out of the simple not the spectacular. Simple obedience will get you filled more quickly than flashy steps. I am still amazed at folks that refuse to do the basic things and then wonder why they don’t see the supernatural and they can’t ever make the connection!
I won’t tithe and I can’t understand why God won’t fill my account.
I won’t pray and I can’t understand why I can’t get a Word from God that would change my life.
I won’t serve and I can’t understand why I can’t seem to connect.
Just a little oil. Just a little meal. When we don’t allow what we can’t do to keep us from doing what we can do the result is a mighty filling and feeding!
C. Lack of hunger will lead to more than just lack of life . . . loss of life.
If this lady had never been hungry she would have never encountered Elijah! Flip forward several months or even a year later and her son dies. Her hunger on a seemingly hopeless day led to a miracle that saves her son’s life. No hunger . . . her son’s lack of life would have turned into loss of life.
It is imperative that you become hungry again because if you don’t your apathy, your take it or leave it attitude, your lack of desperation could very well cause you to miss a divine appointment that could have implications for you and your family for years to come! Don’t settle into lack and fail to push for more! (By the way parents your children need to see you hungry. Your children’s lives are depending on your hunger level.)
