201306016 4th Sunday After Pentecost C
Series: How Much Is Enough and Who Do You Trust for It? Part II
Title: “Trusting a Predictably Unpredictable God in Unpredictable Places”
Text: I Kings 17:8-9 (8-16)
Thesis: Just because some gods fail, doesn’t mean there is no God… because there is One you can trust whose provision is sufficient for where he leads and for all your needs.
Back-story and Introduction
God had sent the Prophet Elijah to let King Ahab in on what was about to befall him and the nation of Israel. This was the message, “As surely as the Lord, the God of Israel lives, the God I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain during the next few years until I give the word!” I Kings 17:1
We read about the reason for this impending prophecy of doom in I Kings 16:29-33:
A. Ahab had come to power and was the new King of Israel.
B. Ahab did more evil in the sight of God than any of the kings before him.
C. Ahab married Jezebel, a pagan princess from Sidon and began to worship Baal.
D. Ahab built a temple and an altar for Baal in Samaria and set up an Asherah pole.
Then again, in the brief span of just four verses Scripture says, “Ahab did more to provoke the anger of God of Israel than any of the other kings of Israel before him.” (I Kings 16:29-33) So God sent his prophet, Elijah, to confront King Ahab and inform him that there would be consequences for his idolatry, i.e., a severe, extended drought.
The reason Ahab’s idolatry was such an affront to God is that Baal was a pagan god that was believed to be a fertility god who enabled the earth to produce crops and people to produce children. There are many variations but all are very connected to controlling the weather. That is why Elijah challenged Ahab in 17:1 with a drought, i.e., God vs. Baal. God is going to send a drought to show the King that Baal does not control the weather. The idea carries over into chapter 18 where Elijah the Prophet of God challenged the prophets of Baal to see who could who could call down a lightning bolt from heaven to consume an offering. Ultimately, despite their dramatic and over-the-top appeals to Baal, Baal failed to respond but when Elijah prayed lightning flashed from heaven consuming the bull, the wood, the stones and the dust. I Kings 18:38. Elijah then prayed and God sent what we call “a gully washer” rainstorm.
God was confronting Ahab for having placed his trust in the pagan god, Baal, for rain to water the crops that would produce a bountiful harvest.
So when the King of Israel and the people of Israel went to the temple and worshiped at the Altar of Baal they, i.e., the King and the people of Israel, were praying that Baal would grant them great weather, plentiful rain and a bountiful harvest… their trust was in the pagan god Baal rather than the One and Only, Almighty God of the Universe.
So essentially… God drew a line in the sand and asked, “Who do you believe controls the weather, Baal or Me?”
As we come to our text today, I Kings 17:8-16, the devastating drought had gone viral. It had spread well beyond the borders of Israel and everyone, including surrounding nations, were feeling the effects of no rain, no crops and no food. That is hard for us to imagine, given the abundance and availability of food for us.
One day last week Bonnie called me and said, “I’m going to Costco, is there anything you would like for me to pick up?” And I said, “I would like one of those big bags of frozen chicken breasts, some fresh baby asparagus, fresh string beans and a bag of those frozen mixed berries… not organic!”
There were no Sam’s Clubs or Costcos. There were no neighborhood 7- Elevens. There were no supermarkets. There were no backyard gardens flourishing with fresh vegetables or apple orchards laden with Honey Crisps. It was a widespread drought.
There are three kinds of droughts:
1. Meteorological Droughts are simply prolonged periods of less than average precipitation.
2. Agricultural Droughts occur when a lack of precipitation is exacerbated by poor agricultural practices like over-tilling, failure to practice land and water conservation as in terracing, strip farming, alternating crops and fallow farming.
3. Hydrological Drought occurs when there is a lack of precipitation and run-off resulting in drop of water tables and levels in aquifers, lakes and reservoirs.
My guess is that the meteorological drought had fed into an agricultural drought which resulted in a hydrological drought throughout the land.
One of the most devastating effects of a prolonged drought is migration. During the Dust Bowl in the 1930s farmers migrated to work in fields and orchards of California… if you lived through it or have read Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath you know the story well.
Since drought hit the Horn of Africa in 2011 aid agencies have worked feverishly in places like Somalia… still today there are 8 million people in need of humanitarian aid, nearly a million children are still malnourished and 625,000 Somalis who migrated to Kenya and Ethiopia are still in refugee camps.
Elijah essentially was a victim of a drought that forced him to migrate from Kerith Brook.
Today I want to focus on the aspect of trust in the migrations and movements of life.
I. Trust means following a predictably unpredictable God
Then the Lord said to Elijah, “Go and live in the village of Zarephath, near the city of Sidon. I have instructed a widow there to feed you.” I Kings 17:8-9
Elijah has had some tutoring in the area of learning to trust God.
Last week we learned:
A. God sent Elijah to confront the King. I Kings 17:1
One day God sends him to the castle to confront King Ahab. After confronting King Ahab God sent Elijah on a camping trip.
B. God sent Elijah to camp out at a wilderness oasis, I Kings 17:2-7
When we get to I Kings 17:7 we see that Elijah has a problem… Kerith Brook dried up so we have a natural transition in to our story today.
C. God sent Elijah to cajole a widow for some lunch (to cajole is to gently urge or coax in the face of reluctance)
If we jump ahead in our story to I Kings 18 we see how Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal in a challenge to call down fire from heaven to consume a sacrifice. Where the prophets of Baal failed, Elijah did not and God sent a massive lightning strike to consume Elijah’s offering… after which Elijah instructed the people to of Israel to gather up all 450 of the prophets of Baal and take them down to the Kishon Valley where he killed them all.
Unfortunately Queen Jezebel was not pleased with Almighty God showing up her god and with Elijah’s killing of the false prophets so she sent word to Elijah telling him that he was a marked man. So Elijah, bailed and fled into the wilderness where he collapsed under a broom tree (a broom tree is in the evergreen tree family and grows in harsh places in sandy soil) and prayed that God would take his life.
Isn’t it interesting how easily one’s trust in the leading of God can turn on a dime. The previously undaunted and unflappable Elijah who had just called down fire from heaven, killed 450 false prophets and prayed in a massive rainstorm to end the drought, now fled for his life… this time not led by God.
After getting some rest and eating some fresh baked bread prepared by an angel of the Lord he was told to journey on 40 days and 40 nights.
So in I Kings 19 we see Elijah migrating once again.
D. God sent Elijah to a cave on Mt.Sinai, I Kings 19
But that’s another story or two or three… back to Zarephath.
This Zarephath was not the unincorporated community of Zarephath, New Jersey, population 37 and original home of Pillar of Fire Church International. (Yes, the same Pillar of Fire that purchased the Red Castle and 45 acres on Crown Point in 1920 for $40,000.) It was a different Zarephath.
God sent Elijah off to a little village named Zarephath near the city of Sidon. Sidon was Queen Jezebel’s hometown… Jezebel was Ahab’s wife and the one who introduced Baal worship to the nation of Israel. Sidon was the capital from which Queen Jezebel’s father, King Ethbaal, was the sovereign ruler. I doubt King Ethbaal was especially pleased by the fact that Ahab’s drought had extended into his kingdom as well. So when God sent Elijah to Zarephath it was like sending him into the lions den.
Last week we talked about how names have meanings and the meaning of Kerith is “cut-off.” God had sent Elijah to a place called “cut-off.” Now God sent Elijah to a place called Zarephath which means “smelter” or “forge.” Zarephath was a place of iron being “tested by fire.” It was something like being sent from the frying pan into the fire. Quite the symbolism if you think about it…
God, who sent him to confront the King and then sent him away to Kerith Brook and who would later send him to a cave on Mt. Sinai, was now sending him away from his little oasis of plenty into the searing heat of a desert of despair, Zarephath in Sidon where a widow, the least likely of all in that culture, would feed him.
God moving Elijah around was certainly predictable but the “to where” part was absolutely unpredictable.
In the story, The Best Exotic Magnolia Hotel, a group of British retirees all move to India where they can retire well on their limited pensions at the newly remodeled Magnolia Hotel which turns out to be a work in progress. Despite all the challenges the pensioners all find their new home in India to be a delightful place to retire.
I recently read that people who really are world travelers repeatedly return to India which prompted asking the question, “Why?” When interviewed, almost to the person they said they return because India is “unpredictable.” You never know what you will see and experience in India. (Eric Weiner, The Geography of Bliss, P. 281)
I’m not a big fan of the unpredictable. I tend to go for predictability, especially in travel. The last time I tried unpredictable I ended up in a “once upon a time” Holiday Inn… It was late and I got the last room in North Platte. I took my room key and went to my room where I walked in on a lady who was sitting on the bed working on her lap top. I returned to the office and got another key which was to the room directly adjacent to the lady I had just scared the be jibbers out of. It was hot. So I turned on the A/C which did not work. A repair guy came to my room and tinkered with it for a while then had me moved, literally, to the last available room in the hotel. I now believe God can, with a little pre-planning, lead me to a nice predictable Hampton Inn where everyone sleeps on a predictably comfortable King bed with down pillows.
We began today with this simply verse this morning: Then the Lord said to Elijah, “Go and live in the village of Zarephath, near the city of Sidon. I have instructed a widow there to feed you.” I Kings 17:8-9
Not exactly my idea of a dream destination… but if Elijah is any kind of example, God’s unpredictable places are not always comfortable places. They are places where we may serve God and others…. they are places where we can go and grow in character and faith but they are not usually comfortable places in life.
With that in mind, I would like to ask two questions:
1. Has God led you to an unpredictable edgy place in life?
• An out of the way, cut off place like Kerith Brook? Cut-off in a place of loneliness?
• A hot bed of despair and human need like Zarephath? In a place of testing your faith?
• A Mt. Carmel and a confrontation with the powers of evil? A battle zone of spiritual warfare?
• A desert shrub praying for death? A place of fearful circumstances and uncertain outcomes?
• A cave on Mt. Sinai for a little, “still, small voice,” chat with God? A state of discouragement and depression?
And the second question is this:
2. “Can you or will you, trust God there?”
Conclusion:
Nita Landis captures that truth in a story about daughter. When Katie was small, she worried about falling off the changing table. Twisting her head so that the end of the table was right in front of her eyes, she would cry,
