Dry Brook University
Text: I Kings 17:2-7
Introduction: Boot camp is an experience one never forgets. It is a time of brutal discipline, unending work, regimented training, cold fear and acute loneliness. Yet, it is in boot camp that real soldiers are born. A soldier would never be able to serve on the battlefield without having first been through the rigors of boot camp. In boot camp, soldiers have their self-will striped away. They lose any rebellion that may be in their heart. They learn to follow every order from a superior without question. They learn to follow their leader, even to death, if necessary.
Of course, the positive side of all the training, the discipline and the pressure is that the soldier grows stronger, more disciplined and more mature. He is transformed from a common man into a battle ready soldier. You might say that boot camp is much like enrolling in a compressed university program. The soldier learns much in a very short time. Everything he learns in boot camp is essential to his survival on the battlefield.
God has a place that each of His children must pass through. He has a university, a training experience, for those He intends to use. Elijah is about to experience this university in these verses under consideration today. When we think of Elijah, there are two main events that seem to characterize his life. The first is the fact that he was carried away to heaven in a chariot of fire. The second has to do with his great victory on top of Mount Carmel. I think we need to be reminded that before we can be trusted to stand on Carmel, we must first pass by the dry brook. What I want you to understand today through all this is that before God can use you as His servant, He will have to put you through times of intense training and preparation. Before He can use us greatly before other men, God must first break us before Himself.
Surely, everyone of you wants to be used by the Lord. However, before that can happen, we must first pass through God’s training ground - His university. There are lessons to be learned. There are courses that we must go through. Before God can place us on the battlefield as a soldier of the cross, He must first send us through His boot camp. This isn’t a truth we enjoy thinking about, but it stands to reason that before God can really use us, He must first remove from us all that hinders His will from being done.
Therefore, let’s join Elijah as he enrolls at Dry Brook University. His experience contains several elements of truth that we need to explore together. These things will help you endure when God decides to put you through Dry Brook University.
The journey begins as we find ourselves being taken into:
1. God’s Place
- vv. 2-3 - "Then a revelation from the LORD came to him: Leave here, turn eastward, and hide yourself at the Wadi Cherith where it enters the Jordan."
A. Verse 1 finds Elijah standing before King Ahab delivering God’s message of immediate judgement. He proclaims:
"As the LORD God of Israel lives, I stand before Him, and there will be no dew or rain during these years except by my command!"
B. Verse 2 finds God sending Elijah into God’s place of hiding.
Application: It would seem that God would want to keep Elijah right in the face of Ahab as His judgement falls. But God has a different plan. Elijah wasn’t ready for the showdown that was yet to come. God now had to transform Elijah the Tishbite into Elijah the Man of God. To accomplish this, Elijah was heading back to school.
C. God’s place is an important place for you and I to find ourselves in. God’s place is that place where confidence and trust is built. God’s place is that place where we loose ourselves in order to truly discover God.
D. Let’s observe some important features of God’s place:
1.There is a Name for this Place -
a. Cherith - means "to cut off, to cut down".
b. God must cut Elijah off from public view so that He might cut him down to size.
Application: One of the hardest lessons the child of God will ever learn is that God must send you to Cherith before He can use you for His glory. He must hide you away and cut you down so that His image may be more clearly revealed in you. Just as the silversmith heats the silver and skims off the dross until he can see his image in the silver, so God will work in our lives, as we allow Him to, in order to bring us to that place where His image is seen in us.
2. There is a Nature about this Place -
a. It is a hidden place.
b. It is a hard and lonely place.
1.) Elijah would be removed from the spotlight.
2.) He would dwell alone where the Lord could work out His will in his life.
Application: There is power in the hidden life. Here you learn to trust God totally. Here you are forced to lean on Him. Before we can ever give out, we must first take in. Before God can pour anything out of our vessels, He must first put something into them. When God hides us away from the eye of the world, His plan is to grow us up in private so that He might display us for His glory in His time.
3. There is a Necessity for this Place -
a. Cherith was a specific place.
b. It was the only place Elijah could go and be right with God - anywhere else and he would have starved to death. God’s provisions were stored up at that specific place.
Application: When the Lord sends us to a difficult place in life, there is always the tendency to want to be somewhere else. What we must learn is that if God sends us to a Cherith, He knows what He is doing. The only place for us to be is where God sends us! If we find ourselves in a difficult situation, we can do nothing better than to submit to it as the will of God for our lives and learn to trust Him more while we are there. This place has been ordained by God. You can do no better in life than to willingly follow Him there. It may be a hard place. It may be a place that hurts. It may be a frightening place. But, if the Lord ordained that place for you, then you can do no better than to submit to it!
Surviving God’s place requires we understand and live by:
2. God’s Promise
- v. 4 - "You are to drink from the wadi. I have commanded the ravens to provide for you there."
A. Elijah is sent to the middle of nowhere to hide.
1. God sent him there for two primary reasons: Protection and Training.
2. God promised Elijah that his needs would be met while he was there.
3. Remember: God’s call is always accompanied by God’s provisions.
B. Consider all that God’s promise entailed:
1. God’s Promise Entailed Advanced Planning -
a. The provisions were in place before the need arose.
b. God has your tomorrow already taken care of.
2. God’s Promise Entailed Amazing Provision -
a. God used a bubbling brook and some ravens to take care of Elijah.
b. God knows what you need and if He has to, He will move heaven and earth to see that your need is met.
3. God’s Promise Entailed Abundant Peace -
a. Relying on the promise of God, Elijah simply stepped out in faith and obeyed.
b. The secret to survival is simple obedience to the will and direction of God. Learning to trust God and to trust Him absolutely.
As we learn to trust God’s promises, we come to find ourselves living in:
3. God’s Plan
- vv. 5-6 - "So he did what the LORD commanded. Elijah left and lived by the Wadi Cherith where it enters the Jordan. The ravens kept bringing him bread and meat in the morning and in the evening, and he drank from the wadi."
A. God’s Plan Was A Sovereign Plan -
1. God was in absolute control of the situation - the brook obeyed - the ravens obeyed. .
2. When the Lord puts you in a place where you can do nothing but trust Him, He has done one of the greatest favors He can do for you.
B. God’s Plan Was A Satisfying Plan -
1. Elijah enjoyed the fulfillment of the Lord’s promises to him.
2. He received just what he Lord told him he would.
3. He found God to be true.
4. We may not always like the situation we find ourselves in, but if we know that God is taking care of us, then we find we can be satisfied anywhere, with anything.
C. God’s Plan Was A Submissive Plan -
1. Elijah was headed out to the brook to stay until the Lord came and told him it was time to move on.
2. To enjoy real victory in our lives, we must arrive at the place where we can submit to the Lord’s will for our lives, no matter how bad we might think it is.
Application: The whole purpose in God’s plan was to bring Elijah to the place where he would trust God for one day at a time. He probably experienced some fear at first, but as the days passed and God proved Himself to be faithful and trustworthy, Elijah’s faith grew. God wants us to come to the place where we do not know which step to take next. He wants us to be totally dependent upon Him. He wants us to rest in His arms by faith, without fear.
Right in the midst of enjoying God’s provision, Elijah finds himself faced with:
4. God’s Problem
- v. 7 - "After a while, the wadi dried up because there had been no rain in the land."
A. How could God allow such a thing to happen?
1. Could this problem be orchestrated by God? If so, why?
2. Everything was going along so well.
B. Consider the situation:
1. The life-giving brook all of a sudden dries up.
2. Things in life take a drastic turn.
3. That job that you have invested your life in dries up. That mate that you have given yourself to completely walks out on you. Your health that has always been so robust begins to break down. Regardless of the circumstances, the brook has dried up!
Application: As you stand faced with these kinds of trials, you must hold on to the fact that the God Who provides the water can also withhold the water. God is in control of our lives! As Elijah was about to find out, God had another place already prepared for him. When one brook dries up, God has another prepared for us elsewhere. For those living by faith, it simply means it is time to move on to bigger and better things in the Lord.
Conclusion: Remember: God is sending Elijah back to school. He is training a prophet. He is building a man of God. God knows that before Elijah can stand in power on Mt. Carmel, he must first be broken at the Cherith brook. His goal is the same in our lives today. Many of us have attended the same university that Elijah attended. We have been to Dry Brook University. Others are just enrolling. Brooks are beginning to dry up in your life. You wonder what to do and how you will make it. My advice today is that you come to the place early where you roll everything off onto the Lord and you trust Him to take care of you.
If you are a child of God, may He help you to come to the place where you realize that everything that happens in your life is part of God’s plan for you. Realize that nothing can happen in you or to you that He does not allow. For me, that makes all my dried up brooks easier to deal with.
If you have a need today, I want you to bring it to the Lord. If salvation is your need you come. If you are standing there looking at a brook that is drying up right in front of you, I want you to come. If you need the Lord to move in your life, I want you to come. If you feel abandoned and forsaken by God, I want you to come. Whatever the need, Jesus can meet it today. Will you come to Him?
Disclaimer: Portions of this message or ideas contained within this message may have been gleaned from other messages. Please feel free to use this message as the Lord leads for His glory.
