The Greatest Security | 1 Kings 16:29-17:24

Our first reading is as you see on the screen there.

In the 30th, 38th year of Aza, king of Judah,

son, Ahab son of Omri became king of Israel

and he reigned in Samaria over Israel 22 years. Ahab

son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the Lord

than any of those before him. He not only considered it trivial to

commit the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat but he also married

Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians and

began to serve Baal and worship him. He set up an altar for Baal in the

temple of Baal that he built in Samaria. Ahab also

made an Asherah pole and did more to arouse the anger of the

Lord, the God of Israel than did all the kings of Israel

before him. In Ahab's time, Hiel of Bethel

rebuilt Jericho. He laid its foundations at the cost of his

firstborn son, Biram and he set up its gates at the cost

of his younger son, Segev in accordance with the word of the Lord

spoken by Joshua son of Nun.

Now Elijah the Tishbite from Tishbi in Gilead said to Ahab, as the Lord the

God of Israel lives whom I serve there will be neither

dew nor rain in the next few years at my word. Then the word of the Lord

came to Elijah, leave here turn eastward and hide in the

Kirith ravine east of the Jordan. You will drink

from the brook and I have directed the ravens

to supply you with food there. So he did what the Lord had told him,

he went to the Kirith ravine east of the Jordan and stayed

there. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread

and meat in the evening and he drank from the brook. To God be the glory for

his word.

Starting at verse seven.

Sometime later the brook dried up because there'd been no rain in the land.

Then the word of the Lord came to him, go at once to Zeraphath in the region of

Sidon and stay there. I've directed a widow there to supply

you with food. So he went to Zeraphath when he came to

the town gate a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and

asked would you bring me a little water in a

jar so that I may have a drink. As she was going to get it he called

and bring me please a piece of bread. As surely as the Lord your God lives she

replied I don't have any bread only a handful of flour in a jar

and a little olive oil in a jug. I'm gathering a few sticks to take home

and make a meal for myself and my son that we may eat it

and die. Elijah said to her don't be afraid

go home and do as you have said but first make a small loaf of bread for me

from what you have and bring it to me and then make something for yourself and

your son for this is what the Lord the God of

Israel says the jar of flour will not be used up

and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on

the land. She went away and did as Elijah had told

her so there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman

and her family for the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not

run dry in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah.

Sometime later the son of the woman who owned the house became

ill he grew worse and worse and finally stopped breathing.

She said to Elijah what do you have against me man of God

did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son

give me your son Elijah replied. He took him from her arms

carried him to the upper room where he was staying and laid him

on his bed then he cried out to the Lord

Lord my God have you brought tragedy even on this widow I'm staying with by

causing her son to die then he stretched himself out on the

boy three times and cried out to the Lord Lord my God

let this boy's life return to him the Lord heard Elijah's cry and the

boy's life returned to him and he lived Elijah picked up the child and

carried him down from the room into the house he gave him to his mother

and said look your son is alive then the woman said to

Elijah now I know that you are a man of God

and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth.

Well good morning church it's great to be with you this morning

if I haven't met you before my name is Josh Van Decoy I'm a

pastor at a sister church of yours now you guys are a Presbyterian Church

which means you're a church connected to another

a whole group of churches here in both here in WA and across our country

called WPC and I serve typically at one of those WPC churches

that's located in Bull Creek which you may

be familiar with. Having said that at the moment I'm actually

working at another WPC church I'm actually at

the church plant from Bull Creek that has gone to

Victoria Park there's a Presbyterian Church there and I'm currently there just

for a little while because the pastor of that church a

young guy named Matt Dodd who you may be familiar with

he's about to go away on three months sabbatical three months study leave

and so I'm there to help keep things going while he goes away so

so yeah I'm kind of in two places at once at the moment but it's great to be

here this morning with you and I've seen some familiar faces also

some new faces as well so yeah like I said if I haven't met you

before I'd love to do that after the service.

Well do keep your Bible open we're going to be tracking through

particularly chapter 17 of one Kings together but let's let's get into it.

Now a few weeks ago as I said I mentioned I work at a Bull Creek

church a few weeks ago or maybe a month or two ago now

we had a break-in at our church now that's never happened as far as I

can tell I've been at Bull Creek for a long time I could never think of that

happening before this point so we had we had a minor

break-in someone got inside inside our church building early one

morning when no one was around and they tried to get into one of our

offices to get it because there was a safe in one of them

so they tried to break into one of them praise God

our alarm system did its job and the intruders left without taking anything

and as I said no one was in the building at the time but I don't know if

you've ever experienced something like that a break-in at home

perhaps now that's never happened to me personally I know it does happen

to a lot of people and from what I understand it's it's something that can

be really quite traumatizing and not just

because of the initial shock that someone has

intruded upon really your most personal space the place you call home

that the one place you're meant to be safe

but also I think there's there's extra shock because it it makes you realize

well you're not as secure as you thought you were

now security is something that we all long for isn't it it's something we're

all searching for that's why we have security

systems that's why we have alarms on our cars why we use passwords

for our online accounts it's a reality really of of living in a

world that's full of sin and so my question for you this morning

is where do you find security I don't mean where do you find alarm

systems or that or whatnot I mean where in your life where's your

place of greatest security is there

somewhere somewhere like that for you a place where you feel truly secure if

not I suspect that'd be a good thing to discover

wouldn't it be so in our passage this morning one king's

chapter 17 well we find an answer to this question

where can we find greatest security but there's no alarm systems to be seen

you would have noticed that if we read the passage no

rather it's all to do with the prophet Elijah's

initial actions now I say initial actions because

with no introduction and no notice Elijah arrives in this story like a

sudden thunderstorm now it's one of a number of

unusual events that we find in chapter 17 and I say it's unusual because at this

point we don't know anything about Elijah this is the first we're

hearing about him we don't know what he does we don't know what standing

he has in the Israelite community all we know all the

information we're given is that he's of Tishba in Gilead

that's it and so this this guy comes seemingly

out of nowhere and bam he's there before the king of Israel to

pronounce a curse now he says he might arrive like a

sudden thunderstorm but he's there to say now

that there's going to be no thunderstorms and no rain at all

for the next few years okay that's all going away he says

okay now with one important qualifier what is it well he says there'll be no

Jew or no rain except by my word

that's Elijah speaking for God as God's prophet

now why would he need to do this why would he need to pronounce

a curse well we saw it earlier in the end of chapter 16 didn't we we saw the

reason there the current king of Israel a guy named

Ahab well he's the worst king yet he's so bad in fact

that the author of One Kings describes him as doing

more evil quote than any of those before him

end quote that's chapter 16 verse 30 so no wonder

God has to bring a curse of judgment upon Israel because their king

is leading them astray now what kind of response do you think

the king is going to give upon hearing Elijah tell him the water is about to be

turned off I bet Elijah wasn't feeling very secure

at that moment well we're not told we're not told what the king's response

is because just as soon as Elijah has suddenly

appeared well then he suddenly disappears and he goes out into the outback

at God's command and there we're told he spends in

some indefinite period of time out by a brook

in the bush

and God promises while he's there to look after him he says I'm going to feed

you with ravens and you imagine that ravens

it's it's some sort of ancient version of uber eats

and he's well he's fed pretty well while he's out there he's looked after he gets

two square meals a day now that's better than the Israelites got

when they were in the old the exodus wilderness but yet it's

it's it's a strange scenario because ravens and you'll know this if you're

familiar with the old testament are food laws ravens are unclean animals

and so the food they're bringing him not just being brought by

unclean animals but the food it's described as

meat in verse eight well let's just say it's probably not a medium rare

steak that they're bringing in more like rare

roadkill which again would would have not have fit

into the old testament category of clean foods but again we're not told

we're not given any comment about these strange occurrences we're just

given the information we're just told God promised it would happen that he'd

be looked after and it happens that's it

again it raises the question why why should he go out there in the first

place why not just continue hanging around

town i mean that's where all the the good food is that's where all the

comfort is all the security is why not hang around civilization

where you don't need to eat roadkill well you might be thinking well maybe

Elijah's on the run i mean he's just given this evil king bad news maybe he's

expecting retribution so that's why he's out there

but we need to look closely to see what's actually really going on here

and as always it's the context the context of the passage

that gives us the clues now given we've already heard that the king of

israel is wicked and evil more so than any before him

well it makes sense that what we see here with Elijah's movements

isn't as one bible teacher puts it it's not

God's witness protection program no what we're seeing

is God's pronouncement of judgment against Israel and he brings this

judgment not with flashes of lightning and and

peer and thunder the appeals of thunder

no he brings the judgment by going silent

by moving his prophet his mouthpiece out far away into the

wilderness imagine it'd be something like if

grace christian church armadale suddenly stopped sending out its newsletter

or if you stopped having announcements at church or

if you stopped having sermons on sundays right if that happened you'd know

something has gone badly wrong and that's what's happened here something

has gone badly wrong and what is it well it's that israel

has stopped listening to god at the end of chapter 16 makes that

clear israel's more interested in listening to other gods

and so the true god goes silent as the king of israel

leads the people astray and so god he sends his spokesman away from

the king away from the people in a sign of judgment now it's a sign

in fact that we see repeated throughout the scripture not just here in the old

testament we see it as well even with jesus in

the new testament so you could have a look for example at the

gospel of mark and there we see jesus regularly leaves locations

where religious leaders or people are against him

so there's an example of this i'll read it to you briefly from

mark chapter 3 verse 6 and 7 if you're familiar with that passage jesus

Mark 3:6

has just healed a man who had a withered hand and

he's done that in a synagogue on the sabbath and the watching

Pharisees they're right there they're watching him they're waiting to accuse

him we're told because they're they're legalists so you

can't do anything on the sabbath and here comes jesus he heals this man

and when they see him do it we read in verse 6 then the

Pharisees went out and began to plot with the herodians who

are the Pharisees enemies they began to plot with the

herodians how they might kill jesus and what happens that the

very next verse the very next words after this what does mark say he says

jesus withdrew with his disciples to the lake now i think that's a very

conscious decision about the choice of word there that's

withdrew that's not jesus suddenly decided he's going to go on a road trip

no it's as if jesus is saying well you don't want to listen fine i'll go

now that's that's the devastating reality of sin

if we refuse or choose to to refuse to listen to god if we

stick our fingers in our ears and shout la la la la la la

he's not going to force us to listen to him

he'll just stop speaking it's like that the lifeguard who warns the person

swimming in shark-infested waters that they are in mortal danger he warns

them over and over again only for the person to

steadfastly refuse to even acknowledge the warning

so what does the lifeguard do well he packs up and he goes home

and that's the terrifying nature of god's judgment that we're seeing here

in this passage not that god says something that we

don't like but that he doesn't say anything and he just leaves us in our

sin and misery

but elijah's story doesn't end there because after a while the brook that he's

staying at it dries up his water's gone and so before we move on

actually it's worth saying that while it doesn't seem it in this

moment this is actually a big deal the fact that

the the the curse of no water has come to

fruition and if the fact that the drought has arrived

and its impact says something really significant

because it tells us what we're seeing in this passage is not just some

local event we're actually seeing a battle

between elijah's god and a local god how so well historical contest that

context will help us here we know that from the end of chapter 16

that ahab has led the people of israel to following other gods

but what god in particular did you catch it as we read it

it's one god in particular the god named baal

now you've probably heard of him he pops up a number of times in the old

testament and what we know about the god baal is

that he is the storm god of the canaanites in other words he's

the one who provides rain so he's god right in the

in the clearest terms saying you want to see who controls the rain

let me show you and we see as we see as we read this story it

becomes quickly apparent well this battle is not much of a

contest by the end of these first seven verses it's already abundantly clear

god one baal zero and so then god sends elijah off to a

new location he leaves the brook and heads off

elsewhere but he doesn't go back to israel he doesn't go back to

home base doesn't go back to the king in fact he leaves israel all together he

heads out to some foreign land he goes to sidon we're told so out onto the

west coast right up against the mediterranean sea

and who's he there to see who's he there to visit well apparently

some random widow in fact we don't even know her name

but god promises or god has promised that she will look after

elijah and so he goes there now the initial conversation between

elijah and this widow will might make you do a bit of a double

take again i don't know if you pick this up as we're reading it

remember there's a drought going on there's not much water and that means

there's not much resources around generally

and for someone like a widow with no husband to provide for her

it's likely that she's only just scraping by

but elijah meets this widow and what's the first thing he says

he says can you get me some water and she goes to appears to comply with that

off she goes and then while she's on her way oh

actually can you get me some bread too now she she balks at this second request

from elijah telling him she's about to go and prepare

the last meal for her and her son that's how meager her supplies are at that

moment but that doesn't stop elijah he says

this in verse 13 don't be afraid go home and do as you have said but

first first make a small loaf of bread for me

from what you have and bring it to me and then make something

for yourself and your son i don't know if you were reading that if you just

feel like come on elijah that's a bit harsh isn't it i mean how

can he be so bold to ask this of a woman who's in the

middle of a drought who's got basically nothing

now god well god promises to sustain he promises to continue sustaining

not just elijah but the widow and her son even with the most meager resources

that they have on hand but for god well that's not a problem

is it he can create miracles out of the meager and as we keep reading

that's exactly what we see this woman and her son and now elijah too

they all feast on these apparent morsels

for days right up until the rain returns with some indeterminate period of time

now how how has this happened well because like we read in verse 16

says it was in keeping with the word of the lord in other words

it all happens exactly like god says it will happen

but even with this kind of surprising miracle

while things are about to get a lot worse for elijah because

no sooner do things seem to have settled down

that the widow's son suddenly dies now it's not from lack of food but from

an illness and unsurprisingly this brings the

widow's anger to bear against elijah as she says in verse 18

what do you have against me man of god did you come to remind me of my sin

and kill my son

now this this tells us something of what the

the pagan gods of the day were really like now she's saying you've brought this

upon me because of my sin that's why my son is

dead it tells you that the the pagan gods

from that that time and place must have been known

as vengeful beings that's similar to perhaps the the gods that we might be

familiar with the ones from the greeks and the romans know gods who who

if you do the wrong thing they'll pay you back

you step out of line and you'll get in trouble

now in this case the widow is saying the payback for her sin

is the taking of her own son's life her only son's life

but here's the question is that a fair critique

of elijah's god is it a fair critique of our god

well let's let's see what happens next elijah takes the boy he takes him

upstairs he he cries out to god for help he

stretches himself over the boy three times symbolizing

the request he's making to god that for the boy's body to become

alive like his and what happens what do we see

well verse 22 it reads the lord heard elijah's cry and the boy's life returned

to him and he lived what does this tell us

it tells us this isn't a god who takes life in vengeance no this is a god who

gives life and so here's god again

intervening in this specific situation it's not the the king's son who has

died some public figure no this is again just

some random pagan family in a random pagan

city completely unconnected from from israel and yet the god of life

intervenes with what is the first resurrection in the pages of

scripture the first one that you'll read about

it's god two bail zero

now what are we meant to make of all this well there's a couple of things we

could say but first i think it's important that we

say something about how we're meant to read

a passage like this how are we meant to read it

well why should we do this well frankly because

if you like me we have a tendency to insert ourselves

into the story as the main character in this case as elijah we read his story

we think yeah that's that's what i'm meant to do

but it doesn't take long to realize well this doesn't work

let's be honest i mean we shouldn't be expected to be fed roadkill by ravens

anytime soon so if this story is not

primarily then about elijah then what is it about

well elijah's name actually gives us the clue or points us in the right

direction now here's the the literal translation

of his name okay here's what elijah means it means

my god is yaway it's it's as if elijah himself is a giant

neon sign pointing right to god and so that tells us that the main

character in this story as it is throughout the whole bible is is god

he's the main main character in this story

and so that means when we come to a story like this the question we want to

be asking is not how am i like the the the main earthly

character but like how does this story tell us about god

what does this story tell us about our god

so in that vein is two things that we can say as we kind of

draw things together first thing to say relates to our perception of god

now i imagine that if you were an israelite in this day and age

if you were one of god's people it might have looked like while this was going on

it might have looked like god just wasn't doing anything

like he was taking a holiday right that the rain's gone away

and there's been nothing from god just drought

he's gone silent right he must just be away doing other things

but the as we read this passage we see that the details tell us that couldn't

be further from the truth because what we're seeing is

god is at work now sure he's he's working

with a foreign family in a foreign city but he's at work nonetheless

and so the the first lesson to grasp is god is always at work even if we

can't see it i think that's an important thing to keep in mind isn't it

now here at church i'm sure for you guys there

are many things that happen in a repeated pattern over and over again

the same thing's happening again and again

every week you've got a church service like we're doing now

every week you've got connect groups you've got your

ladies prayer meetings fellowship teas now we would get together and have the

same chats with each other after church

but let's not be fooled or for a second lulled into thinking

that just because maybe it appears as if nothing

visibly remarkable is happening or just if even if it might appear that way

you know we perhaps haven't seen waves of conversions or us or a congregation

doubling in size overnight or just because it might appear that way

doesn't mean that god isn't at work because what we're seeing here is he

is at work even if i can't see it and and that is

because he often works in the ordinary things

of life i mean in this story he provides a handful of oil and a handful of flour

as a miracle but that mega miracle