Reading:
1 Kings 17:1–7.
“And
Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of
Gilead, said unto Ahab, “As the Lord God of Israel
liveth, before Whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor
rain these years, but according to my word.” And
the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, “Get
thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by
the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. And it shall
be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have
commanded the ravens to feed thee there.” So he
went and did according unto the word of the Lord: for he
went and dwelt by the brook Cherith, that is before
Jordan. And the ravens brought him bread and flesh
in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and
he drank of the brook. And it came to pass after a
while, that the brook dried up, because there had been no
rain in the land.”
In
this passage we meet the Prophet Elijah for the first
time. We do not know very much about him. We
are simply told that he was from among the inhabitants of
Tishbeh in Gilead, and that is no
recommendation. If only he had come from Jerusalem
or from one of the major Judean towns, for what of
significance could possibly come out of Tishbeh!
But
see, the very first thing he says shows a man in touch
with God. “As the Lord God of Israel liveth,
before Whom I stand....”
Elijah,
a man who stands before God: that is the turning point of
a sad story. In a few words, let us just look
briefly at the situation.
The
people had fallen away from God. Ahab had done more
than all the kings before him to provoke the
Lord. His wife, Jezebel, had introduced the worship
of Baal. There were relatively few who remained true
to God. Therefore, the ministry of someone like
Elijah was in the first place to bring the testimony of
the Lord once more in the midst of His people. This
meant a fight, a fight involving people, a fight with the
powers of darkness. Elijah stood against a flood of
those who had fallen away from God. This is the
reason that the first word we hear from him is of such
significance. What he does he can only do because he
does it for God. And because he does it for God, he
must do it, cost what it may.
Is
it necessary to point out that the times in which we live
are very similar to those of that time? Therefore in
these days the Lord needs an instrument to once again
raise up a testimony to His life. We face a spiritual
famine. Even if there is a lot of religiosity,
spiritual life can hardly be found. The greater will be
the falling away from God.
The
Lord is looking for a testimony. He is looking for a
prophetic ministry. The Lord is looking for a ministry
that is in touch with heaven, a ministry that is more
than preaching, that is a testimony in the power of the
Holy Spirit of the new life that God has given us in
Christ.
Anyone
recognizing a call to such a ministry dares not avoid the
fight. Anyone who bears testimony cannot allow him
or herself to be frightened by the powers of darkness.
There are those who understand this, those who for the
Lord’s sake have found themselves in a fight that is
far too big for them to tackle in their own
strength. Nevertheless, they stand. They do not
just stand; they triumph. They know that they are
unconquerable because the Lord is with them. The
battle is the Lord’s.
According
to the word of Elijah, and this demonstrates his attitude
towards God, we would expect anything else but the
instruction: “Get thee hence, and turn thee
eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith.” How
is it that a man who stands before God should hide
himself away? Is that not a contradiction? And
then, “I have commanded the ravens to feed thee
there... and he drank of the brook.”
Let
us say the following. Should we wish to represent
anything for God, then for the sake of the people and
with the people of God we must suffer, so that the
purposes of God can be carried out.
We
see this also with Paul. He was a personal
embodiment of all that the church means in the present
dispensation. For this reason he goes through a
lifelong experience in order to be a representation of
all that the church should be in this time. In his
last letter, he writes: “All they which are in
Asia be turned away from me” (2 Tim. 1:15). He
saw the breaking up of the church on earth. Without
the heavenly vision, he would have to say: Everything is
falling apart. Everything that I have fought for all
my life is collapsing. But instead, he
rejoices. He had seen that the church is not
earthly, but heavenly; and that she exists in an
indestructible unity in Christ and holds together in Him.
Paul went through more suffering than anyone
else. That is why he lives today more than ever
before.
In
the end, God lets Elijah know that He still has seven
thousand, who had not bowed the knee to Baal (1 Kings
19:18). Elijah believed he was alone. The seven
thousand were a remnant. They were a testimony of
faithfulness in a day of declension. But God’s
purpose was not just to rescue His testimony. He
wanted to bring it to a yet greater fulness. For
this reason Elijah had to go through all this suffering—the
same for Paul.
It
was a time of famine. Elijah suffered along with the
rest, and this has always been the case. Whenever
God takes up an instrument for a particular purpose, He
lets them live through that which is to be the experience
of others. God brings His vessel through all the
sufferings that are necessary for bringing His purpose
about in others. God has never done anything on this
earth without first having realized it in a particular
instrument.
The
prophets are called ‘signs’. We
even read of Jesus that He was set as a sign, that is, He
must Himself go through all the experiences that are
necessary for the purposes of God in connection with Him
that are to be realized. With God, no theory is
valid. God is reality. And those experiences
are reality that God trusts to those whom He sends
through particular depths in preparation for a particular
ministry.
“As
the Lord liveth”. We can stand before the
Lord, and still be in battle. To stand before the
Lord does not mean to be saved from pain. Quite the
opposite.
Something
else. Ravens brought him bread and meat. And he
drank from the water in the brook. But after a
certain time the stream dried up. The Lord took care
that Elijah had something, but then He took it from him
again. What does that mean? God wants to bring
His servants to the point where they recognize that every
source of help for their lives comes from heaven. Do
not ravens themselves like to eat meat? We have to
say that it was supernatural for ravens of all birds to
have brought meat to Elijah. Every morning and
evening. God was behind it. He had sent the
ravens. They would not have come on their
own. For some time it continued. Elijah could
easily have taken it for granted. But then suddenly
it stopped. They stopped coming and the brook dried
up. What now?
God
said to him, “Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which
belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there: behold, I have
commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.” She
was certainly no wealthy widow. We know what he
found there. It had come to the point of baking the last
cake and then dying. And the Lord had asked this
woman to provide for him.
Let
us make sure we see the deeper sense that lies hidden in
this story.
When
the Lord is in the process of restoring His testimony and
forming His instrument as the restoration of His
testimony demands, then on the one hand, He takes over
the complete responsibility for His maintenance; on the
other hand, He teaches His instrument not to look for his
maintenance in earthly things, but only from God.
For
a spiritual testimony, there can be no natural
resources. That is the reason why we see Elijah is,
right from the start, totally dependent upon God.
In
James 5:17 we find a mention of Elijah. “Elijah
was a man of like passions with us, and he prayed
fervently that it might not rain; and it rained not on
the earth for three years and six months. And he
prayed again; and the heaven gave rain....”
Elijah
knew how to pray. Elijah had learned the secret of
prayer. This inner fellowship with God gave him
power so that he could step forward and say: “As
the Lord God of Israel liveth, before Whom I stand....”
Have
we ever tried to encapsulate the meaning of prayer in one
word? It is ‘dependency’!
Anyone
who has recognized his dependency upon God will
pray. Whoever does not pray, does not recognize how
dependent he is upon God. Our effectiveness for God
depends upon the amount of our dependence upon God, and
our prayer life will be the measure of such dependence.
It
can be said of Elijah: the whole foundation of his life
and service lay in his dependence upon God. God kept
him in this attitude. It gave him security and
power.
We
can say much about Elijah. The Jews thought a lot of
him. When they saw Jesus performing tremendous
deeds, they thought Elijah had returned. Where was
the secret of his greatness to be found, the secret of
his powerful and victorious service? What lay behind
his destruction of heathen worship, so that the people
said again: “The Lord, He is the God!”? It
is the absolute dependence upon God. It is that
which we see at the brook Cherith, in the house of the
widow, and everywhere he went.
Now,
that is the starting point for all of God’s work in
us: nothing from the world, all from God! Before God
attempts to accomplish His great deeds through us, we
must be brought to this point. In himself, Elijah
was just as we are. But he was a powerful prophet,
because in and of himself he was nothing. And he was
nothing in and of himself because he was conscious of
being completely dependent upon God.
Many
think too highly of themselves. That makes them
unfruitful for God. It hinders their life of
prayer. The Lord must bring us low. Those whom
God uses most are they who trust Him alone, who are poor
in themselves, but consequently rich towards God; those
who are in themselves weak, but consequently are strong
in the Lord.
May
the Lord succeed in preparing instruments, willing for
such dependence, so that He is able to restore through
them the testimony of His life in a time when nothing is
more needful than precisely that: the testimony of His
life.