Trust In The Lord To Provide

Sermon on 1 Kings 17:1–6

Text: Now Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe 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 except at my word.”
2 Then the word of the LORD came to Elijah: 3 “Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. 4 You will drink from the brook, and I have directed the ravens to supply you with food there.”
5 So he did what the LORD had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there. 6 The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.

What does the word “trust” mean? It means to rely on, to put your hope in something or someone. Since this is the case, when do you find it easiest to trust God? Isn’t it usually when everything is going well in our lives? Our jobs are going well. Our health is good. The family is doing fine. It seems as though it is the easiest to trust God when the sun is shining. But what happens when your life is suddenly overshadowed by dark days? Do you find that it is easy to trust God? As we study our text, we are encouraged to TRUST IN THE LORD TO PROVIDE. The reasons for this are 1. All Creation Serves God’s Purpose and that 2. All Creation Serves God’s People.

In the opening verses of 1 Kings 17, we are introduced to a great prophet in the Bible. Elijah is from Gilead, a town east of the Jordan River. As a prophet of God, he was to proclaim the message that God gave him. His message wasn’t one that was meant to make people feel good about themselves. It was one of law, a message designed to make his hearer repent of sin. He said to King Ahab, “As the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.” (Verse 1)

To help us understand why tis stern message was necessary, we need to see the conditions of the land of Israel. We see how King Ahab is spoken of in 1 King 16:30-33: “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.” What a description! He not only worshiped the false gods of Baal and Asherah. He also set up and promoted the worship of these false gods in Israel. As a result, many of the Israelites began to worship Baal and Asherah, as well.

As a result, God sent Elijah with the message, “As the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.” (Verse 1) God announced, through Elijah, that there would be absolutely no moisture from the sky, until the Lord said so. It’s interesting that God spoke this particular judgment on the people. Baal was the god of storms, of rain. Asherah was the goddess of fertility. If there was no rain, no crops would grow. By means of this drought, which lasted for three and a half years, God announced his superiority. He was saying, ‘Those gods that you trusted in will prove there true worth when I withhold rain from you.’ God used creation to serve his purpose to call the people to repentance from their misplaced trust.

How many times have we also placed our trust in the wrong things? When we look at the things we own, do we think to ourselves, “Look at what I have accomplished. Look at what I have earned,” without remembering that God is the one who gives us the ability to work and obtain these things? If we get sick, do we find ourselves trusting in the doctor or the medicine that we take, forgetting that God is the one who has given the doctors their abilities and that it is God who works through those medicines and treatments to cure us? Can we always say that we have always trusted in God above all things? The truth is that we have not done so. Do we ever find ourselves worrying? We look at a particular situation, and it appears hopeless. We try this and we try that, but there seems to be no hope. When we worry, we are calling God a liar, because he promised that he would take care of all our needs. For our misplaced trust and our worrying, we deserve to be punished by God, for these are sins.

It is here that we are reminded of God’s greatest promise, and that was to send a Savior. He fulfilled that promise in Jesus Christ. As you consider his life, you see that he had complete trust in his Father. His goal in life wasn’t to make sure that he had a great mansion and ate the finest meals. He trusted that his Father would provide for him. He trusted that his Father’s path for his life was what needed to happen, even though it would mean going to a cross, where he would suffer and die. He knew that this plan was the only way to restore his relationship with people. His death on the cross has paid for the sins of all. His resurrection assures us that all has been completed for our salvation. Since Jesus has done this, through faith, we become the dearly loved children of God, who can have complete trust that God will provide what we need for this life, as well. As Paul put it so eloquently in Romans 8:32, “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all — how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” You can trust that the Lord will provide as all creation serves his purpose.

This drought that Elijah spoke of would not only affect King Ahab. All Israel would be affected by it, including Elijah himself. However, we see that the Lord took care of his prophet. God told Elijah, “Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. You will drink from the brook, and I have directed the ravens to supply you with food there.” (Verses 3&4) Elijah was to leave the land of Israel and go to a place where God would provide for him. Elijah’s trust was not misplaced. “He went to the Kerith 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.” (Verses 5-6)

We see that God used his creation to take care of Elijah. Because there was no rain in the land, God directed him to a brook. He used very natural means to provide. God does the same for us, as well. God causes the rain to fall and the sun to shine to give us food to eat, clothing to wear, a place to call home. As I mentioned earlier, he gives us the strength and the ability to work to obtain the things that we need. Dr. Martin Luther summarizes for us God’s provision for our lives: “I believe that God still preserves me by richly and daily providing clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home, spouse and children, land, cattle, and all I own, and all I need to keep my body and life. God also preserves me by defending me against all danger, guarding and protecting me from all evil.” Through the creation that God has made, he provides for his people.

There was also supernatural provision that God made for Elijah. It says, “The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening.” (Verse 6) What makes this a miracle from God is the fact that ravens, by nature, are scavengers. They are more likely to hide food and steal from others. Here we find them bringing meat and bread to Elijah twice a day! This truly came from the hand of God. In the same way, if God should so choose, he can continue to work supernaturally in our lives. There have been many times when the doctor said that there was no hope, but the patient survived. There are times when, humanly speaking, someone should have died in an accident, but they survived. It may have happened in your life that you weren’t sure how you were going to afford to go on, but an unexpected gift is given to you. Some people might downplay those situations and call it luck. We know that our God is almighty and can do all things. If it is his will, he can continue to work miracles in our lives.

I would like to note a couple of things regarding the ravens feeding of Elijah. They didn’t bring him a filet mignon and some cake. They brought meat and bread, the things that he needed to survive. So also, God promises to provide for our needs, not necessarily all our wants. Yet even here we see the love of our God in our lives. How many of us are just barely scraping by? Hasn’t God given us so much more than just what we need to survive? This is just another example of God’s love for us. We also note that the ravens didn’t bring in a week’s worth of provisions. They brough Elijah what he needed for that day. In this way, God was teaching Elijah to trust that God would provide what Elijah needed for that day. He wasn’t to concern himself with the next day’s food. The God who provided food for Elijah that day would also provide for him the next day, as well. This is the trust that we can have, as well. We have the assurance that God will take care of us every day. This is, essentially, what we are praying for in the Fourth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread.” We can rightly have this trust that the Lord will provide as he uses his creation for our good.

As time went on, Elijah watched as the brook, that was his only source of water, became a trickle and then completely dried up. If you were in Elijah’s shoes, what thoughts might have been running through your head? Yet, he didn’t panic. He had learned that the Lord would provide for him. The Lord would send him to a widow in Zarephath, who would provide for him. We can have that same confidence, if it should be that a blessing in our life becomes a little trickle or even dries up. It might be that the job, that was going so well, ends. It may be that the good health that we have enjoyed for years fails. Those sun shining days become overshadowed by dark clouds. Yet, because our Lord has blessed us over the years, and we have seen it, and because our Lord has promised to take care of all our needs, we don’t need to worry. We can continue to trust that the Lord will provide for us. He will use his creation for his purpose to shape our lives. He will use his creation to provide for his people. Indeed, we can have the confidence that David expressed in Psalm 145:15-16, “The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food at the proper time. You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing.” Amen.