Grace Emmanuel Church
Pastor Sam Chess
Pretty Potent Prophet Principles 1
How many of you have heard of Elijah?? Most of you…
You know what's odd about that? Everything that Elijah did in
his life is written in just four chapters in the Bible in 1
Kings. The first two chapters of 2 Kings are devoted to his unusual
chariot ride into heaven instead of dying…
….But four chapters, in total, about his life achievements and
most of you could recite, at least, something that he accomplished in
life. That's why I'm calling him a Pretty Potent Prophet.
We are going to take three weeks and pull out some Pretty Potent
Prophet Principles that, I trust, will help to guide our lives.
Let me re/introduce you to him… He, like many of the Old Testament
prophets just shows up out of nowhere…well not actually nowhere..
1 Kings 17:1 Now Elijah, who was from Tishbe in Gilead…
Where’s Tishbe? What were the Tishbe-ites like? Who were Elijah’s
parents? What was his last name? Who knows…who knows…who
knows…respectively… yet this unknown prophet is somebody we feel like
we almost know. He’s in a very short list of those who left this
earth without dying…and Malachi, the last prophet in the Old
Testament, says that Elijah will be returning to this earth before
the big final prophetic end. Jewish people, still, leave an empty
seat for him at each Passover meal…
Which events in his life is he famous for beside his flaming
chariot ride to heaven?
1_________________________ Commanding it not to rain for three
years
2 _________________________ The barrel of cooking oil that
wouldn’t stop
3 _________________________ His face-off against the prophets of
Baal
1 Kings 17:1 Now Elijah, who was from Tishbe in Gilead, told King
Ahab, “As surely as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives—the God I
serve—there will be no dew or rain during the next few years until I
give the word!”
Ahab, as you remember was in the line of kings that followed David
and Solomon. Unlike them he was a bad king who led the people away
from God, back into idol worship. He had a famous wife/queen…who’s
name we all remember? ___________
Jezebel!
This declaration from Elijah wasn’t just something he said to a
friend at a picnic, that was passed on to Ahab. Elijah was an
unknown. He would have had to work through the process of getting an
audience with the Royals. He would have come into the court where
everyone was expected to bow and slobber out positive statements that
would stroke Ahab and Jezebel’s huge egos. That’s what every one else
did….even their advisors. Ahab consistently walked away from
everything God’s word had taught… and apparently no advisor or
spiritual leader bucked him.
I saw this week a letter written by the evangelical Christian
leaders of Germany in 1934.
“We are full of thanks to God that He, as Lord of history has
given us Adolf Hitler, our leader and savior from our difficult lot.
We acknowledge that we, with body and soul, are bound and dedicated
to the German state and to its Fuhrer. This bondage and duty contains
for us as evangelical Christians, its deepest and most holy
significance in it’s obedience to the command of God.
Those who stood up and declared Hitler to be headed down the wrong
path got the same reaction that Elijah got from Ahab….
“As surely as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives—the God I
serve—there will be no dew or rain during the next few years
until I give the word!”
Pretty Potent Prophet Principle # 1: God’s truth proclaimed in a
sinful world, to sinful people, is not usually accepted and
applauded..
Ahab and Jezebel were in shock… nobody talked to them this way.
Who was this guy…who did he think he was to walk into the kings court
and promote himself as the mouthpiece of God. And what kind of a
psycho thought that he could control the weather… and what kind of
arrogance to think that his word would control the normal cycle of
clouds and rain….
While they were still trying to get their minds around this
shocking message… Elijah slips out the back door and is gone… We know
from later scriptures that they searched everywhere for
him…particularly when weeks/ years went by without a drop of rain.
Only God knew where he was and God wasn’t telling: If no rain was
coming without a word from Elijah’s mouth and Elijah, along with his
mouth, had disappeared… then Ahab was going to be up a creek…a
waterless creek.
2 Then the Lord said to Elijah, 3 “Go to the east and hide by
Kerith Brook, near where it enters the Jordan River. 4 Drink from the
brook and eat what the ravens bring you, for I have commanded them to
bring you food.”
5 So Elijah did as the Lord told him and camped beside Kerith
Brook, east of the Jordan. 6 The ravens brought him bread and meat
each morning and evening, and he drank from the brook. 7 But after a
while the brook dried up, for there was no rainfall anywhere in the
land.
Here we get a peak beyond the normal laws of nature in our world….
God communicating with birds; who then faithfully carry out His
bidding twice a day bringing “bread and meat”. Maybe they were
cleaning out the local butcher and baker…maybe they were bringing
their favorite bread and meat dishes… which might have been
harder to stomach… Either way; this is the beginning of God’s
miracles in and through Elijah that become a symbol of his life…. And
a lesson in God’s provision…
Pretty Potent Prophet Principle # 2: God has a purpose for your
life! In his providence (pro-video) He will make sure you are cared
for until his purpose for you in this life is played out.
Elijah becomes a victim of his own prophesy…when the lack of rain
dries up his watering hole. Elijah's not dumb … He can put a stick in
the water every few days and figure out about how many more days of
water he has left. Remember this is Elijah…who spends his lifetime
expecting God to do, huge, miraculous things yet we also know from
later verses that Elijah had the ability to go into a worry funk.
Clearly, now, to us looking back…. The drying brook was all in
God’s perfect timing and He had another task for Elijah to
accomplish…
8 Then the Lord said to Elijah, 9 “Go and live in the village of
Zarephath, near the city of Sidon. I have instructed a widow there to
feed you.”
Mind you… the widow wasn’t in on the instruction quite yet… God is
setting her up for a great life, defining, miracle…but all she could
see, at the time, was the national famine caused by the lack of rain…
the price of everything was skyrocketing….and nobody was affected
more than the widow mothers who had no significant source of income.
She was literally out of money…out of food… and had no open source to
get any more.
There was no welfare… the government had nothing either…Let me
show you an example, not from this famine, but from the next famine
that would strike Israel.
2 Kings:6;24 Some time later, however, King Ben-hadad of Aram
mustered his entire army and besieged Samaria. 25 As a result, there
was a great famine in the city. The siege lasted so long that a
donkey’s head sold for eighty pieces of silver, and a cup of dove’s
dung sold for five pieces of silver.
Ye old…supply and demand… In this situation supply was gone, those
who had money paid high prices and lived… those who did not have
money… starved and died.
10 So (Elijah) went to Zarephath. As he arrived at the gates of
the village, he saw a widow gathering sticks, and he asked her,
“Would you please bring me a little water in a cup?” 11 As she was
going to get it, he called to her, “Bring me a bite of bread, too.”
12 But she said, “I swear by the Lord your God that I don’t have a
single piece of bread in the house. And I have only a handful of
flour left in the jar and a little cooking oil in the bottom of the
jug. I was just gathering a few sticks to cook this last meal, and
then my son and I will die.”
I’m sure brook-dwelling, raven fed, Elijah wasn’t the most
presentable figure. He probably scared the woman out of what little
life she thought she had left. I doubt she had any idea that he was
the prophet who had stopped the rain. She was obviously afraid or
Elijah’s next words to her wouldn’t have been “Don’t be afraid”…
13 But Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid! Go ahead and do just
what you’ve said, but make a little bread for me first. Then use
what’s left to prepare a meal for yourself and your son.
Who did this guy think he was…Obviously if there is not enough for
two there will be less than enough for three… And he’s asking that he
be served first…which was kind of tied to the whole acceptable social
order of that day. (Guests first…men first…)
But the next words out of the dirty, unshaved, man’s hidden mouth
made the woman know that there might be more to this man than meets
the eye.
It occurred to me, Friday, that Elijah's whole ministry was about
God doing something with emptiness. Empty, rainless skies, empty
brook, now an empty flour and oil bin. It's not hard to see a
principle in this:
Pretty Potent Prophet Principle # 3: It's when we reach the
"empty" times in our lives that God is often ready to re-fill and
change the course of our lives.
Some of you are never letting your gas tanks get below ½ because
you can't stand the pain of watching it fill from the bottom. I
wished I could tell you that that God uses that technique.. and never
lets our bins hit empty before he refills… but that is not the
example of Scripture.
Elijah says to the soon to starve widow…
14 For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: There will
always be flour and olive oil left in your containers until the time
when the Lord sends rain and the crops grow again!”
Man, what a promise! She now suspects that this man might be a
prophet. They were not uncommon in her day. But as you might suspect,
history tells us that there were a lot of fakers/pretenders in Bible
times, just like there are today.
15 So she did as Elijah said….
The first dip must have been hard… scraping the bottom of the
barrel for the last molecule of flour and tipping out the last drop
of oil. She was surprised that she managed to make as large a serving
for all three of them as she did…
The next mealtime came and she managed to scrape enough off the
barrel and squeeze out enough oil for yet another surprising meal.
Does Scripture indicate that she ever came to the barrel and found it
overflowing with heaps of flour? No!
15 So she did as Elijah said, and she and Elijah and her son
continued to eat for many days. 16 There was always enough flour and
olive oil left in the containers, just as the Lord had promised
through Elijah.
Again... it's the example of what God can do with emptiness. God
thrives on filling up empty things. Most all of the people God uses
in the Bible are people who either were empty to start with or went
through a time of emptying…before God could use them.
Pretty Potent Prophet Principle # 4: God doesn't use vessels
that are already full of them-selves or full of something else. God
tends to fill, use, and re-use "empty" vessels.
That's why God has to go through the process, in many/all of us,
of emptying us of our selfishness and self-centeredness. God will not
use a vessel that is filled with anything other than his presence and
power. In the New Testament…
Ephesians 5:18 Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin
your life. Instead, be (being) filled with the Holy Spirit. (NLT)
Even in the New Testament filling of the Spirit, the Bible teaches
a "flow through" like the widows keg of oil…As the Spirit flow in
you, and through you… there will always be enough more to get you to
the purposes for which God designed you.
You that take class 301, today, and discover what your spiritual
gifts are…. are not figuring out what giftedness you have to give
God. You're figuring out what gifts God's has given you… that as you
use them to help others…God will, then, put more power into your
empty barrel.
There is one more strange twist of circumstances that comes into
Elijah's life right here:
17 Some time later the woman’s son became sick. He grew worse and
worse, and finally he died. 18 Then she said to Elijah, “O man of
God, what have you done to me? Have you come here to point out my
sins and kill my son?”
The word over-reaction might come to mind… After all, dear lady,
without the help of this man and his God your son, and you, would
already be dead. However…she is a woman in grief.
God's who ministry through Elijah, so far, is to show His power
through emptiness.
Empty sky,
Empty brook,
Empty bin of flour and oil,
and now a body empty of life
19 But Elijah replied, “Give me your son.”
Do you think for a minute that Elijah was focused on his power to
make the dead rise or had he by this time become so convinced of what
God could do through an empty vessel… that he just made himself,
another empty vessel, available for God to flow through?_____________
19 But Elijah replied, “Give me your son.” And he took the child’s
body from her arms, carried him up the stairs to the room where he
was staying, and laid the body on his bed.
When Elijah gets alone with God we see the all out dependence he
has on God to do anything through him at all…
20 Then Elijah cried out to the Lord, “O Lord my God, why have you
brought tragedy to this widow who has opened her home to me, causing
her son to die?”
Elijah…Have I shown you anything empty yet…that I did not intend
to fill and work my power through???
…No! Then why are you doubting me? Allow me to fill what is
empty!!!
But, but God…this is a dead human body!!! I know!
21 And he stretched himself out over the child three times and
cried out to the Lord, “O Lord my God, please let this child’s life
return to him.” 22 The Lord heard Elijah’s prayer, and the life of
the child returned, and he revived!
Pretty Potent Prophet Principle # 5: There is nothing God is
not prepared to do…to fill up the empty areas in our lives. In order
for the inflow to start we have to be willing to present God the
emptiness of the vessel.
