Rev. David Holwick
First Baptist Church
West Lafayette, Ohio
September 23, 1984
Elijah and the Drought
1 Kings 17:1-7; James 5:17-18, KJV
Elijah is one of the more interesting characters in the Bible. He single-handedly opposed great forces of evil. He performed miracles, even raising a young boy from the dead. Elijah never died but was taken straight up to heaven in a whirlwind. A thousand years later he appeared with Jesus on a mountain. I sort of view him as a cross between Superman and the Ayatollah Khomeini.
Elijah was unusual in his devotion to God but he wasn't otherworldly. In the book of James we read:
"Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are." Or as the NIV puts it: "He was a man just like us."
Elijah had emotions, problems and suffering. He saw the same ups and downs in his life that all of us face. Like us, Elijah lived in a very pivotal period. The nation of Israel had already been split in half, just like the United States during the Civil War. The southern part of Israel, known as Judah, continued to have David's descendants for kings. The king of the Northern part, known as Israel or Samaria, was whoever could seize the throne. Every few years they would have a revolution and a new king would take over.
At this time the king of the North was called Ahab and he was extremely powerful. His army was better than any in the region. It was also a very prosperous time. Through military strength and a politically motivated marriage, Ahab was at peace with most of his neighbors and traded freely with them. Ahab could afford fancy furniture that was inlaid with ivory. His capital city of Samaria was the best constructed of any that archaeologists have uncovered in Palestine. If you were rich and powerful, King Ahab's reign was a great time to be alive. The Bible itself only gives a few details - clay tablets and stone monuments found in other countries give further evidence.
The only area of weakness in Ahab's kingdom was religion. You see, in order to have peace on his northern border, Ahab had married Jezebel, whose father was the king of Lebanon. Jezebel worshipped Baal, the god of storms. She was a great evangelist. She brought four hundred and fifty priests of Baal into the country and tried to make it the official religion. Some Israelites converted, some did not. Many were like King Ahab and believed in both religions. Morality started to decline because people weren't quite sure what to believe anymore.
Elijah was one of the few who knew exactly what he believed. He grew up out in the boonies on the edge of the wilderness. His name means, "Jehovah (or Yahweh) is God". To Elijah, to say that Jehovah is God must also mean that Baal is not God. Toleration and compromise are great virtues when it comes to getting along with people but there are some things that cannot be compromised and salvation is one of them.
Turn in your Bibles to Deuteronomy 11:13-17. This passage was recorded by Moses five hundred years before Elijah's time. It reads:
"And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and all your soul, that I will give you the rain of your land in its due season, the first rain (Spring) and the latter rain (Autumn)...."
Go to verse 16:
"Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods and worship them. And then the Lord's wrath will be kindled against you, and he shut up the heaven, and there be no rain."
Elijah must have known this passage by heart. According to James 5:17, he earnestly prayed that God would live up to his promise and send a drought. That's a pretty drastic prayer. He didn't pray that God would make people suffer. He prayed that God would make them suffer so they would repent. There's a difference. The drought came and it was so severe that pagan sources mention it. To make sure the king didn't think the drought was a fluke, Elijah personally went to Ahab and told him to his face.
A few short phrases sum up Elijah's faith. "As the Lord God of Israel lives..." - Biblical faith is dynamic and active; God has not stopped working somewhere in the past but is alive now - "...before whom I stand." - This brings out the personal element. Elijah had a personal relationship with God and felt the Lord's presence in his life. This direct link with God comes in handy when you confront a king.
God's next message to Elijah was, "Get out of there!" Elijah took off to the wilderness and ended up by a little stream called Cherith. It was here that Elijah learned three lessons.
The first one was that God reveals his will for your life one step at a time. Most of us would prefer a computer printout with all the details but God doesn't do it that way. When God told Elijah to confront Ahab, he didn't give him more instructions till he obeyed the first step.
When the Apostle Paul was converted on the road to Damascus, he asked, "Lord, what do you want me to do?" God replied, "Go to Damascus and then I'll tell you what to do." Christians have an assurance that God is working in our lives but we shouldn't be so sure we know what will happen next. We like to think we can map things out. To paraphrase the book of James, we figure we'll marry so-and-so and then get a job here, buy a house there, then retire in South Carolina. Don't bet on it. Instead of worrying about the future, we should focus on the situation that God has brought us to right now. That's why Jesus taught us to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." God's work is done a step at a time.
The second lesson for Elijah concerned trusting God. God told him when he got to the Brook Cherith, ravens would provide his food. If he had gone anywhere else Elijah would have been on his own. Instead, he trusted God, obeyed the instructions and was taken care of. This raises a question with regard to us. Are we where God wants us to be? Or are the troubles we're facing the result of being out of the will of God?
Let's say a Christian let's sin get a toe-hold in their life. It starts to influence their decisions. Then their actions are affected. Before long their life is collapsing around them and they wonder why God has forgotten them. If you want God's help, you have to be where God wants you to be. Since Elijah was obedient, God gave him his daily bread in a rather spectacular fashion. Jesus taught the same principle. To those who worried about where the next meal was coming from he said:
"Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you."
Elijah learned how to live one step at a time. He learned to trust God and be where God wanted him. His third lesson showed him that faith is always tested.
Verse 7 says:
"And it came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land."
If you pray for a drought I suppose you would have to expect this sort of thing sooner or later. If I had been Elijah, I would have waited for the ravens to bring little buckets with their next food run - but they didn't.
The Bible doesn't say exactly why God allowed the stream to dry up. One reason may have been to teach Elijah not to trust in the gifts that God gives but to trust in God himself. If you focus on the blessings or the religious experiences you'll soon find yourself cut off from the source, which is God. Your relationship with him is the only thing that matters in the end.
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Typed on December 8, 2005, by Sharon Lesko of Ledgewood Baptist Church, New Jersey
Copyright © 2024 by Rev. David Holwick
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