Seeing God's Provision

Just because God is providing today doesn't mean you can't lose your job tomorrow.

Sometimes things dry up. Dr. Tony Evans says that can affect your situation, but not your security. Your job is not your source. Your bank is not your source. God must be your only source. This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. Cultural trends and events can cause a disruption in our lives that we may not be entirely comfortable with. In today's message from Dr. Evans' archives, he takes a look at the life of the prophet Elijah, revealing that there's plenty we can learn in times like these.

Let's turn to 1 Kings chapter 17 as he begins. Many of you will remember the story, the boy who loved to give his father expensive, unique gifts for his birthday. And on this particular year, he thought, well, my dad loves birds, so let me see if I can find a unique bird. So he went around and he discovered a very exotic bird that was extremely talented. This bird could speak five different languages. It's a talking bird.

It could do acrobatics on one leg while singing the yellow rose of Texas. This bird was a beast. So he packaged the bird up and had it sent to his father, who lived in another city, and excitedly he wanted to call dad to see what he thought about this unique, exciting, exotic gift. Dad, how did you like my gift? His dad said it was delicious. Dad missed the point.

Something that was to be a long-term benefit, he limited for a short-term gain. We are looking at the life of Elijah to discover the supernatural, and today we're going to be introduced to him and learn about a lesson about God's supernatural provision. He appears in 1 Kings chapter 17. We're told in verse 1, Now Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the settlers of Gilead, Tishbe, or if you were from there you'd be called a Tishbite, was the place Elijah was from. Now we don't know a lot about Elijah.

He just kind of breaks in on the scene and he comes like out of nowhere. His name means Yahweh is my God. That tells us a little bit about his mother and father who named him.

They were obviously people of faith that they would name him that way. Prophets, as Elijah was, showed up because there was a spiritual issue among God's people that needed to be addressed. Prophets were there to bring God's message in the midst, typically, of spiritual decline. Well, the scenario that brings Elijah on the scene is summarized for us in chapter 16, verses 32 and 33. So he erected an altar, that is, King Ahab, erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he built in Samaria. Ahab also made the Asherah. This Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel than all the kings of Israel who were before him. So the context that brings Elijah on the scene is idolatry. Ahab the king has begun worshiping Baal and he brings the rest of Israel to worship Baal with him.

He not only worships Baal, he worships Baal's girlfriend, Asherah, because Baal and Asherah, kind of like boyfriend and girlfriend, work together to bring fertility to Israel. They look to this idol to bring fertility to Israel. Let me define an idol, again, so that you understand its meaning. An idol is an unauthorized noun, person, place, or thing, that you look to to meet the needs in your life. You're looking to it. Idols weren't just something that was there.

It was you looking to that something that was there to do something for you. So in places around the world, people will worship the sun and the moon and the stars and the water and the trees, but they're not just worshiping that, they're worshiping that. They're doing that because they're hoping their worship of that thing brings something to them. Now, you and I over here, we don't worship those kind of idols. We worship American idols. We worship people in popularity and power and prestige and possessions because we look to it to meet a need. When you look to an unauthorized noun or when you look to an authorized noun in an unauthorized way, you have an idol.

You don't need a tree. They could be an actor, an actress, an entertainer. It could be your bank account. It could be your house.

It could be the people living in your house. When you look to them in an unprescribed way from God, you just created an idol. So before we go any further, are there any idolaters in the house? It says that idolatry ticked God off. It said it provoked him. It irritated him.

It upset him that they looked to these unauthorized things to meet their needs. So he calls on Elijah and he tells Elijah, I want you to go and speak to the king and to the nation. So Elijah comes in verse one and he says to Ahab the king, as the Lord the God of Israel lives before whom I stand, surely there shall be neither dew nor rain these years except by my word. Ahab, God told me to tell you heaven's going to close. No dew, no rain, and it's not going to be for a day, a month, or a year. It's going to be for years.

There's going to be a downturn in the agricultural economy. Okay, who's your daddy now? Who's your God now? Let's see what Baal can do now.

Let's see what Asherah can do now. God attacks Israel at the place of their idolatry because they were looking for Baal and Asherah to bring about fertility even in the land. God says, I'm going to attack your idol and I'm going to attack your looking at them to take care of you.

Because when I shut heaven down, I don't care how much you pray to Baal and Asherah. They're not going to be able to grow your crops, give you your food. You see, in an agricultural environment, if there is no rain, there is no growth. If there is no growth, there is no food. If there is no food, you're going to be hungry.

So you best be looking at the right source. So to let you know who the real God is and who the God is that you should be worshipping, I'm going to no longer provide because rain and dew made the provisions in an agricultural environment. So he makes this prediction.

So before we go on, let's get this straight. The idols in your life will be attacked by God so that whatever you are worshipping, because it's unauthorized or it's authorized and you're worshipping it in an unauthorized way, don't be surprised when God shuts it down to let you know that is an idol. So he removes the provision. Now the word of the Lord comes to Elijah in verse 2 saying, Go away from here and turn eastward and hide yourself at the Brook of Cherith, which is in the east of Jordan. It shall be that you will drink of the brook and I have commanded the ravens to provide for you there. That's not the word provide. He says, go to Cherith.

Let me tell you, the Hebrew word for Cherith means to cut off or cut away. So he says, I want you to leave the crowd, cut away from the masses, cut away from where everybody else is, and I want you to go to this private, secluded, solitude location and I'm going to take care of you there. So watch this. There's going to be a downturn in the economy, but I got you. I know the job situation looks bad, but I got you.

I know that the economics are not in favor of the nation, but Elijah, I got you. But in order for me to have you, you got to go to the place that I tell you to go. And that means you're going to have to be cut off from the environment you're used to being in. So Elijah, go over here and I'm going to take care of you and I'm going to take care of you in two ways. I'm going to, first of all, take care of you naturally, because there's going to be at Cherith a brook of water that's going to stream down and you're going to go down and you're going to cup that water. You're going to put that water in your mouth and you're going to drink fresh water in a dry season from a private source that only you know about because I'm only sending you there as I break you away from the crowd.

So I'm going to use the natural provision of a brook. But I'm going to provide for you another way, supernaturally, because I'm going to call on the Raven Catering Service to supply you food morning and evening. They're going to give you bread and meat. That's called a sandwich. They're going to give you bread and meat morning and evening. Now, that ain't normal. A brook that you can drink from, that's normal. But having birds fly in with a sandwich twice a day, having waiters fly in on schedule every day in a dry, that ain't normal.

Oh, but it's worse than that. You see, in Deuteronomy chapter 14, verses 11 to 14, God tells his people, don't mess with ravens, they are unclean birds. Deuteronomy 14, 11 to 14, ravens are unclean.

You may not eat them. You don't mess with them because they're unclean. But we got God calling on unclean birds to twiddle dee dee dee, fly in, to bring in bread and meat twice a day, but they're unclean birds that Elijah and the rest of Israel were prohibited from dealing with. Well, what does that tell you about God's provision? That ought to tell you that God can use hell to bring heaven to you.

See, you never want to box God in because while God does not sin and God does not tell you to sin, he often uses sin and uses sinful people to provide for his people. We'll return with more examples of how God uses bad to do good in just a moment. First, though, what you're hearing today is the first installment in Dr. Evans' ageless teaching series, simply called Elijah. There weren't many biblical characters more deeply connected with God than this powerful prophet.

But that didn't stop him from struggling with discouragement and depression or facing obstacles and opposition when the deck was stacked against him. If you can identify with some of those problems, you'll benefit from the answers you'll find in this six-part sermon collection. We want to help you learn how to apply these life-changing principles, so we're offering the Elijah series on either CDs or instantly downloadable MP3s as our gift to anyone who will come alongside our ministry with a contribution. We depend completely on your generosity to keep this program on the air, so this is one way we can support you as you support us. Get all the details and make your request online at toneyevans.org or give us a call at 1-800-800-3222, where resource team members are standing by day and night to help you. That's 1-800-800-3222.

Right now, let's get back to our message. All throughout the Bible, God will use a pharaoh to get his people the way he wants them to be. God used Satan, tempting Judas, to get Jesus to the cross so he could die for our sins. All through the Bible, you will find God not sinning, telling you not to sin, yet using evil to fulfill his purposes. So God can use an evil employer to put you in the place he wants you to be.

He can use an evil corporation to get you where he wants you to be. So the beautiful thing about God's provision is that you never want to box him in, and you don't want to be so spiritual that you miss him using ravens to address the need in your life. Those are unclean birds. They were prohibited birds.

But God is so God that even the devil has to be under his rule. He says, I want you to go to the brook because I got some birds that got your back. I got some birds that are going to cover you at this place called Cherith.

Now, this ought to free you up a little bit because that means the sky's the limit, the world's the limit. Now, who could have predicted, how could Elijah think that God was going to meet his need this weird way? But he was only going to do it at Cherith, which means if you're out of the will of God, you miss the ravens.

He had to go to Cherith first because that's where the catering service was located. Don't miss God's will because you're out of God's will because he has separated you in a place you don't want to be, you'd rather not be, it's isolated. No, if he's got you in that isolated place, that's because that's where his provision is going to be located for your current situation. In order to have a supernatural raven feeding you and to have birds listening to God to feed you, that means that God must be your only source. Your job is not your source. Your bank is not your source. Your employer is not your source. God is your only source. Everything else is a resource, a mechanism that God uses, and you must free him up to use whatever resource he wants to use, even if it comes from something you wouldn't normally understand it coming from. So he's there at Cherith eating two meals a day, drinking some fresh water.

I mean, he's doing okay in a bad situation. Ah, but now we come to verse 7. It happened after a while that the brook dried up because there was no rain in the land. Things went dry on him.

Just because God is providing today doesn't mean you can't lose your job tomorrow. Sometimes things dry up. Economics dry up. Income dries up.

The Dow goes down. I mean, he said things went dry on him. But wait a minute. Why did they go dry? Because it wasn't raining. But why wasn't it raining? Because he told Ahab that it's not going to rain for three and a half years. So the only reason it's not raining is because he had a word from God, but now what's happening in society is affecting him. Because the brook dried up because there is no rain, and there is no rain because there was judgment on the land, and he's the one who pronounced the judgment. So now he becomes a recipient of the very judgment everybody else is experiencing.

When he first gave it, God provided supernaturally. But now the economy is affecting him. The circumstances in the land are affecting him.

The downturn is affecting him. And things dry up. So don't have anybody tell you, serve the Lord and things don't get dry. Serve the Lord and you don't lose your job. Serve the Lord and your bank account doesn't get drained. Serve the Lord and things don't break down and dip into the savings that you didn't plan to use for that. Don't let anybody tell you that if you're in God's will, he was in God's will, that things don't still dry up.

See, the brook dried up because there was judgment on the land, and he lived in the atmosphere of the judgment, so he was affected too. Some of you have been laid off because the company cut back, and you thought, well, I belong to Jesus. I ain't gonna get laid off, and you got laid off.

You got a pink slip like everybody else. You went through the same thing that the non-believers went through, the people who don't pray, the people who don't go to church. You went through the same thing because things dried up. See, dried up. Verse 8, the word of the Lord came to him and told him where to go for the catering service, the Raven catering service.

So he's eating sandwiches every day, twice a day. He's drinking his water. All of a sudden, what's happening in society is now affecting him, and now the word of the Lord comes to him again.

Okay, let me explain something. When God allows things to dry up in your life, it is because he's moving you to a different provider. When God allows things to dry up in your life, it is because he has a different plan, and because your job is not your source, your boss is not your source, when they let you go, you go back to your source and let your source tell you where to go next because he's taking you to a different place because he lets where you are dry up, so he lets it dry up even though it's in a context of everybody drying up because he has another place to provide.

Don't get all shook up when it's dried up. All God is doing is moving you up to another location. Oh, but you got to be close enough to him to hear the word. Said he heard the word again, see, because he was in God's will in a dried up situation. So God says to him, go to Zarephath. Arise, verse 9, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and stay there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you. So wait a minute now, you want me to go to this secular environment, work for these secular people who don't, that's where you want me to go? Yeah, Elijah, I want you to go there because there I got a widow, and she's going to be your new provider.

Okay, I got a problem with that too. She more broke than me, okay? I mean, she has nothing to offer me. Widows were the poorest people in the land, so how you going to lead me to somebody less than me that doesn't have what I have to help me? God will often test your faith by sending you places you don't prefer to go, because it doesn't make sense. How's a widow who's down her last meal, as you're going to see, going to help me? She can't help herself. But God said, I commanded the widow, and she's going to be your new provider.

Hmm. So he arose, because Elijah's a man of faith, so he's not going to just listen to God to say amen. He got up. He arose and went to Zarephath, and when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a woman was there gathering sticks, and he called out to her and said, please get me a little water in a jar that I may drink. And she was going to get it.

He called and said, please bring me a piece of bread in your hand. But she said, as the Lord your God lives, I have no bread, only a handful of flour in the bowl and a little oil in the jar, and behold, I'm gathering a few sticks that I may go in and prepare for me and my son, that we may eat it and die. This woman is down to her last meal. So this woman needs a miracle too, because she's planning on dying.

This was our last meal. So what he's got to do is get her to move in faith. He was challenging her to faith because all he had was a promise from a preacher, but his job was to get her to act in faith for her because she was going to be the beneficiary of her faith.

He was going to be too because she was going to make a bread cake for him. Until you move in faith, you will not see the supernatural open up. This woman had every reason not to believe because she's down to her last meal. But because the Word of God through the prophet of God was delivered to her, she now has the choice.

Do I settle for my last meal, or do I believe the Word of God? Well, as I mentioned earlier, you can receive all the full-length lessons from this six-part sermon series on Elijah on either CD or downloadable MP3s as our thank you gift when you make a contribution to help keep this teaching coming to this station. Just visit tonyevans.org to make the arrangements. Details are right on the home page. Again, that's tonyevans.org. Or reach out to our resource center by calling 1-800-800-3222, where team members are available 24 hours a day to help you. That's 1-800-800-3222. Just when it feels like God is about to sweep in and deliver you from your difficult circumstances, sometimes that's when things go from bad to worse. But that's not the end of the story, and tomorrow we'll hear a message Dr. Evans delivered that'll help us see the possibilities we may have been missing. I hope you'll join us. ¦