Sometimes, God asks you to step out in faith to accomplish His will in amazing and different ways, like He did with Elijah. When you think about Elijah going to Zarephath, I have to think that it, at least at the time, must have felt that God was playing a practical joke on Elijah.
He really is. Irrational city, the center of Baal worship, whom He is to eradicate from Israel. But what does not make sense to you, what does not make sense to me, makes perfect sense to God. Thank you for joining Dr. Michael Yusef for Leading the Way. Do you ever feel like things around you are about to become completely unglued?
Maybe there are some rumors at work that are heading towards staff changes, and then add some family drama to that, especially as we get closer to Thanksgiving, and it's hard not to feel like things are really ready to unravel. Well, today, Dr. Yusef takes you deeper into the life of Elijah, specifically at a time when he felt like things in his life were falling apart. But God, as usual, revealed Himself as faithful. From a recent weekend teaching at the Billy Graham Training Center in North Carolina, here is Dr. Michael Yusef to begin today's Leading the Way. I want you to turn, if you haven't already, in your Bible, 1 Kings 17.
That's where you follow with me as we go along today. 1 Kings chapter 17. If you look at verse 7, it basically tells you that the brook dried. It dried up, and God now is putting His man through back-to-back tests. Don't you like it when the Lord does that?
Now, if you agree with me, then you're obviously not telling me the truth. I got news for you. I have been there one time when the Lord put me through tests back-to-back, and I didn't like it one bit, and I wondered what in the world was going on. You know, the times when you kind of, you think you're seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, and it turns out to be a train? That's really what Elijah was facing at this very point, and some of you probably have been there. Now, verses 8 and 9, God said to Elijah, He said, Elijah, arise and go to the village. Now, the brook dried up, okay? I mean, he's about to starve to death, but God said, no, no, no, get up.
Go to Zarephath near the city of Sidon, and there is a widow who will feed you. I don't know how Elijah reacted, and the Bible doesn't tell us, but you know, I just have a lot of fun speculating, and I make it very clear this is speculation, so you don't take it as authoritative word of God, but I just have a lot of fun wondering how he reacted, and I think of how I would have reacted. I think I would have reacted by saying, Lord, are you really sure about that?
I mean, did I really hear you right? After all, you understand, Lord, Zarephath had a reputation. Zarephath as a city, which was about 70 to 100 miles away, you have to literally cross the desert in order to get to it. You go through 70 miles of desert to get to Zarephath. Not only that, Zarephath was in the land of the Phoenicians.
It's modern day Lebanon. Not only that, but Zarephath was a smelly, polluted place, because in fact, that's where the word Zarephath comes from, it means smelt, where they used to melt iron, and it has a reputation of a dreadfully smelly place. Zarephath is the center of Baal worship. God, I'm running away from Jezebel, you're hiding me away from Ahab, and from the worship of Baal that she brought to Israel, you're going to take me all the way to her hometown, Zarephath, the center of Baal worship. Why Zarephath, Lord? I mean, can't you find better cities?
Can't you see? I mean, I would have given the Lord all kinds of ideas. I would have tried to help him out. I would have given him just some cities that are far, far better than Zarephath.
Not only that, that region, actually you're going to find that Elijah was only seven miles away from Jezebel's daddy, where Jezebel's daddy was the king in that Phoenician land. What is God doing? God was preparing him for the greatest moment, not only in his life, but in biblical history. Now, of course, he did not know this at the time. See, we see this, and we look at history, and we see what God is doing, and we say, oh, isn't that great?
But no, no, no. Put yourself in Elijah's place. He had no idea that God was preparing him for the greatest moment in his own life and in biblical history. God was going to teach Elijah that little plus God equal much. God is going to teach Elijah that little plus God equal much.
Here's an important principle that I want to teach you from the Word of God, that I know the Lord had taught me through many experiences. God doesn't always ask you to go to places or land in circumstances that are logical. He really doesn't.
He doesn't often take you to places or put you in circumstances that feels, at least to you, to be rational, from your point of view, from my point of view. Zarephath was both illogical and irrational as far as Elijah was concerned. So let's look together at how God works.
First, I've got three things I want to share with you. Elijah was on Ahab's most wanted list. I mean, he was looking for him, and he's trying to find him. Ahab's men were looking for Elijah where? In all the logical and the rational places. Where's God hiding him? In the illogical and the irrational places. Ahab's men were looking for him in all the places that anybody would have thought Elijah would be. But of all places, he goes to Zarephath.
Right there, the city. Jezebel's daddy was the king. I mean, there is no way they would even logically say, I'm wondering whether he would be near Sidon where Jezebel's father is the king. And this is beloved God's way, God's sovereign way of taking what may be irrational and illogical to you and turn it to your blessing and to your good. And that's what he was doing here. And when I reflect on this, and I revere the Lord with all my heart, I fear the Lord in uttermost reverence and respect. But when you think about Elijah going to Zarephath, I have to think that it at least at the time must have felt that God was playing a practical joke on Elijah.
He really is. I mean, it's like a practical joke. God sending him to Jezebel's hometown, irrational city, the center of Baal worship, whom he is to eradicate from Israel. But what does not make sense to you? What does not make sense to me?
Makes perfect sense to God. Have you ever found yourself in a place where your life really doesn't make sense at all? And you say, how did I get here?
Why am I here? Have you ever sat down and said, God, I can go anywhere except Zarephath. God, I can put up with anything but not in Zarephath.
Then you find yourself ending up in Zarephath. It's not only that God sometimes takes you to what seems to be a rational and illogical as far as you're concerned. But also, there's a second thing here that I want you to notice. That God often works in more than one front at the same time. You see, most of us are able to work on one or two things. You know, have you heard the term multitasking? And even the best of us, maybe you can do two things, three things, four things. You might be brilliant and you can do even five things all at the same time.
But even at best, five things are not enough. God is working on so many fronts all at the same time. It could be hundred fronts or more. And he is working them out because he's God. And here's, it's exactly what he's doing here. He is working on many fronts all at the same time. Let's look at it.
Let's look at it. There's the obvious front of going from Cherith to Zarephath so that he wouldn't starve to death because the brook has dried up. But then, far from the obvious, God was working in Elijah's life in ways that Elijah never expected.
Let me give you some examples. First of all, God was allowing him to go through situations because God had this larger purpose in mind for Elijah that Elijah could not imagine at the time when he's going through them. I wonder if you've ever thought of this, that what is seemingly to be a logical and irrational trip became the first text of Jesus' first sermon.
Have you ever thought about this? If you try to connect the dots in the book of Luke, the gospel of Luke chapter 4, where Jesus goes into the temple and he preaches his first sermon and he picks up the book of the law and he reads from the Isaiah and then he puts it down. And then he began to preach. He's expounding on the passage. He's talking about faith in the synagogue. And there in the synagogue in Nazareth and he said, verse 24 of Luke 4, he said, there were many widows in Israel in Elijah's tomb and yet Elijah was not sent to any of them but to a widow in Zadaphath in the region of Sidon.
I mean, can you imagine that what appeared to Elijah to be the illogical and irrational place became the very first text of Jesus' first sermon. Using this event, what the Lord Jesus Christ is telling us and he was telling those people who are so narrow minded and thinking salvation is to them and them alone and God cannot work so outside of Israel to tell them that God has a bigger purpose and that is why Jesus Christ came into the world. To save the world. First to the household of Israel but then to the whole world.
God has a purpose for the whole world. Second front, God was showing Elijah that God loves Baal worshippers. He hates Baal. He detests Baal but he loves Baal worshippers.
You see, many of us forget that. We see people who are in their eyeballs in sin and all we want to do like John, just call fire from heaven to just wipe them out. And God was trying to tell Elijah who was going to call fire from heaven to wipe a lot of people out that I love those people.
I love the Baal worshippers although I detest Baal. Two years from this point in history, Elijah was going to have the greatest showdown between Jehovah and the prophets of Baal and Elijah would exterminate nearly one thousand of their priests of Baal. But here God is saying, Elijah, I love these people.
I love these people and that is why I'm sending you there to live for two years with this widow. When we obey the Lord, God works on many levels beyond our imaginations and God was saying to Elijah that at this point in his life, his purpose is beyond Israel. His purpose for the whole world. When the Messiah comes, dies on a cross, rises again so that when he is lifted up, he draws all men to himself. With obedience, there's always a test. So one of the hardest tests of obedience is getting over what I call the first impression blues.
Getting over the first impression blues because when you look at something at first impression, they're often wrong. Verse 10, Elijah arrives in Zarephath cotton mouthed with thirst, it's a rough translation but you get the meaning, starving to death and the first sign he reads on the roadside says, welcome to Zarephath, population two and they'll be dead tomorrow. I mean that is not necessarily something that really gives you a great deal of hope. It's not something that inspires you that God is in control and he's really working things out for my best. How in the world did God make this colossal mistake and got me here? So he sees the waiter collecting sticks and he asked her, he said, give me some water and some food and she said, no you don't understand.
My son and I have just a little bit of wheat and a little bit of water and oil and I'm gonna make a cake and I'm gonna eat it and he's gonna eat one and I'm gonna eat one and we're gonna make two and that's all we got and it's the last meal before we die. And I said, man, isn't that wonderful, God has a plan for my life. Yeah right. Not a very good first impression for a man who trusted God and obeyed God and went there in obedience to the voice of God.
Have you ever suffered from those first impression blues? When you have done the will of God in your life and then you look and you say, what is God doing? But Elijah went beyond the first impression blues and he risked his own faith and he literally trusted in God's word so explicitly. He trusted in God's word and God's word alone. Nothing else he had to go by.
Nothing else. I don't want you to miss this. I don't want to miss what I'm gonna tell you because often all we have is God's word. Circumstances, people, even God's people disappoint us. But beloved I want to tell you, until you are willing in your heart and in your mind to risk everything on the word of God, in your trust of the word of God and trust of the word of God alone, you will not experience a miracle. You will not experience a blessing. Until you learn what it means to really live by faith and risk everything in faith, trusting in the word of God alone.
If everything in your life is calculated, comfortable and safe, you have not learned how to live by faith. Listen to what Elijah said to this Baal worshipping woman, widow. He says, before you bake your last cake for yourself and your son, bake me one.
I mean that looks like the ultimate in selfishness, isn't it? He said, forget about you and your son. Just give me one.
No, no, no. Do you know what Elijah is saying here? He is saying, bake God a cake first.
I only have enough for two. He said, give God one first. Risk your all for the God of heaven. Trust in my Jehovah.
Trust in my God because my God delivers the goods. Probably this widow trusted in Baal. Probably she called upon Baal.
She probably sought Baal many a times but Baal let her down many a times. And now she's ready to believe in the God of Israel. Elijah had already experienced God when he left Gilead to confront the king of Israel, King Ahab.
Elijah had already experienced God when he left Ahab and went to Cherith Brook and God provided for him by the raven bringing him bread and meat morning and night. Elijah had already experienced the provision of God and now he is not only risking his faith but he is encouraging somebody else who knows not God and says you too risk everything for the God of heaven. Listen, it's one thing for me to risk everything trusting in the word of God and taking God at his word. And it's a whole different ball game to try to challenge somebody else and say you too, you need to risk everything because my God keeps his promises. Because my God is going to keep his word. He's never lied and he never will. You see I go and listen to believers all over the place saying God is not hearing, God is not listening, God is not doing this, God is not doing that. No, no, no. You don't understand.
What are you doing? Have you risked everything? Have you at least been willing to do it? God doesn't want what you have.
He gave you everything you have and he doesn't want it. But he wants you to come to the point of saying Lord I can risk everything because I trust your word. He was willing to stand on the bare naked unadorned word of God alone. He was willing to tell the starving bale worshiping widow to risk her all on his God and on his God's word fully believing that he not may or can but will provide. Not that he just risked his all, not only that he asked her to risk her all but Elijah demonstrated the power of God in his life because he had come to believe that God is able. You see God is able is not just a cliche. It's not just a text from the scripture. God is able is a lifestyle.
It is a daily practice. Elijah believed that God was already at work in both ends of the situation. He believed that when God told him to go to Cherith and then he's going to provide for him there. When God said to him go from Cherith to Zarephath he knew that God has already been dealing with the heart of this widow in Zarephath. You see when God sent Jacob's children to Egypt to get some grains what they did not know is that God had already gone ahead of them and their brother Joseph has been there in charge of the whole country. When God told Joshua to send some spies to Jericho it was because God already was working in the heart of a prostitute by the name of Rahab. When God told the Ethiopian eunuch to open the book of Isaiah it was because he already got Philip the deacon to be ready to go to the chariot and help him understand it.
When God told Cornelius that someone is coming to see him had already disturbed Peter's night with a nightmare not a dream in order to get Peter to go and see Cornelius. And the best way to take a risk in faith is to believe that God has already been working on both ends of your situation. The weakness of the believers today is that they have ceased to trust God and take him at his word period. People confusing the Christian faith and they think the Christian faith is just give me give me give me give me feed me feed me feed me entertain me Lord entertain me. You know stuffing the suggestion books with ideas of how to do things and God is sort of waiting for everybody to help him out.
But in these last days I sense God to be gathering his sheep and separating the sheep from the goats and he wants his sheep to be men and women of faith be willing to risk everything on God's word. You're listening to Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Youssef made possible on this station and around the world through your prayers and generosity. And if you ever miss a message or you want to dig into content from previous programs remember that you can always listen to Dr. Youssef and Leading the Way's content online with the app or by subscribing to the podcast.
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