1 Kings is a compilation of official records, etc that have survived. It follows on from 1 & 2 Samuel as they with 1 & 2 Kings are a history of Israel from the judges until the exile. 1 & 2 Chronicles is a repeat exclusively to Judah.

So we start today at chapter 17:1

Now Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab

That it, Elijah just appears out of the blue in the middle of the histories of the Kings of Israel and Judah. They are two separate countries now having been split up after the death of Solomon.

 

His status is remarkable. He has the ear of Ahab and other nations  leaders as well. So significant is he that he anoints various people to be kings. So significant in Jewish history for there to be discussion as to whether Jesus was Elijah, risen from the dead.

 So we have three sessions on this strange man who looms so large in God’s word. Today he bursts on the scene to declare a famine and we discover that God is more interested in a Sidonian widow and her son than the King of Israel. Next week we will see him on the mountain top, confronting the enemies of God. Then we see him running for his life, hiding away until God lifts him out of depression.

But that is later in the story. Here for today, he bursts on the scene in dramatics style:

 ¹ 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.”

 

But to see how dramatic we must backtrack a little. Elijah is set in contrast to Ahab. So we will read

1Kings 16:29-17:24 to get the context and the full story

So the context is that Elijah is contrasted with Ahab, the King of Israel. So lets see what Ahab is like.

 Ahab considered it trivial to commit the sins;

 Ahab began to serve Baal and worship him.

 Ahab set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria.

³³ Ahab also made an Asherah pole

 

So in contrast to this apostasy, this reckless pursuit of self- interest and idolatry, Elijah explodes on the scene with

“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.”

 

 YHWH confronts Baal

The God of Israel challenges the God of Jezebel.

 YHWH is the God who lives. Baal is made of stone,  Asherah of wood.

 Elijah serves YHWH; Ahab serves Baal, etc.

 

In the 21^st Century, the context may be different but the confrontation is the same. Who do you serve? Because who you serve and what you believe decides how you act. If you have no belief in God, then you have only your own opinion and the opinion of others you think are like-minded to give a moral and practical compass to your life. If you believe in the same God as Elijah, then you believe God speaks through the Bible but most of all through his Son, Jesus Christ. It is no longer a matter of individual opinion but what God says that you use to direct your choices.

 

 there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.”

 

The Prophet speaks.

How long did it take before anyone noticed the drought?

 

How long did it take before it was clear it was true?

 

How long did it take before Ahab sought out Elijah? From 1Kings 18:10  we can be sure it was less than three years and that it was an international incident. Interpol was working on it!

 

Did Elijah have control of the weather? No! God did. Elijah was instructed to say when there was no rain and in 18:1 God instructed him when the rain was due to come. The Prophet is strictly a messenger. Prophecy is not power, it just looks like it.

 Prophecy is not making things happen it is telling what God has to say and is doing. Your testimony, then, is prophecy. It says what God has done. Your witnessing about how to become a Christian is prophecy, because you are telling what God will do.

 

 In this case the prophecy was to inform Ahab of the consequences of his actions. Sadly, there was to be no repentance or change of heart. The drought is stopped not because Ahab has turned to God but because God stepped in to confront the prophets of Baal and take over as true King of his people, Israel.

 

People died in this drought. You can blame God, if you wish, or you can recognise that there are bigger issues than a nation’s economic survival. Food supplies and drink are not everything.

 

I want also to scotch any idea that we can interpret disasters as punishment from God. There is a big following among Christians for those who use disasters to point the finger at the sufferers and shout as if they have a prophetic gift. Elijah announces the drought before it happens and when it happens he survives it, along with the population. He declares it ended when God tells him, even though there is no forecast. Our responsibility in a disaster whether man-made or a natural disaster, is to show compassion on the victims, whether they are in Dafur, Somalia, Syria, Cuba or New York State.

 

 The second prophecy is for Elijah. God protects his servant because he has future work for him to do. Elijah would not be very popular once the famine took hold, so God sends him to a safe-house or in this case a

 a safe Wadi where the Kerith Brook still runs, not far from Elijah’s home in Tishbe. And while it flows, God delivers food by ravens. This is an amazing miracle but as always in scripture the details are left out but the central point is left. God fed Elijah. Two meals a day, bread and meat. But when the brook runs dry, Elijah moves on some distance. This moves him across a border to Sidon, where Jezebel’s father is King!  It is amazing, because God actually gives the name and address Elijah is to stay at.

 

Put yourself in Elijah’s sandals. After a long journey you arrive in a strange village in a foreign country knowing that you have to stay with a widow there. Not easy to see how you could find her by asking around. He would have probably been beaten up, if not executed. But he arrives, meets a woman and asks for a drink. A common polite request. The gate of a village or town was generally right by the well. The ensuing conversation develops  and the widow discovers that she can feed herself, her son and this stranger by some miraculous means. So Elijah is accepted.

 

 ¹⁶ For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah.

 

This is an intensely homely miracle. It only covers the basics range of supplies. Pitta bread, every day! But God keeps his servant through the drought and blesses a non-Israelite into the bargain!

 

Let’s read what Jesus said about this in

READ Luke 4:24-26

²⁴ “I tell you the truth,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. ²⁵ I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. ²⁶ Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon.”

 

God has never been exclusive to a particular group. Even though he chose to set his love on Israel, his intention was to bless the nations through Israel. And on this occasion he left Ahab to feed the widows in Israel and showed his love to a widow in Zarephath .

 

It is easy to complain, God is not fair. But that blinds us to the fact that he shows us his love in spite of our sinfulness.  It is not that he does not bless everyone, he would, but we resist his will, sin and sin again and yet he shows love.

 

The episode in verses 17-24 is a lesson in how our faith wobbles in the face of family tragedy. The son becomes ill. There is no evidence that it has anything to do with Elijah being there, but he gets the blame! Christians will be blamed in the same way because our friends will expect us to be some sort of good luck charm for them. Christians are seen as to be able to avoid the trials of life, but when we have put our faith in Jesus, we do not avoid the troubles, but we do have the certainty of his Holy Spirit presence to enable us to go through the trial s of life with peace that we are not alone and the deaths of those around us are not random acts of malicious fate but part of a fallen world into which Jesus has entered. We have difficulty to come to terms with that, so don’t be surprised your friends and relations and neighbours don’t get it.

The widows cry

“What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?”

is heard. Listen, this cry which seems to be so off-beam, so lacking faith, so lacking spirituality is heard by the God who cares and the prophet who also cares.

 

 Instead of listing all the sins and telling her that he, Elijah, was not responsible for everyone’s life, etc, etc. He takes the child up to the roof. He sympathises with the widow in his prayer:

“O Lord my God, have you brought tragedy also upon this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?”

 

What he does would have him pilloried in the press, these days as a child abuser. I do not know why he did it but I suspect it was some sort of Cardiac restart process. But his prayer is simple.

 

“O Lord my God, let this boy’s life return to him!”

 

Elijah speaks of God as ‘my God’. In fact the widow talks of the Lord your God in verse 12. This story is all about Elijah’s relationship with God. He is defined by the fact that he serves God and he says what God says and he accepts that he gets the blame for what God is accused of because he knows the blessing of being a friend of God.

There are two answers to Elijah’s prayer. First is the son lives. The second is that the widow’s faith is enlarged and strengthened. One he prayed for and demonstrated God’s love, the second is the response of someone who has discovered that Elijah’s God loves her. And that is the end of that story. Next week Zarephath is left behind and we know nothing further. But faith has been planted in Zarepheth, a widow has responded to the love of God through Elijah. That is the story. Ahab is actually wandering around the world looking for Elijah but there is no faith, no repentance so the Book of Kings records the life of a widow of Zarepheth instead.

 There are three characters in our story today. Ahab, Elijah and the widow. Which one do you think is closest to you?

 

So what are you going to do about it?

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