When the familiar stream of provision dries up, trust must shift from the visible source to the unseen Giver. Elijah’s journey to Zarephath, the widow’s last meal, and the miracle that followed reveal that God’s resources never fail, even in desolate places. The believer’s task is not to watch the tap but to trust the One behind it-learning, through need and dependence, that His Word is sure, His Spirit sustains, and His grace provides a full table in the wilderness!

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:00] I wonder whether you have a favourite psalm and what you make of it. I confess my favourite psalm is probably many other people’s one in Psalm 23. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. There’s a little part of that psalm that talks about the fact that God provides our needs. He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul. And part of it also says he makes a table for us. You’re right in the middle of my enemies. There’s a scholar, a Chinese man who back maybe a little older than me he would be if he were alive. Who wrote a book of comments on all the different verses of the Bible but including this one, Psalm 23. But he called the book A Table in the Wilderness.

[00:01:00] And what that really is a picture of is that when you’re somewhere where you think there’s no supplies possible, you’re in the middle of nowhere. But there’s a table set up and you come across it and it’s filled with food to be eaten. And it’s just a picture of the fact that God provides our needs often, though unexpectedly, in a place where you don’t think it’s going to happen. And the idea of a table in the wilderness really captures my mind that you can trust God to provide for what is your need. I have a passage this morning, it’s from 1 Kings, which is about the fact that God goes about the business of looking after his people. And the particular person in the storyline is Elijah. And the passage is in 1 Kings chapter 17 and verses 7 and following.

[00:01:59] You’ll see it on this particular case, it’s Elijah and he’s told by God to move along from where he’d been feeling secure. And he’d been given a little stream that kept him watered where he’d been. And it says in verse 7, after a while, the brook dried up because there was no rain in the land. And here is God’s servant. Remember, he doesn’t have any agriculture to support himself in. He’s an itinerant going around from place to place. But God just looks after him in different areas. But then the stream that he’d been relying on for all his water needs, it dried up. And that can often happen to us in Christian life. I wouldn’t mind guessing that there would be people here today, you’re not necessarily advertising. But there will be people here today, just going by the numbers here this morning,

[00:03:01] who in some way or other have discovered that the provision that you are needing is just not there. It happens to young people when they are looking for a person to marry. And we just had a wedding on Saturday. It went very well, I might say. Friday it was. I’m still getting over it. But this particular wedding was a lovely wedding. But wherever you see marriages, I often remember the years when I was wondering, who will I marry? And I eventually cleared that hurdle, if you want to call it that, when I was 30. So it was quite a number of years where the question was uncertain, was the answer to the question was uncertain. And there’s other areas of life where you’re looking for a purpose.

[00:03:59] And you think you know what it is, and you go and study at the university, and somehow or other the courses don’t suit you. You realise it’s not for you, and so you move into something else, and then you get behind. Most of your friends graduate before you do. And you’re wondering how to know God’s guidance. Well, here we have Elijah, who’s got the same problem. And I’m glad that it’s in the Bible, actually, in commentating on it, that book, The Table in the Wilderness, written by Watchman Ni. That’s the Chinese man who wrote the book. And it’s full of Bible verses and comments on it. This is one for every day. But he calls it A Table in the Wilderness, because God is able to supply our needs in very awkward and difficult places.

[00:04:47] He knows how to get us not to trust in the little brook that might be running past your house right now. Whatever that means in the illustration. And in Elijah’s case, God said to him, the word of the Lord, verse 8, came to him, arise and go to Zarephath. That’s a word, that’s a place, by the way. Zarephath. See if I can say it right. Zarephath. Zarephath. I’ve had a tooth out, so it’s a bit hard, Zarephath. Which belongs to Sidon. Now that’s an area that might not mean anything to you, but in actual fact, Sidon was somewhere very close to where that evil woman, Jezebel, lived. It was a north place in Phoenicia, north from where Elijah was used to being comfortable amongst God’s people. And he was told to go somewhere into dangerous territory.

[00:05:48] Arise and go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. And behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you. Now I don’t know how much you know about widows back in Elijah’s time, but they were usually the poorest of the poor. They didn’t have much. Indeed, in the storyline that’s to follow, Elijah is given something to eat by the woman, but she says, I was just about to cook up my last meal and she had a little son. Her last reserve of food for a child, a widow, doesn’t have anything else. And along comes this man of God they used to call him. He’s a prophet, traveling prophet, and asks to come and stay with her. And she says, well, I’ll cook it up and we’ll share it. Why did God ask him to go to a place which was politically dangerous?

[00:06:49] Why did God ask him to attach himself to a person who probably had less resources to feed him? The brook has dried up, it’s a drought time, and there he is. Well, watch my knee making a comment at one stage that God is rather good. And getting our eyes off the tap and onto the resource behind it. Sometimes we watch where the tap is being turned on. I’m talking in a metaphor. You might be doing that right now. You’re looking at some prospect of a new job. It’s the tap where you’ll be all happy. But then you find out you didn’t get the job. And God is a bit of an expert, says Watchman Knee, getting us to stop watching the tap, where you think you’re going to get your stream. That’s his comment that comes when he, about this storyline about Elijah.

[00:07:53] And God took him deliberately, I believe, along with Watchman Knee. That God did it on purpose because he wanted to teach him to trust the Lord, not trust the visible signs of everything being provided. It’s a development of faith that has to happen in us as Christians. Because when we first come, the initial thing that we have to trust God for is the sufficiency of Jesus’ death on the cross for us. The gospel centres on how Christ died for our sin. How God punished in Christ all the evils of the world. He punished all the sins of every one of us, including you. And the gospel comes to us as a message that God has done something about your alienation from heaven, your alienation from God, your being a sinner, which all of us are. I’m not talking nastily about anybody here.

[00:08:54] I’m just talking about all of you. For all have sinned and are fallen short of the glory of God. There is none that does good. No, not one, the scripture says. And though we may, comparatively to other human beings, think we’re doing pretty good, and I think we Australians are a nice lot in general. I know we can have our cranky ones, but I think we Australians, compared to others in the world, do pretty well. We might have some funny ways, but when you travel around the world, you soon discover that the nature of sinfulness is ubiquitous everywhere. There’s nowhere where evil doesn’t threaten all the time, under the seams. There’s nowhere where humanity shows itself up poorly. Even we Australians, I had some Americans tell me they knew some Australians who were the worst of the worst.

[00:09:56] They told me that this Australian they knew was so nasty and awful, they were really worried about me, because I was another Australian. So we do have a few examples that aren’t so hot, but nonetheless, it’s actually true of everybody. We’re in need of God’s salvation. And that has been provided by the Lord Jesus Christ in his mission and how he died for our sins and how he rose again, how he went back to heaven, how he’s arranged for us to be forgiven. He has done it. It’s a completed work. Nothing left for you to provide, but that’s why the first thing that you’re asked to learn to believe provision-wise is your forgiveness. You’re not asked to come and join in the payment. You’re not asked to make a down payment as to how you could be a bit of a slave to earn your salvation.

[00:10:53] You’re told that Jesus has done it all. One of the final things he said on the cross, it is finished. to give you a chance of thinking you might even earn it yourself. God has provided the greatest need that you have in the mission of his son and he offers it to you. The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. And so right at the start of becoming a Christian it’s when you recognise you haven’t provided anything for the Christian walk except a needy sinner and God has done it all. So we learn, we learn to accept the provision of God in our forgiveness at the start but then as we walk as Christians and seek to find his purpose as we seek to execute our availability to do his will. We have our ups and downs and we have the same need of his provision to help.

[00:12:03] In fact the salvation that we’ve begun is continued by the help of the Holy Spirit and we need to learn to trust in that Holy Spirit’s help. Not think we’re good for it. We’ll be a pretty good Christian. It’s actually quite amazing you know when you meet people who first can’t get in the door and find Christ and they generally, they don’t admit this to you but they think they’re going to do a pretty good job of this being a Christian and they’re going to join in. Not everybody does that. There are some people a bit more self depreciate you know depreciating but there are some that you meet who really think they’re going to be a star. They’re the ones that have the biggest problem because they’ve got to come to the moment of discovering that there’s nothing starry left in them anyway.

[00:12:49] And when you come to say to God, I’ve had a go at being a Christian and I’ve been a failure. Sorry, Lord, will you take me back again? God is happy for you to have learned the lesson that he wasn’t expecting you to be able to live the Christian life. He knew that you’re going to have to learn some hard lessons that he’s the only one who can help you live the Christian life. So, the Apostle Paul had to learn that. He had to learn it the hard way in the book of Romans. If you want a book to follow up my sermon this morning, read the book of Romans and in the middle chapters how Paul is crying out that he can’t really do it. He’s a sinner and he’s still got the problems of sin. Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death, he says.

[00:13:42] Well, God has provided a table in the wilderness. God has provided what you need. Even though you may get led into some awkwardness where no provisions, your stream has dried up, what you thought was going to be the big success hasn’t materialised. Or maybe in the relationships you have, they’re just not so helpful after all. Or maybe the job that you’re in, you wanted to be an impact for God and as a Christian to raise the flag and let the word get out, but not every experiment you made has worked out. I don’t tell you of all my failures when I first started trying to witness when I was a teacher. I was, no, I won’t tell you, but it’s true. We all have our times of having to realise that we’re not, you know, God’s gift in a sense. You know, in another sense, we actually are his gift,

[00:14:46] but it is when we realise that the gifty part of us is not us, but it’s him and his provisions. And the amazing thing is how, when you think you’re completely out of capital. I’m here today, I’m known as an ordained Baptist pastor, but there was a time when they ushered me out the door. I said I was an evangelist and not a pastor, and they said we only ordained pastors, some of them. It wasn’t what my father taught in the college, but there were others who wanted the pastor’s club to be kept a bit free from people like me, and I got ushered the door. But, you know, God stepped in. Won’t go into the details, but one thing or another, I ended up gaining my ordination. And I’m here today as a pastor of a church, and I’ve been here as your pastor for, I’ve lost the count now. Is it 16 or is it 19?

[00:15:51] I’m not sure, years. How does that come about? It comes about because God always provides a table in the wilderness. God provides for people whose stream has dried up. God is the one that tells you where to go, and I think he deliberately sent Elijah up there to enemy territory to find help from a widow who had nothing to offer him. But the Lord had commanded the widow to feed him. So he rose and he went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow was there gathering sticks. She’s going to make her last meal. And he called to her and said, bring me a little water and a vessel that I may drink. And as she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, bring me a morsel of bread in your hand. He’s not eaten, see. And she said, as the Lord your God lives, I have no nothing baked,

[00:16:54] only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. And now I’m gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and for my son, that we may eat it and die. Boy, what did Elijah say to himself about God’s guidance at that moment? Well, thankfully, I think he knew the deeper lessons and he says, if we continue putting it up, the next bit, do not fear. You probably got it better than me. You do. Do not fear. You’re testing my eyes. I’ll look this way. But first, make me a little cake and bring it to me and afterward, make something for yourself and your son. For thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, the jar of flour shall not be spent and the jug of oil shall not be empty until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth. If they’re in a famine, there’s no rain coming,

[00:18:03] there’s no crops being available to feed them all, the whole nation. She’s a widow in a desperate time. And the promise through the prophet comes to her. God won’t let that jar of oil run out. That’s actually a picture for us in the Old Testament. You know, I decided that I needed to preach more in the Old Testament because a lot of Christians have the idea, well, the New Testament is the most important, true enough, and it’s the most recent, true enough. It’s the storyline of the gospel that gets you in the door in the first place, true enough. but the Old Testament is tremendously full of teachings about God’s riches just like this one and about God’s ability to sustain his people and about learning how to trust him do you have a favourite Old Testament verse? I do

[00:19:07] it’s another one besides in the book of Psalm 23 but I love that verse trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding in all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths and I have proven that verse as is true in all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct your ways and she went and just as he had said just as he said the jug of oil did not go empty until the day God sent rain on the earth and she went and okay thank you good on you okay so after this the son of the woman the mistress of the house, became ill. Now, whenever God does work in your life, it doesn’t mean that we’re not involved in a society that is affected by the fall, by the fact that there is sinfulness everywhere, including in us. We have problems that occur,

[00:20:25] and also we have the effects of the fall on all of creation, such as disease and sickness is there, and it happens to the woman’s son. The son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill, and his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. I’ve been doing a little bit of research about the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, and what I discovered is very, very interesting that there’s two words that is used for spirit. This is actually one of them. The other one is ruach, which is the most general one. Ruach means a strong wind. It can mean your breath of your body, because back in those days, how they told whether the soldier lying on the ground was dead or alive was whether he was breathing. If he breathed, they’d say he has his spirit in him.

[00:21:27] And the word for breath and the word for spirit is the one same word, because they weren’t distinguishing exactly what it is that made a person alive, it’s just that they noticed them breathing. This is ancient Hebrew. Ruach is the word. Can you say ruach? Ruach. Ruach, R-U-A-C-H in English letters. Ruach. But there is a second word for spirit, and it’s actually the one that’s here, when it says, there was no breath left in him. And it’s a word that means the same as ruach, but a bit more about the breathing side and about the life-givingness of the breath. And so the Bible teaches us, right at the beginning of it, that when God created us, his spirit was present. It’s been catching my eye how much the Holy Spirit is present in the Old Testament. And right at the beginning in Genesis 1,

[00:22:24] it says about how God created the heaven and the earth. And then it says, but the earth was without form. It was voidless. It was without any thing done to it to make it properly what it’s meant eventually to be. but it has yet come into creation. And in that formlessness, there was just water everywhere. There wasn’t any land showing up through the waters. There was just water on the top surface. But the waters, no one could tell how deep. And then the next little part of it, this is in Genesis 1, later on when you get home, look it up, the first few verses of the book of Genesis. It says about those deep waters, that the void, empty world yet to be put into its future designs as it was there. It says the spirit of the Lord hovered over the waters. This formless void that wasn’t yet fully made

[00:23:22] and the word that’s used for hovering is the same word used if you had an eagle that’s hovering over its nest with little birdies in it and making sure no other creatures come and molest those little chickens. The eagle hovers. It’s that sense of a bird that can stand still with big wings fluffing just a bit to keep up hovering. And the idea of the word is its care, just like the eagle cares for her chickens, just like God saw this earth that was made and it’s formless and void, but the spirit of God is hovering with care over that which is yet to become the earth that we know. The rest of the storyline in Genesis is how God creates that world into the beautiful world where there’s sunshine and where there’s light and where there’s life and where there’s plants and there’s humans.

[00:24:20] the spirit of God is right there at the beginning do not play down your understanding of the spirit of God he’s the one who brings care to the world to the earth he’s there at the beginning and this second word for breath means similar but a bit more detail in it is particularly talking about whether you’re able to continue having the breath and what this is saying of the little boy is there was no breath left in him he’s about to pass away you know if you watch those ambulance shows on TV and they get there and someone has fallen over and is lying you know being unconscious in their house the first thing those lovely workers do is to see if they’re still breathing and they try and get them to be able to go on breathing and if there’s a blockage they try and clear it

[00:25:25] if there’s a reason why they need to give them some medicines to keep them breathing all the way back to the hospital and the ambulance is what is their task but that idea of having breath left in you is what this second word is it’s the same idea as the other one but a little bit more about whether you’re going to make it or not and his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. And she said to Elijah, What have you against me, O man of God? You’ve come to me to bring my sin to remembrance? Maybe she thinks something she did wrong has caused this to happen to her son. We jump to funny conclusions, many of us. When things go wrong, you don’t need, by the way, to necessarily have caused your wrongful experiences because of your sins. They sometimes do.

[00:26:23] But in most cases, you’re jumping to the wrong conclusion because there’s enough wrong things happening in our world because of the fall and because of the society and because of even our own actions can be uninformed and stupid sometimes. You don’t have to say that God has noticed you and is going to kill your son. No. What have you against me, O man of God? You’ve come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son. He’s going to prove to her exactly the opposite. And he said to her, give me your son. He asked her to hand it over. And you’ve got it better up here. Give me your son. And, okay, go back to where you were. And he took him from her arms and carried him up into the upper chamber where he was meant to be staying. And he laid him on his own bed. This is Elijah.

[00:27:35] And he cried to the Lord, O Lord, my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourned by killing her son? Don’t be afraid of how you talk to God that you might be a bit cheeky and say the wrong thing. You probably do. But God knows your heart. And he knows your need. And God doesn’t punish Elijah or all the family because of him being a bit accusing of the Lord. Anyway, then he stretched himself upon the child three times. And he cried to the Lord, O Lord, my God, let this child’s life come into him again. And the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah. And the life of the child came into him again. And he revived. I love this story. The story encapsulates the heart of God for a prophet who needs to be looked after and for a mother who has a little boy who’s almost died.

[00:28:53] And the woman said to Elijah, Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is the truth. So not only did she get her son back, but she got to know a deeper acceptance of the word of God. A part of our being Christians is that we come to Christ and find him a saviour. But another part is that we learn to trust in the accuracy, the power, the veracity of the word of God. Learning to trust this inspired book that tells us of God. Learning to read in it often. To walk according to its statutes. And the Old Testament is full of places. I thought, you know, I have to be honest with you, in studying about the Old Testament and the Holy Spirit. Before I did have this idea, I thought there was a lot more about the Holy Spirit in the New Testament.

[00:30:02] But what I’ve discovered is the Old Testament is full of mention of the Holy Spirit. It is a new era in the New Testament. It’s called the New Covenant. It’s why it’s called the New Testament. The actual word testament is the same word in the Greek as the word covenant. And the New Old Covenant was what God made with the Israelites and the New Covenant is what he makes with us, with us the church. And the New Covenant, you could say the new statement of God and his last will and testament. You’d use the same word in the original languages for testament or covenant. And the New Testament is how you get right with God. But the Old Testament gives all these examples of how to walk with God. Though their walk as Israelites was different than our walk as Christians,

[00:31:03] nonetheless the Old Testament is a part of our Bible. And one of the things to learn when you’re someone trying to walk with God is how useful are the teachings of the Old Testament as to how to walk with God and trust his word. And if you’re a young Christian, take on board not only that you trust Jesus for your salvation, but trust his word. If you want some way to know that what I’m saying to you this morning is right and I’m elevating belief in the inerrancy of the scriptures, of the applicability of the Bible, of the power of God’s word to help you have a table in the wilderness, believe Jesus. He knew what it was to have the word of God at his hand in the wilderness when he got tempted. Take it from Jesus who would quote the Bible and say how true it was. Not one jot nor tittle will pass away,

[00:32:13] but all take place. They’re little parts of the Hebrew words. Jesus believed the accuracy of the Old Testament. Who are you to do different from Jesus? We trust him and we take his example of walking by the power of the word of God and that includes the Old Testament with all the ways it’ll help you like Watchman Nee discovered and wrote a book, A Table in the Wilderness. If you look for some way to help you keep addressing the scriptures and have a verse every day, you might have to go to England or get on the internet and get a book from England. Watchman Nee, a lot of his books are there, but A Table in the Wilderness would be well worth getting sent to you. Or find yourself a way to be reading through the Old Testament as well as the New to let the word of God make your Christian life work.

[00:33:17] That’s my message for this morning. I wasn’t planning on giving this one I mean until halfway through last night and I think I got direct to this and if you’re the person that’s been feeling like you’ve not got resources and you’ve been out of touch with where God is leading and God has spoken to you today then you’re the person that he’s designed this sermon for. There is the power of the word of God. Heavenly Father, I thank you for the storyline of Elijah and this provision provided by that widow who had nothing and that which she perhaps saw as a burden coming to make it worse turned out to be the one through whom her son got delivered. and Father, we thank you that even though you sometimes lead us into dangerous places like Elijah did being led up there into Phoenicia where home place of Jezebel nonetheless you knew what you were doing. Even though there was a wilderness wilderness of resources you made a table for him and for her. We give you praise in Jesus’ name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.