In 1 Kings 18:37 are four striking words turned their hearts back. They describe the result of Elijah’s prayers. The verse says, “You have turned their hearts back to yourself.” Is one of your deepest prayers for some loved ones for God to “To turn their hearts back to God? As an American, do you find yourself asking God to turn the heart of America back to him? Those were Elijah’s longings for Israel. And strikingly he obtained his fervent wish and prayer.
For over a hundred years, Israel had been breaking its covenant promise to have no God but Yahweh by worshipping the false Canaanite rain god, Baal, and fertility goddess, Asherah. The spiritual conditions of Israel had so deteriorated that its king, Ahab, had built Baal his own house inside Israel’s borders and his wife, Jezebell, had assembled 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah, paying them from Israel’s taxes making this worship of false gods the state religion of Israel.
Elijah was the biblical superstar, the hall of famer, who singlehandedly was used by God to turn the hearts of Baal-worshipping Israel back to Yahweh. But the Bible insists there was nothing special about Elijah. “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit” (James 5:17-18). This podcast series looks for clues about this ordinary man who accomplished a most extraordinary feat—turning fallen hearts back to the worship of the true God. This episode examines the God’s faith-building bootcamp, and how Elijah’s faith muscles were built.
As we study the nature and development of Elijah’s faith, I’m reminded of a boy coming out of his Sunday school class who had been told by his big brother that the Bible was full of myths that weren’t literally true. They had just heard the story of Lot’s wife fleeing from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah being warned not to turn and look back or she would be turned into a pillar of salt, which is what happened, according to Scripture. The skeptical boy said to his friend, “Do you really believe that story about Lot’s wife looking back and turning into a pillar of salt?”
His friend answered, “Sure I believe it. My mother was out driving the other day and she looked back and turned into a telephone pole.” Ah, the growth pains of understanding Scripture and building our confidence in it! In Matthew 17 Jesus made an astonishing statement about the significance of our faith. “I tell you the truth. If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain move from here to there and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” Faith seems to be the way that we access the very power of God. I think we all yearn to see that power at work:
- We yearn to see him providing answers to our prayers.
- We yearn to see him working in the lives of our loved ones.
- We yearn to tap into God's power in our own lives to free us from habits that have mastered us.
- We yearn to see Christ’s power transform our bad attitudes that keep cropping up.
- We yearn to see Christ use us in the lives of others.
- We yearn to see God turn our nation back to God.
We want to have the kind of faith that Jesus tells us God will honor by doing mighty things in our lives. That was the kind Elijah had! So, let’s turn to I Kings 17:1-7 to study how God built Elijah’s faith.
Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.” And the word of the Lord came to him: “Depart from here and turn eastward and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. You shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.” So he went and did according to the word of the Lord. He went and lived by the brook Cherith that is east of the Jordan. And the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook. And after a while the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land.
CONFRONTATION WITH AHAB
Elijah is functioning as God's prosecuting attorney. He is prosecuting the case against Israel for violating the terms of the covenant, namely worshipping false gods. The case Elijah is arguing has to do with the cause of the severe drought taking place in Israel. His argument is that the drought blamed on Elijah was in fact caused by Ahab and Israel’s violation of the stipulations of the covenant, specifically, the stipulations spelled out in Deuteronomy 11:13-17.
And if you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. And he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full. Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them; then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and he will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and you will perish quickly off the good land that the Lord is giving you.
Elijah, who identifies himself as the servant of the true God, Yahweh, is also proving by this coming drought, that Yahweh is the true God and not Baal, who was worshipped as the Canaanite rain God. The true God was about to not only punish evil according to the covenant sanctions made between Israel and Yahweh, but the coming drought, including the lack of morning dew, would prove to Israel that Baal was a false god and that Yahweh was the true and only God of creation.
BOOT CAMP
What is surprising is that immediately after instructing Elijah to provoke this confrontation, God sends Elijah away from the front lines to boot camp. Elijah will stay there for months if not years. The location is by the brook Cherith. It is at this spiritual boot camp in the Cherith ravine that God grows Elijah's faith to prepare him for one of the most intense spiritual battles recorded in all of Scripture.
Four Insights About How God Grows Elijah’s Faith
A. God’s command to flee to the brook Cherith makes logical sense. We're not told in this text what Ahab's and Jezebel's response was to this proclamation from Yahweh. But we know from later in the text that is was absolute fury and a determination to kill Elijah. But before the text even gets a chance to mention Ahab’s response, God has already planned to get Elijah out of visible sight and danger and into a thick wilderness. Also, it is kind of God to send Elijah to a location that is very familiar to him. Although the brook Cherith was hidden by thick underbrush, as best we can locate it back then, it was just 4 to 5 miles away from Tishbe, where Elijah was from. Elijah chose to trust God. But, such biblical faith is never a leap into irrationality. It is based upon clear thinking and a logical understanding of the facts. Even from a human point of view, God’s decision to send Elijah out of Ahab’s presence for his safety (maybe before he got to tell his evil wife about it), to camp by the brook Cherith, an area with which he was familiar, made logical sense.
B. Elijah obeyed God. Biblical faith is never mere intellectual assent. In many ways the biblical concept of faith or belief is better translated “trust.” For this reason, biblical faith always results in an act of the will; it is not just an opinion of the mind. James, for example, argues powerfully:
What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.
Biblical faith is not mere intellectual agreement; it is trusting God enough to be all in. Here is the difference between mere intellectual ascent and trust. On June 30, 1859, "The Great Blondin" became the first person to tightrope-walk across the Niagara Gorge, traversing a 1,100-foot rope suspended 160 feet above the roaring waters. Afterwards Harry Colcord his manager was asked by Blondin, “Do you believe I can do that again carrying you on my back?” I’m sure Colcord thought very carefully about his answer. He knew that saying he believed Blondin could do so would mean crawling onto Blondin’s back someday in the future. Nevertheless, he said, “Yes.” Later that year, on Blondin’s back, they crossed Nagara Falls on a tight rope. True faith can’t be separated from being all in. That is what Blondin’s agent Harry Colcord realized. That is what James understood. That is what Elijah exhibited in his life of obedience: trust in God.
C. Faith Grows through time alone with God. As one author, F. B. Meyer observes, “God's servants must be taught the value of the hidden life God.” God sends Elijah to camp beside the brook, Cherith. We know that Elijah prayed for three and a half years. We don't know how long he was beside the brook Cherith because he later spent time with the widow of Zarephath. But we know it was quite some time at the brook because it was long enough for the brook to completely dry up.
Have you ever noticed the link between spiritual “hall of famers” and time spent alone with God? Jesus constantly went into the wilderness alone to pray, and he really did teach his disciples to do the same. Paul spent time in the desert before he began his ministry as an apostle. Moses spent 40 years in the desert. David spent most of his youth alone in the hills shepherding his father's sheep. He must have been meditating on the Law of God because he put those meditations upon God’s Law into music which became the Psalms. David’s time spent in the Word gave him a completely different perspective from others. Consider the contrast in his response to Goliath and that of the rest of the Israelites. The rest of the Israelites were terrified; but David knows Scripture. He knows biblical history. He knows that God always fought Israel's battles. So, what does he say in response to the men talking about this giant? “Who is this uncircumcised philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?” David had a completely different perspective because of the time he spent alone with God in his Word.
I want to camp on this idea of perspective a bit longer, because I think it is the best synonym we have for the biblical concept of faith other than the word trust. Far too many Christians have bought into the culture's definition of faith. An old-fashioned way of communicating the reigning cultural concept of faith came from Walt Disney:
When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are.
Anything your heart desires will come to you.
If your heart is in your dream, no request is too extreme,
When you wish upon a star as dreamers do.
Today’s sports culture actually exhibits this same Disney view of faith. Winning is caused by believing! “You got to have faith. You’ve got to believe.” I hate to say it, brother, but the other side had faith that they would win the last time they went to battle too, and they lost. There is something to be said for confidence, when it comes to athletic competition. But this cultural concept that if you believe hard enough in something then you can make it happen is nonsense. And it certainly is not the biblical definition of faith.
Biblical faith is trust in the character of God, that he keeps his promises. Biblical faith has two roots: 1) knowing God, enabling us to trust his character, and 2) the Word of God, the source of his specific promises to be believed. While Elijah stayed beside the brook Cherith, he spent time alone with God and with the Word of God—either because he memorized it or had his own copy of the Torah—the ideal conditions for trust in God’s character and promises to grow.
D. Faith grows through seeing God meet your everyday needs. Day in day out twice a day God sends the ravens with food. There seem to be two parts to this faith strengthening process.
1. Elijah allowed himself to be in a position where he had no choice but to trust God for his daily food. When he obeyed God and confronted Ahab, he put his life at risk and sentenced himself to what would turn out to be over 3 years of isolation and hiding. As crops dried up, the economy of Israel plummeted, it is likely that Ahab was not the only one who was furious with Elijah. His fellow countrymen must have been angry as well. The thicket by the brook Cherith must have had to hide Elijah from a lot more hostile people than the king and queen. So, by God’s leading he was protected.
Yet he must have felt enslaved, like he was in a cage. He had no choice; he was forced to trust God. There is something about that situation that is brutally hard, almost demeaning, being able to do nothing but depend upon God. Perhaps you are in a situation now that forces you to trust God—facing a situation over which you have virtually no control. Those times are so……tough. Yet God had to take Elijah through those demeaning days of helplessness in order to drive a truth deep into his soul: God is trustworthy; he keeps his promises every single day.
2. Part two of the process was walking by sight! Every day, with his own eyes, he saw God’s faithfulness—ravens arriving with bread and meat. Every day, incrementally, the truth of God’s faithfulness was driven a little deeper into his soul. Every single hunger pain turned into an exercise of faith to develop the herculean faith he would need to stand up to 850 prophets of Baal & Asherah, to Ahab and Jezebel, and to an entire nation.
As we’ve seen spiritual hall of famers first obey God’s call unquestioningly. But often their obedience is followed not with outward blessing but with even greater impossible situations. Faithful Abraham believes God’s promise to make of him a great nation, but where did it lead? To being commanded by God to offer Issac as a sacrifice. Moses brought God’s people out of Egypt, but where did it lead? Into a corner facing the Red Sea on three sides, and Pharoh’s army bearing down on the fourth. David shows incredible faith not taking the life of King Saul who was trying to kill David but awaiting God’s timing to be king. Finally, David is crowned King, but only the tribe of Judah acknowledges his kingship. He must fight another seven years before God’s promise comes true. I remember a decision our church leadership made to plant a daughter church. We had eight elders and gave up four of them to the daughter church, trusting God to fill the holes left by the elders we gave up. One year later, instead of gaining four elders in the mother church, all four of those remaining ended up moving away. Our trust in God needed to grow deeper. Our faith muscles needed to bulk up. Elijah had the initial faith to stand up to Ahab: but his faith needed to be tested furthe, his confidence in God’s faithfulness built by being tested day after day after day to build the muscles of faith he would need.
TWO TAKE AWAYS
- Expect God to put you in situations where you are forced to trust him.
- Elijah’s dependance upon God for his daily bread reminds us of Jesus’ teaching to do the same and to take every detail of our needs to God.
Several generations ago, in Scotland, an old Scotsman was making his way to a presbytery meeting in a distant town. On the way a young seminarian met up with him so they decided to travel together. But before they started out the elderly man asked, “Could we pray and ask God for what we need this evening?” He then made three requests. First, he reminded the Lord that he was hard of hearing and if he didn't get his seat well up near the front of the auditorium, he wouldn't be able to get much from the sermon. So, he asked for a seat to be kept. Second, he mentioned that his shoes were badly worn and hardly fit for the city. He needed a new pair but had no money. Third, he asked for a place to sleep. He didn't know anyone in the city from whom he could seek accommodations.
The young seminary student was aghast. Bothering God with such little details didn't fit into his theology at all. So, he determined to check up on him later to see what had happened. This is the seminarians report:
“That night we reached the meeting a bit late. There was not a seat left. However, someone came out and the old man managed to squeeze into a place near the door where he stood with one hand cupped to his ear. Just then a young lady in the front row turned and saw him. She called an usher: “Sir” she said, “My father asked me to save this seat for him saying that if he should be late, I should offer it to someone else. Evidently, he has been detained. Will you please go and offer it to the old man who has his hand to his ear and his standing just inside the door?” The usher followed her instructions and so in just a few minutes the first request of the old man had been answered.”
“The time came for prayer. In Scotland in those days some persons always knelt for prayer while others reverently stood. The old man was the kneeling kind. The young woman was the standing kind. Standing thus beside her guest and looking down she could not help noticing the condition of his shoes. Her father ran a shoe store. So afterward she politely raised the subject and asked the old man if she might take him to her father's store though it was closed for the night and give him a pair. So, petition #2 was answered. Finally, while in the store, the young woman inquired where the old man was staying that night; and he answered that God had not yet shown him the room. “Well.” she said, “I think we have the room for you. The Rev. Dr. so and so was to use our guest room tonight, but he has telegraphed to say he is not coming. Will you use it?”
Wow. I don't know if I could live day to day with that kind of faith. But it certainly shows that God is interested in all our needs, from the tiniest to the greatest. And it is watching him meet our little needs that perhaps is preparing us for greater tests of faith and greater victories in the days to come.
For Further Prayerful Thought.
- What do you think is the significance of the four words from Elijah’s story turned their hearts back. How does that relate or not related to your prayer concerns?
- How would you use the example of a tight rope walker crossing over Niagara Falls to explain the difference behind faith that is a mental nod of agreement and a life-changing choice to trust?
- What stood out most to you about the way God strengthened the faith muscles of Elijah by the brook Cherith?
