Keith Battle - When The Brook Dries Up

I want to look at 1 Kings chapter 17 and 2 Kings chapter 4, beginning in verse 1, New Living Translation. Now Elijah, who was from Tishbe in Gilead, told King Ahab, «As surely as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, the God I serve, there will be no dew or rain during the next few years until I give the word.» Then the Lord said to Elijah, «Go to the east and hide by the brook Cherith, near where it enters the Jordan River. Drink from the brook.» Everybody, drink from the brook. Drink from the brook. Drink from the brook. Drink from the brook. Drink from the brook, and eat what the ravens bring you, for I have commanded them to bring you food. So Elijah did as the Lord told him and camped beside the brook Cherith, east of the Jordan. The ravens brought him bread and meat each morning and evening, and he drank from the brook. He drank from the brook. He drank from the brook. Verse 4 says the Lord told him, «Drink from the brook,» and in verse 6, the Bible says he drank from the brook. God says, «Drink from the brook.» He drank from the brook. God says, «Drink from the brook,» and he drank from the brook. Verse 7 says, «But after a while, the brook dried up because there was no rainfall anywhere in the land.» My subsequent thought is, when the brook dries up, over 800,000 federal workers are impacted by the government shutdown. This 800,000 people, but it doesn’t calculate how many of their family members are impacted by the loss of income. So the impact is certainly millions of people who have been affected by this shutdown—a shutdown that, ironically, can only be reversed by decision-makers who are continuing to be paid. It seems to me to be a bit complicated to make a sensitive decision about something you cannot relate to. How can I really be concerned about you when my lifestyle has not changed? But what do you do when what you depended on dries up? What do you do when famine hits your land? What do you do when that which you were getting sustained by is shut off? God told this man to go to a brook, and he drank from the brook that God told him to drink from, and the brook dried up. There are some lessons here. The first thing God told him was to move. He said, «Go to Zarephath.» I’ll get to that in a moment. Sometimes when things dry up, it’s time to make a move. It’s not always the case, but you have to be careful not to stay in a place beyond your season. Some of us have had things dry up on us, and we’re staying with it, but it’s difficult. See, when you keep giving someone or something that they used to need, don’t be mad at them if they’re not impressed by it. I see that in churches all the time—churches that have dried up because they are busy trying to give people what they used to need in a format they used to appreciate. Have you ever walked into a church and felt like you went back in time? They’re still trying to reach a world that no longer exists. The whole world has changed while they’re sitting there banging a tambourine and yelling, «Let me!» You’re offering products and services that people used to want. Sometimes when you have something that nobody wants anymore, it’s time to make a move. But that’s a whole different subject. So God says, let me give you some background on this. Elijah is on his first assignment. In 1 Kings chapter 17, he is the prophet of Israel, and this is really his first day at work. God says, «I want you to go to Ahab.» Now Ahab was the worst king in Israel’s history. No other king had taken Israel to a darker place than he had. On top of the fact that he was wicked, he married a woman who may have been the most wicked woman in history. Her name was Jezebel; she introduced him to idolatry and Baal worship. Together, they were among the most wicked leaders in Israel’s history. Against that backdrop of introducing Israel into this world of darkness, God sends Elijah to this king and tells him, «It ain’t gonna rain till I say so.» Now understand, he is talking to a king who worships a god who is supposed to be in control of the weather: the god Baal. There’s a picture of Baal sitting on a bull; in one hand, he has an instrument that represents thunder, and in the other hand, he has an instrument that represents lightning because he is supposed to be the god that controls the weather. Here comes this preacher on the scene and says, «Well, my God, who is the Living God, is going to do something your dead god can’t even stop.» The idea is that Baal sits on the cloud; that’s his position. He sits on the cloud and says, «God’s gonna shut the cloud Baal is sitting on,» and nothing’s going to change till I say so. Now what I like about him is this: his first day at work, I like young leaders like that. Young, fresh leaders coming out; they haven’t been compromised by church politics, they haven’t been diminished by church culture; they just come in bold. If it were an old-timer like me, I would have told God, «God, I don’t think I should say that to that man.»