When you think about Elijah, there’s not really a whole lot that we know about him. We know he was a hairy man; we know that he came out of the wilderness; and we know that he was greatly used by God.
In fact, Elijah was used in a very unusual way, and because of that, we attach the reference of a great man of God or a great prophet. At a minimum, I believe Elijah was one of the most unusual prophets that ever lived.
When you look at his life, he was greatly used by God. So, I guess I would ask this fine crowd this morning, “How many of you think that we have a Great God?” How many of you believe that God still does great works today?
It would be very easy for me to preach a message titled “The Secret to How Elijah was Greatly Used of God.” But I’m not going to do that.
How many of you have eaten some of Roman’s cooking? How many of you would agree that Roman is a great cook? Now I have had some food sometimes that I wanted to know the ingredients. You can go to Roman and ask, “Brother, what are the ingredients you used in that?” and he will probably reply, “O, a little of this and a little of that.”
Or you can ask Roy the recipe for his tri-tips, and he’ll say, “O, a little of this and a little of that.” I think these guys went to school together!
Sometimes in life we come across people that seem to be different, that seem to really be walking with God, they seem to reflect the presence of God in their lives. They just seem to have that special sauce. SO, this morning I want to speak on this thought, “THE SECRET SAUCE ON THE THINGS GOD GREATLY USES!”
To understand where I’m going, I need to give you a little background. In chapter 16 and verse 30 the Bible says, “And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him.”
In other words, the wickedness that was in the land before, Ahab was about to kick it up a notch and take it Evil and Wickedness to a whole new level. How many of you believe that we live in a wicked day today? I don’t think we’ve seen the end of that. It seems to me that men wax worse and worse. We see things happening in our country today that seem to have taken wickedness to a whole new level, things that make me ashamed.
What I’m saying folks is that evil is on the rise. We are tolerating and accepting today as the norm that 30 years ago would have made us blush. Evil is on the rise. And that is the setting that Elijah finds himself.
Verse 31 says, “And it came to pass, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat . . .”
In other words, Ahab made this guy who was totally wicked look like he was just some school kid slinging out a curse word, his sins were just small things compared to Ahab.
“He took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshipped him.”
So here is a king of a nation, whose God is the LORD, and he is worshipping and serving Baal. “Baal” means little “l” lord. I’m glad there is only one capital “L” LORD in the Bible.
Look at verse 32, “And he reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria.”
In other words, Idolatry was being restored in the nation that was supposed to get rid of it. And verse 33 says, “And Ahab made a grove . . .” They were supposed to get rid of the groves. They were supposed to get rid of all these things that would turn the hearts of God’s men to false idols.
And now they are being restored, they are being put back into place. And so God said of “Ahab did more to provoke the LORD GOD of Isreal to anger than all the kings of Isreal that were before him.” He made God mad!!!
What I’m saying is the backdrop to I Kings 17 is that wickedness is on the rise, Idolatry is on the rise. It seems to me, that there are fewer and fewer people sitting on the pews of church nowadays, and more and more people at the ball fields, or the race tracks. It just seems to me that we are not the “One Nation Under God that we once were.
And sadly, we just get into our little spiritual huddles and pray that we hold out until the rapture. Well folks, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to live in a whole until Jesus comes.
Now look at chapter 17 and verse 1, “AND ELIJAH . . .” in the middle of all that wickedness, in the middle of all the idolatry, God decides, “I’m going to go ahead a do a work anyway!”
Wickedness may be on the rise, idol worship may be on the rise, false temples may be built, Baal may be there little “g” God – BUT GOD WASN’T DONE!
And I have great news for Rally Point Biker Church this morning, God is not finished working in our lives in this world we live in right now!
I want to show you 5 things that God uses, and the secret to the usefulness of these things.
FIRST, GOD USES THE UNKNOWN WHO HAS FAITH IN HIS MESSAGE
“And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.”.
When Elijah comes on the scene, we know absolutely nothing about him. All we know is he is hairy, he wears leather clothing and he comes from the hills. He is just an unknown man of God – and that’s all he is.
But we read chapter 17 and 18 and in chapter 19, we see him call down the fire from Heaven, and we see this great man of God, this great prophet of God – but when he steps out in I Kings 17:1, all we know about him is that he is a man who steps out WITH FAITH IN GOD’S MESSAGE.
Our problem today as a society is that everybody wants to be know. We have snapchat and twitter and all these others accounts and we want to be influencers, we want people to know who we are.
It happens in churches as well. We talk about the size of a church, how many degrees the preacher has, how many books they’ve written, which Seminary they graduated from, how many people do they have in their sphere of influence
But that’s not what God did. God saw this man named Elijah, that nobody knows, whose name means “Yahweh is my God.” God says, “That’s the guy I’m going to use!
Elijah didn’t have a ministry; he didn’t have a church; “Hey Elijah, how people’d you run on Sunday?” he wasn’t a social media influencer; “Elijah, how many followers you got on TikTok?”
Elijah is not known. But here is his secret sauce – HE HAS FAITH IN GOD’S MESSAGE.
Look at what Elijah says in verse 1, “Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word,”
SO, Elijah just appears out of nowhere and he takes this message that God said it wasn’t going to rain in 3 ½ years, he obediently carries this message to King Ahab – no questions asked. Elijah had faith in the message! Let me ask you, do you have faith in the message of God today?
How many of you believe that the Gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation? The church of today is trying to replace the message of God with programs, but folks I still believe the death burial and resurrection of Jesus is still the message of the church today!
Elijah had faith in the message. And folks’ I believe that a “nobody, who believes in somebody, change impact everybody!”
SECOND GOD USES THE UNDESIRABLE WHO YIELD TO HIS WORD
Look at verse 4, “And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there.”
Let me sak you first, how many of you like to hunt and eat Ravens? How many of you have a picture of a raven hanging in your living room? They are disgusting, unclean animals.
How many have ever watched birds feeding one another? Now, with that picture in mind, do you want this filthy unclean animal feeding you?
Now look at verse 6, “And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook.”
I could be wrong here, but I’m pretty sure that that Raven didn’t sprinkle on some Gordon Ramsey spices and cook that meat up before he brought it to Elijah. And to think he had to eat that in the morning and the evening, and it my elementary math holds up – that’s twice a day!
Now how undesirable is that? Funny how God can use those who don’t have a voice, those who can’t sing, those who can’t preach, those who are nobodies in the eyes of the world to do incredible things for the work of God.
Well preacher, I’m divorced; I don’t have the right kind of education; I’ve had an addiction; I have PTSD. The devil will tell you there are a hundred things that makes you undesirable, unable to ever be used of God,
BUT GOD TAKES DELIGHT IN USING THE THINGS OTHER PEOPLE LEAVE LYING ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ROAD.
Look at the end of verse 4, “and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there.” The secret sauce is, those ravens simply obeyed God. Every day they simply did what God commanded them to do.
I think our lives and our churches would be a whole lot better off if we simply obeyed the Word of God, don’t you?
FINALLY, GOD WILL USE THE WEAK WHO SUBMIT TO HIS WORD
Look at verse 9, “Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there: behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.”
So, to give you the backdrop here, there is a widow woman, I image she is not an old widow woman, as she has a son still under her care, but a widow non-the-less. She barely has enough food to feed her own son, and here is this prophet of God asking her to make him some bread. And you know what she did?
She yielded to the man of God. She didn’t have to. God gave her the will to choose. But she yielded to God’s man, and because she did, God fill her containers up with enough food to carry her for weeks. But that wasn’t the end of the story.
Get this picture emblazoned in your minds. Here comes this preacher, he says, “Go fetch me a cup of water, in the middle of a draught. Then he says, “Go fix me a cake, and feed me first,” to a woman that doesn’t have enough to feed her and her own son.
What do you think the lame stream media would say about that preacher if that widow would have posted that on social media?
Let me give to you in even better terms. What would happen if that Widow walked into this church and said to y’all, “Preacher Joe came over, told me to make him some cake, when I don’t even have enough cake to feed me and my kids? Do y’all think I should make him the cake?
So here is the wild looking Tishbite that came out of the hills, saying he’s been feed by the birds, now he wants you make him a cake, when you don’t even have enough to feed your own family. Y’all would say, “He’s crazy, you need to get him out of your house.”
But do you know what she did, she not only listened to what God’s man was saying, but she did what he asked.
I’m going to conclude with this thought, verse 12 tells us she had a “handful of mill in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse.” Now there might have been a full barrel at one time, and that cruse might have been filled to the bream – but they are not now.
Sometimes in our Christian lives, we have been full of peace and joy unspeakable. But can I submit that there are times in our lives when we are when we feel like we are just used up and there’s not much left in the tank. We think to ourselves we have nothing left to give.
Some of you may be there right now. Can I just encourage you to trust God, to believe His Word, to know that He is supplying all your needs according to His riches in glory! You may just have a little mill left in your barrel, but YOUR BARREL is not empty! Trust God
Fighting for My Pea Patch 