1. A Kind Drought: Elijah, Ahab and the Faithful God Part 1

Hello, and welcome to this brand new podcast, Stories of a Faithful God. This is a podcast where we take a deep dive into the stories of the Bible. These stories are exciting, they’re thrilling… They have all the drama and tension you’d expect from an award winning movie… with the added bonus that they’re all true. The first story we’re going to look at has all of that.

I’m you’re host, Dave Whittingham. I live in a town called Orange in Australia with my wife Janice and four kids. I’ve worked as a primary school teacher, a church pastor, a school chaplain and a pizza delivery guy.

Before we get into it… let me ask you a question that’ll help us understand what we’re doing here. Who do you rely on? Who are you confident you can trust. In the good times and the bad times. When life is happy and when things are tough.

Is it your family? Your friends? Yourself?

Have you ever noticed how even our most trusted people always let us down in some way? We even let ourselves down. No-one’s perfect. We’re forgetful and selfish and... And it puts a big dent in our trustworthiness.

When it comes to God… the first thing God asks us to do… is to trust him. Not just a little bit. There are some people I’d trust with $10 but not a thousand dollars. God doesn’t want that sort of minimal trust. He wants us to trust him… completely. He wants us to trust him with our whole lives. In fact… when God came in the flesh in Jesus Christ… he said take up your cross and follow me. In other words he’s saying… “I’m going to face horrible persecution, suffering and death all for God’s work. Join me! It’s the only road to eternal life.” You really have to trust someone to join them on THAT road.

There are some of us who may hear that and be really sceptical. Because of your experiences or because of the way you view the world…

I’m sure there are others who say… “Yeah, I’m all about trusting God.” And yet… in the moment… we can forget, can’t we? Something goes wrong and, instead of resting, knowing that God’ll look after us… we panic, or rely on ourselves to solve it, or look for any solution other than God. Maybe in little things like when you can’t find your keys… or you forgot to fill up the car. But in the big things as well. Like… when you’re short of money. Or you’re worried about if you’ll ever get married? Or struggling with why your children act like that… or why your close friend died. Perhaps you worry about whether following God is even worth it.

Trust is easy to talk about. It can be hard to do though.

God knows that. Which is why… he hasn’t just told us to trust him. He hasn’t just told us he’s trustworthy. Or that he’s good and loving and fair and lots of other things about himself. He does tell us all that. But he shows it to us as well. Throughout history he’s spoken and acted… and then had that written down in the Bible. So you can check. “Hmmm, he says he’s faithful. Does that play out? Does he really keep his promises?” Words are good, but they need to be backed up by actions.

God’s put himself on display so that we can see… without a shadow of a doubt… what’s he’s really like. We see his character on show over thousands of years of history. On page after page of the Bible where we read stories… true stories… of what God’s said and done. Because God wants us to know him… and trust him… and rest in him.

I love stories and I love telling stories. My hope as I retell these stories… Whether you’re sceptical or a long term believer… whether your feeling excited by God at the moment or a bit tired of him… My hope is that your heart… and your love… and your trust… will be captured and captivated by God.

And so… without further ado… I present to you our first episode… of Stories of a Faithful God.

MUSIC

For this episode and the next one, we’re looking at an amazing event. It’s a time when it looks like everything’s gone wrong.

God had made a perfect world… He’d made perfect people to rule the world under him… but the people had said… no thanks God. We don’t need you. We can do it all on our own. And the world was cursed… and broken.

Then God made a people… the nation of Israel… to be his people. They’d trust him and he’d be trustworthy in looking after them… protecting them… providing for them. The idea was that the rest of the world would look at them and say… “wow. Look how great it is to be an Israelite. I want to get to know their God”.

But even the Israelites had said… “You know what God… we think we can do this better if we do it… our way.” And no matter how much God showed them his love and power and justice and care and protection… even when things looked good for a short while… the people just kept walking away from God.

To show them that he wouldn’t put up with this this forever, God divided the nation into two. Israel in the North and Judah in the South. Its sort of a shot across the bow.

But God doesn’t want to punish them. He said to the new line of kings in the North… “Look. I want to bless you. I want to protect you and provide for you and make you great”. I’ll give you everything I’ve promised to give to Judah. Just stick with me.

But they didn’t.

And so… at the time we’re going to be looking at… about 680 years before Jesus came… the world looks like its failed. God’s holy people look like they’ve failed. God looks like he’s failed.

The passage we’re looking at over this episode and the next one is in 1 Kings… or first kings if you prefer. First kings chapters 16-19.

A new king’s come to power in Israel… King Ahab. So far, ever since Israel broke away from Judah, the kings of the North have all been terrible. There hasn’t been a single good one, not even Ahab’s father, Omri. Their job was to point people back to God’s overall kingship. Instead, though, they’d taken their lead from the first king of the North, a guy named Jereboam son of Nebat. He’d worried about people going to Jerusalem in Judah to worship God. That’s where God’s temple was. And he was worried because, if the people went down to Jerusalem, they might want to join back up with Judah. “Hey, aren’t we all one people? Why did we ever have a civil war in the first place?”

So to stop that Jereboam made a couple of golden calves and said, “Look Israel, here are your gods who saved you from Egypt. Worship them!” He was still saying that these represented the God of Israel… except… God had said… “don’t ever make idols. Don’t ever try to represent me with a statue, because you’ll get it wrong.” Its like if I said… “Oh yeah, I know Tom Cruise. He’s famous. He’s an 8 foot tall soccer champion who’s Prime Minister of New Zealand.” If I said that, you’d know I had no idea who Tom Cruise is. Well now… the People of Israel are given a wrong picture of the true God. These statues are of animals! They can’t speak… they can’t do anything. Unlike God, they’re weak and useless. But the kings of Israel had kept up this practice because… even though they said they were worshipping Israel’s God… they didn’t trust him to look after them. So they took matters into their own hands.

But hey… New king, new beginnings, right? Maybe Ahab’s going to set things on the right path. Maybe this is where things finally turn the corner. He’s certainly a fascinating historical character. There’s some really interesting archaeological stuff that’s been discovered about him.

God doesn’t tell us everything in the Bible, though. He just tells us what we need to know. And what we need to know about Ahab… is that he’s evil. He goes further than Jereboam. He doesn’t just say… let’s worship the god of Israel in this different way. He let’s that happen in the background… but what he really says is… “forget about that God… the God of Israel called Yahweh. Let’s get a different god all together.” This is what God says in 1 Kings chapter 16 verse 30. I’m reading from the ESV Bible:

In the thirty-eighth year of Asa king of Judah, Ahab the son of Omri began to reign over Israel, and Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty-two years. 30 And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD, more than all who were before him. 31 And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, he took for his wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal and worshiped him. 32 He erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he built in Samaria. 33 And Ahab made an Asherah. Ahab did more to provoke the LORD, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him.

What’s Ahab doing here?

At one level, he’s doing what every country does… he’s making an alliance. He wants to improve Israel’s safety and prosperity. He’s making a treaty with the king of Sidon, a local naval and trading power. And he does it in a way that royal families have been making treaties for thousands of years, through a marriage alliance. What’s wrong with all that?

Well, there are a few things.

Firstly… if Israel wanted safety and prosperity, they just needed to ask God. God made the heavens and the earth. He makes nations rise and fall. God set up Israel by rescuing them from Egypt, the biggest superpower at the time… and he gave them a good and prosperous land. He was the best and greatest source of life and safety and prosperity… And Ahab said, “Mmm, no thank you. I’ll go and ask this king over here.”

Secondly… this alliance isn’t just a political alliance. It’s a religious one as well. Not only does Ahab join with the king of Sidon. He also joins with their gods… Baal and Asherah. Baal was believed to be the king of all the gods. The one who controlled the rain and lightning. Asherah is his queen, or consort. Baal’s a direct challenger to Yahweh… That’s the name of Israel’s God… the one called King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Ahab’s effectively said, “Yahweh is inferior… lesser than Baal.”

Finally… there’s the marriage alliance itself. God had told the Israelites… “Don’t marry non-Israelites. They’ll encourage you to follow their gods.” We’ll see later that that’s exactly what Jezebel does, and more. She’s a real piece of work. We won’t go into the detail now… Let’s just say there are reasons why people don’t usually name their daughters Jezebel these days. And if you’re thinking of doing that… maybe hold off until you hear the rest of the story. You’ll thank me later.

So do you see what Ahab’s done? Instead of being this great king of God’s people… leading them to love and trust God… showing the world how wonderful it is to have Yahweh as your God… he’s chucked Yahweh in the bin… and chosen Baal as his god.

This is bad for Ahab. Its bad for Israel. Its bad for the world.

So here’s the big question… What’s God going to do about it? How’s he going to play this? The passage we read before said that Ahab did more to provoke the LORD, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him. It’s like he keeps poking God and saying, “ya like that punk? Huh? Whadya gonna do?”

God could reign down punishment. He’s tried to love people by bringing them back to the safety and security and joy of being with him… and… just like every other generation… Ahab’s said, “Nup. We don’t need you”. And so God could say… “That’s it. Enough’s enough. You don’t get to live in my world anymore.”

Almost to reinforce that, we get this weird little aside about a guy building a city. Just one verse that seems to have nothing to do with our story. Its like we’ve been talking about one of the presidents of the United States and suddenly I said, “Oh and by the way, at about the same time, there was this guy named Darren… And he started a small retail business in Southern California.” It feels a bit weird. The man’s name is Hiel… and he goes and rebuilds the city of Jericho. Jericho had been the first city the Israelites had conquered when God gave them the land of Canaan. This is what the verse says… Its 1 Kings chapter 16 verse 34 if you want to find it later. Its says…

In his days (Ahab’s days) Hiel of Bethel built Jericho. He laid its foundation at the cost of Abiram his firstborn, and set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the LORD, which he spoke by Joshua the son of Nun.

And that, is all we ever hear about Hiel of Bethel in the whole Bible.

What’s going on here?

The key phrase is according to the word of the LORD. You see, God had commanded that Jericho should never be rebuilt. He’d even said that if you build the foundations your oldest son will die. If you set up its gates your youngest son will die. Which is exactly what’s happened.

This seemingly random verse tells us 2 really important things.

Firstly, it says that the problem isn’t just with Ahab. People in the land don’t really care about God’s word. “Who cares what the LORD said? I can build this city of I want to” The king hasn’t gone off on his own in ignoring God… He’s just led the way for his people.

Secondly, it’s a reminder that the word of the Lord matters. When God says something, he means it, and you should listen. You ignore God’s word at your peril.

Which is really important to this story… because God’s about to speak.

He speaks through a man named Elijah the Tishbite, or Elijah from the town of Tishbe. A bit of an out of the way town… there’s nothing particularly impressive or important about this man. What’s important is that God’s chosen him to bring his word.

Elijah goes up to Ahab and he tells him something that’s a direct challenge. Not to Ahab… but to Baal. Elijah basically says there’s only one God in this here town… Yahweh, the God of Israel, and I speak for him.

This is what Elijah says. In chapter 17 verse 1 Elijah says:

“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.”

Now… if you believe that the God of Israel lives… then this is terrifying. No rain means no food growing which means… famine… starvation.

But if you’re Ahab… he doesn’t think the God of Israel lives… or at least… if he does exist… he’s sits under the authority of Baal. And Baal is a fertility god. He sends the rain… not Yahweh. I suspect that at first… Ahab’s not too worried.

It’s interesting that Elijah says that the rain will come by his word, not God’s… but that’s because he’s the prophet of God. The mouthpiece of God. Elijah isn’t claiming any power to send the rain.

But again, Ahab’s probably thinking… “who cares about Elijah? I’ve got hundreds of prophets of Baal. They’ll get this sorted”.

And this is the questions that runs throughout the whole story. Is the LORD, the God of Israel alive… or is Baal. Who’s in charge? Who’s really God? And who really has the right to speak for him?

Or in other words… which one do you trust? The same question we still have to ask today. A question where… if we get it wrong… its disastrous.

Which is why this drought… is an act of incredible kindness from God to Ahab and the Israelites.

You might say… kind? What are you talking about? How is sending a drought kind?

At the moment though… those people believe a lie. They believe in and rely on Baal… a pretend God who can’t help them. Which also means they’re guilty of abandoning the one true God. God could say, if you don’t want me you can’t have any of the good that I give…. Happiness… love… blessing… life.” But like he has countless other times in the Bible… God’s going to patiently… slowly… peel back the lie and uncover the truth that they need to hear. God’s not giving them what they deserve. He’s showing them mercy… by sending a drought… by slowly revealing that their so-called god… can’t do anything.

Now, once Elijah’s delivered the message… in the very next verse… the living God… the true God… speaks. He tells Elijah to go into hiding. In verse 2 of chapter 17 we read…

the word of the LORD came to him (Elijah): “Depart from here and turn eastward and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. 4 You shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.”

That’s a bit… weird… isn’t it? I mean, if you know anything about Ahab and Jezebel… it makes sense to hide. But… Elijah’s going to be completely alone. No friends, no family around him. He’s going to have water to drink at the brook, and God says, “oh, and by the way… you don’t need to take any food with you. Yeah, its all good. I’ve commanded the ravens to come and feed you.”

Ummm, ok. Ravens. Of course. Makes total sense. I personally prefer to have my meals delivered by seagulls, but… you know… each to their own.

God’s saying to Elijah… “you’re going to have to completely rely on me” to survive.”

Here’s how Elijah’s the total opposite of Ahab though. He obeys the word of God. Verse 5 says:

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.

Is that a dumb move?

No… because God always keeps his word. Verse 6 tells us that every single morning and every single evening, ravens bring Elijah bread and meat. Its like a drone delivery service. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this. I saw my friend’s video of it once… He ordered coffees from a local café. They make the coffees, load them onto a drone, fly it to above his back yard and, while the drone hovers there, lower the coffees down on a wire. I thought, what an age we live in.

But of course… someone’s controlling that drone with a remote control. Who’s able to control the flight of the ravens? Let alone command them to collect and deliver meat and bread every morning and every evening.

Only the living God.

So God keeps his word, and he keeps Elijah alive in the ravine day… after day… after day. This is a remarkable example of God’s power and faithfulness in caring for someone who sticks with him… The very thing Ahab and the Israelites have stupidly given up.

Because God’s also keeping his word to Ahab. Across all of Israel… not a single drop of rain is falling. Not a single drop of dew can be found on the ground in the morning. Just like God said.

Naturally… eventually… the brook that Elijah’s been drinking from dries up.

Does that mean its time to go back and for God to send the rain?

Not yet. Israel’s still not ready to learn the lesson.

So instead… God sends Elijah even further away. He could just miraculously make water for Elijah to drink. He’s done that before when the Israelites left Egypt.

But God has something else in store. And we shouldn’t miss the irony of where God sends Elijah next. He sends him to the small town of Zarephath… which isn’t in Israel. It belongs to Sidon. Remember it was the king of Sidon who Ahab made an alliance with. It was the King of Sidon who gave his daughter Jezebel to marry Ahab. It was the gods of Sidon… Baal and Asherah… who were now being worshipped in Israel.

Well now God sends his prophet into Baal’s territory. He launches a tiny invasion, if you will. Not an invasion of death and terror… Its an invasion of life… and love… and blessing.

God sends Elijah to Zarephath and says, “Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” Which is the same language he used for the ravens. God commanded the ravens… now he commands the widow.

Again, Elijah obeys. He trusts that God’s got things sorted. He might even be a little bit excited. Getting food from a human is better than ravens. Ravens aren’t particularly known for their hygienic food preparation or table conversation.

He gets to Zarephath. And it just so happens that, as he arrives, there’s a widow right there at the gate of the city, gathering sticks. It’s another little sign that God directs and shapes history.

We soon discover that the drought’s taken hold here as well. There’s still some water around, presumably from wells and larger rivers and streams… but the food isn’t growing. Add to that the fact that widows in the ancient world were particularly vulnerable. Without a husband around, people were less likely to care about them or notice them… or share food with them.

And so, in the language of the conversation we’re about to look at… everything’s small… and weak… and desperate. Elijah asks the widow in verse 10:

“Bring me a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.”

She does it, just like God had said she would, and so he asks for another, tiny favour.

“Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” Just a tiny bit. Just a crumb or two.

Her reply shows the hopelessness of her situation. She says…

“As the LORD your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. And now I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die.”

She fully expects that this is her last meal. There’s no other food in the house. There’s no food in any shops that she can afford. There’s nothing growing in the field. She’s given up hope. She’s going to eat this last tiny bit of bread with her son… then they’ll lay down together… and die.

Elijah replies… and says something… really weird. In verse 13 he says:

“Do not fear… Isn’t that weird? Do not fear. It almost sounds callous, doesn’t it? “Relax. Don’t worry. Take a chill pill as my kids would say”. Not the sort of thing you’d usually say to someone who’s starving. But he has a really good reason. He says…

“Do not fear; go and do as you have said. But first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterward make something for yourself and your son. 14 For thus says 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.’”

Now, if the LORD, the God if Israel, isn’t real … then that’s an empty promise. It’s a dead promise. And this widow would be wasting her last skerrick of food on a liar and a fraud.

For whatever reason though… I don’t know if she’s aware that God’s commanded her to do this… she feeds Elijah with her very last bit of food. And once again… the word of the living God… the word of the speaking, faithful God… comes true. Verse 15 says:

And she and he and her household ate for many days. The jar of flour was not spent, neither did the jug of oil become empty, according to the word of the LORD that he spoke by Elijah.

It turns out, the widow… who was on the brink of starvation and death… really did have nothing to fear. The Bible says elsewhere, if God is for us, who can be against us? People sometimes think of God as uncaring… or unhelpful… or unnecessary. But look at this lady’s experience:

God’s turned tragedy into triumph. Sadness into joy. A household of death into a tiny island of wonderful, miraculous life.

Which gives an extra layer of tragedy to what happens next. In verse 17 we read:

After this 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.

In other words… he died.

Wait… what? Didn’t God just save this boy’s life? What’s going on here? That’s certainly the question that’s running in his mum’s head. She’s really angry. You can picture her holding her dead son in her arms as she screams at Elijah. She says:

“What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son!”

She’s so angry. She’s angry at God. She’s angry at God’s prophet.

Sometimes people think, you’re not allowed to express your anger or sadness or grief to God. Time and time again throughout the Bible, though, we see that God’s shoulders are big enough to hear us express our hurt.

And that’s what Elijah does, as well. He takes the dead boy in his arms and goes upstairs to his room, lays the boy on his bed, and says to God what he’s really thinking. Verse 20 says:

he cried to the LORD, “O LORD my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I’m living, by killing her son?”

It feels like things don’t match up. Sure, disaster is happening outside the house… but this house is meant to be under God’s protection, isn’t it?

And then Elijah, the prophet of God, does something very bold. He asks his God to overturn death itself. Listen to this from verse 21:

Then Elijah stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the LORD, “O LORD my God, let this child’s life come into him again.” 22 And the LORD listened to the voice of Elijah. And the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. 23 And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper chamber into the house and delivered him to his mother. And Elijah said, “See, your son lives.”

Imagine the emotions that mother’s feeling as… beyond all hope or expectation… her boy walks towards her. Moments before she’s held his cold, lifeless body in her arms. And imagine her gathering him into her embrace… feeling his break on her cheek… his heart beating against hers… his arms pressing around her waste… Filled with life.

Again you’ve got to shake your head in disbelief and ask, “Did Israel really give up on the god who can raise the dead?”

There’s another question on my mind, though. Why does God let this all happen?

God’s clearly in charge of life and death. He’d already saved the life of the boy by providing unending food. Why save him, THEN let him die, only to raise him to life again?

I think the clue is in how the woman responds to what’s happened. In verse 24 we read:

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 truth.”

Its an interesting response, isn’t it? Now I know… didn’t she know before? She was getting food miraculously every single day…

But people are funny, aren’t we? We like to hedge our bets. We’re good at being sceptical… especially when NOT being sceptical requires some kind of response from us.

So for lots of people, they may look on the outside like they’ve signed up to God… but something inside is still holding them back. Maybe that’s you, thinking… “Is God really out there? Does God really care? Is God really the answer I need?”

This passage reminds me of one that’s really similar in the New Testament. The main difference is that… instead of having the prophet of God there… you actually have God himself in the flesh… Jesus Christ. In our passage, Elijah is like… “what on earth are you doing God?” He has no idea. But in John chapter 11, Jesus, God in the flesh, is completely calm… because he knows exactly what he’s doing.

He gets a message that his good friend, Lazarus, is sick in another town. The messengers are obviously expecting him to rush there and heal his friend. But instead, Jesus waits. And Lazarus dies. That’s when Jesus leaps into action, which may feel a little bit late. He tells his disciples that they’re going to see Lazarus, and then he says the strangest thing. He says,

for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe.

You see… them believing in Jesus is the most important thing in the world. Because he’s the one who can give them eternal life. He’s the one who can save them for all eternity. He’s the one that makes death… only a temporary sleep. The fact that they don’t believe in him yet is a massive problem. Their lives are in danger. Their eternity is in danger. And so Jesus has allowed a situation to occur where he can show them… “Don’t just believe that I’m a nice guy or a good teacher. You need to believe that I’m your King and God, who can save your life. You need to trust me with everything.” That’s why he’s taken this drastic step of allowing Lazarus to die.

And so he travels to the tomb of his friend Lazarus. They open up the tomb. Lazarus has been dead for 4 days. And in a loud voice he says, “Lazarus, come out”. And Lazarus comes out, fully alive. And finally, people start believing that Jesus really is the Lord of life. Its such an amazing story. I hope we’ll get to do it in a future episode.

I wonder, though, if the same thing is happening in our story. The woman and her son… they don’t just need food to help them live each day. They need the word of the God who made them. He’s the true life-giver. He’s the one who can give them eternal life. His words can save them from the lies of a false god, so that they can know the truth at the heart of the universe.

And so God takes drastic action. Just like a surgeon might rip open a chest to restore a heart. Just like the action God’s already taking by sending a drought on Israel. Its drastic, but the people need it to be saved from the deadly lie that’s taken such deep root in their hearts.

For this lady… she finally gets it. Elijah isn’t some magician making food appear. He’s not some weird traveller who’s tricked his way into her home. She knows the truth. That he really is the spokesperson for the true and living God. That his words are God’s words. He can take her into a life-giving relationship with God. His words are not just another lie about some fake god who can’t do anything. She says:

“Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in your mouth is truth.”

Now… finally… she believes the word of God. Now… finally… she’s saved. Not just for a few more days or weeks or years… but forever.

Which is great for her… but what about all the people back in Israel? They’ve been having the drastic treatment of a drought for two or three years now. When is it time for them to get a taste of what this foreign widow now understands? Are they going to experience the same amazing grace and mercy?

Well that’s a story for the next episode. And its going to be… spectacular.

Closing Music

Dave here. I hope you enjoyed this podcast. If you did, please recommend it to others. Also, to provide feedback, ask a question, sign up for news and prayer letters and to support this ministry financially, check out the website, faithfulgod.net.

Finally, if you have or know kids, check out the sister podcast, Stories of a Faithful God for Kids.

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