THREE SEASONS OF PREPARATION FOR EVERY BELIEVER

When I was about to go into full time ministry my dad took me aside and told that there would be no shortcuts cuts for my life and that God would not make it easy for me.

Little did I know how true that would be as I proceeded out on my own.  God went to great measures to prepare me for what He had planned for me.

Elijah was also a man that God prepared for ministry.  God wanted to use him in a powerful way to stand against an evil king.  He took him through 3 distinct seasons of preparations in his life.

Elijah means – “The Lord Is Jehovah.”

God goes to great lengths to prepare Elijah for a powerful ministry to confront Israels rebellion against God.

THREE SEASONS OF PREPARATION FOR EVERY BELIEVER

1-   A Season of Isolated Pain and Loneliness

I Kings 17:1 says  that Elijah prophesies that there will be “No more rain” because of their rebellion.

In vv. 2-3 God takes him away to a solitary place for a season of ministry to him.

1 Kings 17:2-3 (NKJV) 2  Then the word of the LORD came to him, saying, 3  "Get away from here and turn eastward, and hide by the Brook Cherith, which flows into the Jordan.

Cherith, (Hebrew – Kerith) - it means, “cut off,” or it means “cut down.”  It means to be cut off from the source, to be cut off from the blessings, or very literally, it means to cut down like you would chop down a tree.

You could almost sense what God is, is saying here.  It’s as if God is going to say, “I’m going to take you through a season of breaking.  I’m going to cut you down.  I’m going to humble you.  I’m going to teach you to be totally dependent on Me, and I’m going to humble you privately before I use you publicly.  I’m going to do something in you that’s very, very deep, so later on, you can do more than you ever thought possible.  I’m going to take you down privately, so I can use you publicly.”

Psalm 34:18 (NKJV) 18  The LORD is near to those who have a broken heart, And saves such as have a contrite spirit.

Some of you right now, you, you would say, “Man, I’m living in the Cherith Ravine.  I’m, I’m there.  I’m being broken.  It’s like I’m being cut down.  Those things that I used to depend on, I no longer can depend on.  I’m in the Karith Ravine.”

God may say, “No, you’ve got to understand.  I’m doing something in you.  There’s a preparatory work going on.  I’m teaching you something that you couldn’t learn any other way.  I’m doing this work in you, so I can do more through you.”

2-   A Season of Total And Complete Dependence

1 Kings 17:4-6 (NKJV) 4  And it will be that you shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there." 5  So he went and did according to the word of the LORD, for he went and stayed by the Brook Cherith, which flows into the Jordan. 6  The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening; and he drank from the brook.

In the middle of a drought, there’s no water at all, and this brook comes up.  In the middle of the drought, no rain, there’s this brook that he gets to drink from.

Then, we’ve got God’s Heavenly catering service.  

These birds go out and find bread and meat, and every morning and every evening, they deliver them straight to the prophet.

What was God doing?  God was very clearly and very distinctly saying that no matter what, and for always, “I will be faithful.  You can count on Me to provide for you.”

Many of you right now, you are in a season where there was something you used to trust in for your security, and it’s been taken away.

You don’t have anything else to trust in, but the giver life and giver of all good things.

You are having to learn that when everything else that you used to believe in fades away, God will forever and always be faithful to you.

Forever and always, God says, “I will be your provider.  When you can’t depend on what you used to be able to depend on, I will deliver what you need.”  

Here’s the cool thing about it is, God didn’t give him two days worth of food.  God didn’t give him a weeks worth of food. God didn’t give him a three-month supply.  What did God give him?  Enough for the day, enough for the day.

Some of you, you are going to learn that right now.

You are in a season where you’re hurting and you’re alone and you’re afraid, but guess what?  God delivers enough for the day.

3-   A Season of Unconditional Obedience

Here’s the third thing that God does with Elijah: God takes him through a season of what I call unconditional obedience.  

There’s isolated pain.  There’s total dependence, and then, there’s a season of unconditional obedience.

1 Kings 17:7-9 (NKJV) 7  And it happened after a while that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land. 8  Then the word of the LORD came to him, saying, 9  "Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. See, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you."

Verse 7, the Bible says, “And it happened after a while…”

What happened?  The brook dried up. God then tells him to pack it up and go to Zarepath.

Now, let’s put ourselves in the prophet’s place.  It’s been months that he’s been by this ravine, and it’s been feeding him daily water.

God told him to go there, and then the brook dries up, and God says to move on.

In my mind, I’m starting to think, “Okay, God, where are You?  What’s the purpose of being here?  You gave me water from the brook.  

Now, the water dries up. Did I do something wrong?  You’re telling me to go on.  Did I miss You the first time?  Am I hearing You, God?  I don’t quite understand.  The brook dried up.  Why would the source of what used to feed me dry up?”

And he’s going to learn that the same God who gives water can take water away, because often, God may cause the brook to dry up to give us the courage to leave where we are and to go where we are supposed to be.

God, the same God who gives water, may cause the brook to dry up to give us the courage to take a step of total obedience.

And  God causes him to go into this new place - Zarephath.

He moves, and then he travels to this place, maybe a hundred miles or so, across a barren land.

And he comes and sees this widow, who God says is going to provide for him.

And so he humbles himself, and he says, “I’m really thirsty.  Could you give me some water to drink and maybe a little snack, ‘cause I’m kind of hungry?”

And the widow looks at him and goes, “Are you, are you the only guy that doesn’t know, it hasn’t rained!  We’re dying.  There’s a drought here.  I’m a widow.  I’ve got one son.  He’s back at the house.  I came out here to get some sticks.  I’m going to go make the last meal.  I’ve got a little bit of flour left, and I’ve got a little oil in the jug.  That’s all I’ve got left, enough for one last meal.  We are going to eat, and then we are going to die.”

And because of what God is doing in Elijah’s life, he says, “No, you’re not.”  And he looks at an impossible situation and speaks faith into it.

He says, “The flour that you have will not run out.  And the jar of oil will not run dry.  Go back and bake me some biscuits.”  

And she does, and they ate the biscuits, and the flour did not run out and the oil did not run dry.

And they, they ate, and they ate for weeks and months.  God again, supernaturally provided for Elijah in his unconditional obedience to God.

Then one day, tragedy struck, and the son died mysteriously.  The mom freaked out, as you would expect, and said, “ Is this God’s judgment on me because I turned against the one true god, to these false gods?  Elijah, did you come here so this would happen?”

And Elijah, because of all that had happened, because God was shaping him, did something that to our knowledge had never happened before in history. There’s no previous record of this in the Bible.  

He takes a dead boy, carries him up to the upper room, puts his body on top of him, looks up to Heaven and says, “God, I think You could heal this guy.  I’m asking You to do it,” and God raises a dead boy to life.

Why did this happen?  Because God took him to the Cherith Ravine, where he was cut down.

God took him to a season of total dependence, where he couldn’t depend on anything at all but God, and God alone.

Then, God dried up the brook, so that he would leave where he was, to go to where God ultimately wanted him, so once again, He could perform a miracle and raise the dead back to life.

God used the horrible things to shape him into a true man of God.

How could Elijah have such faith?  Because he had been through the Cherith Ravine.

Some of you right now, you are in a season of, of deep pain, and God may just say, “I’m doing something in you, because one day, I’m going to do more through you.”

Verse 1, Elijah was described as Elijah the Tishbite.  He was known with where’s he’s from.

23 verses later, he’s not known for where he’s from, but instead, for Whom he’s from.  And look at how the story changes.

Verse 24, the end of the story.  The woman of God, He’d just raised her son.  She, she says to Elijah…

1 Kings 17:24 (NKJV) 24  Then the woman said to Elijah, "Now by this I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in your mouth is the truth.", “Wow!

God may allow you to go through the Cherith  Ravine, so one day, someone could look at you, say, “Now, I know.  I see it.  I see it.  I see.  Wow!  You are a man/ woman of God.  Now, I see it.  You are child of God.  Now, I see it.  You are a man of God.”

And, I’ll tell you right now, I praise God for all the pain and all the shaping experienced, and all the hurt, and all the brokenness, and all the supernatural provision, and all the unconditional obedience, because I pray that when people look at me today they wouldn’t say, “Oh, yeah, there’s Bill Burnett, that guy from the High Desert.”

But instead, they say, “Oh, there’s Bill Burnett.  He’s not perfect, but we know he is a man of God.”