Define Christian – Trust God to Provide – takes us into the ministry of the prophet Elijah. If you were watching the life and times of Ahab the wicked king of Israel the series would be restricted. It was a gross show with disgusting sexual sins and, yes, turning those into worship of a false god, a little cow idol named Baal. There was no syncretism of mixing the true God and a little idol worship, this was whole hog paganism.
But then in episode three we meet a man named Elijah. We don’t know anything about him before chapter 17 in I Kings. Things are about to change.
Let’s jump back into our text but we don’t want to jump over the spiritual purpose here. It isn’t so simple as Israel is bad – therefore it’s not raining. The popular god at the time was Baal and his consort Asherah. Baal would water the crops with the rain and make everything grow. If it’s not raining, guess who is powerless and impotent. Hopefully – Baal worship starts to hit rock bottom.
I’m going to guess that Baal worship hasn’t made a comeback yet – this is good, but I don’t think Satan needs Baal worship to tempt God’s people. The irony of our nation is that in a land of ridiculous plenty, one of the greatest temptations is always for more! Do you trust God to provide? …to provide when inflation still isn’t at 2%. …to provide when the economy turns south. …if you lost your job and your house is God still providing for you? Have you considered that one of the best things God can do for his people is to remove certain blessings?
God uses the daily ups and downs of life to draw us close to him. His goal isn’t to make our lives cushy, it’s to keep us faithful. We can get distracted by SO many things. It doesn’t take much, a crazy day with the kids, at the office and our focus is shaken. It’s at times like these that we direct our focus to the empty tomb. We see that Jesus is the living God of the Old Testament and the New Testament. He STILL alive today, guiding, protecting, and providing for us.
Want to hear more? Watch this week’s message taken from Matthew 13 in our summer sermon series Define Christian – Trust God to Provide.
Book(s): 1 Kings
Series: Define Christian
Tag(s): Stewardship, Thanksgiving
Speaker(s): Fred Guldberg