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1. Tough Love
Israel had gone bad. It had soured on God. The once mighty nation of a united Israel was no more. It had been split in half by discord that led to a civil war that tore apart the nation. The divided kingdom really marked the beginning of the end for Israel. Because the Northern Kingdom had removed itself from the worship center in Jerusalem, it wasn’t long until idolatry crept in. Of each successive king, it was said: “He did evil in the eyes of the Lord.” Those words were like a bell tolling the death of a nation.
The king at the time of our Scripture reading was Ahab. As kings go, Ahab was rotten to the core, the lowest of the low, the bottom of the barrel. If it were possible, he made matters worse when he married Jezebel, whose name even today is synonymous with wickedness. She was responsible for importing a brand-new god into Israel – the deadly Baal. Up until this time, Israel was still carrying on a syncretistic idolatry – a big word that simply means that for Israel, religion was a hybrid. They were still worshiping God but through the physical image of the golden calf. Now, they abandoned God altogether in favor of this new heathen sensual worship of Baal. Baal’s drawing card was sex. Temple prostitutes and orgies were incorporated into his worship. The new religion hit the faltering faiths of Israel like a tidal wave and washed out any semblance of the worship of the true God, the God of their fathers, who had stuck with them through thick and through thin.
The time had come for God to flex His almighty muscles. His people’s faith needed food and fast. It was time to practice tough love. They had ignored all other attempts to win them back. So now they had brought on themselves God’s tough love: Now Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.” That’s love? Very much so. Tough love.
God’s wisdom was very much evidenced by the method of tough love that He chose to impress upon His wayward and rebellious people that they were making a big mistake. He chose to withhold rain for three and a half years, triggering a severe drought. God knew what He was doing. Baal was supposed to be the god of nature, the god of fertility. In a very effective way, God exposed Baal’s impotence, that he was just a worthless hunk of clay made by men’s hands.
He not only exposed Baal as a fraud and a fake, but He also reminded His people of their own mortality. From these people who were giving in to the desires of their flesh, He was very literally removing their flesh. They were being starved into submission. For wherever there is a drought, a famine is sure to follow. The people needed to see the need for a renewed dependence on God. So, God gave them what they needed. It wasn’t fun. It was tough love.
He accomplished yet another purpose in the drought. It proved to be a very severe chastisement for their very severe sin of defying and denying the Almighty God in Heaven. Those with any brains at all learned one thing for sure: you don’t mess with God! God was force-feeding the faltering faiths of His faithless followers. Tough love!
We can rightfully view national calamities and worldwide crises and disasters as God making His voice heard in a world that has tuned God out and turned God off. Through them, God calls attention to man’s mortality, that at all times, we are just a breath away from death. He reminds us of our relative insignificance. Through them, He calls for a universal declaration of dependence on Him.
God still practices tough love today to get our attention. Sometimes, He puts us flat on our backs so that we remember to look up. He would rather have us hurt a little bit now so that we don’t have to hurt a lot later…and forever. He still force-feeds our faith through Tough Love. Some more Food for Faith…
2. Trial Love
God’s man of the hour was Elijah. He was God’s spokesman in the battle against Baal. His assignment was to stop Baalism in its tracks and to call the people back to repentance and the worship of the true God. Not an easy task by any means. He was standing strong against the world, standing alone in the gap for God’s truth with unwavering conviction and standing firm against tremendous pressure. So, his faith needed to be fed and built up until it was immovable. And so God feeds his faith, making use of Trial Love.
Much like Israel’s forty-year training in their trek through the wilderness, they were forced to look to God for their very existence, so it was for Elijah. That same drought, which was causing so much grief and consternation, was used by God to train Elijah to trust Him. Through a series of unlikely and ironic events, God fed Elijah’s faith.
The first test or trial came immediately: Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah: “Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. You will drink from the brook, and I have directed the ravens to supply you with food there.” He was to put himself entirely at God’s mercy for his very existence. And what unlikely nursemaids! Ravens! Ravens are among the greediest and most selfish birds in God’s creation, the last creatures you would expect to get your dinner from. But when God gives the orders, things happen. Let’s see how Elijah did with that test: “So he did what the Lord had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there.” He was willing to put himself into the Lord’s hands for his survival. He passed his first test and his faith was fed in the process.
The next test finds Elijah in dire straits or, if you will, ‘drier straits’: “Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land.” God could have kept the brook flowing miraculously, but Elijah would learn more from a dried-up brook. He would learn to trust even more, not the water in the brook, but the hand behind the water. He would learn that God never forsakes His own.
Time for Trial Love Test Two – Operation Feed That Faith. “Then the word of the Lord came to him: 9 “Go at once to Zarephath in the region of Sidon and stay there. I have directed a widow there to supply you with food.” Depending on birds for breakfast was one thing, but isn’t this just asking for trouble? Go to Sidon – Jezebel’s stomping ground and Baal’s headquarters? That’s pushing things a bit, isn’t it God? And did You say, ‘a widow?’ Why she could hardly be expected to feed herself in this famine much less another mouth. We might have expected Elijah to raise some of those objections. But he didn’t. Not a word. God promised. Elijah obeyed. That was that. The Bible simply says: “So he went to Zarephath.” No ifs, ands, or buts. Blind faith. Fed by God’s Trial Love.
Saints, there are dried-up brooks in our lives, too, aren’t there? When health retreats as age advances, wealth shrinks as inflation expands, and hearts hurt as loved ones leave, do we raise anxious and accusing eyes heavenward with our complaints mirrored in them? Or do we recognize in them God’s Trial Love? Do we see that sometimes God lets brooks dry up in our lives so that we look to Him for refreshment? Do we humbly trust that God knows best, that come what may, it will work for our good? Do we understand that God doesn’t always give us what we want but always gives us what we need? Sometimes, that need includes the calisthenics of trouble so that our muscles of faith might be toned and strengthened. Sometimes, He sends us His Trial Love as Food for our Faith.
Finally, we want to address God’s most precious love of all: the love that loved us when we were unlovable, the love that takes our faith where it’s at and fills it and feeds it with its amazingness and incredibleness. Next and last, let’s see God employ His…
3. Trusty Love
First with Elijah. God never left him in the lurch. He never left his faith unrewarded. His love proved trustworthy. Beginning at the brook: “The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.” His faith was rewarded by God’s Trusty Love at Zarephath: “There was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah.” God found Elijah’s faith strong and healthy, and He rewarded it even more by feeding his faith with His Trusty Love. God promised, and God delivered. He never disappoints those who put their trust in Him.
Isn’t that daily miracle in the widow’s house a good reminder that we have a God in heaven upon whom we can call in the day of trouble? When we scrape the bottom of the barrel in our lives, when we are literally living from hand to mouth, when we are emotionally, spiritually, or physically drained, how comforting to know that He who commands us to pray: “Give us this day our daily bread,” has also committed to care for us and promised to hear our prayers.
If we wonder if He will deliver on His promise to care for us in body and soul, what better place to look for the answer than Bethlehem’s manger or Calvary’s cross? There we see in no uncertain terms His Trusty Love. There, that Trusty Love speaks volumes. It reminds us that “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” God feeds our Faith with His Trusty Love.
Saints, God has prepared a banquet for our faith with His love. He alone knows which course to serve us – Tough Love, Trial Love, or Trusty Love. Whatever the case, it will be served in fine fashion. He’ll give us the soul food we need here in time so that one day, we can enjoy the heavenly banquet that He is preparing for us. Let our prayer ever be the words from Mark: “Lord, I believe, help me overcome my unbelief.” Amen.
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