Our Provider

down into verse 17 and it says, Judah went with Simeon and they struck the Canaanites living in Zephath and utterly destroyed it. And Judah took Gaza with them with its territory and Ashkelon with its territory and Ekron with its territory. Now, if those names are, remind, if they remind you of anything, I mean, the Philistines were in those lands, were in those cities. But at that point, Judah went in and took those cities.

And, and you go through up to like verse 27. In verse 27, you start dealing with the other brothers. And verse 27 says, but Manasseh did not take possession of Beth-shen and its villages or Tanak or Dor or Megiddo. So the Canaanites persisted to live in the land. And then the next, 29, neither did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites who were living in Gezer. And then 30,

Zebulun did not drive out the inhabitants of Kitron. You know, my, my mind is like, okay, so what's going on here? At the beginning, everything went well. But something is different here. And what you find is that each one of these tribes, these other tribes, did not accomplish their goal. And, and when you really look at that, you, you start to ask the question,

what, what's going on? Well, the beginning of chapter 2 actually kind of gives a little bit of the story. And what it says is, now the angel of the Lord, which, whenever it's the angel of the Lord, that's pre-incarnate Jesus, came up from Gilgal to Bochim. And he said, I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land, which I have sworn to your fathers.

And I said, I will never break my covenant with you. He's made a promise. He's going to give them this land. And as for you, you shall make new covenant with the inhabitants of this land. You shall tear down their altars. But you have not obeyed me. What is this you have done? Therefore, I also said, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become

as thorns in your side, and their God shall be a snare to you. And it came about when the angel of the Lord spoke these words to all the sons of Israel that the people lifted up their voices and wept. And as I read through that section, the thing that stands out to me is that it really looks like those folks, one had not obeyed the Lord in taking down all the altars. And it would be my guess, although it's not really clear here, it would be my guess that they weren't totally dependent on the Lord to accomplish this battle.

You know, they had been doing battling for a number of years with Joshua. And Joshua would take things to the Lord and allow the Lord to lead and guide him. And they would just follow and do what Joshua said to do. But when they went and Joshua was gone, and they went and they went after these people in the land that was given to them, I get the picture that they didn't really go seek God's help.

They just figured God was on their side and God was gonna fight the battle for them without really talking to them about it. And it is so important for us, and as you can see in this section, so important that what we do is you start out your day with the Lord. And you go, Lord, where do you want me to go today? What do you want me to do? I mean, we all have those things

that we've gotta do. If you have a job, you gotta go to the job. It's really bad if you don't go to the job. But in that job, what are you going to do? Are you gonna allow the Lord to lead you? Are you gonna ask Him for direction and seek Him in everything that you do? And so, you know, the takeaway that I had was that when we seek God and draw close to Him

and allow Him to lead us, He will provide for us. You know, it's so easy sometimes and you can just see, you know, there's, and I didn't look up the scripture, but the one that stands out to me is that God says that He's gonna give the people of the world the rain and He's gonna take care of them. And we get kinda used to just, hey, God's taking care of us. But even if He is taking care of us, are you thanking Him for what He's doing?

Are you praising Him for all that He has done for you? You know, like your day when something goes really good, you know where the, where the real source is in that. That's, it wasn't that you necessarily did anything so great. It's that God used you to accomplish something really great. And we need to give God the glory. So, let's pray. Let's pray. Let's pray.

Let's pray. Let's pray. And I want to just and I want to just with that, you know, we just see some, there's, there's a, if you will, there's a requirement on our part. there's a, if you will, there's a requirement on our part. And, what I want to go to now is to look at 1 Kings chapter 17. And, 1 Kings chapter 17 Elijah comes on the scene, and Elijah is a man that God used mightily, and to kind of

give you a little bit of the background, remember the land of Israel, if you will, the whole land, when it was one, was split, they had the northern tribes go, and they called that area Israel, and then you have the lower, the southern, became Judah, and you had Judah and Benjamin, but pretty much the rest of the folks went north. And, and, you had kings, and what ended up happening was Ahab became the king of Israel, king of the northern tribes, and Ahab was seen as, he did more evil than any king before him. So, this is a, this is a man that really had no care or concern for the true God, and Elijah stood up to him. On the beginning of chapter 17, verse 1, it says, Now Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab,

As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives before whom I stand, surely there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word. You know that irritated the king. You don't go up to the king and tell him that, Hey, we're going to shut down the water to you, and you don't get any water. No rain, no nothing. It's going to become a drought. Especially a man like, like Ahab.

He would, he would want to take you out. And, and so the very next verse, it says, And the word of the Lord came to him, saying, Go away from here, and turn eastward, and hide yourself in the brook Cherith. Which is east of the Jordan. And it shall be that you shall drink of the brook, and I have commanded that the ravens would provide for you there. So he went and did according to the word of the Lord.

For he went and lived by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. So that put him on the other side of the Jordan, really away from a, from Ahab, and out in the wilderness. And I don't know whether you ever really thought much about that. But maybe we don't see that as really providing for. But I look at that as a really interest. I mean, God doesn't, as we mentioned earlier, doesn't provide for us in the ways that we

want always. He's going to, he's going to do something. Something special, some of the time. Well, it's always special, but I mean, we might see it a little different. And in this case, clearly having a bunch of birds bringing you, bringing you bread and meat every day, and you're living next to a, a brook, so you get your water, and, and that works. And it's great for a while until the brook runs dry.

So what happens next? Well, the cool thing is God's got that planned. And when you are seeking God and drawing close to him, you're going to see what he's going to do next. Sometimes not in the time that you want, but he's going to do something. And verse seven says, And it happened after a while. And it happened after a while that the brook dried up because there was no rain in the

land. And the word of the Lord came to him saying, Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and stay there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you. So he's going to go basically up just a little bit above where Ahab had control, right on the Mediterranean. Right on the Mediterranean. And so he's going to go up basically out of Israel.

Kind of an interesting thing when you think about it, but he is trying to stay low from being able to be caught by Ahab. But he goes up there because he obeys the Lord. And so when he, when he got up there, he was like, I'm going to go up there. And so when he, when he got up there, he was like, I'm going to go up there. And so when he got up there, he was like, I'm going to go up there.

And so when he got there, you know, and I always love these stories, whether it's in the New Testament or here, where, where God or Jesus tells somebody, go into the city and you're going to see somebody doing this. And you see them and you visit with them. And so what he does is he saw this widow who is gathering sticks and he called to her and said, please get me a little water. In a jar that I may drink.

And as she was going to get it, he called to her and said, oh, please bring me a piece of bread in your hand. But she said, as the Lord, your God lives, I have no bread, only a handful of flour in the bowl and a little oil in the jar. And behold, I'm gathering a few sticks that I may go in and prepare for me and my son that we may eat it and die. Wow. Um, you know, you wonder what Elijah was thinking when, when she said that, but she

says, he says to her, do not fear, go do as you have said, but make me a little bread cake from it first and bring it out to me. And afterwards you may make one for yourself and for your son. Now, you know, she knows how much flour and how much oil. Is in her containers and she's probably going, what in the world are you saying? But he says, for thus says the Lord God, the bowl of flour shall not be exhausted, nor

shall the jar of oil be empty until the day that the Lord sends rain on the face of the earth. So she knows he's a man of God. Don't really know where she stands at this point. She does what Elijah asked her to do and things start to just click. So in this case, Elijah was being ministered to and, and cared for and provided for by her, but God was providing the oil and the flour for all of them.

And isn't that the way God works? He, he is going to take care of the believer and those that the believer is working with, which is to me pretty exciting because God is going to use you in the lives of non-believers to impact them, to draw them to the Lord. But anyway, another situation comes up. Her son gets sick and dies. And you can, you can picture this, you know, here she's seen, seen Elijah and seen God

do miracles. And all of a sudden the one that is so important to her is taken from her. And it's like all of what was done beforehand is worthless. It doesn't matter. And so she, she takes her son to Elijah. And Elijah takes her son and goes before the Lord. And verse 20 says, And he called to the Lord and said, O Lord my God, hast thou also brought calamity to this widow with whom I am staying by causing

your son to die? Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and called to the Lord and said, O Lord my God, I pray thee, let this child's life return to him. And the life of the child returned to him. And he revived. And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper room into the house and gave him to his mother. And Elijah said, see, your son is alive.

And then the woman said to Elijah, now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord is in your mouth and it's truth. So when I, when I look at that situation, you have Elijah going into the wilderness. You have God sending to a place where there's water. You have God sending birds to bring bread and meat to him. And when the brook dries up, God sends him somewhere else.

And where he is, he actually, he impacts other people's lives for God. And God is able to again provide for he and this family. God knows all and can accomplish all. We just need to draw close and trust him to do it as he told us. When you consider all these provisions, some of them are miraculous ones. Only possible, only possible at the hand of God. But God proved himself over and over.

And when we look at our own lives and think about the situations that we face, sometimes God is going to have to do something miraculous. And we're going to have to trust him to do something miraculous. But if we do, he will. And so as we kind of come to the end of this study tonight, let's go back over all of God's incredible provisions. You know, at the beginning, we saw that Jesus told us to keep our eyes,

our heart and our minds on our Lord, his kingdom and his righteousness. And all of our needs will be met. Secondly, we see that when we seek God in his direction, God will provide the victory. Just like he did with Judah.

Thirdly, when we go it alone and fail, don't give up on God. If we repent and return and seek God and his direction for our lives, he will step back in. And get things moving in the right direction. Providing what we need. And as the final takeaway, although it may look a little strange, if we do this when God will do, you know, I guess what I'm trying to say there is

sometimes it looks like if we do this, then God will do that. It looks like there's a, if you will, a formula. We do this, God does that. But that's really not what's going on here. What's going on is that God desires a relationship with us. And that relationship is with him is like this perfect father. Has, and, and this perfect father has this relationship with his children.

And sometimes, well, all the times he's providing for us. But some of the way that he is a perfect provider. Because he's always looking out for his kids. And in that, trying to mature us and grow us so that we can have an image of God. So that we can have an impact on others. Sometimes we're going to go through the difficult times. And we're going to have to trust the Lord

as he really is the source of all goodness. So I pray that you can be encouraged in all that's going on right now. Because God's above it all. God is still in control. So with that, let's close in prayer. Lord Jesus, we thank you so much for how you work. And yes, sometimes we get a little bit sidetracked. And we don't go the way you would have us to. And you allow us to go through some difficult situations.

But Lord, as we draw back to you. As, as we seek. Seek you and your way and your will. And we repent of our ways and our will. And you do a mighty work. And you bring things back around. And we then are able to see how blessed we really are in following you. And having you as our God and our creator. Our Lord and our savior. Lord, work your will and your way in our lives.

Grow us, continue to grow us. Be patient with us. Oh, we need patience so often. We need your mercy. But Lord, finish the work that you began in us. And we're excited to see you. In your name, Lord. Amen. Well, you guys have an awesome...