1 Kings 17 Devotional
By Pastor Lawrence

After a succession of wicked but short-lived kings in Israel, King Ahab was introduced as the seventh king of the northern nation in the previous chapter. His reign stands out from his predecessors in that he didn’t just encourage the worship of idols as they did, but he promoted the worship of foreign gods as well actually building a temple unto Baal in the very heart of Israel. The rest of the narrative in this first book of the Kings will continue to share some of the heinous details of his reign, but in this chapter, another figure vies for our attention as Elijah suddenly arrives on the scene in Israel to speak a very brief word to King Ahab. He simply says to him, “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.”

In James 5:16ff, the half-brother of Jesus tells us that this divine drought was not merely a prediction from the mouth of the prophet, but that it was actually brought about as a result of his prayers, just as the rain likewise would later come down because of his prayers. Surely, though, this was not Elijah’s idea, but rather the Lord’s, who had moved Elijah to pray in this manner based upon His own Word in Deuteronomy 11:16-17. But why would God command a man to pray for something He already intended on doing? Because he delights in using men as His instruments. In the same manner, He sets us to prayer to carry out His perfect will through us. That is what James means when he says that Elijah is a man with a nature like ours. Of course, we are not prophets like Elijah. We cannot command he heavens to bring forth fire or rain, but we can pray that the Lord’s will would be done just as Elijah did.

After the prophet had prayed and shared this bold prediction with the king, he immediately ran and hid from the king by the brook of Cherith on the eastern side of the Jordan River. He did this at the Lord’s command, and there the Lord provided for his needs, assuaging his thirsty through the trickling brook and his hunger through Amazon Prime air delivery—but instead of drones, the Lord used ravens to bring him his daily bread and meat. But when the brook finally ran dry as a result of the drought, the Lord commanded the prophet to head due west about two hundred miles away to the town of Zarephath in the region of Sidon again just outside the boundaries of Israel. There, the Lord would continue to provide miraculously for his needs and continue to protect him from the rage of the king of Israel.

When Elijah first laid eyes on the widow of Zarephath, she was in dire straits in the midst of a famine getting ready to make the final meal for her and her son before they died. When the prophet asked her for some bread, she told him of her plight, and he commanded her to go home and make a cake for him to eat. Afterwards, she was to make something for her own household as well, for the Lord would continue to fill her jars of flour and oil, just as he had miraculously filled Elijah’s stomach through the Ravens in the wilderness.
In Luke 4.24-26 24 Jesus points out how blessed this widow was at the time being given the fact that the prophet had not visited any of the widows in Israel but only this lowly Gentile woman and her son providing for their needs in the midst of the famine. But suddenly, when her son became severely ill, the widow did not perceive his presence to be such a blessing after all, but rather a curse. She said to him, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son!” Oh, how quickly we forget the blessings of God in the midst of calamity. It was only because of the prophet’s presence in her home that she and her son had lived as long as they had, for without Elijah, they would have had nothing to eat. But just as the Lord caused the brook of Cherith to run dry, so he had caused the sickness in this young boy’s life to show forth his power and glory. For it was only through his sickness and death that this widow came to trust in the Word of the Lord through the prophet.

Again, James tells us that Elijah was a man just like us, reminding us that the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. For the author of 1 Kings tells us that “the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah” and the boy was revived. Does that mean that we as Christians today can go into the children’s hospital healing all the sick little boys and girls and even raising some from the dead? No, God is not in the habit of raising the dead through ordinary people today. This miracle was clearly brought about through the hands of the prophet in order to confirm that the words of his mouth were indeed from the Lord. Nor do we have a need for such a confirmation of our own words, since God’s Word testifies to itself already. Nevertheless, the Lord does still work through our prayers. The Lord still listens to our voices and still chooses to carry about his perfect will through imperfect people and our less-than-perfect prayers. So, in this evil age, under the reign of wicked rulers, let us continue to pray in faith knowing that the Lord hears us.