216: Jason Hensley - The Ravens

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:13

   Welcome to good for selfie and talks. I’m Levi and I’m Chris and I’m Brian, thank you for joining us this week. On this podcast, we select one taco week to help us get the Bible in our daily news feed. We post a new episode of the start of each week with a short intro before. Hand to kind of set the stage for the talk. You’re about to listen to and now let’s talk more about this week’s talk.

2. 0:50

   Hello and welcome back to another talk this week. We’re listening to class 3 from a series that brother. Jason Hensley gave at Idyllwild this past year in 2022. On the subject of Elijah has overall subject was a man of like passions, this particular class is centering on the Ravens and you can kind of tell what part of the story Jason is going to be focusing on. But what I really enjoyed about this entire series, when I heard it live and then also going back and re listening to, it was Jason had a very different, look at Elijah and kind of made him seem more real and more personable with the way he approached it.

3. 1:29

   And his overall all lesson, which he hits on right at the beginning of this class. So I’m not going to be spoiling anything is that God tends to use the things that go on in our life, to push us to try to take us outside of our comfort zone because given our own nature. We would stick to what we know and what we’re comfortable with but that is not necessarily what is necessary to build a Godly character and even for someone like Elijah, there was growth and learning that had to be done. So these entire series is going to be put on the good Crystal thing talks extended podcast as well. I would highly recommend listening to all six classes. They’re all great.

4. 2:04

   I just picked this one in particular, because I felt like the lesson really fit in terms of trying to push beyond your comfort zone and always trying to do better. And then, he also summarizes a little bit at the beginning of this class, where we are at up to this point. So it makes it a little bit better of a standalone episode.

5. 2:20

   So, as always, thank you for listening. I also wanted to mention, if you are at all interested in helping with the podcast at all over on, Our website good christadelphians fox.com, you can fill out a form to either send in suggestions which you always have been able to do by emailing us at our email address, but you can now fill out the form there but there’s also a place where if you’re interested in helping to volunteer in a number of ways, go ahead and check out that form sending.

6. 2:46

   If you’re willing to, we’d be more than happy to have anybody who’s interested or willing to help out send in what you’re willing to do. And we’ll take it from there and we can we can chat and and figure things out but this is always been something. It has been a volunteer effort.

7. 3:02

   So if you are interested, please reach out and let us know. So like I already said, thank you. As always for listening and I hope you enjoy this talk in particular as much as I did. So with that, I will turn it over to brother Jason Hensley for his class on Elijah with the subject the Ravens. Okay, we are going to be talking about the Ravens today, so that’s just kind of recap what we have gone over so far. We have seen Elijah learning this lesson that God is in control, or at least maybe we haven’t seen him learning it yet, but we’ve seen him needing to learn this lesson. So we have him needing to learn the lesson and we are now going to see the beginnings of God teaching that to him as he goes. And he spends time with the Ravens. So here we are in class 3. and,

8. 4:03

   Here are lessons. We have seen that God is in control. We have seen that God hears prayers, We have seen or we will see today that God gives lessons that push us beyond our comfort zones. And I think that’s a fairly we understand that, we know that that’s how God works. We can’t really learn anything.

9. 4:26

   Unless we are pushed beyond our comfort zones, but I think it’s still something that we need to be reminded of consistently because we find ourselves asking. Why is this happening? Why does it have to be like this? And the answer is It’s not always the answer, but a lot of times the answer is because we’re growing, and this is how we grow.

10. 4:49

    We have to feel uncomfortable, we have to be put in situations that make us Go outside of our norm and so that’s what we are going to see here with Elijah. He is going to be put in a situation with the Ravens that would have. Made him feel incredibly uncomfortable. All right, the plan you’ll notice we have three sections.

11. 5:13

    We will be talking about Elijah at the brook. Then his journey to the Widow, but we’re not going to talk about the Widow yet so you’ll have to wait until tomorrow. So we’ll be at the brook, his journey to the Widow and then we’re going to compare the brook with the time with the Widow.

12. 5:33

    We’re going to see that in fact, God was doing the same thing both times, teaching him the same lesson. That’s the idea God gives lessons that push us beyond our comfort zones. And the big question is, why Ravens Why is that a significant thing to know and couldn’t couldn’t scripture have just said Birds, right?

13. 6:00

    Why does that make a difference? Why is it? Why is it important that it was Ravens and not parakeets, right? I mean, aside from, you know, would have been cuter. It was parakeets. But but you know what, why is it make a difference, right? But scripture gives us the details and so we’re supposed to wear supposed to know.

14. 6:17

    That was a rhetorical question, Peter. Well, we can talk after All right, so at the, at the brook, you’ll notice that God tells him twice that it was going to be Ravens that fed him. So there’s a significance here, Ravens Ravens. So again, Elijah is always commanded by God to do essentially everything in his life. And in this command, God gives a few particular details, specifically here that it’s going to be Ravens. So the question is why?

15. 6:56

    Well I think first of all Ravens would have presented a problem. The reason being the so you want to say Peter, There you go. That’s right. Ravens. Are unclean Birds? Yes. So Ravens are unclean and this would be an issue. So you see it you have it up here. Leviticus 11, 13, to 15. You shall detest every Raven of any kind. Now, I think that this is helpful because we don’t we don’t live under the laws of clean and unclean. At least I assume none of you keep kosher, maybe you do, but I don’t think so.

16. 7:36

    So this, these are laws that we often don’t think about so, in order to really get The strength of what God is saying here. I want us to pay attention to this word, detest. You shall detest every Raven of any kind. The reason that we want to look at that is because the same word shows up later in Leviticus chapter 20 and now notice what God says, if you don’t detest these things that I’ve told you to test look at what would happen.

17. 8:10

    You shall not make yourselves detestable by Beast or by bird or buy anything with which the ground crawls, which I have set apart for you to hold unclean to see what God is saying. He says these animals are detestable and if you don’t detest them then, guess what happens to you? You become detestable, right? It’s like the the detestable nurse of I was gonna say detest ability.

18. 8:42

    But anyway the detestable nurse of these animals like transfers to you. Almost if you don’t you don’t recognize that God says, don’t be with these animals, don’t be with these Birds. Now just to give you a sense of what’s meant by detest, right, it wasn’t just a I don’t like that bird. You know?

19. 9:06

    It’s not good. It’s unclean. I don’t like it. Here’s your word. It shh cots in Hebrew. This is the strongest number 82-62. It only shows up seven times but it’s a very charged word so it’s not just a I don’t kind of like it very much. Look at how God uses the word here in Deuteronomy. 7 verse 26. He’s talking about Idols here and he says, you will utterly Early detest and abhor it for.

20. 9:37

    It is devoted to destruction. So this is how they were supposed to feel about these unclean animals. That when you see the unclean animal coming, you say whoa I’m not getting near that right? I’m not gonna touch it. I’m not gonna go anywhere close where it might accidentally touch me. Something along those lines.

21. 9:59

    They were to detest, hate it up, whore it right and and You can see with the description of the idols here, God says, burn them up, right? Totally, get rid of them. This is a serious word. Now. Do you, are you beginning to sense, here? The sudden moral dilemma that Elijah would be feeling.

22. 10:25

    So here he is the word of God comes to him. And says, how are you go to the brook cherith? Right. No issue there. You’re going to have water during the drought and by the way, Ravens will feed you. Elijah, I’ve told Ravens to give you food, Here’s Elijah. Just thinking Aren’t those the birds I’m supposed to detest? I’m supposed to abhor these things. How, how do I get the food right? Are they going to drop it off over there? And, you know, I just hang out over here until the bird flies away and then I go get the food.

23. 11:07

    Like how’s this totally supposed to work so you can see that. Now, what’s fascinating about this, in addition is I want us to think about the details. That Elijah wasn’t told. There’s a lot of things that God doesn’t say. He doesn’t say where he’s going to sleep, you know, if I Was Elijah you kind of care about that, right?

24. 11:30

    Was there going to be an ice cave or something? Where he could spend the night? What was he supposed to do? If a wild animal came because he’s just living in the Wilderness. At a brook during a drought, he would assume he probably had a number of run-ins with creatures. He probably did not want to have run-ins with what was he supposed to do.

25. 11:52

    God doesn’t say anything about that stuff, but he tells him twice Ravens Ravens Elijah. The problem actually gets worse, though. Let me ask you this question, anybody know? I got rid of my transitions here. So now you know all the secret questions I’m going to ask, you does anybody know what ravens eat? Don’t look at the screen.

26. 12:18

    Ravens, eat dead stuff right now you get one quick guess where you allowed to eat dead stuff under the law of Moses. No, right. That was a No-No because dead stuff was unclean. So consider this God says, Ravens are going to give you food, right? And the way that, you know, that things are unclean within Judaism. It’s a very quick quick way to know if an animal is kosher or not.

27. 12:45

    And that is, if that animal is considered, A scavenger scavengers are not clean. So a raven is a scavenger therefore imagine this. God says to Elijah an unclean bird is going to give you your food. Can you imagine Elijah’s next question? Well, what kind of food is that going to be right? Because probably, you know, it’s going to be bringing today’s roadkill, you know? And when Ahab was driving around or whatever and he runs into something, they nuns at the Raven flies down and brings it to Elijah.

28. 13:27

    And here’s this dead thing. And here’s Elijah. Just trying to figure out. Well, I wonder where this came from. Is this clean or not? I probably can’t eat this. So it’s a fascinating sort of thing. That God essentially is giving him like extra uncleanness and he didn’t have a choice.

29. 13:49

    Now just to bring this home even more for Elijah in Hebrew. There’s two words that just generically mean food. So this typically this is sort of a funny translation kind of thing. Anybody know how these words would be translated typically in the King James they’re typically translated as meat but they don’t mean meat.

30. 14:13

    I mean food, often times, they actually mean not meet. So, like, grain, this is your word. Oh, hell, and Mahal. So those typically mean food. Now, what’s fascinating about? This is when God commands Elijah, he doesn’t use the generic food words. and I think that’s, because It could have given Elijah the wrong impression. Oh, you know, this is just kind of an accident that the law is going to be broken.

31. 14:48

    But instead God specifically uses the word basar which in Hebrew means flesh. So when God tells Elijah, the Ravens are going to bring you bread and they’re going to bring you flesh. But this is what were specifically told that he was given bread and flesh. So when we read this, we have to recognize.

32. 15:17

    It’s not just that he got food from Ravens, but he was specifically being brought dead stuff to eat. I don’t know if that like blows your mind, I hope it does. Because essentially what God is showing us is that he put Elijah in a situation where it was unavoidable to break the law.

33. 15:42

    Unless you know, and this is what we do as humans, right? We get put in certain situations and we can see, you know, well, there’s a commandment, I don’t think it’s gonna validate our. I don’t think it’s going to break the principal to break that command, but I don’t feel comfortable breaking it.

34. 16:01

    Anyway. I’ve and, you know, we have these choices and we’re not sure what to do. And so sometimes we almost double down on the letter of the law. So maybe that’s what Elijah did, you know? You can almost picture him saying, oh, oh, put that in the pile of dead stuff, you know?

35. 16:17

    And there’s just this pile, it’s growing every day because Elijah won’t eat it, right? He, it’s almost like he says, no, that’s breaking the law. I’m not gonna do it. I don’t know, you know, maybe he doubled down on his his feelings of, I can’t break the law, maybe we don’t know. But I think this is how we act sometimes.

36. 16:37

    Whatever it was, God was specifically putting him in a situation where it he almost had to break the law. now, the reason I want to talk about this, is because I don’t think we often realize how often this is the case that God does this, This is one of my absolute favorite things to look at in scripture. I’m gonna I’m gonna just ignore my slides for a little bit now because I want to talk to you about this because it’s so exciting.

37. 17:12

    So, God, consistently throughout the Old Testament forces. His people to break the law. And I think that’s fascinating. Now, let’s just back up a little bit to see it, right? The first commandment in the law of Moses, anybody know what it was? First come in the law of Moses. This is the commands of Passover.

38. 17:39

    It’s Passover first Commandments, right? Because there, they haven’t gotten the law yet. They’re they’re about to leave. Egypt. Its Exodus chapter 12. So, first Commandments, the law of Moses, Exodus chapter 12. So you can, you can verify this if you want. Exodus 11. Let’s back up one chapter. We are at the final plague, right? So we’re at the final plague.

39. 18:01

    Exodus chapter 11, Moses goes in front of pharaoh and here’s what he says tonight, at midnight The firstborn in the land will die, okay? Tonight at midnight firstborn in the land will die. Therefore we’re going to have to to figure this out here. See if we can do it. Anybody want to guess what day of the first month it was What day of the first month? It’s going to be the 14th 14th day of the first month. Because that was Passover, right? All the firstborn died, 14th day of the first month, okay? Now you might be wondering, you know, why is this significant? Okay, well, let’s now jump forward to chapter 12. Get this chapter 12.

40. 18:44

    God, comes to Moses. What day is it? 14th, the first month, right? God comes to Moses chapter 12. Moses has already said today, all the firstborn in the land will die at midnight. Okay. God says to Moses, you can check it. first few verses of Exodus 12, he says I want you to tell the whole congregation to take a lamb, one land for each household and I want you to do it on the what day of the month. 10th. now, your Moses What do you think you do if you hear this?

41. 19:27

    You think well God that was four days ago. How’s that supposed to work? And you know what’s fascinating is if you keep reading the chapter, you’ll notice Moses doesn’t say that to the Israelites he doesn’t tell them go choose a lamb, hold on to it for four days and on the 14th day will kill the lamb. He doesn’t tell them that instead he says take a lamb and then kill it.

42. 19:58

    Because Moses realized it was impossible to follow the law. He couldn’t was supposed to have been followed for days ago, but it wasn’t possible. The first command in the law of Moses that God ever gives was impossible to keep. Is that fascinating? This is just what God continually does and you can just picture Moses thinking,

43. 20:22

    Well, I don’t know what to do with this, right? And and this is how God is consistently working with law. He puts his people into situations where they cannot keep the law, because He wants them to realize it’s about principle. Not about law. The law was the Schoolmaster to lead them to Christ.

44. 20:49

    It’s about principle not about loss of the very first commandment impossible, to keep. Now, there’s more, there’s more of these, I’ll tell you my favorite one, okay? So you remember the story, when the ark was taken from the Israelites, right? 9:30, Phineas take the ark. They go into battle, they’re killed. The arc, gets stolen by the Philistines right.

45. 21:14

    There you go, through this whole funny story. We’re not going to talk about it a lot, but I’ll man, it’s like one of the best stories. It’s first Samuel chapter 4 and 5. They are gets taken by the Philistines. They put it in the house of Dagon. You remember what happens to Dagon? Yeah he falls over his hands.

46. 21:30

    Chopped off his head. Chopped off right and and the Philistines huh? Oh do you know they put him back up they stick everything back on the next day. The next day they come Dagon falling over in front of the arc again. So anyway, this all goes on right. The arc gets brought back eventually. Lee to Israel.

47. 21:51

    The Arc is eventually brought back. And it gets put into cure, Jess jairam. Carriage after him and it stays in a man’s house for over 40 years. We know that because we’re specifically told First Chronicles 13. The Arc sat there during the entire reign of Saul. Nobody did anything with it. Saul rains for 40 years arc’s, it’s there now. You might just be thinking, okay no big deal, the ark was just in cured yet you’re in 40 years whatever. Well it was a big deal because

48. 22:35

    Every year the high priest. Goes into the holy place. He takes his sensor with him, right? He lights incense. The incense fills the room and it fills up the most holy place. High priest, then opens the veil to go into the most holy place and what does he see?

49. 23:02

    Nothing. Nothing’s there. Now that was the absolute most important day on the Hebrew calendar, it was the day of atonement. And the whole point of the day of atonement was to, what forgive the people? They were supposed to get forgiven on the day of atonement. So, can you imagine, here’s the high priest walking to where the ark supposed to be and he supposed to pray in front of the Ark, he opens up the There’s no Arc.

50. 23:36

    What do you feel? Like if you’re the high priest you feel like well this was kind of a waste of time and then you think well here’s another here where we’re not forgiving that’s awesome, you know? Right like like what am I supposed to do? You’ve closed up to fail and you walk away and this was 40 years. Where the Israelites could not be forgiven through their love. And so you get David coming along and realizing it’s not about law.

51. 24:11

    That God is constantly saying, that’s not what I’m doing. I’m trying to teach you principal. do you remember in the David Psalm that he writes after his sin with Bathsheba, Psalm 51, right? Right. At the end he says You do not desire sacrifices. You remember that or else? I would give them. He says, you don’t want sacrifices or else I would give them instead the sacrifices of God are a broken and contrite heart. Now, we like to quote those verses to say wasn’t about the offerings.

52. 24:52

    I think that’s good. But let’s think about the context just a little bit. Here’s David. We’re for a big chunk of his life. There was no Arc, there was no forgiveness and he’s thinking thinking thinking about all of this and then God Helps him to realize. That he has just committed adultery and murder now under the law.

53. 25:26

    What? How do you get forgiven for adultery and murder? You don’t write you just die. I mean, that was the situation. You, you just get stoned the end, you know, your maybe you get stone twice because that’s you know, adultery and murder. So it was bad, right? And so David realizes, I can’t give you anything.

54. 25:49

    There’s no sacrifice I can offer. So it’s not just that he’s saying God didn’t want sacrifices, David is realizing for me. Personally, I am dead according to the law. There is nothing that I can do. And this is what God is constantly doing. And we are going to see this very powerfully in the life of Elijah that God says Elijah.

55. 26:14

    You want food? You’re going to have to eat it from an unclean bird, and, you know what? That food is actually probably unclean too. What are you gonna do about that? This is Elijah being pushed Beyond his comfort zone. Okay. Food from an unclean animal and food that was dead on its own Deuteronomy. 14 21.

56. 26:43

    You shall not eat anything that has died naturally. If you want those two references as well, by the way, Ezekiel 414 and acts 1014. Those are two places in which faithful people Ezekiel and Peter are both saying I have never eaten anything in my life. That is unclean, right? So you can see now that was what was typical Okay, so this is what God is doing for Elijah. I think he’s reminding Elijah, you know, this is the, this is the constant message that God is in control. And I think what’s incredibly powerful about this is and I don’t, I don’t mean this to be belittling in any kind of way. But I think that this is actually a helpful thing for us to recognize.

57. 27:38

    Do you notice where God puts Elijah? He puts him in a place that is miles away from any other human. So Elijah has just said, you know, essentially don’t worry, God, I got this. I’m going to call down a drought. I’ll convert the people. I’ll take care of your plan. I got it all and God says, okay Elijah. I actually have a plan.

58. 28:08

    You go and you live out by yourself for years. Now can you imagine how that would feel right? You you think you’re taking care of this whole thing and God says okay yeah you go take care of it by yourself and the only thing you can talk to our unclean Birds And that’s what Elijah has to do. He just goes and he sits there.

59. 28:34

    What’s he gonna do with the Brooke for years and years and years? God puts him in a place where he has to realize, oh, God’s plan. Doesn’t depend on me. Now, have you ever felt that way? Have you ever felt like, oh man, you know, I have this the set of decisions in front of me, and if I don’t make the right decision, God isn’t going to be able to fulfill his plan.

60. 29:11

    Or if I don’t make the right decision, you know somebody who needs help won’t get helped. Or that if I don’t say the right thing, when I’m preaching to this person, well, maybe they’re going to turn away. If I don’t reach out to this person right now and this, this is the Elijah way of thinking, right? I got a call down the drought right now because if I don’t do it now, things are gonna work out God’s whole plan will fall apart.

61. 29:35

    Sorry. I got excited and I talked a little fast, but this is a, this is what we’re being told here that this is the way that Elijah was thinking. And we so often think like this, I remember before having to decisions in front of me and feeling like I didn’t know what. Was going to glorify God the most.

62. 29:55

    So I said, I’d pray and flip a coin. Maybe you’ve done that before. But I think what God actually wants us to realize is he can actually work with both. It’s not a question of which one’s better and if I don’t do the right, one things will fall apart. It’s God saying actually you have to realize you’re less important than you think you are.

63. 30:24

    And I can actually take care of this without you. The key thing. That should amaze us. Is that God actually wants to use us.

64. 30:39

    It’s not that he has to. But that he wants to. And so when we find ourselves thinking, if I don’t do the right thing here, if I don’t make the exact right choice, it’s not going to work. I think we’ve forgotten. That. Yes, we plant and we water. But God gives the increase. And oh man I’ve been Can You Feel the sense of relief in that?

65. 31:08

    I think there’s a major relief acknowledging. God has his plan, God knows what he’s doing. And so sometimes I think God will take us and like Elijah he’ll just put us in the desert and say, you know, you got to you got to understand this. I’m going to work out my plan. Do you want to be a part of it? Because I’d like you to be so, God is teaching Elijah with the Ravens.

66. 31:39

    Not only are they an unclean bird but there’s one other passage at the time. That existed that mentioned Ravens. It’s in the Book of Job. Consider what it says job. 3841 says who provides for the Raven its prey when its young ones cry to God for help and wanders about for lack of food. Where was that food coming from that the Ravens head. And that’s what God is showing Elijah. I’ve got this.

67. 32:13

    I’m taking care of you. There’s a drought that you caused, but you’ll have water, you’ll have food because I take care of the Ravens. So as Elijah Waits The Brooke gets smaller and smaller and you can just imagine again. Here’s somebody who likes to be doing things. He calls down a drought because he feels like things should be done and he’s sitting in a place where he can do nothing.

68. 32:42

    So there he is. We don’t know how long he was there. Maybe a year. I mean the drought lasted for three and a half, right. The only two things he does is he’s at the brook and he goes to the Widow’s house. So somehow you know, you got to divide those two up amongst the three and a half years so you could have been here for years, right?

69. 33:00

    Sitting there by himself talking to birds. Okay, then the very next thing that happens is the word of God comes to him. And he’s told this. Now, you wonder and we’re not told you wonder how would it have affected Elijah to be fed by those unclean Birds? Would you have softened a little bit but you have realized, you know, it’s not necessarily about law.

70. 33:34

    Well, God’s Gonna push him a little further. He says, I’ll rise go to Zarephath and I love this part which belongs to sidon just to make sure, you know, in case Elijah didn’t know Apart. So God says go to Zarephath. Which belongs to sidon. Now he could have said go to Zarephath, but he specifically tells them, oh, by the way, zidan or Zarephath is in zeidan. Now, why would that have mattered? Why would anybody care that?

71. 34:07

    Zarephath in sidon. It’s a hostile place and that was where Jezebel was from. So Jezebel was the one who brought in the worship of Baal, right? So now, God is saying, okay, you’ve been here at this Brook for years Now, I have a new thing for you to do. I want you to go hang out with Jezebel’s friends, right?

72. 34:36

    And you can just imagine Elijah being like Are you talking about the Zarephath? That’s you know, in sidon and gods like at Zarephath which is in sidon, that one, right? Go go to that zeroth. I don’t want you to get confused, go to the bad one. Elijah. So here’s Elijah just thinking, you know, really, I was this seriously. What I’m supposed to do.

73. 35:04

    It’s a 60-mile journey from cherith to sidon so we would have had a long time to think about this and I think it’s helpful to just consider what he would have seen. Now we know that the drought was happening, not just in Israel but also in sidon because the Widow said she had no food, So can you imagine what it would have been like as Elijah?

74. 35:35

    He had been sheltered from all of this, right? He had been at a Brooke talking to nobody but birds I know I’m really into this like talking to birds thing. He was at a Brooke talking to nobody, but birds, he gets up and he leaves and. Can you imagine what the shock would be like? As he begins to walk through and seas. The devastation.

75. 36:01

    That happened. Because of him. Can you imagine that as he’s walking down? And he sees I don’t an empty house Another Empty House. Another one skeletons, right? I mean, this is this is what it would look like. This is a famine and then he gets to another country and he sees the same thing there. and that would have been kind of a weird experience, I think because As he goes. To this woman.

76. 36:45

    It’s fascinating. To realize what God is doing. Want to ask you a question here. Godliness is not measured by converts. That wasn’t a question. Godliness is not measured by converts, okay? Right. We know that it’s not measured by how many baptisms, you know, we bring about or anything like that. Scott someone season who is in control. But I do think it’s helpful to ask this question at this point who throughout Elijah’s life.

77. 37:19

    Learned the gospel because of him. And he thought who learned the gospel because of Elijah. It’s a really fascinating answer, I think. It was this woman. And her son. And that’s it. there were absolutely as far as we know, they were absolutely no conversions in the entire lifetime of Elijah except for to gentiles I actually find that kind of Awesome. Because you can see this overriding theme. Elijah’s Big Goal was I’m going to convert the king I’m going to convert the entire nation and God says No, Elijah, I’ll do that.

78. 38:13

    Actually. I’m going to use you to convert somebody, you never would have talked to before. I’m gonna put you in a situation that makes you incredibly uncomfortable. I’m going to use you there. Elijah was a big man with Big Dreams, big goals. And God says, I want you to be content to fill a little space.

79. 38:40

    She takes him to Zarephath and he has to learn. God was working with the unclean Birds just like, God is working with these people now. This is very interesting because I don’t think Elijah would have had a schema for this again. We just read this story and we think, oh yeah, he was sent to sidon and I probably would have bothered him, but I don’t think we think about What a moral dilemma.

80. 39:08

    The whole thing would have cost because What did the law say about gentiles? What kind of interaction where you as a Jew supposed to have with Gentiles? There were a couple of choices here. Stay separate. So that’s one choice. Right? Stay separate. Which a lot of times meant you go in, and you kill them.

81. 39:32

    Okay. So that was one option with Gentiles Peter. See, you wouldn’t have a meal with them, that’s for sure. Yep, she wouldn’t do that. And Elijah has been told to go live in her house, right? Have a lot of meals. Yeah, you wouldn’t marry them. What about if a gentile wanted to know about God?

82. 39:56

    What would you do? You go through a whole conversion process and they would become Jewish rights. And the law is pretty clear about that. Check it out. Exodus, 12 verse 49 says, there shall be one law for the native and for the stranger, who sojourns among you. In other words, those who are Gentiles, who want to know more about God.

83. 40:24

    They have to follow the law. Leviticus 16 29 says, the same thing, it will be a statute. This is about the day of atonement. It shall be a statute to you forever in that seventh month, on the tenth day of the month you shall afflict yourselves and shall do no work. Either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you so over and over and over. God says if there is a gentile who wants to know about me that’s fine.

84. 40:51

    But they have to follow the law. So these are the choices you stay separate from the Gentiles which a lot of times meant you go in and you completely obliterate them. Or if there’s ones who want to know about God, you’re looking at a rave or Ruth, right? A complete process proselytization. Yeah, there you go conversion, complete conversion. So that was the idea.

85. 41:19

    Now, let me ask you this. What did the law say? About when you went to live with gentiles? Nothing. Now, you’re Elijah. The law is very important to you. You’ve called down a drought because that is what the law said should happen, right? Here you are for the last year, two years, whatever it is, you’ve been eating food from unclean, birds food, which itself was probably unclean or I don’t know, maybe you haven’t touched that, I don’t know.

86. 41:57

    And now God says, okay now you can’t avoid it. Go live with this Gentile woman. And by the way, There’s no provision for that in the law. There’s nothing. The law will tell you to do there. So here’s this fascinating, if Elijah decided, you know what I want to go and see. Let’s see.

87. 42:25

    What does Scripture what kind of advice to scripture give about this consider the possible examples, so possible examples, who else lived under? The law are who else under the law? Lived outside of the land. Well David did. Now let’s think about David’s experience outside of the land of Israel. What do you think? Good bad.

88. 42:52

    Yeah, pretty bad, right? Like this is how he describes it first Samuel 26, you see the end there. David says it was like I was being forced to go serve other gods. Right? What do you do with that? If you’re Elijah, here you are thinking and I know that doesn’t sound too good, right?

89. 43:12

    That’s that’s not real awesome. Okay so you probably wouldn’t have wanted to look to David. Well if you ask okay what about before the law there were a handful of people Joseph or Moses? Now, let me ask you about Joseph. What was Joseph’s relationship with Egypt? Yeah, it was kind of like an interesting 50/50 kind of like hybrid thing, right?

90. 43:38

    We often call him Joseph but most people probably would have called him do. You know his Egyptian name Zaf nathania, right? So anyway, you know, if you ever go on Jeopardy or something, you might need to know that. So so that was that was Joseph’s Egyptian name and that was probably what most people knew him.

91. 43:59

    As he had an Egyptian wife, he had an Egyptian family, right? And his life was and is the daughter of an Egyptian priest. So you can imagine Elijah being like yeah, okay. Not gonna think about Joseph either, right? Like he’s, he wasn’t, you know, Hardline enough. So who else to think about? Well, I think he probably found some kind of solace in Moses, right?

92. 44:25

    So let’s think about, let’s just try and think like Elijah here. If you’re Elijah, you could probably find a few similarities. You could try and come up with these and I don’t I’m going to say right off the bat. I don’t think these were real legit. I don’t think these are real good but I’m trying to trying to like put myself in Elijah’s boots.

93. 44:45

    So the the idea here is this is perhaps how Elijah could have thought. Elijah brought the drought to save his people but was resented for it. Moses tried to save his people but was also resented for it. Maybe a parallel Elijah was just obeying God’s commands as he felt. So was Moses. He knew he was the deliverer. So Elijah had to flee to a foreign Nation to hide from the King and sort of Moses.

94. 45:11

    You can see him kind of almost feeling like, you know, Moses was a martyr and I am too kind of thing. Okay. And in that foreign Nation he meets a woman and a sustained. Just like Moses meet zipporah and is sustained now we’re these parallels really valid? Yeah, you know if somebody if I heard somebody giving a Bible class saying these are these are like good parallels.

95. 45:37

    I’d probably be like me and not so much. So maybe this is how Elijah was thinking but where they legitimate biblically, I don’t think so. Because biblically, I think this is what we’re being told. Elijah was not actually being paralleled with Moses. I think he was being paralleled with the Israelites. Think about this God says, I’ll give you bread and meat that remind you of anyone bread and meat.

96. 46:11

    And not only that I’ll give you water, right? And eventually that bread meat and water will run dry and so you’ll have to go to a foreign Nation to get it. Do you remember that in the Exodus that the Israelites had to go to the foreign Nations and say, can we purchase bread from you? Very similar kind of situation.

97. 46:35

    In fact, let’s just take a look. Exodus 16, 8, you get meat bread in the evening in the morning. Same times by the way, as when Elijah was given it. Psalm 78 20. You have the water gushing out eventually God stops providing. And so in Deuteronomy chapter 2 verses 1 to 6. They get sustained by Foreign Nations just like Elijah with a widow at Zarephath. Sustained by a foreign Nation.

98. 47:07

    Here’s what I think is fascinating about this. Elijah story wasn’t the story of Moses, like he wanted it to be. It was a lot less glorious than that. It was the story of the people who didn’t get it, who complained and who consistently said, God, you’ve let us out into the Wilderness to die without recognizing.

99. 47:32

    That God was pushing them to the next step of belief to the next step of belief. He was making them uncomfortable. To teach them and that’s what he’s doing with Elijah. And so in fact, as Elijah goes to this Widow at Zarephath, I want to show you one final slide here as he goes to this Widow at Zarephath.

100. 47:56

     I’ll you know what? I’ll show you this too just because it’s a fun picture. Okay, that’s not actually relevant. The idea is, you know, it’s to like flamingos because the stories are the same too. Anyway. Okay, so the situations are similar. So, let me let me show you, right? You got Ravens and unclean bird.

101. 48:14

     Like the Widow who’s an unclean bail where shipper Ravens are scavengers and it just so happens that the Widow is gathering sticks. Scavenging, when he finds her and eating, its food is against the law, with the Ravens and eating the Widow’s food would have been against the law. Same kind of thing. And in fact, if we don’t, if you don’t feel like the parallel strong enough, it’s interesting that God even quotes himself in 1st Kings 17.

102. 48:43

     Exact same words in the Hebrew. He says they’re about the brook in verse 4. You will drink from the brook as I have commanded the Ravens to feed you there. And he says, in 1st Kings 17 9 rise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to side and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you. Same words.

103. 49:03

     And so God is taking Elijah and saying Elijah, did you learn the lesson with the Ravens? Because now I’m going to put you in the same situation, but there’s no escape from this one. And you know what? We’re going to see and I think this is awesome. The big lesson that Elijah has to learn his compassion, compassion, compassion, and God begins to teach it to him with the birds.

104. 49:27

     And yet, when Elijah sees the suffering that his drought has brought about when he sees the suffering of this woman, You actually can tell Elijah begins to be moved and as we’ll see in the next class, he actually purposefully knowingly breaks, the law. For the sake of that woman and it’s at that point that the widow woman turns around and begins to worship God, thank you for listening to the good christadelphians talks podcast.

105. 50:18

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106. 50:44

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107. 51:09

     Thank you for listening. God, bless and talk to you next week.