The prophet Elijah received the word of the
Lord in prayer and went and confronted the
backslidden compromised king Ahab and said, the Lord
God of Israel before whom I stand says
this king, there'll be no rain, no dew.
He prophesied drought, the terrible word we don't
like to hear here in the Middle East.
And then the second word of the Lord
came to the prophet Elijah and it was
unexpected.
Here he was, the public prophet, prominent, people
knew about him.
He had prophesied this terrible judgment of God,
the lack of rain because of disobedience to
the law.
And then the Lord said to him, get
away from here and turn eastward and hide
by the brook Kherit, it is in Hebrew,
which flows into the Jordan.
And it will be that you shall drink
from that brook and I have commanded ravens,
birds, to feed you there.
And he went and did according to the
word of the Lord.
These words are filled with significance of this
Elijah legacy for us today.
Here he was, prominent, public, and the Lord
didn't say prophesy again, he didn't give him
some global ministry right away or some television
ministry.
He said, hide yourself, hide yourself at the
brook.
We need to have a hidden life with
God that is pleasing to him.
It's much more important to the Lord about
our private life than our public life.
Elijah sensed this, so he went to this
brook Kherit that flows into the Jordan.
And the word for brook is a powerful
word in Hebrew, the word is Nachal.
It means, for us in English it would
mean a little ravine or a dry stream
bed that dries up in the times where
there's no rain.
But the root of the word means a
place of inheritance or to occupy.
And the Lord says to us, occupy that
hidden place with me.
It's your inheritance to spend time in intimacy
with me.
This communion that Elijah was entering into.
A Nachal also, in fact I live next
to one here on Mount Carmel.
A Nachal is a place where it's dry
when the rains don't come.
Maybe there's a trickle of water.
But then when the rains come, the abundance
of rain, a Nachal can explode.
And you will hear on the news that
there are torrents of rivers going across the
highways down in the desert.
One time my wife and I were leaving
early in the morning, it was still dark,
and we were going to Europe somewhere to
minister.
And the Nachal that we live in where
we park our cars actually is a kind
of a ravine that comes down, even though
there's a parking lot there now.
But the rains had come that night and
exploded.
And we literally couldn't get up the steps
into the parking lot.
We had to walk around another way.
And so when you get into that secret
place of repair and refreshing with the Lord,
there will come a time when the Spirit
of God will explode in you.
You will have a word from the Lord.
You will have vision for the next step
in your life, in your ministry, your marriage,
whatever it happens to be.
So the Lord said to Elijah, get to
the Nachal, Sherit.
The name Sherit, it means something that's been
cut off.
It's a covenant word.
Get to that place of covenant.
Get to that place where everything is cut
off except your relationship with me, your communion
with me.
It's the place of communion.
It's the place of consecration to the Lord.
So we went to this place, Sherit, and
it flows out of the Jordan.
Jordan means to go down, Jordan.
It means to go down into humility.
It means to go down into death to
life.
It's the place of immersion or baptism.
It's the place of where we're baptized into
the Lord Yeshua, Jesus, and we come up
in newness of life.
Even Jesus himself was baptized at the Jordan.
So the Lord said to his prophet, if
you want me to use you more, if
you want to get the word of the
Lord for your nation, for your people, get
to that secret place of repair and refreshing
and restoration, the Nachal, Sherit, and there by
the Jordan, I will speak to you.
Now, when you think about it, here was
Elijah just prophesied publicly.
The whole nation started to know about him.
He was called the Troubler of Israel when
Ahab was the real Troubler of Israel.
So Elijah was famed, had fame or infamy
or was notorious if you want to put
it that way.
But everybody knew about him.
And the Lord says, go hide yourself.
You know, the Lord says to us as
New Covenant believers, you died and your life
is hidden with Christ and God.
And the Lord wants us to get alone
with him.
And when we look at the prophet, what
he did when he heard this word from
the Lord, go and hide yourself.
It says he went and he did according
to all the Lord said.
The spirit and power of Elijah, the legacy
of Elijah is immediate, immediate obedience to the
word of the Lord.
But if we're not in communion with him,
if we're not spending sweet time with him,
we won't even hear the word of the
Lord to go and obey.
So Elijah obeyed.
He went and he obeyed and he went
to the brook and waited on the Lord.
Anyone to change?
Elijah spent almost a year at that brook,
at that place of inheritance.
Oh, I've thought about it over and over.
Would I like to have a sabbatical sometime
and just go and sit at the brook
and commune with my Lord and Savior Jesus?
Now the brook had a little water in
it, even though drought had been prophesied and
the brook was moving.
So when we come to that secret place
and we wait on the Lord and we
speak to him and we wait for him
to speak to us, it's always different.
It's always clear and shining and pure.
It's always nourishing.
It's always sustaining.
It's always convicting.
He was at the place of repentance.
If he needed to repent about now that
he was famous or whatever he may have
been dealing with or, I mean, Ahab's armies
were looking for him.
Jezebel was trying to kill him.
He could have sat there and been the
complaining prophet.
Well, I prophesied the drought.
Now look what you did.
I have to go hide here and everybody's
trying to kill me.
But he didn't.
He waited on the Lord and the Lord
was building faith, building, building, building faith, building
faith.
Character comes before commission.
He was building faith in this place of
communion and consecration because think about it.
He would wake up in the morning.
He was hungry.
The Lord told him ravens would bring him
food.
And there came a raven early in the
morning.
I mean, did he sit there in the
afternoon as it was getting dark?
He was hungry again and believed by faith
that a bird was going to bring him
some meat and bread.
But the Lord did it.
The Lord provided.
When God initiates something, he always provides.
There's always enough bread.
There's always provision.
So there was Elijah sitting there, spending time
with the Lord, receiving from the Lord.
It was so wonderful when you think about
it.
He was being prepared for the next thing
that the Lord would have him to do.
You see, separation to the Lord is preparation
for the ministry that the Lord has for
us.
You know, God is really interested in our
secret life, in our private life.
He knows all about it.
And if we would spend more time with
him and ask him to sanctify us daily
at the brook, drinking from the brook, drinking
from his word, getting more of the Holy
Spirit, being filled over and over again, getting
sanctified and cleansed and prepared, all we would
have, our ministries would take off, our lives,
our personal relationships with people, there would be
more love, more power.
And as he did this, as he sat
there, the Lord was dealing with him and
getting him ready for his next assignment, which
was going to be something extraordinary.
And as Elijah was obedient with the little,
don't despise the day of small beginnings.
When we first came to Mount Carmel, 1991,
and started a rehabilitation center for Jews and
Arabs coming off drugs and alcohol, I mean,
it began with one guy.
Yeah, his name was Abraham.
He was a 50-year-old heroin addict,
an Arab.
And it was not easy spending all night
with him in a bomb shelter and praying
with him and going through withdrawal.
But three days later, he jumped up, got
out of bed, jogged up Mount Carmel.
He's an elder in a congregation in Israel
now.
But it begins, if you're faithful with the
little, God will give you more.
The Lord was testing his prophet, and the
faith of him was rising up at that
brook.
You know, there's a nation in Europe that
has a ministry for pastors, for leaders, who
are caught in what they call the double
-life syndrome, meaning that these pastors or these
leaders lead a double life, that who you
see in the pulpit is not who they
really privately are.
Some of them are trapped in pornography, and
the Lord doesn't want us to be double
-minded.
He wants us to cleanse ourselves.
He gives grace to the humble.
He'll set you free.
And as he sat there, the Lord was
sanctifying him.
The brook dried up, and then the Lord
spoke to him again.