In 1 Kings 17 the prophet Elijah is seen alone with God in the secret place of prayer. Every servant of God has his Cherith (being in the backwater) before he reaches his Carmel (being in the public eye). Joseph, on the road to universal dominion, must have his Cherith. He must pass by way of the pit and the prison to reach the throne. Moses must have his Cherith at the backside of the desert before he becomes the leader of God’s people through the wilderness. And was not the Lord Himself alone in the wilderness forty days tempted of Satan, and with the wild beasts, before He came forth in public ministry before men? Not indeed, as with ourselves, to discover our weakness and be stripped of our self-sufficiency, but rather to reveal His infinite perfections, and discover to us His perfect suitability for the work which none but Himself could accomplish. The testing circumstances that were used to reveal the perfections of Christ, are needed in our case to bring to light our imperfections, that all may be judged in the presence of God, and we may thus become vessels fitted for His use.
This indeed was the first lesson that Elijah had to learn at Cherith — the lesson of the empty vessel. “Get thee hence,” said the Lord, “and hide thyself” (1 Kings 17:33Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. (1 Kings 17:3)). The man who is going to witness for God must learn to keep himself out of sight. In order to be preserved from making something of himself before men, he must learn his own nothingness before God. Elijah must spend three and a half years in hidden seclusion with God before he spends one day in prominence before men.
I Have Commanded the Ravens
But God has other lessons for Elijah. Is he to exercise faith in the living God before Israel? Then he must first learn to live by faith from day to day in secret before God. The brook and the ravens are provided by God to meet His servant’s needs, but the confidence of Elijah must be in the unseen and living God, and not in things seen. “I have commanded,” said the Lord, and faith rests in the word of the Lord.
Moreover, to enjoy God’s provision the prophet must be in the place of God’s appointment. The word to Elijah is, “I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there.” It was not left to Elijah to choose his hiding place; he must submit to God’s choice. There only would he enjoy the blessings from God. In the place of God’s appointment the ravens would act completely contrary to nature; they would bring bread and flesh to Elijah twice day. God can command his creation at any time and place, but here obedience on Elijah’s part is important.
Implicit obedience to the word of the Lord is the only path of blessing. And Elijah took this path, for we read, “He went and did according to the word of the Lord.” He went where the Lord told him to go, he did what the Lord told him to do. When the Lord says, “Go and do,” unquestioning and immediate obedience is the only path of blessing.
The Brook Dried up
But the brook Cherith had a yet harder and deeper lesson for the prophet — the lesson of the brook that dried up. The Lord had said, “Thou shalt drink of the brook;” in obedience to the word “he drank of the brook.” Then we read, words which at first sound so strange, “the brook dried up.” What can it mean? Was he doing the wrong thing? Far from it; beyond all question he was in the right place, and doing the right thing. He was in the place of God’s appointment, yet the brook dried up.
How painful this experience — to be in the place of God’s appointment, and yet suddenly to face the complete failure of the provision that God has made for the daily need. How testing for faith! But if God lives, what matter if the brook dries? Mercies may be withdrawn, but God remains. The prophet must learn to trust in God rather than in the gifts that He gives. That the Giver is greater than His gifts is the deep lesson of the brook that dried up.
The Home at Bethany
Is not the story of the brook that dried up told in a different setting when, at a later day, sickness and death invaded the quiet home life at Bethany? Two sisters bereft of their only brother came face to face with the brook that dried up. But their trial turned to the “glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.” That which brings glory to the Son carries blessing to the saints. If Lazarus was taken, Jesus the Son of God remained, taking occasion by the failure of earthly streams to reveal a fountain of love that never fails, and a source of power that has no limit So, too, in the prophet’s day, the brook that dried up became the occasion of unfolding greater glories of Jehovah, and richer blessings for Elijah. It was but an incident used by God to take the prophet on his journey from Cherith — the place of the failing brook — to the home at Zarephath, there to discover the meal that never failed, the oil that did not waste, and the God that raised the dead. If God allows the brook to dry up, it is because He has some better, brighter portion for His beloved servant.
Nor it is otherwise with the people of God today. We all like to have some earthly resource to draw upon; yet how often, in the ways of a Father that knoweth we have need of these things, we have to face the brook that dries up. In different forms it crosses our path: perhaps by bereavement, by the breakdown of health, or by the sudden failure of some source of supply. It is well if, in such moments, we can by faith in the living God accept all from Him. The very trial we shall then find to be the means God is using to unfold to us the vast resources of His heart of love, and lead our souls into deeper, richer blessing than we have ever known.
Hamilton Smith (adapted)