The Cherith experience comes to every Christian at some point in your journey. I’ve known it, I’ll no doubt know it again, and I expect that many of you have discovered it already. Some of you are there now and others will be there in the future. Cherith is where God closes the door on the thing that you most want to do. Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith, I’m David Pick, and Colin, certainly there are some listening today who are at Cherith. Yeah, and every Christian will be at some point. You know, you come to this experience where you really thought God was going to open a door and then it closed in your face. And we’re looking at the story of Elijah, and when he goes to this place called Cherith, that’s exactly what is happening. He’s just launched his ministry, he thinks marvellous things are going to happen, and God sends him to this place where there’s hardly any people at all. In fact, he’s just there with the ravens and he’s on his own. And you think, what in the world is God doing? Every Christian asks that question at some point, and there’s an answer. And this passage of scripture to me speaks powerfully to what God is doing when we come to these experiences that are so surprising. Whether you’re at Cherith right now or not, I think you’re going to find this message encouraging and useful. I hope you’ll be able to open your Bible and join us in the first book of Kings, chapter 17, as we begin the message, When God Hides You. Here’s Colin. We’re continuing our series entitled Leadership, the Surprising Influence of a Godly Life. And we’ve seen together that leaders are people who go on a journey and take others with them, and therefore the direction of your journey and the pace at which you move has a great deal to say about the influence of your life. We looked at two leaders who were moving in very different directions. Ahab charging down this broad road that Jesus says leads to destruction. We saw how he was defining his own morality, was choosing his own God. He was provoking the anger of God, and ultimately he was ignoring the warning of God. And he’s moving down that broad road. And then we saw Elijah, one man who’s moving in a different direction. He’s on a narrow path of faith and of obedience that leads to life, and we saw what that meant for him. It means submitting himself to God in such a way that he is available any time for any commission that God has for him. It means that he’s immersing himself in Scripture so that the Word really carries weight in his own life. It means he’s learning to pray in such a way that will advance the glory of God, even though it will be costly for Elijah himself. And we saw that it led him to the place of speaking the truth of God with clarity and with courage so that even Ahab, that king, would know that the Lord lives. So after this prolonged preparation of immersing himself in the Word of God and praying with regards to the will of God, we’ve got to the point at the end of last week where Elijah’s ministry has this stellar launch. I mean, you can’t get a more impressive beginning to a ministry than Elijah had. He walks right into the throne room of Ahab, this king, and he speaks to him with clarity and courage the Word of God. He announces to him, Ahab, the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, and because the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, there will not be rain in the land for these next years, neither will there be dew, and this will be the proof to you that he is the living God. That is a stellar beginning by any standards, an amazing launch for this man’s ministry. He comes on the scene and verse one tells us the amazing thing that happens. Now, today, what happens next? Verse two, the Word of the Lord came to him, depart from here and turn eastward and hide yourself by the brook Cherith. Now, folks, this is absolutely astonishing after the amazing launch of Elijah’s ministry. I’m absolutely persuaded in my own mind that when this Word of God came to Elijah, he must have done a double-take, what? We’ve just launched the ministry, and now you say, God, go hide yourself. Here’s this man, for months and perhaps for years, he’s been preparing himself for ministry. He’s been immersing himself in the Word of God. He’s been giving himself to prayer, and now that his ministry has just launched, God says, go hide yourself. Here is a man who has a passion for the glory of God. His ministry is desperately needed in this dark time in Israel. We said last time, he’s the brightest light in the darkest place at the hardest time. Here’s the man who has the courage to do what no one else will do, to go into the throne room of Ahab and to announce the reality of the living God, and God now says to him the very next verse, go hide yourself. So I would have struggled over this if I’d been Elijah. What do you think? I think you would have struggled with it too. I expect that Elijah struggled with this, because I know what I would have been thinking if I had had the courage to go to Ahab, and if I had been given the privilege of that amazing launch of a ministry, I would have been saying to folks around me something like this. I would have been saying, well, now’s the time for a national preaching tour. Now’s the time. Now that we’ve announced it in the palace, now’s the time that we’ve got to take the message of Deuteronomy and chapter 11 to every person in this nation. Let’s tell the covenant people of God, the message of Deuteronomy and chapter 11, that if you turn to idols, there will be no rain, because this is the time when they can see the very proof of the promise of God in their experience. So let’s go tell them, let’s go and call them to repentance, let’s get out the map right now and decide where we’re going to begin on this national tour. And God says, no, you go hide yourself by the brook, Cherith. Now I’m going to suggest to you today that the Cherith experience comes to every Christian at some point in your journey. I’ve known it, will no doubt know it again, and I expect that many of you have discovered it already. Some of you are there now and others will be there in the future. Cherith is where God closes the door on the thing that you most want to do. I’m going to try and describe the Cherith experience so that you can recognize it in your own life. And then I want to remind you today that God is at work in Cherith as much as he is at work on Mount Carmel. And today the outline is very, very simple, I think the simplest outline we’ve ever had. Here’s what God is doing for Elijah at Cherith. God hid him, God led him, and God fed him. That’s as simple an outline as you can get, right? God hid him, God led him, and God fed him. Let’s start here then, God hid him. Lesson three, depart from here and turn eastward, the Lord says, and hide yourself by the brook Cherith. Now the question obviously arises, why did God hide Elijah? Was this for his protection, maybe? But God was able to protect Elijah, you remember, when he went right into the palace of Ahab. And God was able to protect Elijah and the company of hundreds of prophets of Baal when he’s on the top of Mount Carmel. We’re going to see in a couple of weeks’ time when God next meets Ahab out in the desert, God is able to protect Elijah there too. So God did not need to send Elijah to Cherith in order to protect him. There’s something much more than that that’s going on here. Was it a judgment on the people of God? Undoubtedly yes. One way in which God judges a nation is that he hides the teachers of the word of God. He hides his servants and what happens is there is a famine of the word of God. There’s no doubt that God was doing that here. But I want to press further and ask the question, what was God doing in the life of Elijah? What was this about for him? Cherith is the place where God withholds what you wanted most. Cherith is the place where God closes the door on the very thing that you wanted to do for him. Here’s Elijah. Think about it. Get it into your mind. He’s been preparing himself for ministry at huge personal cost and now he finds that he does not have the opportunity to pursue it. He’s a prophet. That means his whole calling is to speak the word of God into the lives of people. There are no people at Cherith. And after he moves on from Cherith, and we’re going to look at this next week, God willing, you’ll see that he’s given a massive congregation of two people for three years. One’s a widow and the other is her son. That’s the only people he’s able to minister to. After all this preparation and the amazing launch in the palace, that’s all the extent of his ministry for three full years. What is all this about? You go to college, you train for a particular career, then you graduate and the door that you expected to open does not open for you as you thought. All this preparation and where’s the opportunity? You say, I’ve got the skills, I’ve got the training, I’ve spent an awful lot to get into this position, but there doesn’t seem to be a place where I can use them. The door is not open for me. And welcome to Cherith. Welcome to Cherith. God can take you to Cherith by removing you from a position. God can take you to Cherith through an illness that changes what you had hoped to do and puts you in a different place. Cherith is the place where God hides you. It is the place where God holds back what you most wanted to do. You’re listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. We’re looking today at 1 Kings chapter 17, the first few verses, and we’re going to come back to the message shortly. Remember, if you ever miss any of our messages, you can always catch up or go back and listen again by going to our website, that’s openthebible.org.uk. There you can download an MP3 for free or simply stream messages. You can listen to any of the messages we’ve had to date directly from the website. Now let’s get back to the message. Here’s Colin. I remember when I was a small boy, our family visiting a town in the south of England when we were on family vacation. We went there quite often. And when we did, we visited a church that I thought was the most marvellous place on the face of the earth. Little kids sitting up there in the gallery. The pastors of that church were heroes of mine. The singing was an inspiration. The gallery was packed with young people. And I used to think, if ever I got to be the pastor of this church, boy, that would be my greatest dream. Karn and I began our ministry in a small church of about 150 people in the north of London. The church grew and the elders and the deacons began to talk about a new building. We had been there eight years, which is a very respectable length of time for a young pastor in his first pastorate. And one night, the elders, as they were pursuing this discussion, they said to me, now Colin, if we do this, if we launch out on this project, we’re going to need to be real sure that there’s stability of leadership. And they said to me in the meeting, are you prepared to commit to staying here, they said, for another five years? I’d been there for eight, they said, are you prepared to commit for another five years? They probably shouldn’t have asked that. But I received the question without offense, I said, yeah, yeah, I’m all in. The following day, the phone rang in our home. It was a man I’d never met before, but he introduced himself as the chairman of a search committee from the church that I had dreamed about as a boy, the following day. And he said this, Colin, we’ve never met, but I want you to know we’re looking to appoint a new senior pastor. And he said, we want to know if you would be a candidate. And I said to him, I would love to do that, but I can’t. And he said immediately what any evangelical Christian would say, he said, well, won’t you pray about it? And I said to him, I can’t even say I’ll pray about it, and I’ll tell you why. Because last night, I gave my word to the elders of our church in response to a question that they asked me, and there would be no integrity whatsoever if I today said that I would be willing to come and speak with you. That was about the extent of the conversation. I put down the phone, I walked through to the kitchen where Karn was, and I said, I cannot believe the conversation that just happened. Everyone knows about the triumphs of Elijah’s ministry on Mount Carmel. But here is the principle. God will take you to Cherith before he ever takes you to Carmel. You’ll find this principle all the way through the Scriptures if you look at people who have been greatly used by God. God hid Joseph in a prison before he was brought into the household of Pharaoh. God hid Moses in the backside of the desert, the Bible says, for a third of his life before God raised him up to lead the people of Israel out across the Red Sea. God hid David for a prolonged period of time, running in and out of caves and different places in the mountains while Saul was chasing him for his life before he was ever brought to the palace and given the throne and recognized as the king. God hid Paul for three years in Arabia after his conversion and before he launched out on his first mission journey. Three years, hidden. And God hid Elijah at Cherith before his great life contribution that came at Carmel. So I’m saying to you from this today, don’t count it a strange thing if God hides you. Here’s the principle, when God chooses to hide you for a time, he is preparing you for a greater purpose. Last month I was able to visit the church that I served with great joy in London. In the end we served there for 16 years, they still never had the new building. That was giving that joy to my successor. But visiting back and rejoicing in all that God has done, it was marvelous to meet up with so many people and to see the blessing of God in different lives. One of them was a dear brother who has served the Lord faithfully over many years, I’ve known him now for 32 years. Always there, always reliable, always steady. Throughout the years where he served as a lay leader in the church, he was never really very happy in his job. There was nothing wrong with the job, but it was dull, it was not fulfilling to him. There was something in his heart that wanted to do something more with his life. Then about 10 years ago, God opened a new door of opportunity for this man that took the skills that had been honed over years in this rather dull and unexciting environment and put the same set of skills that had been honed there into use in a completely different setting that has been bringing him great joy. We kept in touch and so when I saw him last month, I said to him, well, I said, your life has certainly changed since I saw you last. He said to me, yes it has. He said, you know, someone said to me, the second half of your life will be much more fruitful than the first. And he said, you know, I really feel that that is proving to be wonderfully true. So I want to give you this encouragement today. Don’t be surprised if God hides you. Don’t be discouraged when he does. We serve a God who hides his servants and while they are hidden, he works in them so that later, with greater power, he may work through them. And if you know that, you’ll be greatly helped when you find yourself a cherished. That’s the first thing. God hid him. Second, at Cherith, God led him. God led him. Look at verse two, the word of the Lord came to him, depart from here and turn eastward and hide yourself at the brook Cherith. So verse three, verse five, I’m sorry, he went and did according to the word of the Lord. So God led him to Cherith and as we’ll see next week, God led him out from Cherith. It will be the same for you. As a believer, you can have absolute confidence in God’s leading of your life in every circumstance. The Lord is your shepherd and the Lord is your shepherd even at Cherith. Now here’s the principle that’s important for us to grasp with regards to how God leads us. God leads his people one step at a time as we walk with him in obedience. That’s a very important principle. God does not normally lay out the long-term scenario. What he does is he leads his people one step at a time as we walk and take each step in obedience. When Elijah went into the throne room and made his great announcement to Ahab, at that moment he didn’t have the slightest idea what was going to happen next. And you will find yourself in that position. You take a step of obedience to God, you just don’t know what is going to happen next. But as you take the step of obedience to God, here’s what will happen. As you move with God in obedience, so he will reveal the next step to you. And that’s the importance of the link between verse 1 and 2. Verse 1 tells us about Elijah’s step of faith and obedience. Verse 2, then God tells him what to do next. The same pattern is in verse 5. Verse 5 tells us about Elijah’s obedience. He went and did according to the word of the Lord. What happens next? Verse 8, God tells him to do what is next. The word of the Lord came and said, go to Zarephath. So you find this, it’s a repeated pattern throughout the story. The word of the Lord comes to Elijah, Elijah does what the word of the Lord says, then the word of the Lord comes to him and tells him what to do next. Now here’s something that we can learn from that, and it’s worth pondering. If God is not making your next step clear, perhaps it could be that you have not yet finished what he is calling you to do already. Go forward with all that God has given you to do now and then trust him to show you the next step at the right time. That’s the principle of Christian obedience. You’ve been listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and a really practical message called When God Hides You. It’s part of our series looking at the life of Elijah called The Surprising Influence of a Godly Life. And we’ll be continuing with this series next time on Open the Bible. Remember if you ever miss any of our broadcasts, you can always catch up online. Go to our website, that’s openthebible.org.uk, there you can download an MP3 for free or stream any of the previous messages directly from the website. You can also find Open the Bible as a podcast. Just go to your favourite podcast site and search for Open the Bible UK. Also on the website and available as a podcast is Open the Bible Daily. These are a series of short two to three minute reflections written by Pastor Colin Smith and read by Sue MacLeish. There’s a new one every day and it’s a great way to start the day. Open the Bible is supported by our listeners, that’s people like you. And if you’re able to set up a new regular monthly donation to the work of Open the Bible, we’d love to thank you by sending you a free copy of the book, The Fight, written by John White. Colin, what can we expect to get out of reading this book? Well, you know, every Christian has a responsibility before God to grow. And that came home to me freshly when I was visiting a friend at another church, a senior pastor who’s a friend of mine. I was waiting for him after the service. I got into a conversation with someone who was on the security team in the church. I asked him, how long have you been in this church and how did you come here? And he said to me, well, you know, every Christian has a responsibility before God to grow. And he said in our last church, my wife and I weren’t growing. But, you know, since we’ve been here, we’ve been growing and we’ll be here for as long as we continue to grow. Now, that brother was exactly right. Every Christian has a responsibility before God to grow. And, you know, early in my Christian life, God used this book, The Fight, by John White to help me get growing as a Christian believer. It’s still on my shelf. The pages are really, really worn because it’s a book that I’ve gone back to many, many times. And it just is a practical encouragement on living the Christian life, how to grow as a Christian. My edition is years and decades old and delighted that there’s a new edition and that we’re able to share it with friends who listen to Open the Bible this month. Well, the book is called The Fight, and it’s our gift to you if you’re able to set up a new monthly donation to the work of Open the Bible for five pounds or more each month. Go to our website for details, openthebible.org.uk. For Open the Bible and Pastor Colin Smith, I’m David Pick, and I hope you’ll be able to join us again soon. You’re a Christian, but God has not made your next steps very clear. Discover why, including the principle of Christian obedience, next time on Open the Bible.