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Trusting God For Provision - Better Than The Birds

Discover how God's provision surpasses the natural limitations through the examples of birds and biblical stories. Learn to trust God for your needs.

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Trusting God For Provision - Better Than The Birds

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  1. BETTER THAN THE BIRDSTrusting God For ProvisionWinkie Pratney

  2. And it shall be, that you shall drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there. (I Kings 17:4) • Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feeds them: How much more are you better than the birds? (Luke 12:24)

  3. 1. Birds build no barns; • Sparrows don’t sow and ravens don’t reap • But God takes care of both the ravens and the sparrows • Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feeds them: how much more are you better than the fowls? Luke 12:24

  4. 2. Birds always do what God built them to do. • Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much better than they? (Matthew 6:26) • He gives to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry. (Psalms 147:9) • And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth (Genesis 8:7)

  5. People do what God never designed them to do. • No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. you cannot serve God and mammon. Matthew 6:24 • Therefore I say to you, Take no thought for your life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor yet for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Matthew 6:25

  6. 3. Birds don’t barter or balk when God calls or commands • Ravens go against their instincts when they do not eat what they normally eat • Lion kills the young foolish prophet but sits by the body and doesn’t eat his donkey (I Kings 13:24) • The whale swallows Jonah and never tells God he “can’t stomach preachers” • Gods animate Kingdom has no problems doing what God commands them to do.

  7. Even prophets may run away • And he came to a cave and lodged there; and the word of the came to him saying “What are you doing here Elijah?” (I Kings 19: • Or sometimes hide in ships headed in the exactly wrong direction (Jonah 1:3)

  8. 4. Birds have small brains but they can do what you can’t do. • They can fly thousands of miles without a map and make it. • They carry enough fuel for the unseen journey without a calculator • They can’t stop for bathroom breaks on over-ocean voyages or ask directions

  9. ELIJAH was a man set apart • He comes out of Gilead non-entity to shake and challenge a Kingdom • At his word the weather changes on command and brings a nation to its knees • Elijah set his heart on being someone special to God and so he was • I am no better than my fathers” tells you something of his secret ambition

  10. It is no secret that God’s call - • makes a man or woman special • but it is rarely known what sets apart such world-changers from the rest • “In a great house are many vessels .. some to honor and some to dishonor… • If a man purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel of honor.” (2 Tim 2:20)

  11. Three Kinds of Provision: • The Ravens and the Brook - Supernatural (I Kings 17:1-6) God can provide in unexpected ways • The Widow and her Son– Servants (I Kings 17:7-16) God may provide in embarrassing situations The Sparrows and the Flowers– Simplicity (Matthew 6:24-34 God pledges His provision if we have undivided hearts

  12. What can we learn of God’s patterns of provision from these stories?

  13. 1. Prayer sometimes brings on the problem that requires the Divine provision.

  14. Saints are not exempt from sharing in some of the suffering • “God had one Son without sin, but never a son without affliction. Let us not ask to be the first” (Spurgeon)

  15. 2. God reserves the right to send you to unlikely places to provide for you

  16. Why not Jordan the river? Why Cherith (drought) the brook?

  17. 3. Provision is only promised if you go where God calls and do what God says

  18. God never guarantees supply when you are not where He sent you. • And the word of the LORD came to him, saying, You get out of here, and turn eastward, and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. • And it shall be, that you shall drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there. I Kings 17:2-4

  19. 4. Provision can come from unclean sources yet unchanged by Providence

  20. A miracle constantly repeated ceases to be a miracle, and falls into ordinary law. • “God challenges the modes in which he sends our supplies, so we may see more clearly His hand in them all” (Spurgeon)

  21. 5. Provision can even be from the poor worse off than yourself

  22. Ravens were hungry too • Birds ate what was left over from others • The widow and her son likewise starving: And she said, As the LORD thy God lives, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and, behold, I [am] gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die. (I Kings 17:12)

  23. 6. Provision is never promised “weekly” or “monthly” but only daily.

  24. Give us this day our daily bread - • means constant and continual trust • But seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you. (Matthew 6:33) • It never gets any easier even if you get wiser and better. • Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? (Matthew 6:30)

  25. 7. Provision is not promised for more than enough but always enough

  26. We are not promised windfalls • nor reduced to hand-outs • but always faithful sufficiency • As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things. II Corinthians 6:10

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