Father, from the bottom of our hearts, we do thank you that in
Christ we are rich with every spiritual blessing.
Lord, we pray that as we come to your Word, you would help us
excel in the things that you call us to mature and including
Thanksgiving. But, Lord, we pray that what we
study tonight will help us soar in faith.
Help us soar in worship and love to you and love to one another.
Cancel and delete everything in US that's none of you.
Anything that we've accumulated this week that's outside of your
will, your purpose for us. But we just pray that it would
be crushed by the weight of your glory as we just sang.
The glory that would shine forth through the word of life.
Thank you, O God, that we are here to meet with you and you
are faithful to meet with us. For your word says draw near to
God and he will draw near to you.
That's what we have come to do. And we thank you that in Jesus
we can do it freely. We can do it in any place at any
time. That grace, Lord, we do not take
for granted. In Jesus name we pray.
Amen. Well, meet me in First Kings 17
please. And we will begin from verse 8.
I will not give you a introduction into this portion
of scripture. I'm just hoping that you
remember where we paused last week.
We know that Elijah was at the Brook Kareth and he remained
there because God instructed him to remain there.
And as long as he remained there, he would be fed
supernaturally by the assistance of these Ravens who came every
day to provide breakfast and dinner.
And that's where we stopped. And now we continue from that
scene. We briefly brushed on verse 8,
but we'll look at it in greater detail, and I just want to read
from verse 8 down to verse 16 to have a holistic picture of the
scene before we dissected together.
So let's read from verse 8. Then the word of the Lord came
to him. Arise, go to Zarephath, which
belongs to Sidon, and dwell there.
Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you.
So he arose and went to Zarephath.
And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was
there gathering sticks. And he called her and said,
bring me a little water in a vessel that I may drink.
And I she was going to bring it. He called her and said, bring me
a morsel of bread in your hand. And she said, as the Lord your
God lives, I have nothing, baked only a handful of flour in a jar
and a little oil in a jug. And now I am gathering a couple
of sticks that I may go in and prepare for myself and my son,
that we may eat it and die. And Elijah just said to her, Do
not fear, Go, and do as you have said, but first make me a little
cake of it, and bring it to me, and afterward make something for
yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord the God
of Israel, the jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug
of oil shall not be empty until the day that the Lord sends rain
upon the earth. And she sent and did as Elijah
said, and she and he and her household ate for many days.
The jar of flour was not spent. Neither did the jug of oil
become empty. According to the word of the
Lord that he spoke by Elijah. There are two things that we can
take from the opening verse of this study.
Look at it again, Verse 8 reads. Then the word of the Lord came
to him. Full stop.
I want you to observe at least two things from this.
The first thing has to do with the timing of God's instruction
for Elijah. Notice that it came after the
brook dried up. If you need to remember that,
look at verse 7 And after a while the brook dried up because
there was no rain in the land. Verse 8.
Then. Then the word of the Lord came.
Now we would think that God was a little late.
We would prefer that if God was to give instruction that in his
mercy, supposedly he would have done so before the resources
were removed. Before, maybe just right before,
things would have evaporated. But the first thing that you and
I have to observe from verse 8 concerning the character of God
is that God is never late. God is never late.
He's never late with his direction.
He's never late with his providential provision.
He's never late with his protection.
God is always on time. And where you and I have to be
careful is being tempted to grade God's guidance from a
carnally dimensional way. Because God leads us and He
guides us, and He does what he does in and through us in a way
that is deeper than what we might perceive.
We look at surface level things. God looks for deeper things, and
God's transitions in our lives are prompted by things that we
don't recognize right away. And that's OK.
That's what makes him God. What was God trying to teach
Elijah by removing the brook in this way?
I'm sure it was many things. And I think this is predominant,
that I see day by day depended on this resources.
God reminded him. No, no, no, no, no.
I am your ultimate source. I am the one that you depend on.
I am the one that you lean on. And when you and I can get very
comfortable in our routine, you can get very comfortable with
the blessings that God has given us to begin with.
Where we lose sight of God, we lose sight of him being The
Fountainhead of everything that we enjoy, of our security, of
our of our blessings, of our rejoicing.
And so in this very real, tangible way, the Lord reminds
Elijah keep your eyes on me. Not that he lost focus.
No, there's no indication of that.
But this is an illustration of what can be if we were in that
same position. Now here's the thing.
Did God, in doing this, accomplished what he wanted to
accomplish in Elijah's life, which is the second observation?
I say yes. The faith that he was looking
for in Elijah, the faith that he was refining and and working on
did develop, did arrive where it was supposed to be.
It passed the test. How do we know?
Look at the first word of verse 9.
Arise. What does that imply?
That Elijah stayed put even though the brook dried?
He didn't panic. He wasn't frantic.
He wasn't drawing a plan in the sand.
No, he was staying right there as though that brook was
bubbling with water and the Lord recognized that and that's where
he found them. So he says, Elijah, time to get
up, Time to get up, because that's something else for you
now. You know there is a quality of
genuine faith that we often miss.
There's something that the Bible provides us in a obscure passage
that is very beneficial for us concerning one of the
characteristics of true trust in the Lord.
We're not going to do much cross referencing in this Bible study,
but this is one place worth going to.
It's in Isaiah 28 and verse 16. I want you to see what the Holy
Spirit says concerning what true believing looks like, how it
manifests, how you can measure it even for yourself.
Isaiah 28, verse 16. It's in the last part of this
verse. Here's what the scripture says.
Therefore. Thus says the Lord God.
Behold, I am the one who has laid as a foundation in Zion a
stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone of a sure
foundation. Here it is.
Whoever believes will not be in haste.
And what implies that a person who trusts in the Lord doesn't
panic. They don't flee when there are
no answers. They don't rely on the strength
in the arm of the flesh. There are times in life where
circumstances will demand you to act, to act even promptly.
But there are moments, like in Elijah's case, where things are
happening outside of your control, and those things that
are outside of your control can sometimes go out of control.
And in those moments, true faith should arise.
And what that looks like is this.
You do not act in haste. We sang it over and over today,
waiting on the Lord. And so if God is never late,
then the second truth from verse 8 is that we must learn how to
wait. We must learn how to wait again.
That doesn't mean that you're passive.
No. God gives us wisdom, and God is
very practical. You should be able to, in
certain circumstances. Many circumstances solve it with
the wisdom and the principles that God has provided you.
But when it comes to stuff like this, where you can't do
anything to change the outcome of it, he who believes is not in
haste. He's not in haste.
And that's what we see with this man of God.
He doesn't erupt in doubt, He doesn't panic, he doesn't act
frantically. He's found there waiting, And
the Lord says arise. And if you ever need comfort in
those moments where you you're trying to search for answers,
you're trying to kick down, doors open, and you might even
be questioning God's faithfulness, look again at
verse 9 and realize this awesome insight of God's preparedness on
our behalf. Verse 9 again, arise.
Go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there.
Read your Bible slowly, please. Look at the last part of verse
9. Behold, I have commanded a widow
there to feed you. What does that tell you?
That while the brook was drying up, God was preparing another
vessel to feed Elijah, and Elijah didn't even know about it
until now. So here's Elijah depending on
this and his lovely. I wonder if he named the Ravens
at that point. He was accustomed to this, and
what's God doing? God knowing because he's ahead
of us. This brook is going to dry up.
I want to see if there's true faith in my servant's heart, but
I'm also making a plan. I'm also getting things ready
for the next leap of faith that Elijah is going to have to make.
This is a wonderful insight to comfort your heart and mind that
God has everything set up before you even walk into it.
It's all prepared, even the promised land.
You're told in Ezekiel that God already spied out the land.
Ezekiel tells us that. So even though those 12 spies
went in originally, God already did the work.
And it's a reminder for you and I that God is 10 years ahead of
you, 10 years ahead of you. Know he's at your funeral and
your birthday at the same time. He's outside of time.
It's not the way you see it. You're standing on the side of
the road looking at the parade chronologically.
God has a helicopter view. He sees it all.
And so this is the God that we serve.
This is the God that we lean on and depend on.
Here we are told that he already commanded a widow.
I already have it set up for you there inside on.
All you have to do is trust in me.
No wonder we shouldn't be in haste.
Now if you thought living by a brook and depending on Ravens to
deliver food to you every day was challenging, this next
instruction is very challenging. Can you tell me why, based on
verse 9 alone, you have you can share it.
You don't have to give a sermon. Just tell me the points.
Give me one reason why this is difficult to obey.
Yes. Oh, widows, widows.
Widows. Widows of this time.
Oh man, they were destitute to begin with.
They needed help. And now you're telling your
servant that this widow is going to help you?
When? When the economy is booming?
No. When there's a drought of all
times, of all the candidates, of all the people you could have
found, you're going to get a widow to host me.
That is challenging. Sure.
Another point at least one more Sidon is a gentile, modern day
Lebanon. So I want you to go to a country
you've never been to before. Imagine that.
Imagine being told one night. I want you to pack your bags in
the morning, take a flight, fly over to a foreign nation that
you've never been to, and I want you to wait there at the
airport. There's going to be somebody
that you've never met before that's going to invite you to
the home and take care of you. Well, you said that sounds
exciting. Less exciting for Elijah.
Can I tell you why? Let me remind you how Sidon
connects to this story. Go back to Chapter 16, verse 31
of First Kings. And as if it had been a light
thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of
Nabat, he took for his wife Jezebel, the daughter of
Ethbaal, king of the Where Cydonians, and went and served
Baal and worshipped him. So out of all the gentile
neighboring nations, go where Jezebel is from, go where the
center, go where the heart of Baal worship is.
Now Jezebel gives us a hint of how Baal worshippers feel about
worshippers of Yahweh, right? She was slaughtering the
prophets of the Lord. So you would think, OK, if if
that's what these people do to my people, probably go in the
opposite direction and God says no, I want you to go to the
heart of it. Go dwell inside on and inside on
A Prince, a wealthy woman. No, a widow is going to take
care of you. So put yourself in Elijah's
sandals for a second and feel it.
Feel it. Don't just brush over it.
Put yourself there. This is what he was called to
do, and the overall observation to make from this is simple.
God's guidance is often unexpected and unpredictable.
Can I tell you something heart to heart?
I give up predicting how God's going to lead my life.
I gave up a few years ago when I first came to the Lord, I I was
very, very specific and clear with my request, and I had
expectation that it was going to play out exactly how I thought
it was going to play out. Can I tell you how much of it
played out? Exactly 0 zero.
Never thought I would move to this country.
Never thought I would do ministry in the context that I'm
doing ministry. Never thought I would.
Every aspect of who I am, marriage, where I live, the car
that I'm driving, everything was beyond my expectation.
And guess what? That's OK.
You know why? Because my little blueprint
pales in comparison to what God has in mind.
Do you think, Elijah, I wonder? I wish.
I'm going to ask him one day. We have a lot of time and
eternity. I'm going to ask him, did you
expect that I have all the things God could have told you
for this next chapter for your life at this point that you
would have had to move to side on and be taken care of by a
widow? I wonder what he would have
said. It's just shocking and it's
supposed to be. So don't put don't put too much
stock in you trying to have a forecast of how God's going to
take care of every single part of your life plan in your heart.
Scripture says plan, but the Lord determines your steps
ultimately, So enjoy the ride. Yes, pray, have expectations.
Yes, bring things before the Lord, even your desires.
But trust that whatever the outcome is, it's going to be
better than what you thought. And at the same time here I'm
comforted to know that as cryptic as the reasons for God's
instructions may be here, there is one thing, one thing about
this next leap for Elijah that we obviously see and we should
expect for ourselves. I mean, what do what do you mean
by that? Do you know what Zeraphath
means? Anybody have an idea?
I'll. I'll let a couple people guess,
if you dare. Zeraphath, you ready for this?
This is awesome. You can't make this stuff up.
Refinery refinement in the same way that you would refine
metals. That's exactly what Zeraphath
means. How fitting for what we're about
to study in Elijah's life that where he's going to go is in
fact going to be more refining than where he was before.
And not only is it going to be refining for him, it's going to
be very refining for the widow who's going to have him at her
house. Do you know what you can have
certainty about? No matter what season you're in,
whether it is a predictable one or an unpredictable one, you can
guarantee this, That whatever it is that you are enduring,
whatever it is that you're entering into, whatever it is
that you're waiting on God for, it's meant to conform you to the
image of Christ. Every time, all the time.
It's an unending promise. You've been predestined to that.
According to Romans 829, you've been predestined to be conformed
to the image of Christ, which means that no matter where
you're at, because you're in Christ, the destination for you
is that he's going to use everything for your conformity
to that image. And that's what Romans 828 is
all about, that all things work together for our good.
All things. Why?
Because of verse 29? Because everything has been
destined for you to be conformed to the image of the Son of God.
So Zarephath is where he's going.
What is he to expect inside on? What is he to expect from a
widow? Very little, perhaps, But one
thing that is for certain is that he's going to be refined.
Even this man of God has more refining to undergo so that he
can be ready for the next thing that God has in mind for him.
That's what I'm comforted by. No matter what phone call I get,
no matter how things drag, no matter how things may not be
going according to my preferred schedule, one thing is for
certain, this is meant to conform me.
When things go fast, when things go slow, when things are
favorable, when they're unfavorable.
God has designed everything to be for that purpose.
And so let's see what happens. So verse 10.
He arose, went, and went to Zarephath, and when he came to
the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering
sticks. And he called her and said,
bring me a little water in a vessel that I may drink.
Look at verse 10 again. So he arose and went to
Zarephath. The unquestioning obedience of
this man is to be greatly admired.
It's the same thing that we saw when he was initially instructed
to go to the brook and to receive from the Ravens.
No questions. My questions would have been
very similar to the original command.
How is a widow going to take care of me?
Exactly, Lord. And how long is she going to be
able to provide for me in this drought?
Are you going to put a protective bubble around me as I
am now behind enemy lines? All these different things,
nothing coming out of Elijah's mouth.
He's walking in total trust in the Lord and he goes there.
And when he goes there, here's what you have to see.
That when you walk with that yielded Ness to the Lord, when
you walk in that obedience, that full hearted trust, you can
expect this reward among many other rewards in obedience.
Providence, perfect Providence, working in your favor.
That's one of the jewels of walking with the Lord in
obedience. Notice what happens.
He comes to Zarephath, and when he came to the gate of the city,
look at this word. Behold, like, hey, check this
out. A widow was there gathering
sticks. So the moment he enters into the
the gate of the city, the very person that God said would take
care of him appears on the scene.
Coincidence. Providence.
Providence and if you want to be assured in your life of God's
divine orchestration, working in every detail of your day-to-day,
just walk with him hand in hand in obedience.
That's that's going to give you the ability to see everything
with that wonderful lens. God is orchestrating everything
here. Sometimes it's very obvious like
this and other times you learn it down the road.
But I love to be reminded here that these this kind of leading
that God has for his servants is is yours and mine as long as you
remain close. One of the things that I always
think of is Ruth example, she was a mobitis.
She comes into a foreign land with a foreign God.
She says your people will be my people, your God will be my God.
And she right away walks in obedience and as a poor person
she what takes advantage of the welfare system of Israel.
So she gleans, she gleans from the fields, that's walking in
obedience. And where where does she find
herself In Boaz's field. And the rest is history.
When you walk in obedience, you position yourself, so to speak.
You put the pen in God's hand to write out your story in
Providence. There's a lot of mess when you
step outside of the will of God. I don't recommend it for many
reasons, but all the assurance that you inherit, like Elijah
shows here, so he does come and look.
He he calls to her and he says, bring me a little water in a
vessel that I may drink. In verse 11.
She didn't seem to have a problem with that.
And as she was going to bring in, he called her and said bring
me a morsel of bread in your hand.
That's where it got costly. We tend to be very attracted to
the things that don't cost as much in obedience.
But when it comes to things that have a price tag on it, we're a
little bit more hesitant, are we not?
So she obviously expressed this hesitation.
Look at verse 12. And she said, as the Lord God,
your God lives, I have nothing baked only a handful of flour in
a jar and a little oil and a jug.
And now I'm gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and
prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die.
What is sad comment, This is going to be the last meal that
we eat before we both die. And Elijah comes and he says,
can you get me something to eat? Actually complete stranger.
Imagine how difficult that would be.
You have your boy back at home and he he, he's just
experiencing grumbles in his stomach for days and so are you.
And with a little strength that you have only surviving on
water, you're going to prepare your last meal to just satisfy
yourselves and just lay there and die.
So you can sympathize, sympathize with her a little
bit. Right, yes, but it depends on
how you understand verse nine. Look again at verse nine of the
second part. Behold, the Lord says I've
commanded a widow there to feed you.
I am persuaded that based on that verse, this widow had
received the prior revelation from the Lord of what was to
come in Elijah arriving and what she was to do.
I believe that. And I think verse 12 gives us a
hint of how she had that revelation.
Because she says to him as the Lord, that's Yahweh.
She knows the covenant name of God as the Lord.
Your God lives now. Just because she had received
that instruction doesn't necessarily mean that she was a
believer in the true and living God.
And we have many instances of people who receive dreams or
revelations that we're not serving God, but we're
instructed by God. And I believe this is one of
those cases. So she was prepared.
She was prepared by the Lord for this very moment, but she was
still hesitant. And you can relate to that,
where you know what the will of God is in a particular manner in
a particular situation, and yet you're still hesitant to act
upon it because you can feel how much it's going to cost you,
whether that be awkwardness or your job and anything else.
You can feel it sometimes. You can feel the heat of it.
You can feel the consequences coming as you begin to entertain
me walking in the way God wants me to walk here and now and so
we can relate to her. But it doesn't excuse her.
I'm I'm persuaded by that. Some would explain it otherwise
but I think it's very clean and clear and plain.
So she's been prepared. So she's she has this
expectation. It should have been.
It should have been clear to her that OK, this God that revealed
this to me, it's obviously coming to pass.
This is being manifest. But instead she shrivels up in
her faith and what does Elijah do, this fire breathing prophet.
You know, if you have a a silhouette understanding of who
Elijah is, you would expect him to say Thus says the Lord,
because you have not shown faith and it pronounced some kind of
judgment on her. That's not what he does.
Look at verse 13. And Elijah said to her, do not
fear, do not fear. Go and do as you have said.
But first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and
afterward make something for yourself and your son.
You know, I've heard prosperity preachers use this verse to tell
people who who can't afford their rent and pay off their
mortgage to 1st give them something and then God will
bless them. Here's the thing that they left
out, God told the widow first tracking with me and God told
one widow not every widow in America on top of that too,
right? Just a side note.
So the Lord prepares her. He says, don't be afraid.
Don't be afraid. And here, here's the beautiful
thing about this part of the Bible study.
You can learn something from the widow, You can learn something,
obviously about the Lord. And you can learn something from
Elijah's perspective. And right here I learned
something. There's something that I gleaned
from Elijah's example. He doesn't reprimand her.
He doesn't overwhelm her with condemnation.
He encourages her, he quells her fears, and he stirs her up to
love and good works. And I see the absolute value and
blessing it is to have a voice in your life to help you obey
God better, to help you obey God with greater strength, with less
fear and concern and anxiety. And this is the blessing that
Elijah was up to this point, that he was able to nudge her
and guide her into the place of obedience, even though she had
already heard and knew about it. It's amazing what community
does. It's amazing how God has put
people in our lives to help us love God better.
And if you think for a moment that you can do it on your own,
I assure you that you will not be able to know better, worship
better manifestations of the Spirit, better opportunities to
please God unless you are connected to a body.
Elijah here says don't be afraid and he says just do it.
Trust the Lord and He gives her a promise according to verse 14.
I wonder if you have been able to identify God's provision in
your life in the same way this woman was provided through
Elijah. Were you able to recognize the
voices and the examples of those who are present in your life
that help you obey God? Better they are out there.
I believe Maranatha Bible Church is filled with them, and so
Elijah serves as that example here.
And before we move on, I want you to remember last week how I
mentioned Elijah being a significant reference in the New
Testament. And this very passage is
actually quoted by the lips of the Son of God himself.
And I want you to turn there in Luke chapter 4 to see how he
interprets and applies this very scene in redemptive history.
Look at Luke 4 quickly in verse 25 and 26 just to get the
citation from Christ. I wonder if you knew that Jesus
quoted this passage. But in truth, he says, I tell
you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah,
when the heavens were shut up three years and six months and a
great famine came over all the land, and Elijah was sent to
none of them, but only to Zarephath and the land of Sidon,
to a woman who was a widow. So he he describes this very
scene that we just finished studying perfectly.
But what's the context? Jesus at this point in his
ministry, early in his ministry, is in a synagogue in his
hometown, Nazareth. He opens the scroll to Isaiah's
passage about the anointed, the spirit anointed Messiah.
He quotes Isaiah 61, at least the 1st 2 verses.
And then he tells the very hearers of that passage.
This scripture has been fulfilled in himself.
And we're told there that the people marveled, they marveled.
But that amazement was short lived because it was quickly
replaced with skepticism, doubt, and even scorn.
They begin to say, is this Joseph's son?
Isn't this Joseph's son? And so Jesus responds to their
unbelief and he mentions how a prophet is accepted generally,
everywhere, definitely not in his own town.
And he is. He's exemplifying that not just
what's happening in that moment. But then he begins to go to
history and pull out one of the greatest prophets by way of
example of how that is true. And he goes to Elijah and he
says, you know, Elijah was received by a widow Jew or
Gentile, not a Jew. Elijah because he represented as
a messenger of God the truth of God was rejected by his own
people and was accepted by the faith of somebody who did not
know the covenant blessings that the Jewish people knew.
And here's what he's saying and conveying this truth to them.
The same is happening with the Messiah.
You, the Jewish people, not just the Jewish people but from my
own hometown, are not willing to receive me.
And so he is compounding on that truth that a prophet is not
received from his own people. But he says something even for
that would have irked them. In fact it did irked them big
time. He takes it a step further.
He goes, it was a gentile. It was a gentile who received
Elijah and received the blessing from the Prophet.
And I'm giving you a heads up because of your rejection.
The Gentiles will receive a blessing.
The Gentiles will not just receive a blessing, they will be
grafted in. They will be accepted.
They will receive me, unlike you.
So by giving this prediction, by going back to Old Testament
truth, the people were so disturbed.
And I'm sure the people did not like this story in the Old
Testament because it shows again God's heart for people who
worship false gods, who again did not have the heritage and
history with the true and living God, and yet God still willing
to extend mercy. Here's a reminder for you in
First Kings seventeen 8 to 16 of a gospel truth.
God's heart for the Gentiles has always been there.
It's always been there. And it's more than just the book
of Jonah. You haven't even here with this
prophet who's willing to go outside of the boundaries of the
promised land to bless somebody who didn't deserve it.
And it's a foreshadowing of what the Messiah would do,
culminating in the New Covenant, where people from all nations
would have access to the mercy and goodness of God.
So this is what Jesus is showing by coming to this text.
So again, reminder, you can find gospel in your study of the
Hebrew scriptures. Now let's continue back in First
Kings verse 17. After this the son of the woman,
the mistress of the house, became ill, and his illness was
so severe that there was no breath left in him.
And she said to Elijah, What have you against me, O man of
God? You have come to me to bring my
sin to remembrance, and to cause the death of my son.
And he said to her, Give me your son.
And he took him from her arms, and carried him up into the
upper chamber, where he lodged and laid him on his own bed.
And he cried to the Lord, Oh, Lord, my God, have you brought
calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourned by killing
her son. Then he stretched himself upon
the child three times, and he cried to the Lord, Oh Lord, my
God, let this child's life come into again.
And the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah, and the life of
the child came into him again. And he revived.
And Elijah took the child, and brought him down from the upper
chamber into the house, and delivered him to his mother.
And Elijah said, see, your son lives.
And the woman said to Elijah, Now I know that you are a man of
God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.
What a shift. What a shift of themes.
What a shift of experience. The keyword to this next section
are the 1st 2 words of verse 17. Look again with me after this.
After what? Not just the widow's obedience
to the command of God, but to the experience that she had with
the outcome of her obedience according to verse 15.
Look at verse 15 again. And she went and did as Elijah
said, and she and he and her household ate for many days.
The jar of flour was not spent, neither did the jug of oil
become empty. According to the word of the
Lord that he spoke by Elijah. You got to stop and play that
through your imagination a little bit.
This woman was rewarded from heaven for her faith in what God
had said. And do you know what that reward
looked like? You had one jar for the flour,
yet another jug for oil. And they took that and they made
a cake. That day Elijah came and they
realized when they made it for him, there was enough for
themselves. And every time they ate for the
day, went to bed and woke up, they found those vessels full
every day. And we're told that it was many
days that they ate. Can you imagine that?
Can you imagine going to your fridge, going to your cupboard?
And what you find in there, no matter how much you ate the day
before that it was restocked by an invisible hand.
This is spectacular. This is.
This is awesome. This is incredible.
No trips to the grocery store. Nothing.
No, you couldn't anyway, This time, nothing of the sort.
Just this private daily intervention from God where he
was giving them exactly what they needed every single day.
And with this overflowing experience of blessing comes
crashing through a tragedy that was so unexpected.
The son of this woman dies Young, filled with life, tasted
the the goodness of God for himself.
And what we see here is that this may be a strange experience
for somebody who had such a quality of heavenly supervision.
This isn't really a revelatory, is it?
No, it's just you and I being reminded, and you're confronted
with something. You're you're confronted with
this truth that you can never fail to forget that you have
this woman here who had experienced radical faithfulness
and also gloriously favored by God and yet she was not exempt
from suffering. She showed amazing faith and she
experienced amazing reward and yet that did not dismiss her
from knowing severe tragedy. I'm thinking of Mary in John
Chapter 11. I love that portion of
scripture. The 1st 5 verses.
Been sharing that lately. What we're told there that Mary,
the one who anointed Jesus. So that description of Mary, not
just to signal her out as the Mary that blessed Jesus in this
way, because there's many Mary's, but the Mary who showed
such extravagant worship to the Lord and in that same context
you learned that her brother was ill.
You would think that a woman who had a revelation that the
disciples did not even have by giving Jesus that kind of
treatment in preparation for his burial.
You know what that tells me? Mary was listening even when the
12 weren't. Mary understood that this Jesus,
he, he's talking about death. He's talking about his burial.
He's talking about him being a sacrifice.
Mary heard what the 12 apostles could not register, and she
demonstrated her faith by giving him a ceremonial anointing, so
to speak, from her heart, preparing him for burial.
You would think such a woman with such caliber of insight,
such caliber of worship and devotion would be saved from any
peril or problems. And yet we're told it's that
Mary, whose brother died. Keep that in mind.
Your love for God, as intense as it might be, it might outshine
the love that other people might have for the Lord, does not
cancel out the possibility of you being tested by suffering.
And that's exactly what this woman is about to experience
now. You think it's hard enough to
lose? I can't even fathom it.
I don't have children of my own. I pray that I will one day.
I have nieces and nephews. I have brothers and sisters in
Christ who have lovely babies and children.
I can't even entertain the thought of what kind of pain
results from the loss of a premature death.
But let's let's realize and remember, she's a widow.
She already lost her husband. So at this time, she didn't have
government backing like we do today.
She already lost her husband. All her hope for a secure future
to being taken care of was in that boy.
And now that's been taken from her.
She has no one, never mind anybody, to take care of her.
Who's there to be just her companion, who's there that she
can enjoy life with who, who's there for her to make memories
with. All of that is taken from her.
So again, feel it. Feel it.
Imagine being the only one left in your immediate family.
Everybody's been taken by death, and this is on the other side of
obeying God when it was really difficult to obey God with very
little foundation to work with as a gentile woman.
And yet the Lord does this. And you think to yourself, maybe
honestly, what's the purpose of this like?
Wasn't it enough? Didn't she prove herself enough
by what she did in the previous verses?
Didn't she demonstrate that she did trust the Lord?
What What do you get from taking these loved ones from her?
And as you think about it, you have to remember how God works
with these things. That despite the devotion she
showed and the love that she showed and the exemplary faith
that she showed, there was still more.
There was still more. Listen.
Faith for her to develop more worship for her to offer more
polishing in her character, to create that can only come about
through the fires of suffering. Only there's some things that
you can never know, never realize unless you endure
something. And that's exactly what she's
about to experience. Can I give you a hint how I know
that's to be true? Look at the last verse of this
chapter, one more time, Verse 24.
And the woman said to Elijah, Now I know that you are a man of
God and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.
Not that she didn't have a revelation before, but it's now
more confirmed, just like Job. Job was a man of God who feared
God. My ears have heard of you, but
now my eyes see you. Isn't that what he said at the
end of it all? So there's deeper revelation,
deeper insight. That's the that's the consensus
of the Bible. There is always something
profoundly good to come about with, something that seems
profoundly horrible. So this son is now taken from
her, and we see here that both her and Elijah made mistakes
that we must avoid when we were visited by any level of
devastation. Here's the first one.
Look at verse 17 again. His illness was so severe that
there was no breath left in him. Verse 18.
And she said to Elijah, what have you against me, O man of
God, you have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and
to cause the death of my son. So something about this tragedy
awakened her conscience of something that she has done in
the past, where she now thinks God has punished me for this
past sin. We're not told what that sin
was, but it was severe enough for her to be haunted by it.
Do you have, like a kind of past like that?
Do you? I wonder.
It's OK. You don't need to tell anybody.
God knows about it, though. And here's the thing that you
got to really be careful of to always equate suffering with
punishment. God is allowing this.
God is doing this because I did this, and though chastisement is
a reality for the true child of God, though, God can't even
wound somebody for their sin to awaken them to repentance.
I can tell you this guaranteed because the Bible says so.
If it's a sin that's been repented of, it's a sin that you
should never be worried about again.
If it's covered by the blood of Jesus Christ, if you've given it
to the Lord, if you've left it at the foot of the cross, you
never have to for a waking moment, think that God's going
to get me back for that. What is the expectation of you
when you forgive somebody who's hurt you?
People always have these convoluted ideas of what
forgiveness looks like in the Christians life.
It's very simple. Forgiveness is a vow that you
make that you will never take vengeance on someone for hurting
you or causing you pain. You leave vengeance to God and
you go beyond that where you're willing and you actually want
them to be blessed instead. And that kind of release is
stimulated by your revelation of God's mercy towards you.
So forgiveness is expected of you to look like I vowed to
never entertain even the thought of somebody experiencing pain
because of the pain they caused me.
Is it any less true for God in his relation to you?
You should never fear for a moment that God is going to
retaliate against you when you have expressed your desire for
him to forgive you. And so this idea to equate
whatever suffering I'm going through with something that I
must have done, if it's been plunged in the blood, it's done.
It's in the sea of forgetfulness for a reason, and God has no
intention of recapturing it and rubbing it in your face.
So this is where this woman went wrong.
And she thinks that this is because of something you admire
her for humility. In some ways it's like a mixture
of different things that she's showing here.
She acknowledges that she's a Sinner, but she's applying that
truth in a wrong way. Here's another thing to look
here. She doesn't just talk about her
sin. What does she do?
Who she blaming here? She's blaming Elijah.
It's like it's you. You came to my house.
You did this, You caused this. Implying probably would have
been better if you. You know, we never met.
I look at this and I'm reminded here you have a man who was used
as an instrument of God to not just bring blessing to this
woman, but to actually be the means for her survival.
You want to talk about somebody coming into your life and being
a blessing. That's incredible.
God used this man to help this woman, not die her and her son.
And how does she return the favor when things go bad?
It's your fault, Elijah. Be prepared as a servant of God
who serves God's people to be unjustly blamed for things that
have no relation to you or that lightly relate to you.
Be prepared for people to even in their pain, when they're
trying to understand the problems that they're
experiencing and navigating through the hurt and the pain in
their lives, to project that on you.
This is especially true for leaders, especially true for
leaders. If you're a leader serving God's
people in any capacity, sometimes the people that you
serve will have unrealistic expectations of you.
And because of those unrealistic expectations, when you fail to
do what they think that you should do, they will accuse you,
They will blame you, They will project their heart hurt and
their injury on you. Talk to anybody who's been in
ministry long enough and they can tell you that to be true,
that that is something that they often experience.
Here you have Elijah, who's only done nothing but good, who's
only blessed this woman, and yet what does she do in return?
She blames him, and there are many reasons for that.
I can tell you some interesting stories of people that I know
that were heaped on with condemnation from those words.
It's like, that doesn't even make any sense.
But it's just human nature, is it not?
There are some people who just don't know how to handle pain
and how to interpret the problems that they are enduring.
So Elijah here gives me an example of how to learn from
that experience. Verse 19, he said to her, give
me your son. What an amazing man of great
compassion. He doesn't rebuke her again.
He doesn't lash out on her. He sympathizes with her.
So here's some of that might be able to relate to you.
Listen, if you're a Christian, you're going to see other people
suffer, especially if you're in the church long enough.
You're going to see people suffer even in the world, the
people that you associate with, you're going to see them going
through some things. And when that happens, can I
give you a suggestion? It is not warranted in the
presence of someone's deep brokenness where they're trying
to pick up all the pieces and put it together and make sense
of it. For you to give a theological
treatise of why that's happening to them, That makes sense.
You don't have to preach to them as they are enduring their
suffering and people for some reason have the need to do so
That while this person is shattered and broken and
expressing their pain, Christians just feel like they
have to explain it. You don't have to explain it,
actually. Sometimes the best thing you can
do is just weep with them. And I've actually learned from
people who have suffered tremendously that Christians
have actually done more harm by trying to give them an
expository reason of why. What they're going through is
why they're going through it. So wisdom doesn't just look like
and what you say and thinking. It's going to be profound.
Wisdom actually looks like this. You know what it looks like?
Not saying anything. A wise person doesn't talk all
the time. And if you're serious about
being one who comforts others, learn from that example.
Just be still and be present. And one day, as time goes on,
you might have a conversation with that person where they have
questions and you can expound on those things with them.
But learn to suffer with people. Learn to suffer with people.
Elijah here, it doesn't blow up on her, doesn't try to go
through this great deep thing with her.
He just simply is there to an extent.
His words are very brief, and in this particular scene, he's
actually going to try to do something about it.
And what does he do? He says, give me your son.
He took her from her arms, meaning when she said that she
had him in her arms. And he went up to the upper
chamber where he lodged and laid him on his own bed.
And look what he does. Elijah himself is conflicted by
this trial. So it's not just this woman.
Elijah's not bulletproof here, and he's not just saying you
don't have faith. Give me this.
Let me take care of this. Well, I'll be back in 30
minutes. Watch, watch, watch what you
missed out on. He doesn't do that.
He takes this boy, goes up to the room, and look what he says
in verse 20. And he cried to the Lord, Oh,
Lord, my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow
with whom I sojourn by killing her son?
You know, in James Five, we're told that Elijah was a man with
a nature like ours. And he prayed, and the heavens
shut up for three years and six months, and he prayed again, and
the heavens poured out rain. And we're like, yeah, that's how
this man of God prayed. True.
But I'm so thankful that First Kings 17 includes this man's
prayer. In this way, it's like, Lord,
what's going on? What is going on here?
I did not see this coming. And he begins to pour out his
heart to the Lord. So in this brief moment, here's
here's a study within a study. Elijah gives us an example here,
a model of what to do when unexplainable tragedy visits
you. When some kind of suffering
surprises you, what do you do? We praise He comes to the Lord.
That's his immediate reflex. He goes to the throne of grace.
And I have three reasons why Elijah made that his reflex.
First thing is verse 20. He cried to the Lord, Oh Lord,
my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow
with whom I soldier and by killing her son?
The first thing that Elijah acknowledges indirectly in
asking this question is that he believes in the sovereignty of
God. You want to know how you can run
to prayer something that's almost a reflex?
You have to 1st establish the sovereignty of God.
So in this Elijah is admitting God.
Nothing runs by you under your nose.
Nothing is under your radar. You see all things.
You know, all things. You permit and allow things.
And so, Lord, I'm here to just bring this perplexed thing and
I'm asking you, the sovereign God, how what?
What's going on here? So Elijah is able to commune
with God with his problems because he believes in a big God
who sees it as aware and and he's there.
So the sovereignty of God, but not just the sovereignty of God
closely associated with that is verse 21.
Here's the second reason why Elijah ran to prayer as his
response. Then he stretched himself upon
the child three times and cried to the Lord, Oh Lord my God, let
this child's life come into him again.
So not just because God is sovereign that Elijah pray, but
he believed God would answer prayer.
You can have very little motivation to pray if you don't
believe God answers prayer. If you just think that's
something that you should do as a mental and emotional exercise,
good luck praying like this man. But if you really believe that,
because he's sovereign, he's not distant, he's very much aware he
can also intervene. So he brings this thing before
the Lord. He says, Lord, I'm asking you
here, can you please bring life, bring life to this young man's
body again? And you know what makes this act
of faith so impressive? This is the first resurrection
miracle in all of the Bible. There is no recorded miracle
before this where somebody rose from the dead.
So this is the first of its kind, and you're going to see a
couple more and you're going to see a few more in the New
Testament. But this is the there is no
category for this kind of miracle yet.
But Elijah had such a revelation of who God was, the author of
life, the giver of life, the taker of life, that he's able to
pray with such confidence and liberty.
Lord, I believe that you can answer this, but it's not just
the fact that God can answer this prayer.
Look at this verse 22. And the Lord listened to the
voice of Elijah. He believed that he can.
These are very closely associated.
He believed God was sovereign. He believed that God can do
something. And lastly, he believed that God
actually heard him. God actually heard him.
The Lord listened to the voice of Elijah.
And what comforts me is that God heard him and honored his
prayer, even though he came so honestly in the way he did in
verse 21. He didn't come in saying, oh
resurrection and power, oh the giver of all life, oh, the one
who conquers death in the grave. I believe without a shadow of a
doubt that you can raise this boy from that.
Not right away at least. He comes with questions.
He spills his heart, He empties his soul before the Lord, and
God still listen to him. Elijah is a prophet, a mighty
man of God. But listen, Elijah is a man like
you and I, and here's an example of that.
He comes to the Lord with honesty.
He comes to the Lord with just raw emotion.
And I read here in verse 22 that the Lord listened to him.
The Lord wasn't offended by that.
The Lord isn't sensitive like you and I might be sensitive.
He's very understanding. And so, as this man comes up
with the Lord with such raw emotion, the Lord honors him,
listens to him, and answers him. We read something that perhaps
you wonder, why didn't we stop on?
Look at verse 21 again. Then he stretched himself upon
the child three times. Did you catch that?
That's kind of strange. What's he doing here?
Many people have made attempts to try to explain these actions.
It could be that Elijah in his praying, was so desperate, was
so expressive that not only is he vocalizing it, but it's even
demonstrating what he wants. Lord, Lord, this bring this boy
to life and he lays upon the boy and he does it again, is it's
almost like a physical reaction to this request.
Sometimes in desperation, you and I, we lay prostate, we bend
our knees, we lift our hands. And it's just a way for what's
in our hearts to show through our limbs, saying, Lord, please
look down here, Lord, please see, hear me.
And it could be that this man is just laying upon this boy
expressing his desire. The life that's in here, would
it would you impart life into him?
Could be that he's just doing something that some would do
practically. And knowing that this boy was
fresh still he he just died providing natural warmth to his
body and trying to preserve with whatever he could do in with his
own body while he's seeking the Lord.
If that is true, than what a wonderful example of what prayer
also looks like. If Elijah is doing more than
just being expressive, but he's being practical here, then you
and I have to understand that when we pray and ask God it
doesn't replace being practical. That's it.
So we should seek the Lord for the impossible.
We should ask and bring before the Lord all things even as the
first thing. But we should also do our part.
And as we do our part, we can trust and continue to win on the
Lord and ask him to do his part again.
If that's what Elijah is doing, then what a comfort it is to not
be overly dramatic or unwise and not acting in what we can do to
try to preserve or try to provide or try to make things
happen. Not dismissing prayer, but not
also dismissing to be real and to be practical.
It's a dance, and it's a beautiful dance when the
Christian knows how to be wise and how they approach certain
things. So you can equate that to
anything that you need. Yes, God can answer every
prayer, but God also asks us to do stuff too.
When you do both in honor of him, he can do the miraculous in
between. So here's what he's doing.
He's laying, He's asking three times, and he cried out to Lord.
This is desperate. Cries out to the Lord, cries out
to the Lord, and what happens? The Lord answers you read it.
Here's where we're ending. And Elijah took the child and
brought him down from the upper chamber into the house and
delivered him to his mother. And Elijah said, see your son
lives. And the woman said to Elijah,
Now I know that you're a man of God, and that the word of the
Lord and your mouth is truth. So this woman that Elijah went
to, God sends Elijah to this woman inside on.
Perhaps for many reasons, but perhaps one of them is so that
this Gentile woman who is surrounded by Baal ISM, would
have a chance to hear about the true and living God and be
saved. God loves the lost.
He really does. And you might be wondering, why
do I have the job that I have? I don't want to be here, but
it's the only opening that I got.
Maybe there's somebody in there that God wants to use you to
touch. I know you want better hours and
you want this and you want that, and that's fine.
God will honor that. But God loves lost souls more,
and you should too. So be sensitive to that.
You may not be particularly happy about where you're at, but
maybe because there's something there, there's someone there
that the Lord wants to touch through you.
So we have that. But there's something also even
I believe, for Elijah, like, it's so plain, it's it's not
deep really, right? You have like these episodes in
Elijah's life and and in these two episodes so far, it's all
about faith stretching. And so you have him at the brook
with the Ravens, and he passes that, and then he comes into a
new semester in the school of God and it's what a widow and
Sidon and what else? The sun dies, never mind the
bread and the oil being multiplied, but the sun dies.
And so Elijah here sees what he sees, God's resurrection power.
Do you think that's just random? No, no, no, no, no.
There's a Chapter 18 that we're about to study.
And what is going to happen in Chapter 18?
God's going to say arise, show yourself to Ahab.
And what's going to happen on this face off?
He's going to confront Ahab. He's going to confront hundreds
of false prophets on a mountain top with a wavering compromise
nation. And he's going to stand alone
and demonstrate devotion and trust in God, pray in their
presence and see a miracle come to pass.
Well, listen, it's very hard for you to come to zero to 100, is
it not? So what does God do?
Something that he does in you and I.
He builds his faith. He stretches him, He teaches
him, and then he prepares him through that to be positioned
for this glorious testimony. Can I say something to somebody?
Maybe you're a person who really wants to be used by God.
That's a wonderful desire to have.
I can't think of a better one. There isn't a better one.
You want to know God more intimately.
You want to be used God by by God more intensely.
Do not despise the days where God hides you, where God may
limit you. Like think about it.
This is a mighty prophet of God like Elijah.
OK, Elijah, who in the beginning of chapter 17 prayed and the
heavens shut. And after Elijah prays such a
mighty prayer and even demonstrates the Ahab.
Hey, God is the one behind us and I'm his instrument.
God takes Elijah and he puts him in a desert.
And then from the desert where does he stick him?
In a home of a widow with a son, He says.
Stay there. And this man with such great
potential, this man with so much power, this man who can, we're
about to find out, brings a nation to its knees, spends
years. Because why we're We're going to
learn verse eight, chapter 18, verse one.
After three years he is going to go to Ahab.
So for years he's in this home, ministering to one woman and her
son. So don't despise the days of
small beginnings. Don't despise the days of
hiddenness. You have Elijah, who was tucked
away in a home outside of Israel, and he served God
faithfully. Serve God faithfully wherever he
puts you, wherever He puts you. And even if your ministry is to
bless somebody in your household, never forget Elijah.
That's what he did, this mighty man of God taking care of a
woman and her child. So this faith was being built up
in this man of God. And let me end it on this point.
Not only did he witness God's resurrection power, I mean,
that's going to build up your faith to go against Ahab for
sure. But his calling was even
confirmed. It was affirmed by this woman.
She's like, you're the real deal.
Like you're the real deal. And God used that to speak into
Elijah's life. I'm sure if you don't know
Elijah's story fully, remember that in a couple of chapters
he's going to doubt his calling. He's going to just.
I'm a failure. Just Lord take me up.
I'm no better than my father's. I'm ready to go home.
And you have this woman early on saying what I know that you're a
man of God. I know that you're a man of God.
I know that what's in your that's true.
You're the true. You're the true speaker of God.
You're the true minister of God. Can I say something in closing?
For this woman to come to this confirmation, you know what it
required? It didn't just require a trial.
It required a man of God who was also going through a trial but
responded to it well. Do not underestimate the
suffering you're enduring, child of God, because you have no idea
who's watching and you have no idea how your response to that
suffering can melt the heart. Of a skeptic can persuade the
heart of a penitent person that can bring a person closer to the
Lord, that can open their eyes in ways that they've never seen.
God, that can even bring a person from unbelief to belief.
You know what my favorite one of my favorite examples of that
truth is? I said I was finished, but I
have to open my Bible again. I'll finish here one verse.
I promise Acts 16, verse 25. This will be a good place to
end. I'm sure you agree with me.
Yes, that is a place to end. Acts 16, verse 25, About
midnight. Paul and Silas were praying and
singing hymns to God and the prisoners were listening to
them. I love that.
Gashed, bloodied, bruised. And they're chained hand and
foot, praying and singing God to God, hymns to God at midnight.
And the Holy Spirit wants you and I to know those criminals in
that very same place. We're listening to them.
You have no idea who's watching
you. You have no idea who's looking
at your social media posts. You have no idea who's listening
to you. And the same way Elijah, who was
able to gently, compassionately filled with faith, prayerfully
push through this trial, this woman said in response to that
you're the real deal. May God help us to do the same.
Lord, we thank you for this Bible study.
We pray, Lord, that we would be able to remember these things,
more importantly, to apply them to real life.
We thank you that you lead us step by step, and you're showing
that through Elijah's life. Help us.
Be patient. Help us not be in haste.
Help us to wait on you and help us like Elijah, if we find
ourselves in a limited space, in a foreign space, in an
uncomfortable place to serve you and not just serve you.
But Lord, when things do not go our way to honor you and to
trust that people will see that and it will register Well.
Lord, we thank you for this time again together.
We pray that you would receive our worship as we rejoice over
your word. We're blessed to be fed by the
truth that your Holy Spirit has given us.
In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Let's stand and worship the
Lord. Yeah.