Elijah: A Man Just Like Us
ELIJAH AND THE WIDOW
1 Kings 17:8-24
Great Commission Church
Transcript
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Part three of four. Elijah, a man just like us. My name is Trevor. I'm GCC's pastor. And I don't know if Kelly and Peyton have made it back, but I just want to say that I celebrate your new life today.
Our church is so glad to have you part of our body, and I can't believe I get to be your pastor. And so we're full of joy over what the Lord's doing in your life. To catch you up, we've been profiling a prophet from the Old Testament, and it is the prophet Elijah. And he has made a very bold prediction to the king of Israel, who was in wickedness. And that was that there would be no rain for three years in the land except at Elijah's word.
And that wasn't great news. It made Elijah public enemy number one. And so God sent him away to hide him from the king and his forces and to teach him lots of things. And so God hides Elijah away by a brook. The brook is called the Carruth Brook.
And the brook is what he drank from during this part of the famine. And how did he eat? Well, the Lord commanded detestable birds from the Old Testament, ravens to bring him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening. And so this was ancient doordash, just delivering food to God's prophet. Bread and meat make sandwiches.
Amen. So it's a sandwich shop on wings. And then he drinks from the brook. And that is an extraordinary way for God to keep his prophet alive when there was so much death and destruction. And now the last verse that we read last week said that the brook dried up.
And so how will God sustain his prophet going forward? What would take the place of the raven and the brook in keeping Elijah alive? And I think what you're going to find out is the answer is almost as surprising as ravens and brooks. And so here we go. First king 17.
Our sermon today covers verses eight through 24. Then the word of the Lord came to him saying, arise, go to Zarafath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. See, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you. So God commands a gentile widow who doesn't believe in him, doesn't share the same faith as Elijah, who lives 100 miles away to help God's prophet survive the famine. I think first kings, chapter 17, verse nine is an incredible verse in your bible.
It's worth thinking about because it has the word widow and the word provide connected to each other in the same sentence. Am I the only one that finds that strange?
Am I the only one who thinks, how can a widow help a grown man? You see, widow in that time and place almost certainly suggests poverty and abject need. So my question is, if that's true for her, how would she be able to provide anything for herself, much less anyone else? The most vulnerable in the ancient near east were the widows. They had to have someone help them.
So how's she going to do it? Is she going to attend night school and finish her degree? Will she open a daycare in her home? If she's going to provide for her anybody in her family? And God's profit, where's the income going to come from?
You and I both know that being a widow in the ancient world was often a long, drawn out death sentence. And what was her life like? What was her existence about? I'll tell you what it was about. It was dirt under her fingernails and sweat on her feeble brow as she labored every day with what little bit of strength she had to scratch out the barest of livings.
If you wanted to describe her life in one word, it would be pitiful. And she's the one that's going to save God's prophet. And what about Elijah? If you were Elijah and you get to choose how you get to live in the famine and what's going to sustain you, would you pick the ravens or the widow? Which one would be more appealing to you?
Which one would you pick? The raven or the widow? Because I think he would pick the ravens. Because at least the ravens won't judge you for everything you do and everything you say, as far as we know. But people do.
But I want to say, just for a second, as we think about a widow being God's choice to make sure that his prophet stays alive at the most important time in human history so far. Is that not vintage God? It doesn't that sound exactly like what we read about him in the Bible? Who else would ever plan to keep his prophet alive by the unclean and the unlikely? Because the unclean were the ravens and the unlikely is the widow.
No one ever would have put her on the list of ways to keep prophets from dying. You see, what we learn about God for us as we read these scriptures is that God sustains our lives through channels we might never expect.
And for example, here God tells Elijah he's commanded a widow to help him.
When you hear a word like that, here's what you might expect. Elijah goes to Zarephath and it's like when you get off the airplane like Kyle was talking about. And somebody's invited you to come be the guest speaker. In another city. You don't know anybody.
And you get your bags at the luggage carousel. Now you're looking for that guy in the hat, in the uniform with the poster, right? And the poster has your name on it. So Elijah would expect to see this widow when he gets to the gate of the city holding a sign with his name on it. And she might even greet him with a little prepared speech, something like, hey, welcome, Elijah.
God told me you were coming. And God told me that I should bless you. Well, let's see if that's how it worked out. Verses 1011 and twelve. So he arose, he went to Zarafath, and when he came to the gate of the city, indeed a widow was there gathering sticks.
And he called to her and said, please bring me a little water in a cup that I may drink. And as she was going to get it, he called to her and said, please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand. And so she said, as Yahweh, as the Lord your God lives, I do not have bread. Only a handful of flour in a bin and a little oil in a jar. And see, 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.
This is God's solution to sustain Elijah in the famine. He meets her at the city gate, all right, but in no way is she looking for him. And she's not looking for anyone else either. She's looking for twigs and sticks to make a fire. She's scavenging for supplies to make for her and her son their last meal.
I get the feeling that this is almost a holy moment for her, that it's sacramental, that it's ceremonial, that it's the last. She had officially given up hope. But here's what's lovely to me. Even in her hopelessness, she still honored the hospitality of her culture. The stranger asked for water so she would fetch him a drink.
No back talk. She had passed Elijah's first test. Could I have a drink of water? It's the second test that would tell him what he needed to know about her. He also asked her for some food.
Now he called it a morsel. I don't know how big a morsel is. I never want one morsel. Do you? I want lots and lots of morsels because that just sounds small.
And when he asked her for some food, it was just one step too far for her. When I read the verse, did you catch it that she swore at him? She says, as the Lord your God lives. That's oath level language. As the Lord your God lives.
I want you to know I simply cannot fulfill all of your request, even if I wanted to. And I'm not sure I want to. I mean, she barely has enough supplies to make one final pathetic little cake for her and her son to snack on as they wait to starve to death. Do you know this story?
The next two verses, 13 and 14. And Elijah said to her, do not fear. Go and do as you've said, but make me a small cake from it first and bring it to me. And afterward, make some for yourself and your son. And here's the promise of God.
For thus says the Lord God of Israel, the bin of flour shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run dry until the day that Yahweh sends rain on the earth. In verse 13, would you circle the word first and then finish these sentences for me? Now I'll tell you what. The church is just filled with a whole bunch of hypocrites. And really, the church, the church just wants my money.
Those are universal questions. I've asked them everywhere I've gone. If I've been given the chance to preach and speak, no one ever has a problem answering those questions. Church is full of hypocrites. It just wants my money.
Elijah says to the woman, first give me some of the little bit that you don't have. Well, you know what? When the church talks about money, and we talk about it 52 times a year, because it's the biggest test you'll ever face in your personal life, I don't want you to think that God's after your last dollar, because he isn't. He's after your first. He wants you to so rearrange your life to make him the first priority in all of your decisions, in how you arrange your schedule, in what you do with your time, in how you spend your money and how you raise your children, he thinks from his word that you should seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, so that all these things shall be added to you as well.
Matthew 633. God wants to be your first priority. And he's teaching us this here in this narrative, with this prophet who dares to say one of the most selfish things you'll ever see a prophet say to a poor woman, do not fear. Go and do as you have said, but make me a small cake first. This text, by the way, demonstrates how those who hold the truth of God must often persuade those who do not hold it that it's what's best for them.
We call that evangelism. We call that apologetics, defending the faith and delivering the truth and calling for a response. It's what every minister and every disciple of Jesus must do. In fact, it's our mission. And here's the mission, to persuade those who are opposed to the gospel to realize that they really need it.
The apostle Paul wrote it this way. Two Corinthians 511. Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. Do you believe that our church should have a witness in the community? I mean, we heard these amazing testimonies earlier of Kelly and Peyton who said, look, it was when I came here that I heard about Jesus and I thought my life could never be the same.
It's going to be different. I'm going to know God. But it's not just the church that must have a witness. It's the individual Christians sitting in these gray chairs. You are like Elijah and you hold the truth.
And you have to be willing to step out on the edge and say, hey, do not fear. Here's how you can live. Here's how you can have eternal life. You're going to have to trust me on this, and you're not going to like it at first because the Bible says that the gospel is offensive to people. It offends sinners to tell them that they are responsible for their lives and for their actions before a God that many of them don't even believe in.
And you can't take away the offense of the cross, but it's still our responsibility to persuade those in darkness that Jesus is the one and only light. First make me a cake. And what was terrifying, by the way, in one king 17 if we know, therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. I'll tell you what was terrifying to everybody that woke up that morning. No rain for three years and the heartache and the death that follows it.
So Elijah was gently but boldly having to convince this widow to do what was contrary to her wishes. Ma'am, would you do something that you don't want to do, and that is share a little bit of her food and a little bit of her water with a strange man. This is totally weird. And we would have this guy arrested for stalking today if he came up to you on the street, to your poor widow mother and said, give me a little bit of what you don't have. Here's what Elijah understood at this early stage.
In his relationship with this lady and her son, it was in her best interest, it was in her son's best interest to follow his lead and fulfill his request if they wanted to survive this drought.
So listen to me. Elijah took the risk. He made himself vulnerable. He had no idea how she was going to respond to his request because he knew that what he asked her sounded positively selfish. I mean, to have a stranger ask you for a cup of water is one thing, but to hear him claim first dibs on your last meal is quite another.
That's a leveling up that's going to a different level there. I mean, think about it. Didn't it take courage for Elijah to speak to the widow the way he did? I mean, who talks like this? Didn't he know how it would sound?
Didn't he know what it would look like for him to say these things? But as one great preacher said one time, faith is often spelled r I s k. You see, before the lady's faith in one king, 17 mattered, Elijah had to exercise faith. He had to drum up on the inside of him the willingness to obey the word of God. That sounded so strange.
Sounded so off. I have to go ask this lady to bereave herself and divest herself of something that she barely has enough of and give it to me first.
If faith is sometimes spelled risk, what does risk mean? Well, risk means something like to expose yourself to possible harm or loss. To expose yourself to possible harm or loss. So now the question is this. Who took the greater risk in this story, Elijah or the widow?
Because Elijah, the risk he took was appearing selfish, appearing cruel, and risking offending her completely. And he knew that his life hung in the balance on this one woman. That was his risk. The widow risked depleting her last bit of food.
See, faith spelled r I s k. Sometimes.
Now, don't you want to know how this is going to play out? Do you feel the tension in the story yet? He's asked the question and he's waiting on her response. We get it in verse 15. So she went away and did according to the word of Elijah.
And she and her household ate for many days.
You see, my friends, behind this story is one of the principles of faith. You want to see it? Yes or no? Here it is. To experience the extraordinary, you must leave your realm of comfort supposed to be there, and it wasn't.
If you want to experience the extraordinary power of God in your life every day you have to move away from your definition of safe. That's what Elijah is asking the widow to do so. Here's verse 16. She does it. And here's the result.
The bin of flour was not used up, nor did the jar of oil run dry according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke to Elijah. Now let me bring it to your seat. Let me ask you a question. Do you want to see God move and work in your life and in your family in a supernatural, powerful way? Do you want him to do it like he did it for the Old Testament prophets that we're examining?
Do you want him to work in your life the way he did in the early church, in the book of Acts? If so, then this story teaches that God supplies our needs in a way that is, on one hand, extraordinary and on the other hand, fairly ordinary. Extraordinary. Over here. Ordinary.
Right there. So what was the extraordinary? Well, according to that verse, here's the extraordinary, the supernatural, the flour and the oil were never used up. That fails all the tests of physics, all the laws of gravity, everything we know about math, everything we know about the human body and how hungry we can get and how thirsty and all of that, the flour and the oil were never used up. Only God can do that.
Do you agree? What's the ordinary? It's my favorite part. The ordinary is there was just enough flour and oil for each day.
Just enough to make it to the next night and the next morning. You see, it was never a case of 50 pound sacks of flour falling from heaven and big 50 gallon barrels of oil coming down from the same place and being stored by the lady over in a closet in her meager house. That's not how God did it. The amount was small. And listen to me, it was just always there, enough for the day, just like the manna in the wilderness.
And just like Jesus taught us how to pray in the Lord's Prayer in Matthew six. Just enough. You see, it was always there, and enough was enough. You don't need flour and oil for tomorrow, my brothers and my sisters. You need it only for today.
That's why Jesus said, when you pray, give us this day our daily bread. And he illustrates that in one. Kings 17. Do you understand that? That means for this lady and her son and for God's prophet, every morning was a new episode of the faithfulness of God to his promise.
They wake up, there's enough oil, there's enough flour, there's enough water to drink. God did it one more time. I'll trust him again for another day. You see? What was that promise?
The bin of flour shall not be used up. Verse 14. Nor shall the jar of oil run dry until the Lord sends rain on the earth. You know, he didn't tell the widow and he didn't tell the prophet that the supplies would overflow. He just said that the oil wouldn't run dry and the flour wouldn't be used up.
And that's where we are. And if we stopped right there, if I finished this sermon right now, we would end on a happy ending. It would be a story that satisfies you. They didn't have enough. They believed God then they had it for every day.
It was a miracle. It was awesome. But, you know, I got eight minutes left, so that can't be the end of the sermon. There must be more to this story. How will this story twist and turn?
Are we done with the drama? Well, let's read verses 17 and 18 and find out. How will it twist and turn? Now, it happened after these things that the son of the woman who owned the house became sick. There's the twist.
And his sickness was so serious that there was no breath left in him. And there's the turn. So she said to Elijah, what have I to do with you, o man of God? Have you come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to kill my son? I want you to note in verse 17 that it says, after these things.
After these things means something like sometime later. Let me tell you what sometime later means. It indicates that the woman and her son and God's prophet did not die from starvation. That's what she feared at the beginning of the story. We're going to eat this last meal and die.
But instead, God's promise proved to be true. She exercised her faith and they lived for some time later after these things, they had food to eat when others around them were dying. Elijah's word from God had proven to be true. The flour and the oil were being supplied day after day after day. But sometime later, and here's what we don't know.
Is it days? Is it weeks? Was it a month? Was it even a year? How long after these things did the boy get sick and die?
That's a long time to walk under the power and the blessing of God to all of a sudden, everything come to a screeching halt and your world fall apart again after these things. Then she says, what have I to do with you, o man of God? Have you come to bring my sin to remembrance and to kill my son? I just want to say a pastoral thing as an aside here. She blames the prophet.
She lashes out at him because people say regrettable emotional things when they're grieving. So can we give her a pass?
But if she would think about it, if she had a reasoning, wasn't it Elijah's arrival in Zarephath that had kept them alive up to this point? So instead of being grateful for how far they'd come surviving the famine together, she now accuses the prophet and lashes out at him. And here's what that means. Their relationship is moving into a new phase. Now, Gerald coach wrote a book, and in that book he taught that all new relationships go through three phases.
I want to share those three phases with you because I think they're helpful to understand what's happening here. The first phase of all new relationships, he calls the veneer stage. Veneer means the outward appearance. And on the veneer stage, that's when you think you've met the greatest friend or the greatest person in the whole world. And we've all had this mountaintop experience.
We meet new people, form these new relationships. We're on high from that. And the sun's shining a little brighter because now we know this person. That's the veneer stage. The veneer stage cannot last forever, and it always moves into stage number two, and that is disillusionment.
That's when you feel totally let down, if not betrayed, by the person that you did think was the greatest random person in the world. When you thought they were the greatest person in the world, the sun shone brightly. And when disillusionment happened and you feel betrayed by them, that's when the clouds roll in. But disillusionment never lasts forever. Disillusionment begins to go into the third phase, which is reality.
And reality is when you think about it and you weigh all the things that you know, you have this objective assessment about this person. The sun used to shine bright, then the clouds rolled in. When you get to reality, now you're in a normal weather pattern with your friend because everybody, you know, it doesn't matter how impressive they are. It doesn't matter what kind of value they add to your life. They stand on clay feet.
They put their pants on one leg at a time like you do. And the only person who will never let you down is the risen Lord Jesus. So here in our story, the lady had moved into phase two with Elijah. She's disillusioned so far. It was his very presence in her home that brought a level of survival she never thought possible.
She couldn't imagine anything ever negative happening to her and her son. As long as God's prophet is there. Then all of a sudden, God takes away the life of her son in the bubble burst in the cruelest way possible.
But you know what I love? I love that this widow has not seen at this point the last supernatural work of God under her roof. Watch what happens. Verses 21 and 22. And he stretched himself out on the child three times and he cried out to the Lord and said, o Lord, my God, I pray, let this child's soul come back to him.
And then the Lord heard the voice of Elijah and the soul of the child came back to him and he revived. How is it that God seems to always save the best for last? Now, I don't want you to get tripped up on the fact that Elijah spread himself out on the boy and breathe into him this kind of person to person CPR. Hey, why did that work? Why did he do it that way?
If you're this grieving mother, you don't care what method the prophet employs. If it brings your son back, he can do the hokey pokey and turn himself around to this kid. And if it will heal him, that'll work. Yes. So I don't know why he lays stretches himself out three times.
I don't care about that. I care about the aftermath.
You see? Here's the aftermath. Verses 23 and 24. Then Elijah took the child, brought him down from the upper room into the house and gave him to his mother. And Elijah said, see, your son lives.
And then the woman said to Elijah, now by this I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is the truth. I want to ask you Bible trivia. Do you know one of the nicknames for Hebrews chapter eleven? Does that ring a bell? Say it out loud.
You're okay. The hall of fame of faith. I think Brooke got it. If you've ever read Hebrews chapter eleven, you're going to read dozens and dozens and dozens of little snippets of Old Testament narratives of the patriarchs and some of the Old Testament heroes and how they live by faith. That's why it's called the hall of Fame of faith.
Just about all the verses begin with by faith this and by faith that. And I mean, it's got a who's who of your Old Testament. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Moses and David and all the guys, some of the ladies. Would you be surprised if I told you that this prophet Elijah, and by the way, Elijah was such a heavyweight in the Bible that he came to visit Jesus along with Moses on the mount of transfiguration. Remember, this is a big deal.
Would you be surprised if I told you that you won't find Elijah's name in the hall of fame of faith? There's not a verse that says, by faith, elijah did this or that. But when you get to verse 35, when you get to verse 35, I think God had Elijah in mind. Here's what it says. Women receive their dead, raised to life again.
You see, we just completed first king 17. And here's how first king 17 started. We were introduced to this prophet as. He's Elijah the Tishbite Bible. Scholars aren't really sure where Tishbay is.
He just appears out of nowhere. He's just an anonymous guy from a town you can't find on the map. He's just Elijah the Tishbite. And at the very end of first king 17, that lady looks him in the face and she says, now I know that you are a man of God. How do you go from anonymity to being heralded as a man of God?
By living by faith in God's word. That's what Elijah did in this whole chapter. Now, to apply the sermon, I want to tell you a story. There was a scottish pastor in the 16 hundreds whose name was Robert Bruce. Not Robert the Bruce from the movie with Mel Gibson.
Right. It's a different Robert Bruce. Robert Bruce, a scottish pastor in the 16 hundreds. He determined one day late in his life at breakfast that it would be his final day on earth. He was so weakened, he was so sick, he was so tired that he figures, here's the day God's going to call me home.
And so he asked his younger daughter to bring him his Bible and open it to Romans chapter eight. At this point, Robert Bruce's eyesight had failed. He was completely blind, but his mind was still sharp. And so his memory as strong as it was in Romans chapter eight. He recited the last part of the chapter to his daughter.
For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. And when he finished quoting those two verses, Romans chapter eight, verses 38 and 39, he asked his daughter, set my finger on those words, and she took his index finger and she put them there on his Bible. And these are the last things that he said to his daughter. He said, I die believing these words.
My brothers and my sisters first king 17 is a master class for a servant of God learning to bet his life believing these words. Before I close in prayer and Jacob closes the service to our church members, I want to say our prayer team needs the practice and you need the grace of being prayed for today. So when we open the altar for prayer after we adjourn the service, you need to come down and let them practice praying. And you need to receive the prayers of the saints so that one day you can die believing these words. Father, I pray you take the preached word as much as I've fouled it up and messed it up today.
Get all of that out of the way. Lord, let this church hold the truth and believe it in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Would you stand with me this morning?
Notes:
Intro: What would take the place of the ravens and the brook in sustaining God’s prophet? The answer is almost as surprising as ravens and brooks!
1 Kings 17:8 Then the word of the LORD came to him, saying,
1 Kings 17:9 “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. See, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you.”
God commands a Gentile widow living about 100 miles away to help Elijah survive the famine.
Am I the only one who thinks seeing the words “widow” and “provide” in the same sentence referring to a grown man is a little strange?
“Widow” in that time and place almost certainly suggested poverty and abject need.
How would she be able to provide anything for herself, much less anyone else? Would she attend night school to finish her degree? Would she open a daycare in her home? How would she find income?
Being a widow was often a long, drawn-out death sentence. What was her existence like? It was dirt under her fingernails and sweat on her feeble brow as she labored to scratch out the barest of livings. In a word, her life was pitiful.
If Elijah had to choose, would he have preferred the ravens to sustain him or a widow who did not even share his same faith? (At least ravens won’t judge you for your words/actions as far we know!)
Is that not vintage God, though? Who else would ever plan to use the unclean (ravens) and the unlikely (widow) to sustain His servant in the most dreadful of times?
Who am I to object if God wants to use dirty birds or hopeless women? We should, however, give glory to God for His fantastically creative ways to bring help to His people. He does so through channels we would never expect!
So, God tells Elijah that He has commanded a widow to help him.
When you hear a word like that you might expect that this widow would be waiting at the city gate holding a sign with Elijah’s name on it. She might even greet him with a little prepared speech.
“Welcome, Elijah. God told me you were coming and that I should bless you.”
1 Kings 17:10 So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, indeed a widow was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, “Please bring me a little water in a cup, that I may drink.”
1 Kings 17:11 And as she was going to get it, he called to her and said, “Please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.”
1 Kings 17:12 So she said, “As the LORD your God lives, I do not have bread, only a handful of flour in a bin, and a little oil in a jar; and see, I am 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.”
He meets her at the city gate, alright. But she is in no way looking for him (or anyone else).
She’s scavenging for supplies to make her/her son their last meal. It was almost ceremonial for her. She had officially given up hope.
But even in her hopelessness, she still honored the hospitality of her culture. This stranger asked for water, so she would fetch him a drink.
She had passed Elijah’s first test. The second test would tell him what he wanted to know.
He also asked her for some food. That was a step too far for her.
She swears to him that she could not fill his request even if she wanted to. She barely has enough supplies to make one final pathetic cake for her and her son to snack on as they wait to starve to death.
1 Kings 17:13 And Elijah said to her, “Do not fear; go and do as you have said, but make me a small cake from it first, and bring it to me; and afterward make some for yourself and your son.
1 Kings 17:14 For thus says the LORD God of Israel: “The bin of flour shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run dry, until the day the LORD sends rain on the earth.”
This text demonstrates how those who hold the truth often must persuade those who do not, that it’s what is best for them.
It is what every minister/disciple must do – persuade those who are opposed to the Gospel to realize that they need it.
2 Cor 5:11 Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men…
Elijah was gently but boldly having to convince this widow to do what was contrary to her wishes: share her little bit of food and water with a stranger.
Here’s what Elijah understood at this early stage in their relationship: It was in her best interest and her son’s to follow his lead if they wanted to survive the drought.
So, Elijah took the risk. He became vulnerable. He did not know how she would respond. Didn’t his request seem positively selfish?
To have a stranger ask for a cup of water is one thing, to hear him claim first dibs on your last meal is quite another.
Didn’t it take courage for the prophet to speak to the widow as he did? Didn’t he know how it would sound/look?
Faith is sometimes spelled R-I-S-K.
Risk means something like “to expose yourself to possible harm or loss.” The question becomes, “Who took the greater risk, Elijah or the widow?”
Elijah risked appearing selfish and cruel and offending her completely. The widow risked depleting her last bit of food.
How will this play out? Can you feel the tension yet?
1 Kings 17:15 So she went away and did according to the word of Elijah; and she and he and her household ate for many days.
Behind this part of the story is a principle of faith: to experience the extraordinary you must leave your realm of comfort.
1 Kings 17:16 The bin of flour was not used up, nor did the jar of oil run dry, according to the word of the LORD which He spoke by Elijah.
Do you want to see God work in a powerful way – like He did for the OT prophets and the early church in the book of Acts?
If so, this story teaches that God supplies our needs in a way that is both extraordinary and ordinary at the same time.
The extraordinary: the flour and oil were never used up. The ordinary: there was just enough for each day.
It was never a case of 50-lb sacks of flour & barrels of oil falling from heaven and being stored in a closet. The amount was small, and it was always there. Enough was enough. You do not need flour and oil for tomorrow; only for today. Give us this day our daily bread.
Every morning was a new episode of the faithfulness of God to His promise.
The Lord never said the supplies would overflow – only that they would not run dry or be used up.
How will this episode twist or turn? Are we done with the drama?
1 Kings 17:17 Now it happened after these things that the son of the woman who owned the house became sick. And his sickness was so serious that there was no breath left in him.
1 Kings 17:18 So she said to Elijah, “What have I to do with you, O man of God? Have you come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to kill my son?”
“After these things” (“some time later”) indicates that the woman and her son did not die from starvation (as she had once feared).
Elijah’s word from God proved true. Flour and oil were supplied day after day after day.
But sometime later – days? months? years? – the widow’s son died. And she blamed Elijah for it! (people say regrettable, emotional things when they are grieving)
But wasn’t it Elijah’s arrival in Zarephath that kept them alive thus far? Instead of being grateful for how far they had come in their common survival of the famine, she now accused the prophet. Their relationship was moving into a new phase.
Gerald Coates – all new relationships go through three phases:
- veneer – (outward appearance) when you think you’ve met the greatest friend/person in the world.
- disillusionment – when you feel totally let down, if not betrayed by this person.
- reality – when you have an objective assessment about this person.
The widow of Zarephath was now in phase 2 of her relationship with Elijah. She is disillusioned.
So far, his very presence had guaranteed the survival of her and her son, and she could not imagine that anything negative would happen to them if Elijah was around. Then that bubble burst in the cruelest way with the death of her son.
But this poor widow has not seen the last supernatural work of God under her roof. Watch what happens.
1 Kings 17:21 And he stretched himself out on the child three times, and cried out to the LORD and said, “O LORD my God, I pray, let this child’s soul come back to him.”
1 Kings 17:22 Then the LORD heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came back to him, and he revived.
How often does God save the best for last?!?
1 Kings 17:23 And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper room into the house, and gave him to his mother. And Elijah said, “See, your son lives!”
1 Kings 17:24 Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now by this I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in your mouth is the truth.”
Of all the notable OT saints mentioned in God’s Hall of Fame of Faith in Hebrews 11, Elijah’s name is not mentioned. But I cannot help but think that God had him mind in v.35.
Heb 11:35 Women received their dead raised to life again.
When 1 Kings 17 began, he was only “Elijah the Tishbite.” When 1 Kings 17 ends, He is “a man of God.”
Application:
illus: When Robert Bruce (Scottish pastor in 1600s) determined at breakfast one morning that it would be his final day on earth, that his Master was soon to call him home, he asked his younger daughter to bring him his Bible and open it to Romans 8. His eyesight had already failed but his memory was strong. He recited the last part of the chapter to his daughter. When he had quoted Romans 8:38-39 “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord,” he asked his daughter to “set my finger on these words.” “I die,” he said, “believing these words.”
1 Kings 17 is a masterclass for a servant of God learning to bet his life “believing these words.”
