The Widow's Debt | November 9, 2025 PM

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Second Kings chapter #4 I want to use an Old Testament story

tonight that I think is I just love Old Testament stories.

I love the Kings and the prophets, I love Elijah.

Elijah I if I had one favorite it would probably be Elijah.

I'm more like Elijah as far as let's just call fire down out of

heaven. But I also like Elijah.

My favorite on studying about leadership would be Moses.

So so those are so three of my favorite characters in the Old

Testament. Jeremiah.

I cry every time I think about Jeremiah and what they put him

through. And and I'm preaching through

Jeremiah right now. Think I'm on about the fourth

message. I'll probably preach about 11

messages going through the historical aspects.

But over here in Second Kings chapter 4, we're in the northern

2 Kings 4 · chapter mention

tribes of Israel. And I've always said that when

the northern, the northern tribes of Israel never had a

good king, never the the southern tribes of Judah, they

would have a good king and a bad king and maybe 2 good kings and

then bad kings and they went back and forth.

But the but Israel to the north after Jeroboam and Rehoboam, the

split of the Kingdom, there was never a good king in the north.

In fact, they got somebody like Ahab and Jezebel.

So when Ahab and Jezebel comes on the scene, God puts Elijah on

the scene. So I like to say we're sin

abounds, grace much more abounds.

And so we think more about hopefully we think more about

Elijah than we do about Ahab and Jezebel.

But Elijah was the the understudy of Elijah.

He's the one that comes after, of course, Elijah and Elijah on

the day that he's getting ready to go up in a whirlwind, he

said, Elijah said to Elijah, ask what thou wilt and I'll try to

do everything I can to see that it happens.

And he said, well, I want a double portion of thy spirit.

And so anyhow, OK, I just want to make sure.

I thought I heard something down there.

So they, they, he said, I want a double portion of my spirit.

And he said, well, if you're with me and and you, you, you

see me go up, then that'll happen.

And it did. And so Elijah has double the

miracles that Elijah ever had. So it's a fascinating story.

But in Second Kings Chapter 4, we have a story that where

2 Kings 4 · chapter mention

Elisha is the prophet of the day.

Now let me let me do a little bit of a background if you were

to go back to chapter 3 and I'm not going to preach through

this, but Jehoram is the king now over the northern tribes.

Jehoshaphat is the king in the southern tribes and there's a

war between them and Moab and and then there's another king.

I think there's 4 kings that are involved in Chapter 3.

So think about this. If I was going to say in world

affairs, it would be like China, the US, Russia, all of these

world powers, because they were the world power, they were the,

the dominant power of the day. And Elisha got involved in it.

And the way I would look at it if you go back and read chapter

3 is I would say these kings owe everything to Elisha.

So think about that world stage, world power, Elisha's involved.

And then all of a sudden we come to chapter 4 and now God is

going to tell us a story about a widow woman.

So let's go ahead and stand tonight in honor of God's word.

We're not going to read the whole story.

I'm just going to read part of it and then we're going to look

rest of it in just a minute. Chapter 4, verse one.

Now there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the

prophets of Elisha, saying, Thy servant, my husband is dead, and

thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord, And the

creditor is come to take unto him my two sons, to be bondsman.

And Elisha said unto her, What shall I do for thee?

Tell me, what has thou in the house?

And she said, Thy handmaid hath not anything in the house.

Now you know she's a Baptist. Then there's a comma, and then

she's like, she goes, save a pot of oil.

Oh, yes, I have this pot of oil in my house.

Then he said, go borrow the vessels abroad.

Of all thy neighbors, even empty vessels, borrow not a few.

Now, let's stop our reading there because we'll want to

catch up in just a few minutes. But I want you to notice here

that there's a woman who's in grave trouble.

She has two sons that are going to be sold into in.

They're going to be sold into slavery because she had a debt

that she could not pay. Now, does that sound familiar?

Having debt that we cannot pay, what do we do?

Well, we're going to see what happens in this story tonight.

And I believe that you'll understand, hopefully that this

is a missions story. It's just told in a little

different way. Lord help us tonight as we look

at the story of the widow woman with the two sons and they are

about to be sold into slavery because she has a debt that she

could not pay and their sons were going to be taken to pay

the debt. I pray that we might understand

the the principle and the application that we'll be able

to make by the end of the message in Christ's name, Amen.

You may be seated. So when you look at chapter 3

verses chapter 4, here's what I come up with.

God is interested in world affairs, but God is also

interested in individuals. So while God is intervening

through Elisha in chapter 3 with with the the the king of Moab,

the king of Israel and the king of Judah in chapter 4, a widow

woman comes to Elisha and says I'm in trouble.

I have a debt that I cannot pay Now, she said.

Now you know, my husband was a servant.

He was a man of God. He was in the school of the

prophets. And nowhere in the text does it

imply that that this debt that they owed was of any kind of sin

debt or any kind of something that was wrong.

It was basically as long as the man was alive and as long as he

was in the school of the sons of the prophet, as long as he was

working and doing his business, he was able to pay the debt.

But now he has died, and you know it is.

It's tragic. You, you never know when you're

going to die. Nobody knows the day they're

going to die. But here's what you need to

understand about death. You need to be prepared for the

day that you do die. Now, again, I love the fact that

God is concerned with world affairs, but God is also

concerned with individuals like a woman who really is.

If I could put it in this way, it's like she's in Bible college

with her husband. And of course, I know what

that's like because I left the military.

I had to left a good job, got paid every two weeks.

I knew that the paycheck was going to be there.

We left the military. We drove to Springfield, MO.

I didn't have a job. I didn't have a prosper of a

job. I didn't know anybody there.

There was no family that lived in Springfield, MO that I knew,

but God provided along the way. And so I, I can't even, in fact,

I'll say it like this. Sometimes preachers are allowed

to opt out of Social Security. And I was like, I'm not opting

out of Social Security because if I die, all my wife is going

to have is my FedEx insurance and my Social Security that's

going to help take care of my children and my wife.

Now I'm 65 and I can tell you, I'm glad I didn't opt out of

Social Security because I'm about to collect.

Hopefully now my, my luck is, is I'll get, I'll pay for one year

and I'll die of some disease or some, I don't know.

But anyhow, I, I remember looking at my Social Security

and got, I got on my personal sheet and I looked at how much

money I've paid in the Social Security since I was 14 years

old. I wished I'd had that money to

invest myself. But anyhow, I don't, I, I just

know this, that the first time that I got my first paycheck at

at age 14, I wanted to know who FICA was.

Because FICA, whoever this dude was, was taking money out of my

check. I understood taxes, but I didn't

understand who FICA is. And if you don't know who FICA

is, you ought to go figure it out for yourself.

So here's a woman readying her life to be in the ministry as

her husband prepares in the school of the prophets.

And she says in the text to Elijah that her husband was a

man who feared God as he was preparing his life.

Then the Bible says he died totally unexpected.

Of course, we don't know how he died.

We just know that he died and in a position and she was in a

position that she had a debt that was way more than she could

pay. Now, you understand, this time,

this culture they lived in #1 there was there.

There could have been some allowances under the law for a

widow. But listen, they didn't live

under the law because they're not living in the southern part

of Judah. They're living in the northern

tribes where bell worship is prevalent.

And before bell worship was prevalent, it was calf worship.

And after bell worship, it'll go back to calf worship.

And after calf worship, you see, there's kings in the that they

saw that bail worship didn't work, so they go back to calf

worship. Then they realize calf worship

don't work, so they go back to bail worship.

And it's just a bunch of idle wickedness that's going on in

the northern tribes. So there was no, there was no

provision for a woman like this. She didn't have Social Security.

She didn't have governmental assistance.

There was no life insurance policy.

And listen, you go back in our history, in our early days,

there were deader prisons. I I went to North Carolina and

went on a Baptist history tour. And there are are there are

there were jails back in the day that if you didn't pay your

debts, you went to jail. I always wondered, how do they

ever expect them to pay the debt if they were in jail?

But they really didn't care because you either paid your

debt or you went to jail. Now, this woman in this culture

was going to lose her sons to slavery and we know that was

prevalent also in the culture that they were in.

Now, I would like to also say that is why God today through

the New Testament takes great concern for the care of widows.

And if God take great takes great concern for the widows, it

would be good for us to do the same.

Our church actually does that in the sense that we have what's

called a golden acre properties. We have, I believe I'm going to

say this right, 14, we have 14 units, we have 14 apartments.

And the pastor before me had this burden that to, to help

widows and ministry related people and stuff like that.

And so we, when I was there in the, when I was there from 1986

to 1990, we actually built the first triple fourplex that were

one bedrooms and one duplex, 22 units that were two bedrooms

each. And I remember in 1987 or 8, we

opened those up and widows filled all six positions.

So there were six, there were six apartments and every

apartment was filled by a widow woman.

And they all went in at that time for $285 a month.

And the idea is that the rent would never go up no matter

what. So whatever they went in at at

that time, it would stay that way for the rest of their life.

When I became the pastor in 2000, there was still one lady

living in one of the apartments for $285 a month.

And I think she lived about four or five years while I was her

pastor. And when she died, she was

paying $285 a month. And you know what the idea was?

Let's take care of the widows. Let's help as best as we can.

But, but unfortunately, the wicked kings of Israel had made

no provision for any type of help for someone like this.

And the situation she found herself in was a dire situation

here. Here's what I'd like to say.

She had a debt that she could not pay, and she was distressed

about her situation. Would we agree with that?

First of all, her husband had died.

I, I've pastored widows and widowers for 30 something years.

You just never, you just never are ready to lose a mate.

It's, it's a devastating and, but the problem was when he

died, he left a debt that was probably, as I mentioned

earlier, not a problem as long as he was alive.

And again, I don't believe it was a debt of sinful living.

If it was, I believe Elijah would have probably told us

that. But because here's what she told

Elisha and Elisha agreed with us in the text.

You know, my husband was a good man and you know he feared the

Lord. Now here's what I want you to

grab a hold of also, by her going to Elisha, she is in fact

going to God because she knows that Elisha is the man of God.

He is the prophet of the day. He is the emissary between many

of the people and God. He's the one that comes on the

scene and says, hey, thus saith the Lord, you need to, you need

to get these things in order. And then she says this, and I'm

just going to kind of paraphrase it if I could.

You know, my husband was in Bible college, you know, he was

in the prophet school. You know, we were raising these

two boys and you know my husband Elijah, he was looking forward

to going out and preaching. Thus saith the Lord, and

preaching against Baal worship and preaching against Jeroboam

like Elijah did against Ahab and Jezebel.

You know, my husband was that kind of guy.

And now I need some help. My husband was burdened about

our land. He was burdened about Baal

worship. He had a burden and felt

obligated to preach the truth about Jehovah God.

And now look where I'm at. I need some help.

So she makes this appeal to God through Elisha.

And I'd like to also say praise God.

She had enough insight to know where to go to.

And here her sons are about to be taken into a slavery and she

appeals to God. Isn't it amazing today that

people in extreme crisis and circumstances that are bad, they

turn to everybody but God? Drugs, alcohol, psychiatrist,

psychologist, TV commentators, Psalm, Psalm readers, psychics,

and you know what all that stuff does?

It makes the problem worse. You know what?

We need God every day. We need God every day.

So the story tells us that Eliza asked her What shall I do for

thee? Now, when I first read that,

I'll be honest with you, I thought, boy, he's like, his

idea was like, what do you want me to do about it?

Because I say that to my wife all the time.

When she tells me something, I go, what do you want me to do

about it? I can't do anything about it.

The idea, though, is not that that way.

That's not the idea. The idea is this God, what can

we do? What can you do?

How can I help to show this lady and her two sons that God is

real and God? How can, how can we increase her

faith not only for her, but her, for her sons and those that come

after them? You know, listen, these stories

were told generation after generation after generation.

Can you imagine these two boys when they would have children

and grandchildren and they'd say, come and sit and listen to

what grandpa has to say about what God did in my life?

Because if God didn't intervene, they were going to live a

destitute life. She was going to live a life

without her sons, no way to make a living, and she was going to

be in real trouble. So what did he use in this

matter? What it what is?

And let me say it like this, not only does God teach them

something, He taught me something.

And if he teaches me something, he can teach you something.

And that is he can take a widow woman with two sons that are

about to be taken away from her. And the question that he asked

her is what the what do you have in your house?

And and then she says, well, nothing really, but save a pot

of oil. I do have this little pot of

oil. So I believe tonight as we close

out the mission conference, the question he asked her is not

only a good question for her, but it is a good question for

us. What do you have in your house?

Because God's not going to ask you to give what you don't have.

He's going to 1st ask you to give what you do have.

What do you have in your house? Now we, we know that she was a

Baptist because she said I don't have anything in the house

except the pot of oil. So Elisha gives her some

instructions and I want you to look at verse #3 I want you to

see the instructions. Then he said, go borrow the

vessels of abroad, of all thy neighbors, even empty vessels,

borrow not a few. Now let's just think about this.

I have an imagination. I read a book one time about

Warren, Weirsby said you need to preach with imagination.

Or so I do. I think about these things.

So I'm just imagining that this instruction of verse #3 he says,

now listen, what do you have in your house?

He doesn't say anything. He, he didn't say, oh, oh, you

got a pot of oil in your house. A little pot of oil.

OK, here's what I want you to do.

I want you to go to the villages around, the neighbors around.

I want you to borrow vessels. Don't borrow a few bar as many

as you possibly can and just borrow as many you can.

So she says two or two sons. Now here's what we're going to

do. We're going to go borrow

vessels, not a few. Now, here's what I'm thinking.

The two boys are thinking. Mom's lost their mind.

She's having a nervous breakdown.

This ain't good. Dad's died.

We're about to be sold into slavery, and she wants us to go

out and borrow vessels. What good's that going to do?

All we got's this little pot of oil in the house.

We're toast. We're dead meat.

But they do. Do what the man of God says.

Let me tell you something. Do what God says.

When God says tie, tie. When God says give offerings,

give offerings. When God says children obey your

parents, Children obey your parents.

When God tells you to do something, do it and it'll

always come out better than if you don't do it.

So they go knock on the door. And I like to think of them

knocking on the door and they look and a woman looks through

the little peephole. You know what I'm saying?

Look through the little peephole and, and, and the man says, who

is it, Martha? And she said, Jacob, it's him.

Two boys. What?

2 boys, you know those two boys that their daddy died and

they're about to get sold into slavery.

Oh, what do they want? Well, I don't know what they

want, Jacob. We'll open the door, Martha, and

see what they want. So she opens the door and the

two boys said, my Mama has given us instructions through the man

of God that we need to borrow some vessels.

Now, let me let me tell you, when you say borrow, do you know

what that means? That means you're going to

return the vessel. All right.

You don't borrow something and then keep it.

That'd be stealing. Amen.

We want to borrow some vessels. So they go into the backroom and

they maybe get a couple of vessels that they can borrow.

And of course they put, they put a duct tape on the bottom of it

and they put their name on it because that's what everybody

does when they go to a potluck supper, you know, because God

forbid you'd ever lose that thing you've had for 25 years.

You know, you can never lose that pot or whatever it is.

So they put it on the bottom of it and they and they do this,

they go from house to house to house to house and they do

exactly what the man of God told them to do.

That was the instructions they were given.

Now, how many would think with me that's, that's really weird

instructions. But I would say this, it's no

weirder than God telling the church going to all the world

and preach the gospel to every creature.

The world thinks that's weird, but that's what the command is.

So there's no difference really when it comes to difficult

commandments or maybe things that are hard to understand.

We are not to question God. God we don't.

God doesn't owe us an explanation.

We're going to answer to God. He's not going to answer to us.

So, So he gives her these instructions.

They go out into the they God gave the command and then God

enabled them, even if it seemed like a strange request.

So let's stop for a minute and see if we can understand the New

Testament application. Her problem was she had a debt

she could not pay. Now we've looked at Wednesday

night and Thursday night and Friday night saying we have a

debt that we cannot pay. Our debt is the salvation that

we have in Jesus Christ, Paul said in Romans 114.

I am a debtor to I'm a debtor both to the Greeks and also to

the Barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise.

Meaning you and I owe a debt to the gospel.

You owe a debt to the gospel. I owe a debt to the gospel, Paul

said in First Corinthians 9/19. For though I be free from all

men, yet have I made myself a servant unto all that I might

gain. The more.

So the orders that Elisha gave the widow were no stranger than

the orders God has given us to go into all the world and preach

the gospel to every creature. This woman owed a debt.

She had to pay the debt, or she or her sons were going to be

sold into slavery. Now what she did was she.

She followed the instructions, but she did it based upon faith.

She believed God. Without faith it is impossible

to to please God. Without faith it is impossible

to please God. Faith is the substance of things

hoped for. What is she hoping for?

That her sons would not be sold into slavery.

The evidence of things not seen this there was substance to what

God said, but she had to believe God and she had to do God and

she had to trust God that God was going to take care of her

situation. This woman owed a great debt and

she was given instructions that really didn't make any sense.

And we owe a debt and we have to pay that debt.

And we've been given instructions that by the world

standards would be strange. But by faith we are to carry out

those instructions by our faith promise.

And seeing people called a pretty tight, you owe a debt to

this city. You owe a debt to this state.

Now, when it's New England, I would say you, you know, when I

think about Missouri, Missouri's probably bigger than all the New

England states put together. It's, it's a massive, if you go

to Saint Joe, Missouri and drive all the way to the Boot Hill,

it'll take you about 6 hours or 7 hours to drive that distance.

You can do that. You can drive all the New

England states in no time. You owe a debt to the New

England states. This, this area needs a good

fundamental independent, Bible believing churches and then we

could look at the responsibility that we have as a nation.

Someone was telling me there's about 350 million people in

America and 1/3 of them live in this corridor.

Isn't that amazing? She had a problem, but God has a

plan. God always has a plan.

God's plan is, and it involved faith.

God's plan is a lot like the plan that God had for the widow.

The debt we have is much bigger than we are.

However, God didn't ask her to do what she couldn't do.

God asked her to do what she could do.

Now we she could go out and borrow vessels.

So they go out and borrow vessels take.

And then she said this. Look at the second instruction

found in verse #5 I'm sorry, verse #4 He says, Now when you

borrow all these vessels in verse 3, when thou art come in,

thou shalt shut the door upon thee and thy sons, and thou

shalt pour out unto all those vessels, and thou shalt set

aside that which is full the second so, So now they're done

going to Martha's and Jacobs and Mary's and all the people that

they can gather this, this, this, these vessels.

Now they come in. He says now I want you to take

that little pot of oil because you said you had a pot of oil

and we all have something in fact to be truthful with you, I

think we have more than we can even imagine.

We have more than the whole we have more than most of the

world. So he said take what you have

pot of oil and then I want you to come in here and I want you

to pour that oil in them vessels so I can imagine they were like

clay pots. You know that you think about

when Jesus turned the water into wine and they poured the water

in it and you know all of that. So I'm thinking of in perkin

pots, you know that kind of vessel.

So they come in and they might have been small vessels and big

vessels and large vessels and she might have been even said,

let's start off with a small vessel, you know, Little 1.

So she starts pouring it in there and pouring it in there

and all of a sudden the 1st the pot is full and she slides it

over the side. She said to her son.

Now there's three of them in the room, right?

And most people lived in one room houses in those days, you

understand that they would have a fireplace and they would have

their beds. Parents would sleep on one side,

the children on the other. And so they're in this house.

There's the doors closed because because that was instruction.

Close the door, go all the way till it clicks, lock it because

I want God. I want you to see what God's

about to do. So the first boy, of course, he

would take the pot and she would say to the second boy or pour it

in here. And the woman keeps pouring it.

They keep doing this. They keep doing this.

I mean, they, their eyeballs got to be coming out of their heads

by now because each vessel just keeps getting full and keeps

getting full. They come to the last vessel.

You know what happened on the last vessel?

Drip, drip. Because she said, give me

another vessel, Mom, there's no more vessels.

Now, I'd like to practically think that if she had gotten

more vessels, should have got more oil.

But at some point it stopped and she's like, Oh my, look what we

have before her. All right, look at the next

verse. And it came to pass when the

vessels were full that she said under her son, bring me yet a

vessel. And he said, hey, Mama, there

ain't no more vessels. And that's how we set in

Tennessee. Now here it says there's not a

vessel more. And then I like what it says

after the and the oil stayed. So then she runs to the man of

God and she says, hey, this is what happened.

What do I do now? And he said, go sell the oil,

pay the debt, go sell the oil, pay the debt.

So she went into the Exxon on oil business.

Actually it was not that kind of oil.

We know it was olive oil, but that was, listen, you go to the

Middle East, olive oil is a very prominent product in that part

of the world. And and it, and she sold it and

she made money and she paid the debt.

You see, that's what we do. We take what God has given us.

We believe God by faith. We pay our debt to the gospel.

Now let me give you a couple of things here before we close this

up, because I think you've got the ideas.

Everybody got the idea. Number one, if she'd have had,

if she'd have borrowed more vessels than she would have had

she'd gotten more oil, if she'd have gotten more oil than she

would have gotten more money because the law of sowing and

reapers is a law of nature. That is undeniable.

So the question for us tonight is what do you have in your

house? Now, most people might be

sitting here thinking, well, Friedre, I don't really have

much. Really.

What about your talents? Does everybody ever think about

that? What about your job that you

have you ever thought about that?

How about your children? How many is willing to give

their children back to God instead of treat instead of

treating them like some idol that many parents do?

I'm just saying to you, I didn't realize this till after I was

called to preach. But my mom and dad, when I was

18 months old, I was on my deathbed.

I was very asthmatic. I was born early.

I didn't have any lung capacity. My lungs were didn't have any

lungs. And my wife thinks it's so funny

now because she said there ain't nothing wrong with your lungs.

Now she says you I can't even I can't even sit in the same room

when you're talking on the phone, especially with Dave

McCracken because you, like, you guys are like 2 old women.

Y'all just yap and yap and yap. I said, well, at least you know,

old women are the one that yap say man.

And so I was 18 months old. The doctor comes in and had me

in an oxygen tent. And the doctor said you need to

just be willing to give your son up tonight because I don't think

he can live through the night. And so my mom and dad, and they

never told me this till after I was saved and called a preach.

But but they got on their knees and they just prayed.

Well, if God, if you're going to take him, just take him and use

him for whatever. And then when I was 25 years old

and I called my dad was the last person I wanted to tell that I

was going to be a preacher because I knew this was not

going to go good. I'm just, I'm just telling you,

I know my dad. We've always kind of had that.

We had AI mean it was like we were we were never like the best

of buds. That was my brother.

I was the black sheep of the family and that that's but

anyhow, I got saved and God called me to preach and then I

called my dad. You know what my dad said?

He goes well, I was wondering when it's going to happen and

I'm like, what totally messed me up in my mind because I thought

he was going to like, well, you know, preacher, they starved to

death. And as you can see, I hadn't

starved to death. God's taken care of us the whole

way, but I, I, I'm just, that just blew my mind.

So I'm just saying, you know, why don't, why don't you don't

wait till your kids are on their deathbed.

Go ahead and give them to the Lord right now by faith.

My mom and dad gave their boy to God and he said it's really all

we got. And that's, that's the reason

I'm preaching today. I had a knuckle that's just

under my dad. They, my dad was, he was two

years younger than my dad. And toward the end of his life,

me and my wife went out to Phoenix, AZ and I met I, I spent

about four or five hours with him.

We talked about all of our family, everything.

And not about halfway through it, I, I was like, are you my

dad? Because you're more, I'm more

like you than I am like my dad. And it was just, it was just a

weird thing. And I know that happens in

families, but he assured me that I, he was not my dad.

He was my uncle. But I'm just telling you, if you

look around your house, I think we probably could discover that

God's been better to us than we realize.

And you need to know that God is first going to hold you

accountable for what you do have and what He's given you.

And then God's plan is for us to use what we have and then add

faith to it. And when we we when we do that,

God will work out his plan for His glory and for his honor.

Well, preacher, I just don't know.

I don't have much oil. Well, you got some oil.

Now let's go back to the story, because remember, they were

borrowed vessels. Back to the imagination.

They were barred vessels, right? So, Kim, two boys have to go

back after they sell the oil. They know whose it is because

the masking tape's on the bottom of the ball of the lane, and

it's got the name on it, Jacob and Martha.

So they go knock on that door. Martha opens a little slit.

Jacob goes, who is it, Martha? Martha goes, it's him.

Two boys. You means the ones that was

going to be sold into slavery and they came by and barred

them. Vessels.

Yeah, that's them. What do they want?

I don't know. They're outside.

Well, open the door and let them in.

So Martha opens the door. They step in and they say, we've

come to bring back your vessels. Now, you know what you call

this? You call this a testimony.

They're testifying to what God has done.

And they said, well, let me tell you what God did.

We had this little pot of oil and we poured it into these

vessels and the oil stayed. And we sold the oil and paid the

debt. And my mom is going to be able

to have her two sons. And we're going to be able to go

out and work and take care of our mother because that's what

they did. And you should take care of your

mother. Somebody say Amen.

So I'm just telling you that's what happened.

They gave a testimony. You know what happens when you

give the faith promise or when you preach?

We give a testimony. Let me tell you what God's done.

I've told you several testimonies this week.

Well, let me give you let me give you a Bible testimony.

Have you ever heard about a little boy that when there was a

multiplicity of people and Jesus said, I want y'all to all sit

down and there's over 5000 that need to be fed.

And Jesus said, well what, what do we, what do we have?

And they said not much. And they said, well, we do have

5 loaves. This little boy's got 5 loaves

and two fishes. All right, why don't you sit

down and we'll have some faith and have a word of prayer and

we'll distribute 5 loaves and two fishes to 5000.

Now when they, when they use the word 5000, that was probably

just the men, which means that there was could have been up to

15,000 people there because you know, there's a mom and a dad

and 1.3 children. I always wondered how they did

that. Well, the average is in America

is 2.8 children. I don't want an eighth of a

child. But you know what God can do?

He can take whatever, whatever you have, no matter how small it

is and multiply it to what He desires.

What if the widow was not willing to obey God?

Is everybody getting this? The debt would not have been

paid or children would have been sold into slavery and she would

have lived a life of destitution.

Instead God. God got her into the old

business and paid her debt and she kept her children.

What will happen if we do not give what God tells us to give

in faith? Promise.

Well let me just tell you because this is the way I like

to put it. People will die and go to hell

because their their debt is too large for them to pay and God

will not get the glory as He sews desires through your faith.

Now I, I tell you, these boys probably think it when they went

out that their mom had lost her ever loving mind.

But it was all said and done. You know what they said?

Well, I'm sure glad Mama followed God.

And right before their very eyes, God did something that

nobody could even imagine. We've last last June.

We have our vacation Bible school in June.

I love vacation Bible school. It's one of my favorite weeks.

I love it. I don't understand people who

don't like vacation Bible school.

I love it. I do the pig game.

It's my I hope I get to do it again.

You know, I didn't get to do it this year because I had surgery

and I'm just saying we, we have, we'll go out into the community.

We buy people. And three, we had three bus

kids. That's what I call stuck.

And they, they, they came on the bus and pretty, pretty hard life

pretty hard. The family they live in is, is,

it's, it's not ideal. It's not, you know, like we're

supposed to enjoy. And they're bus kids.

And one of them is got to make sure I get this right. 1 is now

1611 is 1 is 18, one is 16 and one is 14.

The 18 year old got saved first, the 16 year old got saved next.

This is all within a year and a half.

And just last Sunday night I baptized the 14 year old who got

saved. And they're sticking, They're

coming. And Angie Schrope and the Butch

who are missionaries out of our church and they are in

Australia, they are having their 25th anniversary.

And they and they and they, the place that they wanted to spend

their anniversary was, was in Springfield because her mom and

dad lived there and the church is there.

So they came home for three weeks, 2 with us and then they

were anyhow, they come home and Angie Shrope is a bus kid.

She, she's a bus kid now. She's a missionary's wife on the

foreign field. And when Angie saw those two

girls, she said I got to have my picture with them.

And she wanted them to know, listen, I was a bus kid too, and

you can do it. And I've already told my wife, I

said if, if one of them wants to go to Heartland, if we have to,

if we have to pay for ourself, I want to make sure she goes

because because we got a debt bigger than we can pay.

And if we can help people like that, then that's what we need

to do. So let me ask you this, what do

you have in your house? What is it that you can give God

by faith? So it's not it's not just it's

not just the story here, but there's real life stories like

those bus bus kids. We call them bus kids.

We probably shouldn't. I don't know what else to call

them. They're bus kids.

They come on the bus. Their parents don't come.

They don't even know who their dad is their their mom.

Their mom has nothing to do with church.

But here's what I want to and I told her I helped him one time.

Listen to this. I helped him with a issue, issue

helped them. And I told the mother, I said

I'm not doing this for you. If it was just you, I wouldn't

help you at all. I'm doing this for your kids

because I love those kids and they have a heart for God and,

and, and I want, I want to see God use them for his honor and

for his glory. And you say you wouldn't have

helped? Nope, I wouldn't have.

She's old enough to have a job. She ought to go out and get one,

and she has now. And I told her you need to get a

job. You're you're able bodied and

you know, you know what? You know what?

Take care of a lot of stuff JOBWORK.

You and I know a debt we cannot play, but God has a plan, plan

for us to pay our debt. Give your life, give your money,

give your talents, give whatever you have and give it to God in

your debt can be paid. Our debt is great and our

resources are small, but we must ask what do we have?

And if we give what we have by faith, then we can do.

Watch God do what you can't even imagine.

Thank you for listening to the sermon from the pulpit of

Liberty Baptist Church. If this message was a blessing

to you, or if there's any way we can serve you, please let us

know by contacting us at [email protected].

Or you can visit us this Sunday at 800 Washington St. in Easton,

MA. May the Lord bless you as you

grow in His Word.