1 Kings 17 (Part 2) Bible Study (Elijah Raises Widow of Zarephath's Son) | Pastor Daniel Batarseh

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

Isaiah 28:16

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.

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

Luke 4 · chapter mention

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.

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

John 11 · chapter mention

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

Acts 16:25

end. I'm sure you agree with me.

Yes, that is a place to end. Acts 16, verse 25, About

Acts 16:25

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.

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.

Amen. Let's stand and worship the

Lord. Yeah.