1 Kings 17:17-18 Sickness and Death

 “Now it happened after these things that the son of the woman who owned the house became sick. And his sickness was so serious that there was no breath left in him. So she said to Elijah, “What have I to do with you, O man of God? Have you come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to kill my son?”” I Kings‬ ‭17‬:‭17‬-‭18‬ ‭NKJV‬

a. After these things that the son of the woman who owned the house became sick: We can imagine the happy days of provision in the household of the widow. Their needs were supplied by a continuing miracle of God. Yet those happy days were eventually covered by a dark shadow – the sickness and death of the widow’s son.

i. The death of the son was a double blow to the widow. Not only did she suffer as any mother who loses a child, but she also suffered as one who lost her only hope for the future. The expectation was that her son would grow and provide for her in her old age. Now that expectation was shattered.

b. Have you come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to kill my son: At the death of her son, the widow indirectly blamed Elijah. She more directly blamed herself and her unnamed sin. Whatever her sin was, the guilty memory of it was always close to her. (Guzik)

Sickness and Death

It’s a fact that one out of one person dies. But what if that person dies before having a full life and it’s cut short like this son?

I am reminded of a verse that the Lord put on my heart before waking out the door as a volunteer chaplain to the Arizona State Veterans Home. When I made my rounds and visited a certain veteran, the Lord put on my heart that this verse was for his family that was visiting him. He passed the following morning.

Good people pass away; the godly often die before their time. But no one seems to care or wonder why. No one seems to understand that God is protecting them from the evil to come. Isaiah 57:1 NLT

God is sovereign and He loves you. He and only He knows the number of your days.

Are you prepared if He calls you home?

Blessings 

1 Kings 17:15-16 Trust in the promise of God!

 “So she went away and did according to the word of Elijah; and she and he and her household ate for many days. The bin of flour was not used up, nor did the jar of oil run dry, according to the word of the Lord which He spoke by Elijah.” ‭‭I Kings‬ ‭17‬:‭15‬-‭16‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

a. So she went away and did according to the word of Elijah: The widow actually did it – she willingly gave at great risk, based on her trust in the promise of God.

b. She and he and her household ate for many days: God fulfilled the promise to the widow, her son, and Elijah. God used her as a channel of supply and her needs were met as a result.

i. “Why did not God give her a granary full of meal at once, and a vat full of oil instantly? I will tell you. It was not merely because of God’s intent to try her, but there was wisdom here. Suppose he had given her a granary full of meal, how much of it would have been left by the next day? I question whether any would have remained, for in days of famine men are sharp of scent, and it would soon have been noised about the city, ‘The old widow woman who lives in such-and-such a street, has a great store of food.’ Why, they would have caused a riot, and robbed the house, and perhaps, have killed the woman and her son. She would have been despoiled of her treasure, and in four and twenty hours the barrel of meal would have been as empty as it was at first, and the cruse of oil would have been spilled upon the ground.” (Spurgeon)

(Guzik)

Trust in the promise of God!

The widow while starving, put her trust in the promise of God.

Throughout the Bible there are many promises of God. Below are only a few.

I particularly like John 3:16!

“Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’” ‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭41‬:‭10‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

“Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.””

‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭13‬:‭5‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

‭‭John‬ ‭3‬:‭16‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

Is there a particular promise of God that you trust in?

Blessings 

1 Kings 17:13- 14 Trust in Him!

 “And Elijah said to her, “Do not fear; go and do as you have said, but make me a small cake from it first, and bring it to me; and afterward make some for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘The bin of flour shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run dry, until the day the Lord sends rain on the earth.’ ”” ‭‭I Kings‬ ‭17‬:‭13‬-‭14‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

a. Do not fear: This was God’s first word to the widow through Elijah. Her present crisis rightly made her afraid, and God wanted her to put away fear and replace it with trust in Him.

b. Go and do as you have said, but make me a small cake from it first: This was an audaciously bold request from the prophet. He asked this destitute widow to first give him something from her last bit of food. This seemed like the worst kind of predatory fund-raising.

c. The bin of flour shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run dry, until the day the LORD sends rain on the earth: This shows why Elijah could make such an audacious request. It was because God told him that He would provide a never-ending supply of food for the widow, her son, and Elijah himself. He asked the widow to put her trust in this great promise of God. (Guzik)

Trust in Him!

There are times in our lives when fear overcomes us but we need to remind ourselves to put our trust in Him no matter what!

“Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’” ‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭41‬:‭10‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

“And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”

‭‭Matthew‬ ‭10‬:‭28‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

Why should we fear man if God controls our soul’s destiny?

Blessings 

1 Kings 17:12 Death

 “So she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I do not have bread, only a handful of flour in a bin, and a little oil in a jar; and see, I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.”” ‭‭I Kings‬ ‭17‬:‭12‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

a. As the LORD your God lives: This polite address showed that she respected God, yet recognized that the God of Israel was Elijah’s God and not her own.

b. I do not have bread: Elijah quickly found out that she was not only poor, but desperately poor. Elijah found her right before she was going to prepare her last morsel of food for herself and her son, and then resign themselves to death. (Guzik)

Death

When we are young we rarely think about death but when we are old we think about death more often.

“whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.” James‬ ‭4‬:‭14‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

If you are reading this, then the good Lord has given you and blessed you with another day! 

“For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” ‭‭Romans‬ ‭8‬:‭38‬-‭39‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

I plan on holding on to the love of God knowing that the earth is not my home and will continue to point people towards Christ Jesus.

What will you do with the rest of the time you have left?

Blessings 

1 Kings 17:10-11 Grace of God!

 “So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, indeed a widow was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, “Please bring me a little water in a cup, that I may drink.” And as she was going to get it, he called to her and said, “Please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.”” ‭‭I Kings‬ ‭17‬:‭10‬-‭11‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

a. Indeed a widow was there gathering sticks: This showed that she was a poor woman, gathering meager scraps for firewood. Elijah perhaps thought that God would lead him to an unusual rich widow, but God led him to a poor Gentile widow.

i. “You learn this from the fact that she had not even firewood. Now, there was no reason why she should not have had that even in time of famine of bread, for there was no famine of wood, unless she had been extremely poor.” (Spurgeon)

ii. God told Elijah (1 Kings 17:9) that He commanded a widow to feed the prophet. Yet this woman seemed unaware of the command. This shows how God’s unseen hand often works. “She does not appear to have been at all aware that she was to feed a prophet. She went out that morning to gather sticks, not to meet a guest. She was thinking about feeding her son and herself upon the last cake; certainly she had no idea of sustaining a man of God out of that all but empty barrel of meal. Yet the Lord, who never lieth, spoke a solemn truth when he said, ‘I have commanded a widow woman there.’ He had so operated upon her mind that he had prepared her to obey the command when it did come by the lip of his servant the prophet” (Spurgeon).

b. Please bring me a little water in a cup… Please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand: Elijah boldly put this request in faith. Common sense and circumstances told him that the widow would not give so generously to a Jewish stranger, but faith made him ask.

i. “This was certainly putting the widow’s faith to an extraordinary trial: to take and give to a stranger, of whom she knew nothing, the small pittance requisite to keep her child from perishing, was too much to be expected.” (Clarke)

ii. God indeed chose this woman, but He chose her for more than a miracle. He chose her for service. “The choice of this woman, while it brought such blessedness to her, involved service. She was not elected merely to be saved in the famine, but to feed the prophet. She must be a woman of faith; she must make the little cake first, and afterwards she shall have the multiplication of the meal and of the oil. 

So the grace of God does not choose men to sleep and wake up in heaven, nor choose them to live in sin and find themselves absolved at the last; nor choose them to be idle and go about their own worldly business, and yet to win a reward at the last for which they never toiled. Ah, no! The sovereign electing grace of God chooses us to repentance, to faith, and afterwards to holiness of living, to Christian service, to zeal, to devotion” (Spurgeon).

(Guzik)

Grace of God!

The sovereign electing grace of God chooses us, He does so expecting an orderly fashion to repentance, to faith, to holiness, to service, to zeal, to devotion! 

I have to admit that when I go into service to God, physically my body runs out of steam after a year! But recently my wife and I have been leading a Life Recovery Bible group at our church for the last two years and three months and the zeal and devotion continues. During group some of the men thanked us for leading this group. The Lord put on my heart to acknowledge and thank them for the encouragement to continue to lead this group. 

How long will it last? As long as the Lord wants, because it’s His ministry not mine. We will continue to give Him all the glory of what happens within this group.

Are you choosing a life of repentance or going about worldly business?

Blessings 

1 Kings 17:8-9 Transplanting

“Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. See, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you.”” ‭‭I Kings‬ ‭17‬:‭8‬-‭9‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

a. Arise, go to Zarephath: God led Elijah from the dry brook to a Gentile city. This was an unusual and challenging move for Elijah to make.

i. God kept transplanting Elijah: From home to Jezreel to Cherith to Zarephath. This transplanting made him stronger and stronger.

ii. We should also remember that this was the general region that the wicked queen Jezebel was from. “Elijah was visiting enemy territory and showing the power of God in an area where Baal was worshipped, though ineffective through drought” (Wiseman).

b. See, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you: Widows were notorious for their poverty in the ancient world. God told Elijah to go to a Gentile widow and receive provision; it probably seemed to make more sense to wait beside a dry brook.

i. When He was rejected by His own people, Jesus used this example of Elijah’s coming to the widow of Zarephath as an illustration of God’s right to choose a people to Himself: Then He said, “Assuredly, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own country. But I tell you truly, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a great famine throughout all the land; but to none of them was Elijah sent except to Zarephath, in the region of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow” (Luke 4:24-26). (Guzik)

Transplanting 

“This transplanting made him stronger and stronger.”

God often transplants His children for His purposes, for His kingdom, for His glory! God transplanted the hearts of my wife and I into a life of adoption. 

Like Elijah, to some it made more sense to stay by the brook and to live our lives for ourselves but after witnessing a friend’s daughter give up her child because she preferred a life of drugs and alcohol it opened our eyes and hearts to the needs of orphans.

Have you gotten a new heart or ever been physically transplanted by God?

Blessings 

1 Kings 17:7 The Drying Brook!

 “And it happened after a while that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land.” ‭‭I Kings‬ ‭17‬:‭7‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

a. After a while that the brook dried up: Elijah saw the flow of the brook slow down until it dried up. His source of water was gone.

i. “Ah, it is hard to sit beside a drying brook - much harder than to face the prophets of Baal on Carmel.” (Meyer) Meyer also mentioned different kinds of drying brooks we might experience:

· The drying brook of popularity, ebbing away as from John the Baptist.

· The drying brook of health, sinking under a creeping paralysis, or a slow consumption.

· The drying brook of money, slowly dwindling before the demands of sickness, bad debts, or other people’s extravagance.

· The drying brook of friendship, which for long has been diminishing, and threatens soon to cease.

ii. Moved below…

b. Because there had been no rain in the land: This was the drought Elijah prayed for. He did not pray for rain to come again, even for his own survival. He kept the purpose of God first, even when it adversely affected him. (Guzik)

The Drying Brook!

“Why does God let them dry? He wants to teach us not to trust in His gifts but in Himself. He wants to drain us of self, as He drained the apostles by ten days of waiting before Pentecost. He wants to loosen our roots ere He removes us to some other sphere of service and education. He wants to put in stronger contrast the river of throne-water that never dries.” (Meyer)

Two years ago in January the brook dried up at our church when a staff member retired. He had managed and led a twelve step program on Thursday evenings. My wife and I volunteered to be a stop gap program for the church and continue with the Life Recovery Bible twelve step program. It is God’s ministry not ours and we will continue to lead it until He decides it’s time for the brook to dry up or for the river of throne-water to change course.

Have you experienced the drying brook in your life?

Blessings