Rev. David Holwick O The Life of Elijah, #2
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
April 22, 2007
1 Kings 17:7-24
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I. Zarephath, New Jersey.
A. Home of radio station, Star 99.1
1) Town was founded as a revival center around 100 years ago.
2) Fiery evangelist Alma White - a woman - preached at the
Pillar of Fire church there.
3) She was a dedicated Pentecostal and started a Bible college
and radio station.
B. The village's name is deliberately chosen from today's passage.
1) A simple woman faces a huge decision.
2) Does she believe a foreign prophet, or does she eat her
last crumb of food?
3) Her response can teach us what real faith is all about.
II. Elijah gets a second lesson.
A. His brook dries up.
1) It was a natural consequence of the drought he predicted.
2) His first lesson, that God would sustain him in the
wilderness, needed a change of venue.
3) So God gives him the next message in the program of growth.
B. God sends him to the village of Zarephath.
1) It is a Phoenician town near Sidon, a long way from the
Kerith Ravine. It is in modern-day Lebanon.
2) It was also Jezebel's home territory, and filled with
pagans.
C. God leads Elijah to a widow.
1) She is probably a pagan, a follower of Baal.
a) When Jesus refers to her (in Luke 4), the key point
is that she is not Jewish.
b) The woman has no reason to help a foreign prophet.
2) She is also a poor widow.
a) In those days, "widow" and "poor" went together.
b) They were in a precarious position, dependent on alms.
c) They even had special clothes to wear so people would
know where to throw their coins.
3) Elijah's mission - demand food from the widow.
a) We often think of Elijah's request as a test for the
widow.
b) It is also a test for Elijah: Why would God ask him
to depend on someone who is worse off than he is?
III. A widow gets her first lesson.
A. Before taking care of her family's needs, she must feed Elijah.
1) He doesn't ask for much. 17:10
a) First he asks for a drink of water - a little drink.
b) It is only after she goes to get it, that he throws
in the request for some bread. 17:11
2) She has even less than he asks. 17:12
a) There is no bread, just a little flour and oil.
b) She views it as her last meal.
1> This is about as low as a human being can get.
2> She swears by Elijah's God that it is true.
3) The prophet offers a deal. 17:13
a) First, he tells her not to be afraid. (Easy for him!)
b) Then, he asks that he be taken care of first.
c) Finally, he makes a promise - her flour and oil will
last until the drought is broken.
1> He is not saying a supermarket trailer truck will
pull up and dump a year's supply on her porch.
2> Elijah doesn't promise abundance, but provision.
A> There will always be a little bit, enough.
4) Real-life faith.
a) Each use of the flour and oil would require faith
that God would meet their daily needs.
b) Both Elijah and the widow would have to put their faith
and trust in the Provider rather than the provision.
B. She takes prophet at his word.
1) She obeys him, and it happens just as he said.
2) God makes his provision available to all who believe.
a) Even those who don't belong to the "right group."
b) In Luke 4:25, Jesus lumps her with Naaman the Syrian,
another non-Jew who was blessed by the God of Israel.
c) Like the Roman Centurion in Jesus' day, they became
examples of people who are outside of the true faith,
but put their trust in God and show up all the
"regular" believers like us.
IV. The hardest lesson of all.
A. The widow's son dies. 17:17
1) It is not said explicitly, but implied.
2) The woman sees it as an attack by God. 17:18
a) Perhaps Elijah has cursed her.
b) Perhaps God is punishing a past, unnamed, sin of hers.
3) It is natural to assume bad events are a punishment.
But it is an assumption we should avoid.
John Milton was the author of one of the greatest poems
in the English language. "Paradise Lost."
Some of you had to read this in school, but I'll bet none
of you read the whole thing. It's really long!
Milton lived in the 1600s when Puritans under Oliver
Cromwell executed the English king and set up a republic.
The poet was all in favor of having a republic.
However, the republic soon fell apart and the dead king's
son came back to the throne.
During that time of turmoil, Milton began to lose his
eyesight.
King Charles II mildly scolded him by saying that Milton's
blindness must have been because he had opposed the
king's father.
Calmly, the great poet replied: "Well, if I have lost my
sight because of God's judgment, what does that say
about your father, who lost his head?"
#34381
4) Certainly, God can punish us for our evil deeds.
5) But sometimes hard events are tests that can make us
stronger.
B. Where is God in this?
1) The widow isn't the only one having a spiritual crisis.
2) Elijah himself doesn't understand God's will in this.
a) Word "also" suggests Elijah wondered if the son's death
and the widow's previous poverty were caused by God.
b) Was the multiplied flour and oil just a setup so
God could come down extra hard on her?
C. Elijah's practical faith.
1) He takes the boy to his room.
2) He pleads with God for boy's life.
3) He follows prayer with active faith, stretching himself
upon the child as he cries out to God.
a) It is not CPR - two other episodes in the Bible
mention this kind of ritual.
b) He repeats it three times, perhaps an allusion
to the three-fold God. 17:21
1> Note the three-fold blessing in Numbers 6:24-27.
c) Perhaps the widow herself has already expressed faith
by bringing her son's body to the prophet.
d) The prayers of both are answered and the boy lives.
V. God has lessons for all of us.
A. The widow was not being punished, but taught.
1) Like the "man born blind", the purpose of her ordeal was
to bring glory to God. (compare John 9:3)
2) She now had a firm faith in the God of Israel.
a) Verse 24 says:
"Then the woman said to Elijah, 'Now I know that you
are a man of God and that the word of the LORD
from your mouth is the truth."
b) "Now I KNOW..."
Do you know?
Many of you have gone to church your whole lives.
It is a part of your weekly routine.
Believing in God is natural for you.
But do you really believe?
Ken Davis, a youth pastor, tells of a college lesson he had to prepare
for his speech class.
They were to be graded on their creativity and ability to drive home
a point in a memorable way.
The title of Ken's talk was, "The Law of the Pendulum."
He spent 20 minutes carefully teaching the physical principle that
governs a swinging pendulum.
The law of the pendulum is: A pendulum can never return to a point
higher than the point from which it was released.
Because of friction and gravity, when the pendulum returns, it will
fall short of its original release point.
Each time it swings it makes less and less of an arc, until finally it
stops altogether.
This point of rest is called the state of equilibrium, where all
forces acting on the pendulum are equal.
Ken then attached a 3-foot string to a child's toy top and secured it
to the top of the blackboard with a thumbtack.
He pulled the toy top to one side and made a mark on the blackboard
where he let it go.
Each time it swung back he made a new mark.
It took less than a minute for the top to complete its swinging and
come to rest.
When Ken finished the demonstration, the markings on the blackboard
had proved his thesis.
He then asked how many people in the room BELIEVED the law of the
pendulum was true.
All of his classmates raised their hands; so did the teacher.
The teacher started to walk to the front of the room thinking the
class was over.
In reality it had just begun.
Hanging from the steel ceiling beams in the middle of the room,
Ken had fashioned a large, crude but functional pendulum.
It was made of 250 pounds of metal weights tied to four strands of
500-pound-test parachute cord.
Ken then invited the professor to climb up on a table and sit in a
chair with the back of his head against a cement wall.
Ken brought the 250 pounds of metal up to his nose, holding the huge
pendulum just a fraction of an inch from his face.
Once again he explained the law of the pendulum to the teacher who
had applauded only moments before.
"If the law of the pendulum is true, then when I release this mass
of metal, it will swing across the room and return short of the
release point.
Your nose will be in no danger."
After that final restatement of this law, he looked him in the eye
and asked, "Sir, do you believe this law is true?"
There was a long pause.
Huge beads of sweat formed on the teacher's upper lip and then
weakly he nodded and whispered, "Yes."
Ken released the pendulum.
It made a swishing sound as it arced across the room.
At the far end of its swing, it paused momentarily and started back.
Ken Davis said he never saw a man move so fast in my life.
The teacher literally dived from the table.
Deftly stepping around the still-swinging pendulum, Ken asked the
class, "Does he believe in the law of the pendulum?"
The students resounding response was....
#26775
My challenge to you is, do you believe in the God of Elijah?
B. Our God is an awesome God.
1) Even Elijah now had a new appreciation for God's power.
2) God can not only stop the rain, he can raise the dead.
3) Have you committed yourself to him?
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
Much of the structure of this sermon is borrowed from The Expositor's
Bible Commentary, 1 Kings, by R. D. Patterson and Hermann J. Austel
(Zondervan, 1988).
#26775 "Believing In the Law of the Pendulum," by Ken Davis, Rev. Brett
Blair's Illustrations by Email, www.sermonillustrations.com,
January 30, 2004.
#34381 "Who Has Any Idea Why Bad Things Happen?" by H. W. Lowe, Signs of
the Times, Copyright May 11, 1948, Pacific Press;
http://www.signstimes.com; quoted in Wit And Wisdom at
http://www.witandwisdom.org edited by Richard G. Wimer,
April 19, 2007. I have edited the wording of the original
for clarity.
These and 30,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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