Sermons

Summary: God is continually looking for empty vessels to fill with his oil of grace and mercy from a limitless supply.

This story of the widow and her two sons should give you the hope you need. If God can provide for the debt and need of this poor widow who is about to lose everything in her life, can’t he do the same for each of us?

David said in Psalms that “he had never seen the righteous forsaken or his seed begging for bread.” God will take care of his own.

She had to worry some for she had tried to take care of business on her own but the debt was too great. She had come to the end of her rope and needed help now so she finally came to Elisha to seek God’s help.

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

Or what can I do, being poor himself, and unable to relieve her out of his substance, and not knowing where to get anything for her; and so what could she expect from him. He pitied her case, but all that he could do was to give her his best advice, and pray for her:

Quite often that’s the answer we get from man. Man has no power to supply our needs. He is too busy taking care of himself to care and to poor to do anything about it if he could.

…tell me what thou hast in thy house?…

What is worth anything in your house that you can liquidate and pay your debt?

God expects us to do our part before he will step in to fulfill his obligation and promise to us. We must be good stewards of what God has given to us before we can expect God to perform miracles on our behalf.

…and she said, thine handmaid hath not anything in the house, save a pot of oil…

Her house contained nothing of any value. She might have some things, some sort of household goods, though perhaps she had parted with most of them in her poverty; this was the most valuable thing she had.

… Then he said, go, borrow thee vessels abroad of all thy neighbors.... For he perceived that she had none: (She wasn’t like Ananias and Sapphira of the New Testament. She didn’t lie and hide her wealth. She was truly broke.)

…even empty vessels…

He didn’t say go borrow money, rice, beans, cornmeal, flower and all the necessities of life from those who had these things. Just go get the empty bottles, jars and pots. What good would empty pots do? What are we going to make, an “air gumbo”? People would easily lend her an empty vessel but it would have been much harder to get vessels that contained food and drink for all of them were poor too.

(If you go to receive what you need from other people you will always find that they are little more than empty vessels too. God only gives to each person what they personally need for that one day. It’s up to each of us to put out our own empty pots to receive the blessings of God.)

…borrow not a few… Go get as many as she could get. The prophet, under a divine impulse, was directed to say this to her, foreseeing through the Spirit that a large quantity of oil would be given to her.

… And when thou art come in… After you have done all that God commands you to do, then it’s time to go to God. God won’t do for us what we can and should do for ourselves.

If there are things in your life that need to be changed, don’t ask God to change them before you are willing to do everything in your ability to change them first. God won’t change your bad habits until you do your part. We make the habits then expect God to change them but God is waiting on you.

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Chris King

commented on Aug 11, 2015

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