Pastor Allan Kircher
Shell Point Baptist Church
July 7, 2013
1 Kings 17:8-16
What’s in your barrel?
Intro: story/prophet Elijah/fascinating account/power/God/action.
• We thrill/hear/Elijah standing tall before King Ahab
• The priest of Baal and wayward people of Israel.
• How he prayed and the fire of God fell from Heaven.
Let me remind you/some/events/special day on Mt. Carmel.
• Nation/Israel had turned their backs on the Lord.
• They followed the god Baal
• The deity worshipped by King Ahab’s Queen, Jezebel.
• Mt. Carmel, Elijah challenged/450 priests/Baal/showdown
Elijah said, call on your god, I’ll call on the name of the Lord.
• God/answered by fire would be/God /Israel.
• The people/king/priests of Baal agreed.
• The showdown commenced.
• Priests of Baal prayed all day/nothing happened.
• Baal did not answer. No fire fell.
• Priests of Baal gave up in frustration.
• It was Elijah’s turn to call on the Lord God Almighty.
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In preparation for his prayer Elijah:
• gave a command/trench/dug around/altar
• Twelve barrels water/poured over/sacrifice/wood/the altar.
When this was done, Elijah stepped up, prayed a short prayer, and the fire of God fell on the mountain.
1 Kings 18:38-39 says, “Then the fire of the LORD fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.” “When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, “The LORD—he is God! The LORD—he is God!”
Elijah/seized/priests/Baal/brook/Kishon/killed all 450 of them.
• This was a mighty display of the power of God.
• Elijah was the conduit through which power flowed that day.
• He was God’s man, doing God’s work, in a big way.
But, it wasn’t always that way!
• Elijah did not just wake up that morning and head to that mountain to do what he did.
• Elijah wound up on that mountain because he had been prepared through a series of hopeless situations.
Again and again
• God placed/prophet/circumstances/were beyond his power.
• God proved/He/greater than everything Elijah was called on to face.
Notice how God worked in Elijah’s life.
• God called Elijah/stand before Ahab
• Pronounce a sentence/divine judgment on/nation of Israel.
• Elijah’s message/not rain until he said it would.
• And it didn’t!
God then sent Elijah to dwell beside an isolated stream in the wilderness.
• At that stream, God fed Elijah every morning and night with bread and meat carried to him on the wings of ravens.
• When the brook went dry
• from the very lack of rain Elijah prophesied
• God sent Elijah/place called Zarephath/be fed/home/widow.
• While there, God sent them a miraculous supply of food.
• While he was there the widow’s son died.
• God used Elijah to raise the dead boy back to life.
All of those things, and more, helped prepare Elijah for the day when he would stand/power/God/pray/fire down from Heaven.
• When I think of these things, it stirs my heart.
• I praise/Lord/what He did/life of Elijah
• How He trained him and used him in a special way.
I want/preach about/poor widow who got caught up/Elijah’s training
Poverty stricken widow found herself/couple/hopeless situations.
• Study one of those Hopeless Cases today.
• Preach about What’s in your Barrel?
As I do, I want you to see that God is able to do amazing, powerful things in our lives.
• He can take what appears/hopeless situation
• manifest its power through that situation it.
• There is hope for your Hopeless Case today.
• Consider the facts of this story/teach that very truth today.
I. V. 10-12 A HOPELESS PREDICAMENT
• V10 introduces us/poor widow. She/focus/passage.
• Her description shows us just how hopeless her situation was.
• “Widow” meant in Society….Law….
• As you read her words in verse 12, you can hear the desperation in her voice. Listen……
• She is in a hopeless situation, and in her mind, there is no way out.
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Her Plan In Life - Her plan is simple.
• Take two sticks/last of her food
• Going to make a meal for her/son then die….
• They/reached the end/line. Death/only ending she can see.
• This is a woman without hope/Who sees no way out
• Who is ready to embrace death for herself and for her son because there is no other alternative?
• This is about as hopeless as it gets.
Most of us have never faced a situation quite like this have we?
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We all experience circumstances/appear to us to be hopeless.
Might be:
• Sickness/body/continues to deteriorate.
• Fracture/marriage appears to be getting worse.
• Financial crisis that grows worse day by day.
• Case of ever-deepening depression that fills the heart
It might be any of ten thousand other things, but the fact is, there are times when life appears to be hopeless.
Many in the Bible felt that way.
Moses - When he fled from Pharaoh after killing an Egyptian
Elijah - When he fled from the wrath of Jezebel, 1 Kings 19:4.
Jonah - When he found himself in the belly of the whale
The Disciples - When they found themselves in the storm
Jacob - When he was told that Joseph was dead, Gen. 37:34-35.
There are times when we are afraid
• When circumstances appear hopeless.
• When there seems to be no way out.
The despair recorded by Solomon/Ecclesiastes is something most of us feel from time to time.
Here is what Solomon said about life. This is the view of hopelessness. Ecc. 2:11; 2:17; 2:23; 3:19.
Have you been there? Are you there today? Keep listening! There is hope for your hopeless case beloved!
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II. V. 9, 15a A HUMBLE PRESENT
In spite of her condition, God works in this poor widow to bring her to the place of absolute faith in Him and His power.
An Unusual Relationship
• Verse 9 tells/“a widow” in “Zarephath.”
• Zarephath was/hometown of Queen Jezebel.
• Gentile town filled/worshippers/fertility god Baal.
• “Widow” unlikely candidate/work of God.
God chose:
• Send His prophet/pagan town/home/Gentile widow who could not even take care of herself and her son.
• Elijah was a wanted man.
• Ahab was looking for him/wanted to kill him.
• God sent Elijah/one place no one would think to look
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• Poor, Gentile widow was trapped in sin.
• Lost without any hope of salvation.
• God/His grace, spoke/her heart/revealed Himself to her.
• He used her to take care of His prophet.
Many years later, the Lord Jesus would refer to this woman as an example of great faith in God, Luke 4:25-26.
• No Jew would have given/poor woman/time of day
but God loved her and extended His saving grace to her.
• God finds the clay for His wheel in unusual places.
• He takes what no one else wants and makes something glorious out of it.
• That’s what He did with this poor widow
• What He has done with the likes of us.
• I praise His name for His saving grace, and for His love for lost sinners!
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An Untroubled Request
• When Elijah arrives/Zarephath/finds/widow gathering sticks.
• Asks for a drink of water, v. 10.
• Asks her to bring him a “morsel of bread,” v. 11.
• In verse 12, she tells him her tale of woe.
She tells him:
• Her poverty
• Her plans to cook what little food she has.
• Her plans to share one final meal with her son.
• After that, she says, they will lay down to wait for death, presumably by starvation.
Elijah hears all of this and his response is strange.
• He tells her to go ahead, but to feed him first
• She knows/only/enough/prepare a small cake/her/her boy.
• Elijah didn’t know how the Lord was going to feed them
• But he knew God was as good as His Word.
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Elijah knew:
• Rain/stopped because he prayed James 5:17-18.
• God had promised to feed him down by the brook
So Elijah knew that God could be trusted here as well.
• Widow didn’t know all those things.
All she knew was:
• God she knew very little about
• Was telling her to give what little food she had to a man she knew nothing about.
• Elijah was untroubled by request because he had faith/God
• But the widow faced the command with great fear.
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An Uneasy Response - Verse 15 tells/widow did as she was commanded to do.
She went to the place where she cooked her bread, she took those two sticks, that little bit of meal and that small amount of oil, and she prepared a meal for the prophet of God.
She presented a humble present to the Lord. What faith!
I wonder if:
• She was filled/fear as she watched Elijah eat/last/her food?
• She thought, “Well, there will be no last meal for us before we die!”
Regardless/her fears/doubts she accepted/promise/God and obeyed His command.
• She did as God requested.
• Her faith was even greater than the faith of Elijah!
• The faith of this widow falls into the category of mountain moving faith. Matt. 17:20
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I don’t know:
• what impossible situation you are facing today.
• what you will be called on/face before you leave this world.
I want you to know that God can be trusted, regardless of what comes your way.
If, like this widow, you are in a relationship with God, you have His promise that He will take care of you.
He will:
• give you grace for everything that comes your way
• meet every need that arises in your life - Matt. 6:25-34
• walk with you every step of the way - Heb. 13:5
• see you safely through the dangers that come against you
• carry you when you can no longer walk - Deut. 33:27
• use every pain, problem and pit of life to develop you and to make you more like Jesus
Those promises, and thousands more besides, are given to the people of God.
Our duty is not:
• Try and solve every puzzle in life.
• Plan our path so that life runs smooth.
Our duty is to simply trust the Lord to keep His promises.
then we can face the hopeless situations in our lives with hope, knowing that our God reigns, and that all will be well.
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III. V. 15b-16 A HEAVENLY PROVISION
The widow obeyed God and God honored His promise.
• God told Elijah they would be fed and they were.
• God was as good as His Word in this situation
• He will be as good as His Word in your situation as well.
Can you imagine the fear that must have been in her heart as she approached that meal barrel and that little bottle of oil?
• Did she wonder as she went for the food in the barrel?
• Yet, when she reached into the barrel, there was meal there!
• When she tipped that little jug over, more oil poured out.
For the next three years, every time she used all the meal and the oil, there was plenty the next time she needed some.
• Church, this was a great miracle.
• I don’t know how God did it, but He did.
• She would take some out, He would put more in.
• They never missed a meal.
• While others around them starved to death because of the famine, they had food to eat until the rains came.
• God took care of them during a hopeless situation.
There are a couple of quick thoughts I want to share before we finish today.
Serving God from and empty barrel does more to fill my barrel than trying to fill it myself.
• In other words, if I will forget about what I think I need and leave my care in the capable hands of God
• He will take care of me.
• If I spend all my time trying to solve my problems, I will only make my problems worse.
• My duty is to faithfully serve Him and rest in the assurance that He will do what is right, all the time!
My two sticks, my meal and my oil will accomplish very little, but God can do wonders with what I leave in His care.
• Widow planned/use two sticks/cook a final meal/her family.
• She was planning to die.
• In the end, she used those two sticks to feed God’s prophet.
She took those two sticks and placed them in the hand of God and He didn’t just supply one meal, He supplied thousands of meals.
Three people eating three meals per day would translate to over 3,200 meals in three years’ time!
• What a miracle of multiplication.
Here’s the point
• Two sticks in a widows hand will accomplish very little.
• What kind of a fire could she have built with just two sticks?
When she placed those sticks into the hand of God, her world changed.
In fact, if you put two sticks in the hand of God, He will use them to save the world! (Ill. The cross of Calvary!)
What you have to do is let go of your sticks, your meal, and your oil, and like this widow, you have to put them in the hand of God.
If you will learn to do that, you will see Him do things you can hardly believe.
All David had sling/shepherd’s staff/few stones
but in the hand of God the killed a giant.
All a little boy had/five loaves/two fish
but in the hand of God it fed a multitude.
All the widow had was few sticks
but in the hand of God it fed her family.
God doesn’t need a lot to work with.
In creation, God took nothing and made everything.
All He is looking for from us is the faith to place our two sticks in His hands. When we do, everything changes.
Conc:
We never know how God will keep His promises. We never know how He will manifest His power. We never know what He will do!
What happened there? Somebody got their two sticks into the hand of God. When they did, everything changed!
What do you need to get into His hand today?
• Some impossible situation?
• Some lost family members?
• Some sickness? Some sin? Your lost soul?
Whatever it is, it’s like the widow’s two sticks.
In your hands, they won’t amount to much, but in His hands, they will become a miracle as He manifests His power to solve your hopeless case.
