Introduction:
The story is told of a man who was walking across the road when he was hit by a car. The impact knocked him on his head which caused him to be in a coma for a couple of days before he finally regained consciousness. When he opened his eyes, his loving wife was there beside his bed holding his hand.
He said, "You know, Judy, you’ve always been right by my side. When I was a struggling college student, I failed again and again. But you were always there with me, encouraging me to go on trying."
He said, "And when I got out of school and went for all of my interviews and failed to get any of the jobs, you stayed right there with me, cutting out more classifieds for me to check on..."
“Then I started work at this little firm and finally got the chance to handle a big contract. But I blew it because of one little mistake, and yet you were there beside me all the way. Then I finally got another job after being laid off for sometime. But I never seemed to be promoted and my hard work was never recognized. And so, I remained in the same position from the day I joined the company until now... And, through it all, you were right there by my side."
Her eyes are starting to fill with tears as she listens. He says, "And now I’ve been in this accident and when I woke up, you’re the first person I see. There’s something I’ll really like to say to you...."
He said, "Judy, I think you’re just plain bad luck!"
I wonder if there are times when we treat God that way. Every time something bad happens, God is right there with us, getting us through the rough spots, holding us up, giving us strength. And instead of appreciating it, we sometimes tend to blame God when bad things happen.
There’s a woman in I Kings 17 who does that. Elijah is there with her, taking care of her and her son day after day, but then something happens and she says to Elijah -- well, you’ll just have to wait a minute to see what she said.
Let’s go back first of all and set the scene. Elijah was a prophet of God who was sent to King Ahab to tell him that Israel was going to be punished because of its great wickedness. Through the influence of Ahab and his wicked wife Jezebel, Israel had starting worshipping Baal and Ashteroth and some of the other heathen gods. So, as a punishment, God said he was going to make it stop raining. And that’s exactly what happened. For three and a half years, it didn’t rain. It’s hard to imagine just how terrible that was. I know that in Texas this summer, there were areas that went without rain for three months and it was considered almost a state of emergency. Imagine three years without rain.
After a couple of months, I’m sure King Ahab issued a decree and said, “Anyone caught watering their lawns or washing their chariots will be fined accordingly.” After a few more months, no one is allowed to wash their clothes or take baths. After three years, it’s difficult to find water to drink.
Remember that Ahab and his wife Jezebel didn’t take too kindly to Elijah’s words. They probably dismissed him as a fruitcake at first, but as time went by without rain, they started to get serious. They sent out search teams to find Elijah so that he could have him killed, but God protected Elijah by hiding him by the brook Cherith, feeding him with bread brought by the ravens. But after months and months of no rain, even the brook was drying up. Elijah had to go somewhere else.
So the word of the Lord came to Elijah. And it must have sounded like one of those good news/bad news jokes. "The good news, Elijah, is that you get to leave Cherith. The bad news is I want you to go to Zarephath." God said to Elijah, "Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there." (I Kings 17:9a).
I don’t know how much Elijah knew about geography. It’s possible he had never heard of Zarephath before. It was a small town along the Mediterranean coast in the land of Phoenicia.
Elijah might not have heard of Zarephath before, but you can be certain that he had heard of Sidon. That was Jezebel’s home town, the capital of Phoenicia. It was a center for worship of Baal and Ashteroth.
Why in the world would God send Elijah to Zarephath, a suburb of Sidon? It didn’t make any sense. If I were Elijah, I would have asked some questions.
"Lord, do you know what you’re doing? Jezebel is after my scalp. Why in the world are you sending me into the shadow of her hometown?" The brook Cherith made a good hiding place. Elijah probably knew every inch of the area. If Ahab was chasing him, Elijah could always escape in the mountains and ravines of Gilead that he knew so well.
But Zarephath? He’d be a stranger in town and everybody in a small town would know he was there. If he introduced himself, he would be in danger of being arrested. There could even be relatives of Jezebel living in Zarephath for all he knew. But that wasn’t all.
I. The Faith of the Widow of Zarephath
Then the Lord said, "See, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you." (I Kings 17:9b). "By the way, Elijah, I’ve arranged room and board for you. I’ve picked out a poor woman who is about to starve to death. She’ll take care of you." If Zarephath didn’t make sense, that made even less sense.
But as Paul said in I Corinthians 1, God often chooses the foolish things, the weak things, the despised things to accomplish his will. And the reason he gives in that chapter is "that no flesh should glory in his presence." (I Corinthians 1:29). God never wants us to forget that in every situation of life, he is the one who takes care of us.
So Elijah did what God said. He "arose and went to Zarephath." (I Kings 17:10a). It involved about a hundred miles of travel, as the raven flies. Elijah would have plenty of time to see the results of the drought. And as he traveled, I wonder if he questioned why God had not selected this house or that house rather than the home of a poor Gentile widow in Zarephath.
Jesus himself mentioned this when he was talking to those in the synagogue in Nazareth. "But I tell you truly, 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 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 4:25-26).
When Jesus finished his short lesson to his friends and neighbors, Luke tells us that they "were filled with wrath, and rose up and thrust him out of the city; and they led him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw him down over the cliff." (Luke 4:28-29). That seems to be a mighty strong reaction to a sermon on Elijah and the widow (I’m hoping that this sermon on that topic will not provoke the same reaction). Why would a simple story about Elijah stir up such animosity from Jesus’ neighbors? Because what Jesus was really saying was that God has sometimes found greater faith among the heathen Gentiles than he found in his own people. And was an insult to the Jews who considered the Gentiles to be nothing more than fuel for the fires of hell.
Remember how upset Jonah was at the thought of preaching to the Gentile city of Nineveh? Then how do you think Elijah must have felt? He was asked by God to be totally dependent upon a Gentile resident of a pagan town. And not merely a Gentile, but a woman. And not just a woman, but one who was a widow. And not just any widow, but a destitute widow.
As Elijah approaches the city gates, he finds this woman gathering sticks. As she explains, she is going to gather a couple of sticks and cook her last meal, and then she and her son will die. Evidently, she was already starving because this was the last meal that she had in her house, and she would prepare this meal and then perish.
Elijah does what seems to be a very cruel thing. He says 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.” (I Kings 17:13). You take your very last bit of food, give it to me, then you can have what’s left over.
That seems cruel. And yet Elijah is acting according to the word of God. God told him to go up to Zarephath and said, "A widow there will provide for you." He didn’t say, "A widow there will allow you to starve, and she will starve along with you." God promised to meet Elijah’s needs, so that’s why Elijah makes this request of the widow, because he is confident that God is going to meet her needs and his. God isn’t going to allow her to starve. So he can make what appears to be a very harsh request.
Now, you have to understand what this young woman had. (She was, by the way, evidently a young woman. She had just one child, and the child was very small. She had had a very tragic life and had lost her husband at an early age -- which was not all that unusual in those days). She was down to one bowl of cornmeal. She also had a little vial that contained olive oil, and she was going to prepare a little pancake out of the oil and cornmeal, cook it, eat it, and then die. That was her plan. She had just enough to prepare one little cake. Once she pours out the oil, there will be nothing left.
But when she prepared this little cake, and Elijah sat down to eat it -- there was enough to go around for all three of them. The next day she looked and there was a little more cornmeal in her bowl. And there was a little more oil. She thought she remembered using it all up, but now there’s some more. So she uses it and makes another little cake, and the three of them eat it. And day by day by day, God continued to provide for them.
For over two years, Elijah and the widow were fed on that basis. "’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.’ So she went away and did according to the word of Elijah; and she 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 17:14-16).
God has a marvelous way of taking care of us. Sometimes God used miraculous ways, sometimes not. But he has always found a way to take care of his people. Paul realized that when he assured us in Philippians 4:19, "My God shall supply your needs according to his riches in glory, by Christ Jesus."
So through this time of drought, when everyone around them was struggling to get by, Elijah and this widow and her son had their needs met by God. It wasn’t a feast, it wasn’t steak and potatoes, but it is was food, and God was providing.
But, as is so often the case, before things can get better, they get worse.
II. The Death of the Widow’s Son
Suddenly something happened that took both the widow and Elijah by surprise. "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." (I Kings 17:17).
There’s another crisis in Elijah’s life -- and sometimes it seems that’s what life is made up of, one crisis after another. You know what I’m talking about. You get one thing squared away, and something else falls apart. You get one car running, and the other dies. You get the doctor bills cleared up and someone else in the family gets sick. It never stops -- there’s just seems to be one thing after another. You’ve often heard it said, or said it yourself: “When it rains it pours." When trouble comes, it seems to be in floods.
And sometimes, the great crises in life come after some act of commitment, when you have determined to do God’s will. There may be some area in your life where you struggle to do what God has called you to do, and you give way to the Lord and commit yourselves to obedience, and you think everything’s gonna be fine -- but it’s not. And you begin to wonder, "What’s going on? Here I am doing what God wants me to do and this is the result!"
Somewhere we picked up the idea that doing God’s will means that life will always go smoothly, that there will never be hard times or distressing circumstances. And that just simply isn’t true.
So Elijah is confronted with this great tragedy. And being human, he had to be thinking, “What’s going on? I’ve done everything God asked me to do and this is the thanks I get.” He hurt not only for the widow, but for himself. He must have loved this little boy. He probably played with him, and maybe he had been very much like a father to him. Now the child is gone. But even in this terrible circumstance, God’s loving hand is still on Elijah and the widow.
There is nothing quite like death to make us take life seriously. It reminds us of our lack of power, our weakness, our mortality. Death is the great fear for people in our world; and it was the same in the days of Elijah. Keep in mind that no one had ever been raised from the dead, prior to this incident. No one had any hope of being raised from the dead.
The death of a child is especially difficult to handle. Joseph Bayly was a man who lost not just one son, but three sons; one at 18 days, another at 5 years, from leukemia, and a third at 18 years, after a sledding accident. He has made the statement, "Of all deaths, that of a child is most unnatural and hardest to bear."
In Carl Jung’s words, it is "a period placed before the end of the sentence," sometimes when the sentence has hardly begun. We expect the old to die. We don’t like it, but we can accept it when someone in their 80’s or 90’s passes away. But a child with his or her whole life ahead of them, all the potential. We consider death to be a cruel thief when it strikes down the young.
For this widow, it would have been even more traumatic. For her it meant a life doomed to loneliness. She had no relatives to take care of her, and there is no indication of friends. Her entire life was probably wrapped up in her son, and now he was gone.
It also meant hopelessness for her. As long as she had a son, she could anticipate someone to take care of her in her old age. She looked forward to the day when she wouldn’t have to scrape and beg for her next meal. When her son grew up and got a job, he could look after her and provide for her. But now he was dead.
Someone whose child has died goes through a series of characteristic reactions. Not all bereaved parents suffer in the same way, but according to the experts most will experience many of the following responses: shock, denial, depression, loneliness, tearfulness, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, feelings of guilt, anger or hostility, and a lack of energy.
This widow of Zarephath may have been experiencing a number of those reactions, but it was her feelings of guilt, anger and hostility that especially stand out. She responded by lashing out at Elijah. "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 17:18). "Elijah, it’s all your fault. None of this would have happened if you hadn’t shown up."
Never mind that if Elijah hadn’t shown up, both she and her son would have died long ago. It was Elijah’s God who had preserved her life for months. Never mind that the flour and oil had been miraculously replenished day after day. During times of crisis, we have a tendency not to think too clearly. You would think that she would turn to the prophet and say, "I need your help." But instead of turning to him for help, she turned away from him and blamed him for her son’s death.
It seems to be a human characteristic that when we are in a tragedy, we want someone or something to blame. But something else was bothering the widow of Zarephath. She said, "Have you come to me to bring my sin to remembrance?" At first, she blamed Elijah, but her deeper feeling was hostility toward herself.
What was the sin that was plaguing her? Was it worship of Baal? Was it immorality? Was it the guilt she was feeling about her husband’s death? If only she had done something else, maybe her husband wouldn’t have died. We don’t know. Her sin could have been an enormous one or it could have been an imagined one. It really doesn’t matter. What does matter is that it had separated this woman not only from God, but also from the man of God.
Perhaps this widow’s emotional explosion uncovered some guilt feelings that she hadn’t been willing to admit to herself. And that may have been the first step toward really getting her life back together.
What God is trying to do, throughout this account, is to bring Elijah and the widow to the end of themselves. It is only when we come to the end of ourselves and the end of our resources, when we use up all our own reserve, that we begin to recognize our great need for a dependence upon the Lord. And sometimes the Lord has to take us there because it’s the only way he can get our attention and get us to realize what he can do for us.
Elijah “said to her, ’Give me your son.’ So he took him out of her arms and carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his bed." (I Kings 17:19).
And Elijah poured out the confusion that was in his heart. He prayed, "O Lord my God, have you also brought tragedy on the widow with whom I lodge, by killing her son?" (I Kings 17:20). And perhaps a better translation would be, "Lord, why are you breaking this widow in pieces? She’s taking care of me. Don’t do this to her. Why are you allowing this to happen?"
The question of "Why?" plagues Christians and non-Christians alike. While the Bible gives many possible reasons for suffering, we need to be careful that we don’t become so obsessed with the "Why" that we neglect the "Who". Because when we’re obsessed with finding out why, we take our eyes off of what God is able to do with us and for us..
"And he stretched himself out on the child three times, and cried out to the Lord and said, ’O Lord my God, I pray, let this child’s soul come back to him.’ Then the Lord heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came back to him, and he revived." (I Kings 17:21). The boy was raised from the dead.
"And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper room into the house, and gave him to his mother." (I Kings 17:23a).
Elijah took the child in his arms and descended from his loft to the house where the mother was still crying. Maybe her head was buried in her hands and she didn’t even notice Elijah had come in. Can you imagine what it was like when Elijah placed the boy in his mother’s arms again? Her tears would still be rolling down her cheeks, but now they were tears of joy.
"And Elijah said, ’See, your son lives!’" (I Kings 17:23b).
And the widow responded by saying, "Now by this I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is the truth." (I Kings 17:24).
When Elijah had first entered Zarephath, the widow had identified him as a man of God. But now she knew it from experience. When Elijah brought her son back to life, she had to acknowledge that Elijah’s God was not only the source of life, but also the source of truth. So her statement was not simply that she now believed that what Elijah had been telling her was true, but rather that what he had been telling her was absolute truth.
What do you do when you’re at the end of your rope? We’ve all heard it said, “You tie a knot and hang on.” But as Christians, we have more to hang onto than just a rope.
Because we worship a God who has demonstrated the power of resurrection, not only of a young boy in Zarephath, but also of his own Son who was raised on the third day after he was crucified, we know that he has indeed given us the truth we need to live our lives.
