Welcome to the Sunday evening service at Bible Baptist Church in Hampton, Georgia, where Pastor Lauren Regeer opens God's Word each week to provide us with biblically based teaching that helps you meet life head on. Thank you for joining us and may your hearts be blessed as God's Word is taught. And now here is Pastor Lauren Regeer. Take your Bibles, please. We'll go to the ongoing series, The Miracles of Elisha, 2 Kings chapter 4. We'll spend a few minutes here together. We'll be in prayer as the training begins this coming Saturday, that God would use that in our hearts and in our church so that we might be effective in our outreach, more effective in our outreach in the year to come. Be praying specifically for someone who is unsaved, that you know. And if you don't know someone, get to know someone who doesn't know the Lord and develop a relationship that could be redemptive. That's our goal, isn't it? The miracles of Elisha, we'll begin reading in chapter 4, verses 1 through 7. Just follow along as I read this narrative that you may be well familiar with. We'll pull out some devotional thoughts tonight as we study this together. Now there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha. And she said, Thy servant, my husband, is dead, and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord, and the creditor is come. I won't ask you to raise your hand if you know that feeling about the creditor coming. The bills keep coming, don't they? And the creditor, in my case, wants to take away my two sons to be bondmen, indentured servants. And Elisha said unto her, What shall I do for thee? Tell me what hast thou in the house? She said, Thine handmaid hath not anything in the house save or except a pot of oil. Then he said, Go borrow thee vessels among or abroad from all thy neighbors, even empty vessels, borrow not a few. Pick up a lot of these if you can. And when they are come in, thou shalt shut the door upon thee and upon my sons and shalt pour out into all these vessels and thou shalt set aside that which is full. So she went from him and shut the door upon her and upon her sons who brought the vessels to her and she poured out. It came to pass when the vessels were full that she said unto her son, bring me yet another one. And he said unto her, there is not a vessel more and the oil stayed. She was excited, of course, and she came and told the man of God and he said, go sell the oil and pay thy debt and live thou and thy children on the rest. This is a story of a woman who is very desperate, a woman in need of the miracle. The scene is set before us. And I love the story told of the man who was working on his TV antenna on the second story of his roof. He lost his footing and slid down quickly. And as he was sliding off the edge of the roof, he grabbed the gutter. and was able to hang on and it spared his life. But there he was dangling between the heaven and the earth and he started to shout for help. He was in a desperate situation. And he said, help, is there anybody here to help me? And there was no answer. And finally a whisper came from above. And the little gentle whisperer said, I can help you if you'll trust me. Well, he looked up towards heaven thinking of course the Lord was speaking to him. Lord, what shall I do? Well, just trust me, let go and I will catch you. He thought about that just a moment. And then he said, is there anyone else up there that could help me? Sometimes we are covered up by problems and we don't always like the Lord's solutions. God is asking all of us in this year, in the face of potential difficulties, perhaps some of you are starting the year already covered up, it seems, with trouble. God is asking you to trust Him. certainly not to drop off from a roof, but to trust Him with your life. So let's pull out some devotional thoughts from this great text tonight, thoughts that'll help us. Not trust our own grip on the edge of a house or the edge of a roof, but trust the unfailing arm of God. I hope you're doing that. God sends troubles in our lives in order that we might grow in our faith. Three things tonight, a widow's desperation, a prophet's discernment, and then a heavenly deliverance. The Lord is asking us to grow through our difficulties. Trust me. The narrative begins with a picture of a very deep dilemma, a woman who really does need God's help. Verse one, again, there was a certain woman, a widow, and she cried out to Elisha, saying, Thy servant, my husband, is dead. And thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord, and the creditor is now come." He's here, he's at the door to take my two sons to be a bondman. Here she is saying, as a single widowed mom, two boys, not much in the house, probably two younger boys, because if they were older, what? They would have been able to help her with the bills. So they were probably in their teens or younger. And she is beside herself, not knowing what to do. Josephus, the Jewish historian, believes that the widow, the woman was the widow of a man by the name of Obadiah. We don't know that for sure, but we do know that she has now come to a condition in life where she has no husband to help her. And in that economy, that was a difficult time. In this economy, it's a tough time. So here she was wondering how she was going to make ends meet. And she came to her spiritual mentor. Now, just this picture of a woman who is a widow now, but formerly her husband was of the school of prophets tells me a couple things right out the gate. It tells me, first of all, that the Catholics are wrong about priests and those men of the cloth not being married. Obviously, this was a prophet, a man of God who was married. This idea that the priest or the prophet ought to be married to the church is just a silly notion. These were not monasteries somewhere of the celibate. Most, at least some, of the prophets were married. We know that from the narrative. The other thing it tells me, and this is a comfort to me, not really, but this is the truth, that just because you're a prophet, or the son of a prophet, or a prophet's family, doesn't mean you're exempt from trouble. Here she is in the ministry, so to speak. Her family is a ministry family. She's going through so many troubles. Troubles often come to the saint's home, the pastor's home, the believer's home. I dare say they've come to your house, too. God doesn't exempt us from trouble. He put the disciples in a boat, said, go out now, cross the sea. And in the middle, there great storm came. Well, she cries out. Here is her desperate condition. She cries out. That word simply means anguish of soul. She had real tears, real burden. My husband is dead, she cried. Of course, that's a difficulty in any age. And she is more or less stressed out by that, as we say today. She could not sustain her little family for long. Her husband could no longer provide, and her boys probably were not yet at that age where their combined resources would take care of the monthly bills. And her creditor was not that kind either because he was at the door saying, listen, the Mosaic Code says that I'm allowed since you can't do anything, you're in destitution. The Mosaic Code says that I can take you and your boys as servants of mine until the bill is paid. Boy, can you think of how Sad and sorrowful, her heart must have felt, and she didn't know what to do, really. The Mosaic Code provided a clause that said you can, if a creditor can come, and if the debt is large enough, just remove the family, turn them into servants, not slaves. They were not to treat these folks in hardship as slaves, but they could treat them as servants until the bill was paid, and so she faced this double jeopardy of losing her husband and then losing her sons. Her heart was overwhelmed. Her eyes flooded with tears. She faced, of course, this great loss all at once, and she pleads her case to the only hope she knew. She went not to Social Security. She went to the headmaster of the new headmaster of the School of Prophets. Elijah had been, and now it's Elisha instead. She doesn't go to Uncle Sam, she goes to the preacher. Interesting how many times we think of the Visa card long before we go to Pastor Smith or Pastor Jones or some other deacon to handle our problems. We tend to take our problems to the church last. She went first to the head prophet of the Guild of Prophets and she made her case. She stated directly to Elisha, verse one, you know, she stated her case based on the character of her now dead husband. You know my husband. He wasn't a rascal, he was a man of faith and integrity, a faithful man that feared God. You know him. And Elisha did, no doubt. Know of this man. He served God. He was a good man. And Elisha, she says, let me get right to the point. The creditor is now come, verse one, and makes plans to remove my sons with a broken, overwhelmed heart. She pours out this story. in an economy of words to this man of God. Desperation and tears fill her words. She has no resource and no recourse. And perhaps tonight you relate to this woman in some measure. She has been married to a preacher who's tried to do right. She herself was trying to raise boys for the cause of righteousness. And now this, a wrong turn. It seems that God sent the dark horses to the wrong house. Her husband dies, and then that's followed by financial destitution, and now she is filled with despair. We had a dear woman in our office this past week whose condition was similar in some ways to this one. Thankfully, we were able to help her from a benevolence fund that our church collects on Wednesday nights and other times. Deacons fund offerings are given just for this reason, to be a blessing and a help. We were able to be a blessing to this godly woman who is a church member here. The wonderful thing is, God is the God who understands the plight of the fatherless. He claims to be the husband to the widow. He is the judge of the widow. We know that in Deuteronomy 10 and verse 18. God sees the case, and He was on the case, and God sees our problems as an opportunity, a conduit to draw near to Him. And that's what God was doing in her life, increasing her faith. She had a desperate condition. Secondly, I want you to notice the prophet's wise discernment, his discernment. Notice, please, the interesting dialogue as Elisha meets with her. And Elisha said unto her, verse 2, What shall I do for thee? That's an interesting question, isn't it? I often smile at that when I read just the stories in the Bible. Similar question was asked by Jesus when the blind man came to Him. Blind Bartimaeus, remember that story? He said, Lord, have mercy on me. And the Lord said, what do you want me to do for you? You think about that. It seemed pretty obvious, doesn't it? What will tell that I should do unto thee? Lord, that I might receive my sight. The story's in Mark chapter 10. This is the first threshold that any godly counselor must pass. What really brings you here, ma'am? What really brings you here, sir, for help? What do you really want? And a good counselor has to discern very quickly if they're just here for a closer relationship with God, or for a little relief through the problem, or do they really want a closer relationship with God? God sends trouble. in order that there might be a spiritual solution. Every problem has a spiritual foundation, right? God is bringing us to Him. So he asked the question, what do you want? I'm not a bank, obviously. We're not here necessarily to make loans for those in destitution, but I do know a big God. What shall I do for thee? And then he follows that question immediately, doesn't he, with another. But it's an interesting question. God is the answer to every insufficiency. Perhaps tonight you're thinking about a big problem that is looming at the start of the year. What am I going to do about this or that, this bill or that relationship? If all we do as spiritual leaders is dispense money, we fail or lose the opportunity to build confidence and hope in God. We need to measure a person's desire for God in every quest for help. Maybe you're asking God to solve a problem in your life. Once that problem is over, you're done with God for a while. Then another problem or crisis pops up and you come running to Him again and say, God, get me through this. Put a bandaid on this and I'll be back to see you later. No, God is bringing us by every trial and every difficulty into a growing kinship with him, a ripening relationship, a deeper relationship with him. The Lord reveals his answer to the ones who come to him and say, Lord, what I really need is you. to the man who was crippled, who came down through the roof. He said to them, I will heal you, but your faith has made you well or whole. Take up your bed and walk." Your faith in God. You've come here knowing who I am and knowing that I am the answer to every need you have. What a great God we have. Amen. What a great God we serve. Your trust in God matters. Troubles are the highway, the fast track to full dependence upon God. It was just interesting listening already to these testimonies of young lives that God is already beginning to use and work in. And through trouble and difficulty and separation and hard times, God is already using the furnace of affliction to create in them a great basis of character. I love that about God. I don't always love the trials he puts me through. I love that God is creating in us a great appetite. What do you want from me? God asks. to the rich young ruler who came saying, I want a ticket to heaven. The Lord said, no, go sell everything you have first. He knew he really didn't want a relationship with God. He just wanted security, a ticket out of hell. And the Lord is saying, no, that's not what we're here to just dispense that. I'm here to develop a relationship with mankind. And it's based on your understanding of sin and who I am, your greatest need. It's me. So there's a question that qualifies the heart. What do you want? It's a good question for all of us to ask ourselves tonight. And secondly, there's a question that quantifies the need. What do you have in your house? You see that in verse two. Tell me what hast thou in the house. Now he probably knew that she didn't have a long list of fiscal treasures in her house or she wouldn't have been there asking for help. He knew that she was basically bankrupt. What do you have in the house? That's a prying question, isn't it? Think about it. What business, Elisha, is it? Why not just give the lady a check? Come on. Is all this diagnosis really that necessary? You know, she's poor and needy. She's a widow for crying out loud. What does she have to offer thee? No husband? Two hungry boys? No savings account, flat broke. And I find this line of questioning very fascinating. What do you think God, through this question, is getting at? What do you have in the house? What do you have as a collateral for this miracle that you're asking for? What do you have? What is in your hand, dear friend? You're coming to God. And you're asking him to get you through a crisis or provide something for you that you don't have now. Why would Elisha ask that question of her? Why didn't Elisha turn to his servant Eleazar and say, Eleazar, why don't you go check our benevolence fund? See how much we can give this lady. Or, would you please go, dear servant of mine, and check up here in the pantry and see if we could at least give her some cans of soup to get her through the day. Or please go check and see what the address is to the local rescue mission. Let's send her there for a night or for a week. Instead, he asked her, what do you have in your house? That's interesting. I find it fascinating. He's asking her, by the way, it's one of the ways of God, to respond to our destitution by asking us to contribute in the provision of our own miracle. Now, don't get me wrong. None of us can contribute to the miracle of saving grace. It's all of God. It's a free gift. But this is a faith-building experience for a lady that's already a believer in God. So he asked the question, what do you have? It's an assessment of her faith. Moses, remember the question, what is in your hand? You poor shepherd, you stammering shepherd. What's in your hand? It's a rod, so throw it down. See what I can do. He did. It's just amazing to me how many times when God does a miracle, he uses the modicum, at least the starter, we would call it the kindling for this miracle, he uses something that we now possess or now have, though it be little and insignificant, God starts with what's in our hand, what's in our wallet, what's available to us. I don't know why God does that entirely, but he does often when he does a miracle. You think about it in the Bible. Philip comes up to the Lord. Remember that 15,000 are seated by the seashore. And the Lord says, what are we going to do? One of the disciples says, they're getting hungry. It's toward evening now. What should we do? Should we send them away? There's not enough money to buy bread for this crowd. And the Lord says what to Philip? What do we have? What do we have here? And Philip and the disciples say, all we have is a boy's lunch. Two fish and five loaves, and what is that among so many? And the Lord says, bring it to me. Go get that. We'll start with that. And as you look at the miracles of Elisha, although we've not gone through all of them, we've gone through some, we see that it's God's way to involve human resource and human obedience in the grand plan of his good miracles for us, his great provisions for us. Already in 2 Kings 2, in verse 20, he said, when he crossed the Jordan River, he went to Jericho. Remember that? There was water that wasn't useful or healthy. So he says, give me a new bowl, give me a cruz, at least give me a bowl, and put salt in it. So they had to involve themselves. in that miracle. And then this miracle of the destruction of the Moabite army. Remember, he said, go dig ditches. Go dig some ditches. God's gonna fill it up with water. And the reflection of the water will confuse them. It'll provide water for your troops and will confuse the enemy. But you need to be involved in this. It's what's in your hand. It's what you can do. Take those shovels and go dig a few ditches and I'll do the rest. Someone has said this, we set the sails But God provides the wind, and that's true. God wants you, if you're coming to Him and asking Him for great things this year, how are you preparing yourself for that? What are you doing? So it is that God often involves just the natural setting and the natural surrounding and things that we have. What is in your house? That's a great question. It's a good question. This lady's coming, she says, I need a miracle of grace, amazing grace. I don't have anything, I'm fully dependent. Lord, you've got to bring me through this brink to the brink of, I'm on the brink of destitution, you've got to bring me through this river of hopelessness. And the question comes to this poor lady, so tell me, what do you have? I believe God can, yes, he can. But what's in your hand, your wallet? What's in your house? Well, I've got two kids, Elisha. I've got two boys and one little jar of oil. Okay, we'll start with that. You think about this, the widow's mite, and then the story of Elijah who preceded Elisha and that desperate woman. Remember her sad song? He came to her house and they were picking up sticks in the yard. She was so desperate, she said, I've got just this little bit of meal left and these sticks. Burn this little fire and fix these little cakes. Then we're gonna die, she said to Elijah. And what did Elijah say to her? I love this. Always surprises in the Bible. You go, fire up the oven, use those three or four little sticks, put what's left of the flour in the oven. And then what did he say? You remember the story? You feed me first. Boy, how selfish is that? God was testing her. and then give it to your son and then see what God does. But feed me first. He wasn't selfish, he was testing her faith. See what God will do. See if God won't sustain you. Job, here he was, the object of a great tragedy, we would call it, and yet God removes his 10 children and then sitting there, scraping himself in the ashes, he not only loses his family, but by the permissive will of God, he loses his health too. And Job, who thought he had at least his health to hang on to, had to give that up as well. And yet, with a resolution in his eye, he said, if God slays me, I will still trust Him. But I'm all in. Well, there's this one little jar of oil, probably a vessel of medicinal oil or anointing oil used for anointing the skin after a bath. Probably more expensive, Bible historians tell us, than just regular cooking oil. But she had just that, and so she gives it up to the Lord. And what a heart of faith she has. She combines this This little resource that she has with these faltering footsteps of faith, and God does the rest. I think of the little things that we have that we hang on to so tightly and God wants to use. And so he says, I want you to do something. I want you to take that little jar of oil, and then I want you to go to your neighbors. There's a resource often, as I was studying this past, it was a blessing to me. There's a resource we don't often think of. What do you have in the house? Well, I've got just nothing but a pot of oil, and it's a small one, and I've got two sons, and they're not able to bring a lot of resource in, but that's it. He said, but what about outside the house? She began to think about her friends. Do you know, he used that resource, that network of friends, and it may have been just the friends there that she knew in the ministry of the prophets. It may be farther scoped out than that, but he says, I want you to go now to your neighbors and friends. By the way, in crisis, that's a great resource. Sometimes we don't think about that. If your friends and neighbors won't give to you when you're in a crisis, probably you've been acting like a rascal. There's a reason they won't give to you. But if you've lived the kind of life you ought to live, well, most friends and most neighbors will respond to you in crisis. And he knew that. Sometimes we don't add those to our list. She had a pot of oil, two sons. She had neighbors. Amen. We have the church. And then she had God and the advice of Elisha. So he qualifies her heart. What do you want? What do you want from God and from me? He quantifies her resource. One jar of oil, two sons, many loving neighbors, and a big God. And then he says, well, my, you have more than you thought you had. Don't be discouraged. You're surrounded by good things. Often we think in terms of what we don't have. I have a big old empty house. My bank account is empty. Things are going in the wrong direction for me, it seems like, circumstantially. And yet God says, wait a minute. Consider, focus on the things you have. And you have great resource in your house. Well, we have a little bit. And so she is encouraged to use that for this great miracle. Sometimes we quit. We just quit tithing. We quit giving. We quit serving because we get surrounded by wolves, so to speak. And we begin to sing, oh me, woe is me, because we don't have this and we don't have that. And why is it that in the midst of our desperation we quit doing the right things? We quit having our devotions because we think God is unkind to us. We quit tithing because we think we don't have enough to tithe. We quit giving to the Lord. We quit using our little talents and abilities because we think that we don't have enough and God's unkind. God always points that little bit, that widow's mite, and says, okay, what do you have? Use that for the glory of God. Maybe you can sing. So sing to the glory of God. He said, I'm not much. I can't do much. Maybe you can serve. Maybe you've got mechanical abilities. Commit that to the Lord and see what God does. Prepare yourself for the great things that are ahead for you in this year by simply committing the little things that you have to the Lord. William Barclay writes just a wonderful hymn, or not a hymn, but the lyric of a poem that I thought it was very good. He said, I'm not called, perhaps, Lord. I'm just a blackened pot in a kitchen full of fancy pans. I'm not called to be a saint, I guess, doing the lovely things, like watching up late with thee, or dreaming in the dawn light with thee, or storming hell's gates. So here's my little vessel of clay, my little cruise of oil. Just let me be the saint that gets the meals and washes up the plates. Just let me do my part and see what God does through my life. The widow's desperation, the prophet's discernment. He was wise to qualify her heart and to ask her, what do you have? Are you willing? to start with that. Dedicate everything in your life. No holdouts. See what God will do if you'll bring to Him the little bit. Little is much if God is in it. And then we see the Lord's great deliverance. You know the end of the story. They were really delivered because of their initial obedience to Elisha's command to obey. I wish I could have been there to hear this dear mother's discussion with her sons as they went out among the neighbors. Go son, go over there, go over here, and ask them for their unused clay pots. The ones that they're just sitting around that they're perhaps not using. Ask to borrow them and tell them Tell them, son, we won't need them for long. We'll wash them and return them in just a little while. And if they ask questions about what you're doing, just tell them that Elisha has sent you and he sent me to borrow empty vessels and don't borrow just a few. We don't know what God's going to do, children, but he's capable of doing great things. I know she might have told them because I've heard about how Elisha took an old piece of skin mantle cloth and hit the Jord River and it split open. And then I heard about what happened when the bears came down and scared off the children and mauled some of them and taught them a lesson. I've heard what God did to the Moabite army. I've heard how he healed the waters at Jericho. I know that we have a big God, children. I don't know what God's up to, but let's do our part. Knock on doors. Collect as many of these clay vessels as you can. They brought them together and what a thing it must have been for that dear family. They closed the door because this was to be a private miracle that God included in scripture that we might all enjoy it. But he didn't want the community to be gawking at this amazing thing, and one by one the vessels came. And from that one pot where the oil was originally, as you know, this oil flowed into every single pot until finally she asked the son, bring me yet another one. The house was nearly The floor space, at least, was full of these full vessels of oil. And she was told by her son, verse six, there's not one more clay pot jar in the house, mom. And then the oil stopped. Blessing it must have been to her. She, I'm sure, hot-footed it over to where the prophet was, and she told the story of how God had miraculously provided And here it is, this wonderful truth that God will deliver us. He loves the widow, He loves all of His children, and He's promised that His children will not beg bread. You will not go into destitution obeying and living for the Lord, even though times may be very difficult. I just love the story of those who were in that boat on that sea in Galilee that night or that day, where they started off, of course, across the sea at the Lord's command. Halfway across, this mighty storm came, and these disciples who knew of the Lord and had walked with him had a crisis of faith. It wasn't a crisis of big waves. or water in the boat, it was a crisis of faith. Because Jesus was there. How silly to fear when God is near. And yet they did. And they blamed Him. Lord, if you would just wake up and pay attention, we're about to die here. That's my loose translation. And he awakes, of course, and he settles the sea, as he can do. He's the creator of it all. Mind you, it's important for us not to forget that. And then he settles them down. He says, man, I'm amazed at you. You're marveling at what I've just done. As they look outside the boat, the sea is as calm as glass. You're wondering what manner of man I am, but I'm asking you a question, dear disciples. Why are you so fearful? And then he follows it with another question. Remember? Where is your faith? This year, we have no doubt some storms a-coming, some times of leanness, Many times as we look at the pantry of our lives, we may find that, truly, it looks rather bare. We're hanging on by our fingernails to the edge of the roof, and God is whispering to us, I want you to trust me. I just want you to trust me. That's why I've brought the difficulty. And oh, there's a sweetness, dear friend, when we quit hanging on to things that can't support us, and then let go and just hang on to the arms of God who wants to provide for us in His own way. Often He will ask us though, how is it that you can use what you have to provide proof that you do believe in me? Give me what you have and I will do great and mighty things through that. Let's pray together, shall we Father? Thank you for joining us today. Please tune in each week for new messages from Pastor Lauren Regeer at Bible Baptist Church in Hampton, Georgia. Until next time, may the Lord bless you and keep you and make his face shine upon you.