I love that verse, to the one who caused all things to be, the one who rules in sovereignty. We're going to be looking at an amazing providence today in this, our seventh in the series of Women of Faith. It's 1 Kings chapter 17, and I'm just going to read part of the story. We'll begin at verse 8 and end at verse 16. Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. See, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you.' So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, indeed, a widow was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, please bring me a little water in a cup that I may drink. And as she was going to get it, he called to her and said, Please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand. So she said, as the Lord your God lives, I do not have bread, only a handful of flour in a bin and a little oil in a jar. And see, I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son that we may eat it and die. And Elijah said 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. 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 he 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. Amen. Father, we thank you for your word. And as we look at this, I pray that it would be a word that would be transformational in our lives. Help us to grow in you, to love you, to trust you, and to advance the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ through your power. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, there are two widows in the Bible that gave their all to God. In Luke chapter 21, Christ was looking at a widow giving her last piece of money to the Lord in the temple, and we don't know the rest of her story. All that we know is that God noticed, God cared, and God valued her gift. And so even though we don't know the rest of the story, I can know with confidence, based upon that, that God took care of her and continued to minister in her life. God has many, many promises to widows and to orphans. Well, today's story is the Old Testament version of the widow's mite, where a woman gives the very last thing that will hold her body and soul together. She gives it to God, and thankfully, we do have the rest of this story. And I think it's a wonderful story that showcases God's providence, judgments, mercy, grace, miracles, missions, care. It shows so many things. And unlike the widow in Luke chapter 21, this widow was a Gentile in a foreign land. And to me, this shows that God has always had a heart of missions. Now, a lot of people miss out on that because they don't understand that in the Old Testament, God had a different pattern for missions than he did in the New Testament. God deliberately established Israel on the map so that nations would either have to go by it, you know, on their ports or would have to travel through it. It was set up at the crossroads of the nations. And God established Israel very deliberately to be a priest to the nations. That in itself is a mission statement. But as George W. Peters points out in his book, A Biblical Theology of Missions, he called Old Testament missions, centripetal missions. In other words, there was a drawing power that God had attracting people to Israel, whereas in the New Testament, it's centrifugal missions where the church is slung out to the far reaches of the globe. But missions was always intended to be a central feature of biblical religion. Now, here's the problem. There was nothing in Israel for the world to be attracted to it, to be jealous of, nothing. The magnetic attraction of God's law and grace was not present. And in the book of Kings, we see that Israel had completely lost its heart for the gospel of grace, and as a result had lost its heart for missions. But since no person and no nation can remain neutral, what automatically happens is that the world began to missionize Israel. If we're not invading the world, the world is going to be invading us. This is one of the reasons we see the church as being so worldly. What we're doing, our concept of missions is totally different than the concept of missions that God has established, where His law and His gospel are united. God wants every aspect of life. invaded by the Gospel. But anyway, in chapters 13-16 we see that the world began invading Israel more and more just like the church of today is taking on the characteristics of the world. King Ahab married a woman from the region that this widow is from, from Sidon, and Jezebel had brought her missionary prophets into Israel advancing the religion of Baalism, the god Baal, and completely turning it into a thoroughly pagan state. Ahab even made Christianity illegal, was hunting down the true prophets and killing them. King of Israel was not a good guy. Take a look at chapter 16 and verse 33. And Ahab made a wooden image. Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him. So when Elijah left the land of Israel for the region of Phoenicia, where Sidon was, it showed two things. It showed, first of all, that God had abandoned Israel. And it showed, secondly, that God has a mission's heart. He sought and saved a Gentile widow. Missions accompanied Elijah wherever he went. Verse 8 of chapter 17 says, then the word of the Lord came to him saying, arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. Sidon, as I mentioned, was where Queen Jezebel was from. And Zarephath was at the heart of the Baal worshiping idolatry. And so God was invading the Phoenician country with his missionary agent. But I think it's also important to realize that God, through Elijah, declared war on all those who served this foreign god, this Baal, whether they were in Israel or in Phoenicia. And it shows, once again, there can be no neutrality in life. Either we are in submission to God, or we are automatically becoming enemies of God. Let me give a little bit of background on what is going on here. Baal was supposed to be the god of rain and fertility and crop productivity. The Phoenicians would claim when it didn't rain, they say, well, Baal's gone on vacation to the underworld. The underworld is where a lot of the gods dwelt, supposedly. And so that's why there is no rain. Well, That theory was about to be proven wrong in chapters 17 through 18 because after three and a half years of zero rain and no moisture, not even dew on the ground, it became pretty apparent Baal can't be just gone on vacation for a while. He's a phony. He's a fake. He's dead. He is not the God whom he claims to be. and the contest between the prophets of Baal and the true prophet of Yehoah in chapter 18, that's the famous story of Mount Carmel, remember, when fire comes out of heaven and devours even the altar itself. That was the climax of this war against Baalism. But the war had already started in the first verses of this chapter. So chapter 17, verses 1 through 7 make it clear that it is Yehoah alone who brings rain. He alone brings drought. All of nature is dependent upon him. So let's read those first seven verses. And Elijah the Tishbite of the inhabitants of Gilead said to Ahab, as the Lord God of Israel lives before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years except at my word. He's the representative of Yehovah. So this is basically a slap in the face of the God of Ahab, Baal. Says, he has no power. It is the true God, Yehoah, who is the one who dispenses or withholds rain. Verse two, then the word of the Lord came to him saying, get away from here and turn eastward and hide by the brook Cherith, which flows into the Jordan. And it will be that you shall drink from the brook and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there. So he went and did according to the word of the Lord, for he went and stayed by the brook Cherith, which flows into the Jordan. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook. And it happened after a while that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land." Now that section all by itself is worth a sermon, but I'll only mention that this drought was a judgment brought against Ahab and Jezebel. It was brought to show the powerlessness of the Phoenician god that Jezebel and Ahab worshipped, the god Baal. Since they claimed that their god controlled the weather, Elijah said no one would receive any rain or any dew until Yehovah gave it. And in chapter 18 at Mount Carmel, the true god gets all the glory as he declares war on the prophets. of Baal and as he brings what their prophets could not, he brings rain. It's a marvelous story. But the same writer of this story about the widow wants to make clear that this drought did not just affect Israel. It affected Phoenicia and the heart of Baal worship. God is attacking the throne of Baal worship. And of course, all of the citizens of Phoenicia suffer because of their connection with the religion of that nation. We Christians are not exempt from suffering just because we're Christians. We are covenantally connected to a wicked nation that has abandoned Almighty God, has slapped God in the face, as it were, with our laws and with our actions, the LGBTQ cause and all of those things, and we're going to suffer along with the nation. And so that's the bad news for you and me, but here's the good news for you and me. God can still protect us and provide for us to some degree. God protects his elect. It's true, this lady was not yet a believer, but since she was elect, God would need to keep her from dying before she heard the gospel, right? She would suffer with the nation, but she would not die. And thus far, God had provided for her adequately, but her resources were about to run out. And even that, I think, has an application for today. We can be confident that the elect will not die, God will preserve the elect until they are able to hear the gospel. Indeed, the very judgments that condemn the non-elect are used by God to draw the elect to himself. This is one of the reasons why theologians speak of them as redemptive judgments. Now, they don't redeem the non-elect. In fact, they condemn the non-elect. The non-elect, when they see these curses coming upon a nation, they blaspheme God. And they hate him, but God uses these judgments as proofs that what they previously, what the elect had previously trusted in, have let them down so that they can put their trust in the true God. So even tough times have redemptive purposes. We ought not to be discouraged if America goes through astoundingly tough times. He will use those tough times to redeem the elect and cause them to grow strong in him, just like this widow. Now, if you read very many commentaries in First Kings, you will see them saying that the writer is making the same theological point a second time here. The point that he made earlier, theologically, this miracle in Zarephath would demonstrate that Yehoah could accomplish what Baal could not, okay? And he will do so on Baal's own turf. It is a powerful story to illustrate God's lordship over all the earth. He's not just the God of Israel, okay? And since Queen Jezebel was from Sidon, since she worshiped Baal and set up Baal's prophets to be her prophets, this story will demonstrate that Yehovah has greater power than Jezebel's prophets or gods. So enough said on that. But we're going to be showing how this story of the widow of Zarephath beautifully illustrates God's sovereign grace, his provision, his miraculous power. We're going to be looking at a number of applications we can make in our own lives. Now, so far, God has provided for Elijah in rather unusual ways, commanding ravens to feed him. Now God is going to be providing for him in an even more unusual way, he's going to be using a starving widow who only has a handful of flour left, he's gonna use her to feed Elijah during this time, very unlikely source. Now that this widow does indeed come to trust in Christ at some point is quite clear, everybody agrees, Luke 4, this story is used by Christ as a rebuke against Israel. And she became a believer, but there is not the same opinion amongst commentators on how she became a believer or when she became a believer. Did it happen in verse 9? Or did it happen later on in the story? In verse 9, God tells Elijah, see, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you. He's still in Israel. He says, I've commanded a widow there to provide for you. That's past tense. And you might think that settles the question, but actually it doesn't because people say, well, how did he command this widow? Some believe that he spoke to her via some form of revelation, such as a dream, a vision, or perhaps some other prophet. And there were quite a number of other prophets at that time. And that's what I tend to believe. I'll just give you a heads up. But other commentators, very you know, cogently say that God's command doesn't refer to revelation at all. Instead, it refers to his providence. For example, as in verse 4, where God commands the ravens to feed Elijah. He just providentially made these ravens do what would not be natural for ravens to do. They would just eat the food themselves, right? But he He makes these ravens, by His providence, want to feed Elijah. No revelation. Okay, so there are differences of view on that. Either way, and in one sense it doesn't matter, either way it is remarkable. If God simply moved her heart providentially to be willing to give away her last morsel of food and to believe in Yehoah, we would say that is a remarkable providence. And we can trust God's providence to prepare the way for the elect to believe in him today. We just go out as messengers, right? When we evangelize, it's not up to us to change people's hearts. We're just looking for those whom God has already providentially prepared. So that's one way of taking it. But in this passage, there seems to be more than providence at work. In verse 12, we see that she already knows the name of Yehoah. That was a very unique name for Israel, and even Israel wasn't using the name Yehoah. They were worshiping Baal. Where on earth did she learn about the name of Yehoah? And then secondly, she knows that Yehoah is the true God, and she is willing to stake her life upon that fact. by making this solemn vow. Since faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, it seems to imply she had a previous revelation. So I tend, I'm not dogmatic on this, but I tend to side with the minority of commentators who say that God did indeed give some revelation in verse nine, either a dream or a vision or some other prophet had spoken to her. And when Elijah shows up, she is somewhat prepared to do what she did. But either way you interpret the passage, God prepared her to do what was not natural. What would be natural would be for her to keep the food for herself and for her son. They were starving after all, but she goes against all natural impulses and gives the prophet her last morsel of food. So I think you can agree that this is a remarkable action. And actually, in verses 10 through 11, we have two tests of faith, not just one. Keep in mind that throughout the whole region, water was scarce as well, and that she only has enough food for one meal. But verse 10, so he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, indeed, a widow was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, please bring me a little water in a cup that I may drink. And as she was going to get it, he called to her and said, please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand. Now she probably has very little strength left if, as she says, she and her son are on the verge of death. But rather than giving up, she gathers sticks to cook her last meal. I love that about her. Okay, she didn't just passively wait around because it seems hopeless anyway. And she didn't scarf down her flour because she's starving hungry and eat it without cooking. She has the patience to cook it, a good meal for her and for her son. And I just see from this that we need to do what God providentially enables us to do and leave the results in his hand. We must be responsible. She also shows hospitality and care for another human being when everything in her would be crying out to focus on herself and her son. She immediately goes to fetch him some water. I think that's so cool. All by itself, just the water, shows self-sacrifice on her part. She's serving him, even though she believes she is close to dying. But then comes the second test of her faith. He asked for a bit of bread. And this is really asking for the widow's might. At that point, she does explain her poverty to him. So she said, as the Lord your God lives, I do not have bread, only a handful of flour in a bin and a little oil in a jar. And see, I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son that we may eat it and die. So she explains that she didn't have any bread yet and that she was planning to go to prepare some bread, but it wasn't going to be very much. And based on Elijah's next words, it appears maybe even a little fear has crept into her. But that is not enough fear to evaporate her faith. She has enough faith to say with conviction that Yehoah does indeed live. Anytime Lord is in all capital letters, it's the name Yehoah or Jehovah or Yahweh, however you want to pronounce that. I pronounce it Yehoah. And when she says, as the Lord your God lives, she's saying, as Yehoah your God lives. Now this is a powerful confession of faith or profession of faith in Yehoah rather than in Baal. She's not an Israelite yet, so the way she words it, she realizes she's not an Israelite yet, but she knows that Yehoah lives. He is the true God. How did she find out about Yehoah? That would not have been a name that would have been universally known. And it's one of the reasons that I suspect God revealed himself to her and gave her a literal command via revelation in verse nine. But either way, she believes in Yehoah, verse 13. And Elijah said 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. 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. When he says, do not fear, it implies she had some fear that was fighting with her faith, okay? Fear and faith are incompatible. And if you're fearful, you need to work on that because we must get rid of fear. Only the fear of God is compatible with faith. Fear of men, fear of circumstances is not compatible with faith. When he asked her to make a cake for him first, and then for herself and her son, he was challenging and testing her faith. Now, she only had a handful of flowers, not much. It's only gonna make one cake. So he's asking her to make a cake from that flour and that oil, cook it, bring it to him, and then, how is she gonna make another cake? Then go and make another one for herself and another one for her son. And so this is really a call for faith and that she did exactly as he said is proof positive that she was a woman of faith. If she had not been a believer, it would have been very difficult to even believe that this was possible. Verses 15 through 16, I think show this. So she went away and did according to the word of Elijah and she and he 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. Now that phrase, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke. If you read 1 and 2 Kings, that's a regular drumbeat that occurs according to the word of the Lord that he spoke, whatever prophet it is that is speaking. And here's the point. If God makes a promise, he fulfills his promise. It doesn't matter how impossible it may seem to be, you can bank on it, you can count on the fact God will fulfill his promises to those who have faith in him. Now here's the question. Is this a one-time-in-history, never-to-be-repeated miracle? Jesus seems to imply the opposite in Luke chapter 4. Jesus used this very story to rebuke the Jews of his day for failing to have faith in God's provision for their present day, for failing to receive Jesus. Likewise, Paul tells the Philippians who are acting like the widow, they're giving out of poverty, and my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus, Philippians 419. In 2 Corinthians 9, Paul applies Old Testament miraculous stories of provision, similar to the multiplying of the bread and the oil here, it's the manna, to their own circumstances, and he says this. But this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity, For God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work. As it is written, he is dispersed abroad, he is given to the poor, his righteousness endures forever. Now may he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food supply and multiply the seed you have sown and increase the fruits of your righteousness while you are enriched in everything for all liberality which causes thanksgiving through us to God. Now I should have probably started with how manna is the main theme that he's dealing with. And Paul is saying that the central principle of God's provision of manna was not that God's going to do identically and supply us manna. That's missing the point. Paul is saying God will supply our needs now just as surely as He supplied their needs back then. And so there are a number of applications we can make from this beautiful story. First of all, God continues to be the God of miraculous provision to those who are expendable for Him. Kathy and I can tell you of numerous times when God has come through for us when we have given our all. In our first church, we lived on fumes. We really did. Now we had bills that needed to be paid, utility bills needed to be paid, and we didn't have, we were just short a few cents. And we're looking everywhere, searching, okay, Lord, would you help us to find enough money? And we'd look under the sofa. cushions and find a few cents and look under our seats in our car. Maybe some of you sat on those sofas and provided the quarters and the nickels and the pennies. Thank you if you did. But anyway, it was to the penny exactly what we needed to be able to pay our bills. There are other times where we use cloth diapers because that was the most economical way to go, but we had to go on a trip and there was not going to be any washing of diapers, and we couldn't afford to get disposable diapers, and so we just prayed, Lord, would you provide some disposable diapers for us? And lo and behold, our mailbox gets flooded with samples of disposable diapers, just enough diapers for that trip, okay? One time, When we had prepared enough food for 50 people, 100 people showed up. And we're thinking, this is not going to go around to everybody here. So Kathy and I said, no, let's pray to the Lord in faith. Lord, would you multiply, not the loaves and the fishes, would you multiply the potatoes and the meat? And not only did everyone there have generous second helpings, but there was enough left over that we were serving guests during the whole next week. Some of these things, Kathy, I'll tell you a story. This happened several times, and it makes no mathematical sense whatsoever. None. You cannot calculate it. It was very literally an astonishing multiplying of the meat and potatoes. Now, Our first few years in this church had money flowing through our hands and out into the kingdom that made no sense, other than that our God continues to be the God who multiplies the oil, the flour, the loaves, and the fishes. When you are sold out to God, this is a principle I think you need to lay hold of. When you are sold out to God, he proves himself to be a generous God. You cannot out give God. He's not just the God of Elijah. He continues to be the God of the widow and of you and of me. But God does expect us to do what we can. Just as this woman gathered sticks, lit fires, mixed dough, cooked it, sliced it, and served it. God expects us to do the same. He does not bless laziness, lack of planning, or irresponsibility. He expects us to use all of the means that He has put at our disposal. And I think that this lady is a great example of the responsible diligence of true faith, not presumption, but the responsible diligence of true faith. You read Hebrews 11, you'll see it's always diligent. Faith always works, it acts. Though God loves to bless the needy who are willing to give their last might, he does not bless laziness or irresponsibility. Now another application that I see is that God's blessings may sometimes seem to be too frugal even though they are always adequate. What do I mean by that? Well, God did not provide salad, steak, and lobster to this Elijah and this woman. Well, he probably wouldn't have been able to eat lobster. It was non-kosher, right? But the point is, I don't see them complaining at all about the fact that he only multiplied what they already had, okay? Oil and flour for months at the minimum, but more probably for years that he stayed there. The text seems to imply that they ate exactly the same thing for a long, long time. Bread made from oil, flour, and water, which means You can live on oil and wheat for a long, long time if you absolutely have to. Our bodies are designed to be able to live on a lot less than I think what most of us think they can. Now, this is not a license to eat poorly and eat donuts three times a day, okay? Don't take it that way. And it's not a license to say, I'm just going to store up wheat because it's the cheapest thing. You know, we do need to be wise, but it is a caution not to fear if God providentially has all of your stuff swiped and all you have left is wheat and oil. God can make that be just fine for your bodies, right? Just as he can multiply the oil and the wine, he can give you the nutrition that you need as well. OK. Have I emphasized enough that it's not an excuse for irresponsible planning? Okay. Anyway, this story reveals eight more things about God's character and work that are not in your outlines. Let me quickly cover them. This story beautifully reveals the mercy of God. Just fantastic. God's mercies were withdrawn from faithless Israel. Now, he had been merciful to Israel for a long, long time. He had given them food and rain. He had given them all kinds of financial and other blessings, just like God continues to bless America long after America has abandoned God. I mean, we still have all our money in God we trust, but that's a lie. But he continues to bless us. God also sent prophets to them over and over, giving them a chance to repent. That is mercy. But when Israel rejected that mercy, he moved his mercy to this Gentile widow. And when Christ highlights the sovereign mercy of God that is illustrated by this story in Luke chapter 4, guess what happens? The people in that synagogue push him out of the synagogue, push him out of the city, try to throw him off of a cliff. What's going on there? Well, what's going on is they don't like the idea that God can sovereignly bestow mercy on whom He wills and withhold mercy from whom He wills. It's sovereign mercy. As Romans 9 says, I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion. Therefore, he has mercy on whom he wills and whom he wills he hardens. Well, sovereign mercy is written all over this story. Second, the omniscience of God can be seen. God showed Elijah about the future. Only God knows the future, but God can reveal parts of the future to His people, right? He's never blindsided by anything. He knows all things possible because He knows what His attributes could do, but He knows all things actual because He's the one who's decreed all of history. He's the one providentially fulfilling those decrees. Third, this story shows his omnipresence. In verse 1, God told Ahab, as the Lord God of Israel lives, before whom I stand. So he was standing before the Lord in Israel. He was standing before the Lord in Phoenicia. Wherever Elijah was, God was there. He knew that God was there, no matter how life was difficult. And God was certainly at work in both places. He was present with the ravens at the very same time that he was present with the woman. Why? He's commanding the ravens in Israel. He's commanding the woman in Phoenicia. He is omnipresent. And his presence backs up his commands. Fourth, it shows God's omnipotence as over against the weakness of the demonic gods of the pagans and of Jezebel. Our God controls the winds, clouds, dew, rain, droughts, crop, and everything else. And it was by God's power that the oil and the flour never ran out till God said it would. In fact, in the next story, God shows that he's got power over death itself. He is omnipotent. And the stories of these attributes really are designed to stir up our faith in him. God has not changed. They stir up our faith in him. Fifth, this story highlights the goodness of God. God's goodness in rain and sun, God's goodness in daily food, God's goodness in providing salvation, God's goodness to a prophet, God's goodness to a widow and her son. It shows God's goodness that was spurned by Israel and God's goodness received with gratefulness by a widow. Sixth, God's justice is highlighted as well. Neither Israel nor Phoenicia deserved the reign that God had previously been giving to them. And when God withholds that reign now, then this is justice. Now, people say that's not fair, right? They imply God is not just. When they are going through miserable times, how could there be a God and God allowed these kinds of things to happen? That's what they say. They deny that God could exist. What's really the case is that the true God is nothing like the God of their imaginations, okay? The true God is a God of justice. who rightly punishes evil, and God brings real judgments and real history because of His justice. Seventh, God is a generous God who gives and gives and gives. He gave insight to Elijah. He gave rain and sunshine to Israelites who did not deserve it. God gave food to this woman and her son, probably for two years, two years of daily miracles. He is a generous God who gives and gives and gives. And then last, the story reveals that God is a God who answers. He answers prayer. James 5.17 applies this story saying this, Elijah was a man with a nature like ours and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit. So why does James use Elijah as an illustration of why we should pray in faith? I mean, after all, isn't Elijah a superhero? Surely God wouldn't expect us to pray like Elijah, but that's not what James says. James says that Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed, and God answered his prayers. So here's the point, these stories that God strews through the Old Testament are designed to stir up our faith, cause us to pray, cause us to have the expectation that our God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And that's true, even of Elijah's prayer that God would raise this dead son. When God gives faith, that faith will receive what it asks for. Now, of course, God's the sovereign giver. We can't stir up faith in ourselves. You know, faith comes from God sovereignly through the scriptures. And in this situation, God gave both Elijah and the woman faith to believe yet another impossible thing could happen. Let's finish this chapter. She starts off overwhelmed and without faith. This is verses 17 and following. 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. 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? She makes a mistake that many evangelicals make today. When bad things happen to them, they think, How did I deserve this? What did I do wrong? As if every time a difficult thing happens, it's because of our sins. And they're failing to realize Christ's blood covers our sins. But anyway, death of a loved one can make us very, very distraught and can skew our judgment. But it appears that even Elijah is deeply affected by this, wonders how on earth God could repay with death the incredible kindness and generosity of this woman and her son. Verse 19, and he 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 own bed. Notice how different this is from the faith healings that occur all over the place on the TV today. They make a public spectacle of every healing, and they try to monetize and market every healing to enrich themselves. He simply takes the son in private. He prays in private. He privately brings him back to the woman. No fanfare. Verse 20. Then he cried out to the Lord and said, O Lord my God, have you also brought tragedy on the widow with whom I lodge by killing her son? 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. And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper room into the house and gave him to his mother. And Elijah said, see, your son lives. Then the woman said to Elijah, now I know by this that you are a man of God. and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is the truth. Now, Hebrews 11.35 says of Old Testament saints, through faith, women received their dead raised to life again. Now, since there are only two women in the Old Testament who had their sons raised to life again, it's the woman in this chapter and the lady in 2 Kings 4, And since Hebrews 11.35 speaks of women in the plural, it is once again absolutely certain that this woman had faith that God would raise her son from the dead. Perhaps just the fact that Elijah took her son in his arms gave her sufficient confidence that she had faith that God was going to do this. But anyway, she believes God for even the impossible. Now, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say something that people will definitely criticize me for, but I believe that miracles just like this continue to happen today. I really do. We cannot demand them, but the same God of miracles is at work. And I know that there will be skepticism, but that's okay. You don't need to believe things simply because the pastor says things. You need to be captive to the word of God. But here's my point. The evangelical church is not captive to the word of God on this issue of miracles. They are not. They are not. People say that signs of an apostle have passed away, and so there are no more miracles. But are miracles only signs of an apostle? No. Mark 16 is one of several passages that speak of signs also accompanying a believer, right? And miracles are one of those signs. Now, I won't list all of the temporary resurrections that I believe have actually occurred, but let me give you five testimonies. First report comes from a guy who is a dear friend of mine, from the fourth century, Augustine. Augustine is a great guy. Initially, he was utterly skeptical of these reports that other pastors had said. He said, I just don't think people are getting raised from the dead. But then he started examining and he gives testimony of several cases of people who had died and were raised to life by prayer. One of them had been dead for four days. He was already decomposing. And he cites the witnesses. Now, as I mentioned, he used to be skeptical of these things, but he said, these resurrections have so many witnesses, they are undeniable. Two centuries earlier, Irenaeus, who lived from 130 to 202 AD, gave similar reports. He said, as I've said, the dead even have been raised up and remained among us for many years. There are death certificates for two that are pretty remarkable that I have read about in recent years. But let me get personal. I personally know that my grandma was prayed back to life after she died and after she experienced heaven. Ask my mom, she'll tell you the story about it. It's a pretty interesting story. My sister-in-law's grandma came back to life after she had been declared dead, certified dead, in a hospital room. And they were ready to wheel her off to the morgue. She was dead. And the interesting thing about her is her soul left her body, a five-point Arminian, came back into her body, a five-point Calvinist. And I asked her, I asked her, how on earth? She had already heard all of the debates and had just resisted five-point Calvinism, but she said when she left her body, she just had the realization of the total depravity of people on planet Earth and instantly recognized, apart from God's sovereign grace, no one would believe. Well, automatically, all the five points of Calvinism clicked in her head. Anyway, when my sister-in-law was a child out in Ethiopia, well actually it was Eritrea, part of Ethiopia at that time but not anymore, she was clinically dead and even had rigor mortis set in, stiff as a board, but through prayer she was raised up. Now, though these kinds of things are rare, there is no reason to believe that God cannot on occasion give a foretaste of the powers of the age to come by raising people to life. We can't demand it, but we should rejoice when it happens and not be totally, utterly skeptical. Our God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And unless he has said in his word explicitly, this is going to cease, then I don't think we should be skeptics about those things continuing. Of course, God would have to sovereignly give faith for that to happen. Now, how long did Elijah stay with the widow and her son? And I'm just going to tie up loose ends here. How long did he stay? We aren't told. He was at the brook Cherith till it dried up. If it dried up after a year and a half of no rain, well, that would mean that Elijah stayed in the widow's house for two years. If the brook dried up after two and a half years, he would have stayed in Widow's house for one year. Now, so we can't know for sure, but just based on the water flow of the brook Cherith, people, a lot of people have supposed that it would have dried up earlier and he would have been with this widow for probably around two years. Why did he stay there? Well, if you take a look at chapter 18, verse 10, the good man Obadiah, So there were good men in the administration of Ahab, and he had hid, what was it, 150 prophets? Anyway, he had hid prophets in caves. So he was doing interposition, and interposition's a big topic that we need to study, but I'm not gonna get into it today. Chapter 18, verse 10. Obadiah says, as the Lord your God lives, there is no nation or kingdom where my master has not sent someone to hunt for you. And when they said he is not here, he took an oath from the kingdom or nation that they could not find you. Everyone was looking for Elijah to capture him to turn him over to Ahab. Ahab thought that everyone had looked in every nook and cranny. The last place they would expect him to be is in a poor widow's house in Zarephath, who on any given day that somebody might come and investigate only had a handful of flour, not enough to sustain her and other people. And so there were strategic reasons to be there. Main reason was to provide for this woman and her son, probably to give Elijah a bit of a vacation as well. He was kind of a stressed out fellow. What happened when Elijah left? Chapter 18 says that he left just before it started to rain. It says, And it came to pass, after many days, that the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year, saying, Go present yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the earth. Now James says that from 1 Kings 17 verse 1, to the reign in chapter 18 was three years and six months, three and a half years. Though we aren't told what the women did after he left, we can assume God continued to care for her, and between her industry and her son's industry, they were able to make it. Now, in terms of propriety, Elijah slept on different floors from the widow. I think this is important to note. Verse 19 says, he took him out of her arms and carried him to the upper room where he was staying and laid him on his own bed. So separate beds, separate floors, and the son's presence in the home would also guard both his and her reputation. But the most important lesson from this story, and we'll end with this, is in the last verse in the chapter. She had certainty that God's prophetic words spoken through Elijah is truth. Not just true, but truth. Verse 24 says, I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is the truth. Though people in those days had to test whether prophets were really from God, once they knew them to be prophets, their prophetic words were always treated as the inerrant word of God. And the same thing is said of the entire scriptures, therefore. Psalms say, your word is truth. Jesus said, John 17, your word is truth. Now that the scriptures have been recorded for all time in the Bible, this book becomes the standard by which all truth claims are judged. And there is a difference between saying that God's word is true and saying God's word is truth. Let me quote from Wayne Grudem at length on this difference. He says, the difference is significant, for this statement encourages us to think of the Bible not simply as being true in the sense that it conforms to some higher standard of truth, but rather to think of the Bible as itself the final standard of truth. The Bible is God's Word, and God's Word is the ultimate definition of what is true and what is not true. God's Word is itself truth. Thus, we are to think of the Bible as the ultimate standard of truth, the reference point by which every other claim to truthfulness is to be measured. Those assertions that conform with Scripture are true, while those that do not conform with Scripture are not true. What then is truth? Truth is what God says, and we have what God says in the Bible. This doctrine of the absolute truthfulness of Scripture stands in clear contrast to the common viewpoint in modern society that is often called pluralism. Pluralism is the view that every person has a perspective on truth that is just as valid as everyone else's perspective. Therefore, we should not say that anyone else's religion or ethical standard is wrong. According to pluralism, we cannot know any absolute truth. We can only have our own views and perspectives. Pluralism is one aspect of an entire contemporary view of the world called postmodernism. Postmodernism would not simply hold that we can never find absolute truth. It would say that there is no such thing as absolute truth. All attempts to claim truth for one idea or another are just the result of our own background, culture, biases, and personal agendas, especially our desire for power. And you can see that in the critical race theory and critical everything theory. Such a view of the world is, of course, directly opposed to a biblical view, which sees the Bible as truth that has been given to us from God. Now this means... that all of the discoveries that you read out there on science, counseling, economics, education, history, you name it, politics, all of those other endeavors of life must be held in subordination to the Bible. And let me just use this story to illustrate this. If science declares that it is impossible, based on the laws of science, it is impossible for this oil and this flour to have been continually replenished, we have to say, no. This is the truth. We're going to believe this. And that particular induction that science has made is fallacious. By the way, there is no such thing as a valid induction. I hope you've studied enough logic to know. There is no such thing as a valid induction. I don't want to get into it this morning to go down that rabbit trail. But there is only one source of truth, it is the Bible. Other things may be true, scientific deductions may be true, but if they contradict the Bible, you know for a certainty that they are not. So here's what I would say about science. Induction, conclusions you bring from limited inductions, are helpful, but they are not truth. The Bible is truth. If politicians say that it was immoral for this woman to break the law by not turning Elijah into the authorities when they were looking for him, we have to say, the Bible is truth and politics can err. Okay, if education experts say that the boy should have been sent to public school rather than being kept at home, we have to say, no, the Bible is truth and the NAE has made an error here, right? If historians claim that we can't believe stories like this until they are verified by secular history, what's with that? But that's what they say all the time. We have to say, no, there is only one infallible, inerrant history in the entire world, and it is the Bible. Amen? So here is the point of this whole story. To be faithful to God like this widow was, we have to come to the place where we have implicit faith in the Word of God alone, not implicit faith in what the pastor says, not implicit faith in what the church or anybody else says, implicit faith in the Bible alone. May our hearts be held captive to the Bible, amen. Father, thank you for your Word. Thank you for the testimonies that you strew throughout the Word. that connect with our own life situations and enable us to, by faith, live our lives to your glory. And I pray that each one here would be determined to do so. Bless this, your people, Father, with faith. Bless them with a faith in your undying, eternal, unchangeable, inerrant word. May they have a supreme confidence of the Bible and a diminishing confidence in the wisdom of man. I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.