January 17, 2016 Gods Care Up Close and Personal by Pastor Josh Sheldon

God’s Care for the Widow in 2 Kings 4

Lord, we just praise you as the eternal God. Lord, we thank you that as you have ever been, Lord, you will continue to be. Lord, we thank you that you have provided a rest for us, a heavenly kingdom for us, Lord.

And we thank you that you have always opposed the crown of hearts, that you have been merciful to the poor and the needy. You have protected those who are defenseless. And Lord, we just thank you for this mercy.

I pray that we would humble ourselves and not be in your sight. Lord, that we would, in humility, come before you and learn the truth of your word. Lord, that you would open up the eyes of our heart to hear what Pastor Josh is going to preach today.

Lord, that it would only be truth. And that we would know you better and live in closer communion because of what we hear today.

Hey Joseph, Joseph, would you get me, there's a water bottle on my desk, would you grab it? We'll turn please in your Bible to 2 Kings chapter 4. This morning we're going to consider the widow's oil, as this history is often called.

Thank you. 2 Kings chapter 4. Our text this morning is verses 1 through 7. Let me read those for you. A certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, saying, Your servant, my husband, is dead.

And you know that your servant feared the Lord. And the creditor is coming to take my two sons to be his slaves. So Elisha said to her, What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?

And she said, Your maidservant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil. Then he said, Go, borrow vessels from everywhere, from all your neighbors, empty vessels. Do not gather just a few. And when you have come in, you shall shut the door behind you and your sons.

Then pour it into all those vessels and set aside the full ones. So she went from him and shut the door behind her and her sons, who brought the vessels to her. And she poured it out. Now it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said to her son, Bring me another vessel.

And he said to her, There is not another vessel. So the oil ceased. Then she came and told the man of God. And he said, Go, sell the oil and pay your debt, and you and your sons live on the rest. May God bless the reading and the hearing of his word this morning.

What this passage does is it brings our attention from the grand movements of history, which we had in the great war of the three kings who went to subdue Moab in the previous chapter. From there, from these huge movements, these dramatic events, to the minutest level.

To the trial, the trouble of a single widow in this small town. We're not told even where this small city is where she resided. Jericho, Gilgal, Bethel, where the seminaries were, as we spoke of a few weeks ago.

We go from this great military campaign down to this widow, this single widow's travail. In the previous chapter, three kings had joined together to bring Moab back to submission to their Israelite overlords.

And that mission, initiated by the apostate king of Israel, and without any inquiry to God, without any reference to him, without calling for a prophet before they went, it was an unmitigated disaster.

Moab threw off the yoke imposed centuries before by King David, Jehoram, the king of Israel, his ally Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, the deputy over Edom who answered to Jehoshaphat. They all went home having wasted their time, their resources, their enterprise.

And after this, immediately after this, in the very next verse, the first verse of chapter 4, our inspired historian presents to us this most innocuous of all people, a widow. As we learned back in 1 Kings 17, when Elisha went to Zarephath and there stayed with the widow, you recall that widows were the most desolate of all people in that time and in that land.

They had no special rights, they were generally ignored by society, they had very few resources. Their prospects in the best of times, except in the rarest of cases, was only for the barest existence.

Such a one as this, this unnamed widow from an unnamed town, such a one as this, cries out to the Lord God through Elisha and the Lord hears her plea. The Lord sees her trouble and He hears her cry and God undertakes to do what He had entrusted men to do.

What the law from beginning to end, from the king down to the plainest of men, requires. Which is what? To care for the widow, to look out for the fatherless, the orphan. And those categories only being symbolic of looking out for those who need help, who can't look out for themselves, who are at a moment disadvantaged by whatever means.

Such a one as that cries out to the Lord through the prophet Elisha, and as we will see, has God's ear. You look first at the widow's plight, at her plight. Her husband had been one of the prophets, a disciple of Elisha.

And she reminds Elisha of two of his qualities. One is that he had been Elisha's servant, he served the Lord by his service to the prophet. And the second thing is that he feared the Lord. He was a God worshipper.

He feared God in the right way. His service then was to God through his ministry to Elisha. We have no idea how old this man was, this man, husband of hers who died. His sons are young enough to be of value as slaves, but the man himself could have been quite elderly, or maybe just a few years older, or around the same age as his wife.

We just don't know. But to add pressure to the widow, as if in her loss of her husband she needs any more pressure, to add to that trial is the fact that there is money that he had owed, which now of course she owes.

He had taken up a loan of some sort, and he's left her with no resources to keep up the payments or to pay it off. And what's the collateral for the loan? It's really the only thing she has left, her two sons.

A widow's case in that day was one of just a destitute poverty. The only hope she really had to be out of it would be children, especially sons who could work and care for her. No, they are collateral for whatever money their husband had borrowed.

The creditor is of course on his way. And the way this reads, it's like he's on the path, he's coming down the street, but he has to turn one more corner and he's going to be on her block and be knocking on her door.

The creditor's coming. This is crisis for her. And he's coming right then. And his intent seems to be more than to be paid back. Indentured servitude was an accepted way of paying off debt. But servitude had a limit.

Either the loan would be satisfied by the services rendered, or the year of jubilee would come along and all debts would be forgiven. Servitude had a limit. The creditor has more than this in mind. He doesn't have bonded servitude in mind.

He has slavery in mind. His concern for the widow is about the same level as is his mercy. It's nil. It's just not there. He is like the land where he lives, as far from the mind of God as it's possible to be.

There's so many scriptures that reveal God's thoughts, God's mind, towards widows and orphans and the weak and the defenseless. Let's read a few of these to you. Exodus 22, 22 says,. The prophet Isaiah, chapter 1, verse 17.

He demands this of God's people. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Rebuke the oppressor. Defend the fatherless. Plead for the widow. To those who refuse to hear him, the prophet says,. These are condemnatory words by God, through the prophet, to the people of Judah at that time.

Jeremiah calls for repentance with this. He says, Just one more. The psalmist condemns as cruelty to ignore the case, the need of the widow. It says, There are more, but whether we look to the law, we look to the psalms which reveal God's heart, we look to the prophets who condemn for failure to follow God's law.

Look anywhere in the scripture, the widow and all who are disadvantaged, all who are weak, all who are lowly, all who are in need of merciful assistance, they all come to a special place of God's notice.

Our Lord Jesus Christ took special notice of the widow Nain who had lost her only son when he raised him back to life. Do you remember this from the book of Luke? Where Luke makes that point. And he was her only son.

She was a widow and he was her only son. And this procession is going down the street and Jesus Christ stops it and raises him to life. Not miss the fact, the point, the emphasis that Luke gives us. She was a widow and that was her only son.

The mind of God, you see, is that God's people care for those who especially need care. Those who are not able to fend for themselves for whatever reason. And so with all this, we come to this widow. This woman whose husband had been one of the sons of the prophets, a disciple of Elisha, probably Elijah before Elisha, has served him faithfully.

And what would God have of the creditor? Well, we would say quickly, mercy. We don't have to say even forgive the debt for him to have mercy. We could just show some restraint. Give her a little time.

I know you're a widow. You only have two sons. You guys were poor. You were serving the Lord. You didn't make a lot of money. I'll give you some number of weeks or months or even a couple of years to get your feet under you and get going again.

Something like that. Didn't mean he had to give up all claim to being paid back, though I think God would be pleased had he. He had other options, though, of a lesser degree than that, but other options than coming to her house and taking her only two sons, her only real hope of not living a destitute, poverty-stricken life.

Why do we focus so much on this in this message? There's a theme running through this history that we started. It's actually been about four months. Four months ago. Beginning back in 1 Kings 17 with Elijah.

And this theme is running through now still with Elisha. It's a bit between the lines, but it's really not hard to see. You see, there's a deadness of the land. The land is spiritually dead. And it couldn't be more clearly expressed than a widow who goes to a prophet for help that she ought to not have needed.

She ought to not have needed to make a plea. If this land were spiritually alive, if this land were following God's mind, his heart, his law, the widow would have found a creditor ready to forgive the loan at best, but at least show some restraint, show some mercy, grant her some time to collect herself.

This land is dead. The creditor only needed to look to God for a moment to find a better way than what he was intending to do. And what's more than all this, as you heard in Psalm 72, which Joseph read to you, the king should have been administering justice.

The king should have been being sure that these sorts of things would happen, that widows would be shown mercy, pity, restraint. That's really our overarching background here. We can move forward very quickly.

I want to look at the miracle. That's the widow's situation. That's where she was. I've given you some idea of where she should have been had God's people been following God's mind, his heart, his law.

Let's look at the miracle. Elisha asks what he might do for her. This is not him giving her a choice. He's not wondering aloud, what can I do? What shall I do? Well, let's talk about some options. That's not what's happening here at all.

It's more of a statement that he will do something. It's not, what shall I do for you? It's, what shall I do for you? There's a certainty to it. He begins with what she has, which is only this small flask of oil.

Here she echoes back to the widow at Zarephath, the one that Elijah ran into there in that city, the one that God told him to run into, I should say. That widow in Zarephath, remember she only had this smattering of oil, a little bit of flour.

She was gonna make a little cake and cook it over the sticks that she was gathering when Elijah found her and just have that last meal before they die of starvation. Like that former widow, this one, the one that Elisha has dealt with now, this one also must give up all she has at Zarephath.

The prophet required her last morsel. He said, you make that cake for me and then the Lord will care for you. She had to take that step. Here the last drop of anything valuable she has is the first to be invested.

So he tells her to go and gather all the vessels she can find, all the pottery she can get her hands on. Go to your neighbors and get anything that they're willing to put in your hand. The word can actually mean to beg.

She's to go and beg her neighbors for their empty jars and then she's to bring them inside, close the door and fill them with oil, starting with her small flask, all she has remaining in the world. This is what Elisha is telling her.

He's saying that the oil is going to keep going. I think it's very clear in what he told her to do. There's nothing here that will allow her to fill the first batch of jars, set them aside, then go out and get some more.

It's like saying, hey, this is working pretty well here. Hey boys, go out and get some more of these. This thing seems to be working. It's not like that at all. What she collects will be filled, no more, no less.

Now some people wonder here whether it was her small faith that caused her to not ask for more vessels, as many as she could possibly have gathered up, just cram them into the house as it were. They look ahead to Joash, the king of Israel, who was with Elisha in his last moments.

Do you recall that? And Lord willing, in not too much longer, we'll get there. 2 Kings 13, remember, he's given the arrow of the Lord and he's told to strike the ground with it. And Joash strikes three times and Elisha was angry with him.

So you should have struck seven times. Then you would defeat your enemy these seven times. You would have wiped them out, so to speak. But now you'll only defeat them three times. Some people look ahead to that instance and equate it with the widow here and saying she didn't get enough jars.

But here with this widow, there's no rebuke. With Joash, the king of Israel, the prophet was mad. He was angry at him and he rebuked him to his face. There's nothing like that here. I mean, how could there be, after all those scriptures I read, and there's many, many more you can find very quickly, that reveal to us how God regards widows.

How could the prophet rebuke her? No, the clear sense of it here is that she gathered up plenty. And I would argue she gathered up exactly the right number. Not one too many, not one too few. And what are we speaking of here?

What we're talking about here is faith. It's faith. It's faith that she sent her sons out to gather up all the jars that she could find or that they could find. It's faith that caused her to put her last vial of oil, the last thing she had of any monetary value, as the beginning point of it.

This is not saving faith we're talking about. Let's be clear, not saving faith as one who believes the promises of Jesus Christ who was yet to come. It's faith that God is able. It's faith at its most basic level, if you will, that there is a God and he is able to do this.

She knew Elisha to be a man of God. Her faith was that God was working in Israel through him and that the God who was working was able to do what the prophet had just said he would do. And it's not uncommon for a miracle to be commensurate with the faith of the beneficiary.

Miracles were often commensurate in proportion to the faith of the one who receives the benefit. Matthew chapter nine, verse 28 to 30. And when he, meaning Jesus, and when he had come into the house, the blind men came to him and, excuse me, the blind men came to him and Jesus said to them, do you believe that I'm able to do this?

That's a great question, isn't it? Do you believe I am able to do this? Why are you calling me to you? Did you try some shaman or rabbi and all these other people before and it's not working? You just want to cover all your bases and so you heard of this itinerant preacher who did a few miracles?

That's not acceptable. Jesus says to these men, do you believe that I'm able to do this? This is not a whim, this is not a fancy, this is not just a silly little wish. It's do you have faith? Same word.

That I'm able to do this. And they said to him, Yes, Lord. Jesus obviously believed them. Jesus who knew what was in a man's heart because it says next, that he touched their eyes saying, according to your faith let it be to you and their eyes were opened.

Do you see their blessing from God is commensurate here with the faith that they exhibited, the faith that Jesus knew they had. Notice that he did not say to them, according to your faith was that God was working through him, through Jesus, and he was able to do this.

According to that confidence, Jesus chose to heal their eyes. This does not mean that without faith in Jesus Christ as the son of God who died on the cross that if we should repent of our sins and believe in him and put our faith in him and all our trust in what he did on the cross, if we have not that kind of faith that we can get a lesser benefit.

He'll fix our physical maladies. That's not at all what is being said here. That's not at all what I'm trying to teach from this scripture. Only that in order to reveal the working of God, in some cases the miracle conferred upon a person was in proportion to or commensurate with the faith they had in the ability of God to do that miracle.

That's all I'm saying. And there are not that many cases of that in the scripture. But they are there. Paul in Acts chapter 14 verse 9 to 10 says,. A man heard Paul speaking and Paul observing him intently and seeing that he had faith to be healed said with a loud voice stand up straight on your feet and he leaped up and walked.

This is our widow's faith. She went to God by way of Elisha knowing that she would be heard and according to her faith she gathered up the empty vessels. Then and again by faith she took her last vial with a smidgen of oil and she poured it into the jar as the starting point and then she poured and poured and poured.

When the family had filled the last jar God withheld the oil. Then the oil ceased says the scripture. And so we might see here the fallacy of thinking as we sometimes hear oh if only she had more faith she would have gotten more jars and she'd still be receiving blessings today.

Why is that a wrong conclusion? Why is that a wrong thought to have and impose upon this wonderful this beautiful miracle of God done for this innocuous widow? Why should we not think that way and denigrate her faith and say if she only had more she might be pouring more oil today.

Wouldn't that be more wonderful? It's wrong and denigrates what the Lord had done for her. It makes God who always has one eye on the defenseless and the other eye on the powerful into some kind of a miserly curmudgeon.

Instead of that instead of slamming her for her lack of faith which I don't think the scripture at all allows for instead of that though let's take from here the conclusion the author means for us. The land of Israel is dead in trespass and sin.

They have forsaken the God of their father for dumb idols the insanity of which had been demonstrated by Elijah on Mount Carmel. The kings of Israel are no guardians of God's justice and they're so far from administering his mercy as the depths of the ocean are from heaven.

How far is this land from hearing the word of God from Jesus Christ? Just think about it a moment. Just a couple of the Lord's sayings in the book of Matthew. These are both from chapter 23. The scribes and Pharisees hypocrites for you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law justice and mercy and faith.

These you ought to have done without leaving the others undone. Again he said woe to you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites for you devour widows houses and for a pretense make long prayers therefore you will receive greater condemnation.

How far is this land in Elisha's day from hearing a word from the Lord like what Jesus just spoke there to the Pharisees in his day? Let's understand widows and orphans are no more or less sinners than anyone else.

The poor and the defenseless the marginalized the weak those who have no influence they all need the same as the rest to be forgiven of their sins. They all need what we all need which is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ who was cleansed by his blood shed on the cross.

There's no difference for all of sin and falling short of the glory of God. Yet God looks to them to the defenseless to the weak to the hopeless the dejected the marginalized. God looks to them as the gauge of a nation's spiritual health and here it isn't good.

Widows are shown no mercy she owed the money this is true and God's word says the wicked borrows and does not repay. That same word though that condemns those who don't repay that same word says that debts are to be forgiven in this regular cycle of sevens and fifties fifties being the Jubilee year.

That same word requiring us to repay what we borrowed also demands restraint. You see it's a matter of faith and judgment and contentment because that same word also allows bonded servitude and seeking ownership of the two sons.

He wants slavery. He's willing to leave her in utter and complete desperation. Our passage proves what Jesus said in Luke chapter 18 and verse 7 his parable of the widow seeking justice from the unjust judge.

Remember he finally hears her just because he's tired of her bothering him in the parable but he finally gives her justice if for no other reason and the Lord Jesus goes on. He says and shall God not avenge his own elect who cry out day and night to him though he bears long with them.

So where's she to go? This widow to the king? No she's not going to go to the king. She's not going to the man whose father murdered Naboth for his vineyard. She can't go there for him. She has to cry out to God who as Jesus promised did what?

Answered her speedily. There's another reason not to second guess her for the number of jars and that's simply this. Don't second guess her for having not collected enough jars because as the scripture tells us how God blessed her.

See how God blessed her. Read what God did for her and ask if there's any room for criticism against her in this scripture. In the last jar Elisha told her to do three things with the oil. The three things she had to do.

First sell it. In other words get the monetary value for it. Go sell it. And then with the proceeds satisfy the bill. Satisfy this creditor who might be coming around the corner down her street right then.

And finally third thing live on the rest. You see God had met her need did he not? What did she cry out for? The creditor's coming to take my sons. I owe him money and I have nothing to pay it with. My husband left me with this debt.

I can't satisfy it. That's her need. Has God provided for that? Indeed he had. She had plenty of money to pay off the debt and then she was told to live on the rest. Does this tell you what an abundance she had?

She could live with her two sons on the rest. God had met her need and if she had kept collecting jars and she had gotten more and more jars if at the very beginning she understood what was going to happen she just piled her house from top to bottom, side to side everywhere she could with jars what would that read like?

It would be greed. It would be avarice. It would be things that the word would say about her sinful pattern which we know God would never do for he cannot be tempted by sin. Such greed would have actually placed her in company with her tormentor, this creditor.

So the abundance of God's blessing is not to be disparaged here in this scripture. Instead thanksgiving should be offered to the king of heaven for what he had done for her. I think any other way to look at this would reveal a heart in us that says Lord I appreciate what you did with the song that we used to sing at Passover.

It was Dayenu. If you had given us the Torah but not taken us out of Egypt Dayenu it would have been enough and it goes on and on with the blessing if you had done this but not gone further and done this Lord it would have been enough.

Dayenu over and over. I'm afraid if we take this wrong approach to what the widow did if we have any thought in our mind that she didn't collect enough that somehow she was deficient that's going to reveal something in our heart about our view of God's blessing and I'm afraid that too often that what that would reveal is we think we deserve more we think we deserve better.

Oh Lord why didn't you give me time to collect five more jars I didn't realize you were going to help me to strike it rich with this or that venture. If only I'd known I would have gotten more instead of being thankful for what he has done.

I mean think of the way God sometimes his provision is as mundane as giving us strength and health so that we can go to work and make a living. He's given us skills that employers are willing to pay for so our families will be taken care of.

He's given wives to help husbands and husbands to love wives. He's given us a church right here. He's given us the fellowship of the saints which is each other. You and me brought together by the same God who filled the widow's jar.

Has God not met your needs? Has he not provided us with all these things adding to our faith, husband, wives, children, friends, brothers, sisters, jobs and clothes and cars and everything. Dare we look and say yes but if I only had one more jar.

No would not the scripture answer back to us be content with such things as you have and praise God for each and every one of them. No God does not give his spirit by measure as though he were doling out peace meal to us.

No as Jesus said wondering at our lack of faith he said if you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children how much more will your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.

And then when he gives we say Lord just put this all on hold for a moment and I'm going to go find one more vessel because I want you haven't given quite enough. God's provision is not meant for self-promotion.

It's not meant to make us wealthy. Perhaps the widow could have become the first big oil of the Middle East if she had just gotten enough jars but that's kind of silly. God met her need and then some.

The creditor was satisfied. Her sons were safe. Her security was ensured. See this was no partial miracle but an overabounding display of mercy and kindness and provision from the hand of God. What else was it?

It was caring for the widow. And I think in the way God cared for the widow it's a rebuke to all who did not. From the creditor who was running to her house to take everything she had all the way up to the king to whom it would have been useless to go.

It was a spark of life in this dead land. It was his work of God done so there'd be a light on a hill that people would see it and glorify your father in heaven. God did this so that the dead might grope after life.

So that the dead land might see the value of repentance. As Paul says in Ephesians 2 you who are dead in trespasses and sin he made alive. How does he make you alive? As we discussed earlier in the few comments I made before prayer by the implanted word which is able to save your soul.

By God who called light out of darkness who changes dark by nature children of wrath men and women into bearers of light. God did this in Israel he cared for this widow the way he did so that dead men in a dead land might see and repent of their evil deeds and flee to the cross of Jesus Christ.

Oh they could not have pronounced Jesus Christ not back then eight or so centuries before the Lord was incarnated. But they can grasp onto the promises everywhere in the scriptures that they had up to that time.

He did this so that they would do that. They would grope after life by repenting. What do you have in the house he said to her. She said your maid servant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil. Nothing in the house but a jar of oil.

You know nothing is a relative term. I have to tell you with this body of hearers I'm a little reticent about using any word that can possibly be applied to mathematics because nothing is a theoretical term and I know it has a lot of mathematical implications but I'm not a mathematician or an engineer I'm a pastor I study theology and theologically I can tell you nothing is a relative term.

To someone who has literally nothing I mean nothing at all a small flask of oil like the widow had might represent quite a bit. I have nothing but this flask of oil. So I'm poor. I'm destitute. I have nothing.

But the man who doesn't even have that might say doing pretty well compared to me. She has the oil. She has a house. She has two sons. She has the clothes on her back. One might think of Paul who in Philippians 4 11 -13 said he had learned to be content so long as he had what?

Jesus Christ. So long as he knew that he had Jesus Christ and Christ had him he was content in all situations. Or the instruction to Hebrews I talked about before be content with what we have. She had only one thing of value that small flask of oil probably used for toiletry.

But what do you start to hear her? Hear? Hear. You should be hearing echoes of loaves and fishes. Nothing is a relative term because what God does with nothing is what? Everything. He does everything.

Hebrews 11 -1 by faith we understand. Sorry this is 11 -3. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.

See what God created didn't start with a small flask. He started with literally nothing. What he did start with when he called you or me out of darkness. Nothing. Only sinners dead and trespassing sins just like Israel was at this time.

I have nothing but a small flask of oil. Nothing is a relative term. Some people might say that we bring our faith to God. Have you heard this before? Well I bring nothing to God except my faith which I then present to him because it's bent towards the Lord Jesus Christ.

I bring nothing but my belief that's completely wrong though. That's totally incorrect. You have no faith unless God gives it to you. Better to come as the widow did in an attitude of total dependence on God who you trust is able to do this if he is willing.

Total dependence on God who if he is willing will meet your greatest need. What do we answer when we're asked by God what do you have? We say only this. Which you and you alone can meet. We worship a God who meets us where we're at.

Jesus says that when we seek him first when knowing and living according to his righteousness is our first priority then all else that we need will be added to us. Brethren do you believe this? I see people well clothed.

I see people who drove here in cars. I see people goodness after I say amen before we have our meeting we have a table set up there with food on it. Worship a God who provides everything to us. But this is second to seeking after the person of God in Jesus Christ.

Hebrews tells us that by faith in Jesus Christ we're able to come boldly to the throne of grace to God's throne and there we will find help. Do you come to God? Do you seek God's help? Or do we take credit for what we already have and say well I by my power by my strength did this not verbally we don't actually say that but it might be implicit.