Life of Elijah - Part 2 — Major Ian Thomas

Life of Elijah, the Widow, and God’s Provision

You're told what to do, do as you're told, and even the birds will feed you. These are God's logistics, but when a friend of God meets friends of God, whether a bunch of birds or a bankrupt widow, you can be sure that you'll see God in action.

Elijah, the Widow, and the Principle of God First

Bunch of birds, dried up brook, and a bankrupt widow. That was the first thing that we concluded in our morning session. So let's turn back again to the first book of Kings and the 17th chapter. And in the balance of this chapter, we see a very beautiful picture painted for us.

Elijah said unto her in the 13th verse, fear not, go and do as thou hast said. Make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and afterward make for thee and for thy son, me first. Or as we recognized this morning, by virtue of his command to this woman, God first, and then leave God to take the consequences.

Handful of meal in a barrel. That's a picture of human poverty. Man at his extremity. A little cruise, a little oil in a cruise, and oil in the Bible, no matter whether in the Old Testament or in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit, the one who in co-equality with the Father and the Lord Jesus in the triune Godhead by agreement between all three is the one through whom a man may make his humanity available to God, and through whom God makes himself available to a man.

The Holy Spirit and Divine Indwelling

That's the person, work, and office of God the Holy Spirit. And if I may remind you again, as I in all probability will in these days on several occasions, when God created man, he was so engineered that the presence of the Creator within the creature is indispensable to his humanity, that man in normality is to be distinguished from the animal kingdom by a quality of life that has no possible explanation but God, himself, he, God, resident in the man.

That's why it's important that you and I should understand how we were so engineered that our humanity, body, soul, spirit, mind, emotion, will, and the totality of our being may be made available to God, and so that he, in all the fullness of deity, may make himself available to a man, not making man God, but allowing God to be God in the man, and man enjoying his maker, the Holy Spirit.

True of our Lord Jesus, and if it's true, it'll always be true of him. What isn't true of him isn't true, because he is the truth. Said the Lord Jesus, I am the way, the truth, and the life. He didn't come just to preach about the truth, or even just to explain the truth, he said I am the truth that I proclaim.

And if you care to scribble this in the margin of your Bible, Hebrews, and chapter 9, verse 14, Christ, who through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God. How did the Lord Jesus, in the sinlessness of his humanity, make himself available to the Father as God in heaven?

Through the eternal Spirit. And then in John's Gospel, chapter 3 and verse 34, you can scribble that in the margin. John's Gospel, chapter 3 and verse 34, I'd like to read it to you out of the Amplified New Testament.

It's just that little bit more succinct. John 3 and verse 34, since he whom God has sent speaks the words of God, in other words, by virtue of his availability in the totality of his being to the Father as God, he, the Father, could make articulate through the Son everything that he, the Father, wanted to say, because he whom God has sent speaks the words of God.

God does not give him his Spirit sparingly or by measure. Boundless is God's gift to him of his Holy Spirit. So the means whereby the Lord Jesus made himself available to the Father as man, the Holy Spirit.

The means whereby the Father as God made himself available to the Son, the Holy Spirit. And that's a principle. The Lord Jesus described this relationship as he being in the Father and the Father being in him.

And the agency, the Holy Spirit. And he came into this world to reestablish that relationship between all mankind as the creature and himself as the creator. So that we are to be in him and he in us. For remember, you and I were so designed that everything that God is is available to the man who is available to everything that God is.

And that's a principle. Hebrews chapter 11, scribble this in the margin of the Bible if there's any room left. Hebrews 11 and verse 6, he that cometh to God must first believe he is and secondly that he who is is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

In other words, everything that God is is available to the man who is available to everything that God is. How available was the Lord Jesus as man to his Father as God? Totally. How available was the Father as God to his son as man?

Totally. In other words, there was total mutual inter-availability. And by virtue of that fact, the Lord Jesus knew as man that the Father had given all things into his hands. John 13 verse 3. All things into his hands.

Because of his total availability to the Father, he knew that the illimitable resources of deity had been vested in him. And his responsibility as man, though the creator playing the role of creature, was to let God loose in every area of his being.

And the fantastic thing of course is, it was for that precise reason that he as God created you and me as men. And he came to restore that relationship. And because of the total inter-availability as between Father and Son, there was no margin of difference between what the Lord Jesus did as man and the Father did as God.

There was absolutely no margin of difference between what the Lord Jesus said as man and the Father said as God. There was absolutely no margin of difference between what the Lord Jesus was as man and the Father is as God.

And that's why the Lord Jesus could say, know that it was true, he that has seen me has seen my Father. And in so doing, he simply implemented that purpose for which he as God created you and me. For he said, remember, let us make man in our image and in our likeness.

And in the likeness of God made he him. So that man, when he's functional, gives a valid expression of God's glory. So created that all creation, if it could, looking at man, would know exactly what God was like.

That's normality. Only one has ever walked this earth since Adam fell in that normality and thus discharged the office of true manner. When God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in that triune deity looked at the man whom he had created in his total, perfect, unblemished image, who do you think God saw?

Himself. Himself. Just if you were a sculptor and you were to fashion a model in your perfect image, who would you look at when you looked at it? Yourself. As God, when he created man in his complete likeness to reflect his glory, looking at man in his innocency, saw himself.

Only once has that ever taken place since Adam fell. In the person of God's Son, of whom he could say, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. And if the Lord Jesus could say, he that has seen me has seen the Father, who do you think the Father saw when he looked at the Son?

Himself. Himself. First time it ever happened because the Lord Jesus, as I explained this morning, in the sinlessness of his humanity, demonstrated the innocence of a pre-fallen Adam. He was man in normality.

And that's why there was only one possible explanation for the quality of life that he lived, God. He himself in the man, the Father who lives in me, said the Lord Jesus, he does the work. My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.

No man has seen God in any time. The only begotten in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him. The German word used, which is rather interesting for those of you, and there are a number of you, who are German speaking, er hat ihn verkündigt.

He's proclaimed him. It doesn't mean that the Lord Jesus preached one long sermon, though I'm happy to say, to my great encouragement, he preached plenty. And a lot of them were long. But the totality of his being, 24 hours a day, was a revelation of deity.

In the flesh and blood of his humanity, God incarnate, Emmanuel, God with us. But it was when man believed the devil's lie, that he could be man without God, and forfeited the divine presence, that he became totally bankrupt.

Physically he survived, soulishly he remained active. The animal part of him remained. But his human spirit, empty of the Holy Spirit, he was alienated from the life of God, dead in trespasses and sins, and by nature, the child of God's judgment.

And it was to remedy this, man's total depravity, his complete bankruptcy, in his alienation as creature from the creator, that source of life, which alone, is that from which righteousness derives, that the Lord Jesus came.

This is beautifully pictured for us, here in this 17th chapter of 1 Kings. Just a handful of meal in a barrel. The word there for meal is that of the cheapest on the market. Man in the ultimate of his extremity.

But in the little cruise, there was oil. Speaking of the gracious ministry of God the Holy Spirit, through whom a man may be vested with all the illimitable resources of deity, by virtue of the presence of the creator within the creature.

A handful of meal in a barrel, man's poverty. A little oil in a cruise, God's provision. What else? Two pieces of wood, where the fire burned. Does that tell you anything? Where on two pieces of wood did the fire of God's judgment burn itself out, carried on the shoulders of a man not more than 30, not less than 30, not more than 50.

As he went from the city of Jerusalem there upon that lonely hill, to lay down his life, a ransom for many, a cross. In the Old Testament, it's the lamb that was slain, or the dove, or the heifer, or the goat, or the bullock.

And there the fire burned, and consumed the sacrifice. But there on those two pieces of wood, where God's dear son died, that you and I might be reconciled to a holy God, the sacrifice consumed the fire.

In the Old Testament, the sacrifice was brought again, and again, and still again, and those who were the priests were not allowed to continue by reason of death. But our Lord Jesus, having brought that one sacrifice for sins forever, and being raised again from the dead, is our high priest after the order of an endless life.

His body will never again be broken, his precious blood will never again be shed. He could cry from the cross and know that it was true, it is finished. Tell a less tale. A simple expression used then, as often now, as a form of receipt on a debt that's already been paid, a bill that has been fully satisfied.

No further demand to be made on this account. And the marvelous thing was that when our Lord Jesus cried from the cross, it is finished, he was inviting any boy, girl, man, or woman out of any nation, kindred, tribe, tongue, race, creed, class, or color, to plead his holy name before a holy God, and know that for his dear sake, whose blood was shed, there would be no further account, no further demand made on that account.

Blotting out our transgressions like a thick cloud, putting away our sins as far as the east is from the west, and burying them in the depths of the sea. God says, I'll put them behind my back and remember them no more.

The red like crimson, white as wool, though scarlet, whiter than the snow, difficult to conceive of anything whiter than the snow. And yet all of us know that every snow crystal is formed around a tiny speck of dust.

And that's why God said, whiter than the snow, because nothing remains when the blood of Jesus Christ, God's son, cleanses us from all sin. This was the redemptive act that precipitated the regenerative purpose, because we must recognize that the Lord Jesus didn't die upon the cross to get us out of hell and into heaven.

That's purely incidental. I'm thankful that it's true. I never had any ambition about going to hell. I'm thankful that as a boy of 12, there came a moment in my life, though totally untutored from my earliest childhood as to why Christ died upon the cross, I accepted him as my Redeemer.

It was in a boy's camp, as I may have mentioned to some of you on other occasions. I was taken there by a kid of 13 who, one year previously in that particular evangelistic boy's camp, found Christ as his Redeemer, and being my friend, finding a good thing, wanted to share with me the good thing that he had found.

And so he took me all unsuspecting. I didn't go to become a Christian. I didn't know I wasn't a Christian. For one thing, I was born in England. My face was white, and above everything else, my name was Thomas.

Now, what better qualification could anybody have for going to heaven but that? This was the crazy idea in which I was raised, Christianized in a nation that is anything but Christian, to which we've all become tragically accustomed.

If anybody had suggested to my family that we weren't Christians, we'd have sued them for libel. What do you think we are, cannibals? It wasn't that we didn't go to church. We went once every Sunday morning, never twice.

That would have been fanatical, but once was respectable. Every member of my family had a Bible. We never read it. That would have been vulgar. You know what I mean? And so I was utterly ignorant of the issues that are involved, and I went to that camp to sleep in a tent under canvas by the sea and have heaps of fun, eat ice cream, a habit that I have never as yet divested of myself.

The man who was a preacher there wasn't a professional preacher, but he had a lovely way of communicating with those of my ilk, about 150 young rascals in camp. His name was Lawrence Head. We called him Bubbly because he frothed at the mouth when he spoke, and that helped me greatly keep looking in the right direction.

Instead of watching the earwigs going up the tent pole, I watched the bubbles on each side and had a game, you know, which was going to burst first, and as soon as the one burst, you could start the game all over again.

There was absolutely endless supply of bubbles. It was like a chicken laying eggs. But I remember the third night of camp, he talked about the good shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep, told the story of God's redeeming love.

When his plenitude in Christ to become mine in the person of the Holy Spirit was to match my poverty as one born dead in trespasses and sins, there was no invitation, there was no after-meeting, there was no instruction.

He simply said, if you've never thanked the Lord Jesus nor ever received him into your life as your redeemer, don't you think it's time you did? And I thought it was. So I didn't tell anybody, but in the silence of my heart, as we concluded that service in prayer, before we went out, I said, Lord Jesus, thank you for dying for me, and I invite you into my life to become my saviour.

And he did. Nobody knew, save the one to whom I had spoken, Jesus Christ. Quarter to nine, Saturday night, 13th of August, 1927. Nobody knew for three days. Then one of the men in camp said, he knew a Christian.

I said, yes. And he was surprised. I don't think I'd given any particular evidence of piety to that day. He said, well, when did you become a Christian? I said, on Saturday night, three nights ago when I received Christ into my life.

And I knew it. Because the word of God tells us, you see, Romans 8, 16, that the self-same Holy Spirit who seals that redemptive transaction bears witness with our spirit that we're the children of God.

That inner witness that is greater than the testimony of man. If we hear the witness of man, John tells us in the fifth chapter of his first epistle, the witness of God is greater. And that witness of God says he is within you.

That's what makes a converted man, woman, boy or girl genuinely born of God so aggravatingly certain about their salvation. And to a person who is only religious but less than regenerate, that is very aggravating.

Because a person who thinks they're going to earn their way to heaven, you see, understands when you say, I am saved, that you are saying, I made it. I've arrived. I've accumulated enough good works to make absolutely certain I'll get to heaven.

Well, the only person who knows, knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that they're redeemed is the person who long since has admitted they could never, ever deserve it. Only receive from God a gift that nobody can deserve, for which we can never pay because the debt has already been paid.

It is finished. And if you're numbered amongst those who have uncertainty as to your salvation, or if, alas, misguidedly you still imagine you can get to heaven other than through faith in Jesus Christ, then before the end of this meeting, in your heart, talk to him, say, Lord Jesus, thanks.

I'm one of those sinners for whom you died, and I'm sorry, because my sin added to your love. But I'm so thankful that on the cross, when you died for sinners, you remembered me. And then, opening your heart, who knocks, saying, if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, extend to him that welcome to which he immediately responds by his unchanging presence.

Who promises three times in the original, never, no, never, no, never, to leave you nor forsake you. And that's something. Well, that's the beautiful picture that we have here. Man's poverty in the one hand, and God's plenity on the other.

And the place where these two meet, the place where two pieces of wood are found in the fire. All right, just check on that. Turn to the 29th, keep the place, 29th chapter of the book of Exodus, Exodus in chapter 29, a passage that will become relevant to us as we continue to unfold the story.

The Daily Sacrifice and Regeneration

Exodus in chapter 29, 38, now this is that which thou shalt offer upon the altar. Two lambs of the first year, day by day continually. The one lamb thou shalt offer in the morning. The other lamb thou shalt offer at evening.

One was called the morning sacrifice, and the other was called the evening sacrifice. With the one lamb, the blood of which was to be shed, a tenth deal of flour, just a handful of meal in a barrel, and the fourth part of a hin of beaten oil, just a little oil in a cruz, and the fourth part of a hin of wine for a drink offering.

The other lamb thou shalt offer at evening, and shalt do thereto according to the meat offering of the morning, and according to the drink offering thereof, for a sweet savour on offering made by fire unto the Lord.

For there the sacrifice was to be consumed, as one day in the glorious consummation of God's redemptive plan, the one who came to be the substance of the shadow would consume the fire. This, verse 42, shall be a continual burnt offering throughout your generations at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord, and the object of the exercise, this beautiful picture of that redemptive transaction that reconciles guilty sinners to a holy God, was to precipitate a regenerative purpose that makes real again to the experience of every forgiven sin of the presence of a risen Lord re-invading a man's humanity.

There, God said, I will meet you, end of verse 42, there I will speak, there I will meet with the children of Israel and the tabernacle shall be sanctified by my glory. I will sanctify the tabernacle of the congregation and the altar.

I will sanctify also both Aaron and his sons to minister to me in the priest's office. I will dwell among the children of Israel and will be their God and they shall know that I am the Lord their God that brought them forth out of the land of Egypt that I may dwell among them.

I am the Lord their God. In other words, this redemptive sacrifice was to introduce a restored relationship with the living God. As your conversion of mine, when we respond in obedience to the command of God, repent and be converted that your sins might be blotted out, is calculated to precipitate that regenerative purpose where not by any works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saves us by the washing of regeneration, rebirth, the renewing of the Holy Ghost whom he sheds abundantly upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior, the Lamb slain, so that the Holy Spirit restored to the human spirit may by his presence in life abolish death and he then reestablish the sovereignty of the Lord Jesus as King in his kingdom that his glory may fill the temple.

Don't you know that your bodies are the temples of the living God? The morning and the evening sacrifice, but calculated on the grounds of redemption to introduce every forgiven sinner to the hilarious adventure, he having suffered a death like ours, now of sharing a resurrection like his.

Now that's the gospel, that's the gospel. He suffered a death like ours, he paid a debt he did not owe because we owed a debt we could not pay, he suffered a death like ours, only that you and I now might enjoy a resurrection like his.

That as then the Father restored the Holy Spirit to the Son in the day that he was begotten, the firstborn of many brethren, the first fruits of them that slept, the first man who ever died spiritually and to whom that life, the life of God, was restored.

That you and I might have restored to us now for his sake that life that was restored to him, resurrection. Then you step out into the dawn of every new day knowing that the creator of the universes has come to take up residence within your humanity, that all the illimitable resources of the Godhead have been made available to you and that's why God says, be still, I want you to know something, what is it?

I'm God. Anything else you need to know? I mean if any given situation into which the next step takes you, you'll pause just long enough to know who he is, God, living where he does, who's come to take up residence within your humanity by his presence making available to you all his wisdom, all his power, all his love, the God who knows the end from the beginning with all the illimitable resources of the triune Godhead, what else do you really need to know?

I mean where's the panning? I mean you mums and dads, if you've got kids at home and you say you're a Christian, what you're telling them is this, in my body the God who created the universe and threw these stars into space lives in my heart and all that he is, he's made available to me.

Well what do you think your kids will say? Well why do you look so worried? Why do they hear you say what you did when you were talking to that lady down the road on the phone? I mean if you and I would just pause long enough to know who he is and where he lives, if you dare to say I'm a Christian, which means he lives in me, what can you worry about?

You see the moment he comes to take up residence within your heart, all your worries become his worries except that he doesn't worry and you don't have the right to worry about worries that he doesn't worry about.

And that in the Bible is called the peace of God that staggers the neighbours, that passes all understanding. And you know in this beautiful picture that's given to us here, we have just that as a conclusion to the redemptive transaction.

Elijah’s Prayer and the Widow’s Son

Turn back to 1 Kings 17, it came to pass, verse 17 of that chapter, after these things that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick and his sickness was so sore that there was no breath left in him.

The little boy died and said she to Elijah, what have I to do with thee, thou man of God? Art thou coming to me to call my sin to remembrance and to slay my son? He's dead. God has been pleased to tell us nothing about the melancholy past that is wrapped up in those few words.

Have you come to bring my sin to remembrance? He's dead. And said Elijah to the woman, give me thy son. He took him out of her bosom and carried him up into a loft where he abode and laid him upon his own bed.

He cried unto the Lord and said, O Lord, my God, hast thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourned by slaying her son? He's dead. He stretched himself upon the child three times and cried unto the Lord and said, O Lord, my God, I pray thee, let this child's soul come into him again.

And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah and the soul of the child came into him again and he revived, raised from the dead. And Elijah took the child and brought him down out of the chamber into the house and delivered him unto his mother and said, See, thy son liveth.

You see, what God is telling us is this. He cannot restore in life anything that hasn't first gone into the place of. In so many words, Elijah said to this lady, Madam, the past with all its shadows, with all its melancholy memories.

With all that heaviness of heart from which so long you suffer when that boy died. But now the future has been given back to you from God in the power of his resurrection life. And you see, this is the promise that God gives to you and to me, that objectively the Lord Jesus died there upon the cross, the cross upon the hill.

But in the timeless economy of God, you and I were judicially executed in and with him. He took us into the place of death. That's why God says, I will remember your sin no more. And the moment you and I identified with our Lord Jesus in the death that he died, identified with him in the resurrection that he enjoyed, life is given back to you without the shadow of the past.

And Satan, who is the accuser of the brethren, has now no longer any power over you. Because you overcome him by the blood of the Lamb. Now, don't misunderstand what we're told there in the book of the Revelation.

That when Satan comes as the accuser of the brethren, we overcome him by the blood of the Lamb. That's not talking about his death. Because blood is not the symbol of death. Blood in the Bible is the symbol of life.

The life is in the blood. And when John in his first epistle in the first chapter and the seventh verse says the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son cleanses us from all sin, he's talking about the life of Christ.

That is yours, of course, and mine only by virtue of the fact that that life was first laid down in the shedding of blood. That's the blood transaction. We call it redemption. But when you and I claim redemption, the blood transaction through the shed blood of Christ, a marvelous thing happens in that moment of time.

He, risen from the dead, comes in the person of the Holy Spirit to share his life with us and that is a blood transfusion. And from that moment, you and I are inhabited by the life of God himself. It's incredible.

So then, to whom do these hands belong? Christ himself. To whom then do our feet belong? Christ himself. To whom do our lips belong? Christ himself. We've been added to the Lord. We become members in particular, that new body corporate, the second body the Father presented to the Son on the day of Pentecost when the first 120 men and women in all time since Adam fell were raised from the dead.

In the receiving of the Holy Spirit who could not till then come, for till then the Lord Jesus had not yet been glorified. But the moment ascended to be with his Father, welcomed back into that which is his timeless home, he came in the person of his other self, the Comforter, to invade their humanity and of course it was that that revolutionized their lives and they stepped out to share his resurrection and to become those through whom he would live his life on earth again and continue that which is essentially his ancient quest, seeking and saving, that which is lost, the privilege that he's given to you and to me.

So when you come to the Lord Jesus, identify yourself with him in death, you can step out in the dawn of every new day identified with him in the power of his resurrection. And no matter what the past may have held of lament, you can know that with Christ it was buried and yours now is a future restored in the power of his resurrection.

The woman said to Elijah verse 24, now by this resurrection I know that thou art a man of God and that the word of the Lord is in thy mouth is truth. In other words by virtue of the fact that this boy is alive again and when truth behaves that's righteousness, God in him.

There's nothing more convincing in the world in which you and I have been placed as those who claim to be redeemed than the impact of his resurrection life released by our availability to the one who having given himself for us then, risen from the dead has given himself to us now.

It's not your personality, it's not your mere skills, inherent gifts, not even those that may have been acquired, though all of these things are not to be despised and God will use them. But ultimately it isn't bad that raises the dead, it is the spirit himself who quickens.

And the impact that you and I, if we are to have any lasting impact upon those among whom we live, whether it be our own family circle around our own breakfast table or those within whom you labor within your own particular vocation, your airline or whatever else it may be, that which will ultimately make impact and cut through the gloom and penetrate the darkness and raise the dead is the life of Christ released by virtue of your availability to his divine indwelling.

In that unshatterable confidence that he is alive, not just in heaven but in you, so you begin every day and say, Lord Jesus, it's going to be exciting to see what you're going to do in and through me today.

I may have absolutely no clue as to what you have done and to me now it's a matter of total irrelevance because all that matters is not that I see what you've done but that you did it. And that's the privilege that he's given to us.

I don't know whether I have it here or not, I usually carry a copy around with me, I think I have. But you know, I was up in Toronto, Canada, been there a number of times and there was one man, Geddes Broadhurst, who had come to a number of meetings there and I always view with some alarm anybody who advances with a determined look in their eye and a piece of paper in their hand because normally it's poetry and they wrote it.

Somehow when the preacher gets eloquent the congregation gets poetic. I remember just right now in taking this out of my pocket that somebody came over the weekend and gave me a piece of paper and I haven't even dared look at it.

It's like the man, you know, who said to his friend, do you think there's enough fire in my poetry? And a little dryly his friend said, I don't know but I don't think there's enough of your poetry in the fire.

And that was a little unkind. But every now and again it's good and this is one. You know, when Jesus died for me on Calvary, he paid the penalty for all my sins. He suffered all the pain. My simple heart to gain and now his spirit witnesses within.

I'm just a suit of clothes that Jesus wears. My body is the house in which he lives. My voice is his to talk. My feet are his to walk. I'm just a suit of clothes that Jesus wears. He rose again to bring abundant life, to justify before his father's face.

I live no more but he lives out his life through me. I'm just a vessel fashioned by his grace. As life goes on I fear not, come what may. He carries all my burdens and my cares. For me the battle's done for he's the victory one.

I'm just a suit of clothes that Jesus wears. That's the privilege that God has given to you and to me, that purpose which he created is to be indwelt by deity so that you get up every morning as a forgiven sinner who's been restored to that relationship that allows him as God to be to you now, what for 33 years he allowed the father as God to be to him.