9/20/2015 Elijah In Sidon – A Testament To God's Glory

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9/20/2015 Elijah In Sidon – A Testament To God’s Glory I Kings 17:8-16 Pastor Josh Sheldon

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10/4/2015 The Word Of God Obeyed Pastor Josh Sheldon

10/4/2015 The Word Of God Obeyed Pastor Josh Sheldon

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Luke chapter 4, beginning in verse 14, which can be found on page 692 of your new
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Bible. And then following that, 1 Kings chapter 17, beginning in verse 7, which can be found on page 247 of your new
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Bibles. When you arrive at Luke chapter 4, beginning in verse 14, please stand if you are able for the reading of God's word.
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Luke chapter 4, beginning in verse 14. This is the word of the Lord. Then Jesus returned in the power of the
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Spirit to Galilee, and news of him went out through all the surrounding region. And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.
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So he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the
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Sabbath day, and stood up to read. And he was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,
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The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the world.
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He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the
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Lord. Then he closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on him.
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And he began to say to them, Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.
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So all bore witness to him, and marveled at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth.
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And they said, Is this not Joseph's son? He said to them, You will surely say this proverb to me,
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Physician, heal yourself. Whatever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in your country.
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Then he said, Assuredly I say to you, No prophet is accepted in his own country.
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But I tell you truly, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up for three years and six months, and there was a great famine throughout all the land.
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But to none of them was Elijah sent except Zarephath in the region of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow.
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And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet. And none of them was cleansed except Naaman the
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Assyrian. So all those in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath.
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And they rose up and thrust him out of the city, and they led him to the brow of the hill on which the city was built, that they might throw him down over the cliff.
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Then he passed through the midst of them and went his way. And now turning to 1
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Kings chapter 17, beginning in verse 7.
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1 Kings chapter 17, beginning in verse 7. And it happened after a while that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land.
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Then the word of the Lord came to him, that's Elijah, saying, Arise with Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, you all there.
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See, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you. So he arose and went to Zarephath.
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And when he came to the gate of the city, indeed a widow was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said,
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Please bring me a little water and a cup that I may drink. As she was going to get it, he called to her and said,
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Please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand. So she said, As the Lord your God lives,
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I do not have bread, only a handful of flour in a bin and a little oil in a jar.
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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.
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And Elijah said to her, Do not fear, and do as you have said, but make me a small cake from it first, and bring it to me, and afterwards make some for yourself and your son.
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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
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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.
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The bin of flour was not used up, nor did the jar of oil run dry, according to the word of the
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Lord that she had spoken by Elijah. Dear Heavenly Father, in Jesus' name we thank you and praise you for your manifold mercy and kindness, which comes to us in so many ways each day.
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We humbly ask that you will open our eyes, and we might recognize you through your blessings and your mercies. Father, I humbly now ask that you'll pour out your
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Holy Spirit on this gathering, that you'll open our eyes, and we might see wondrous things from your word, that we might see your glory, and be transformed thereby, just as one day we will be transformed and your image will be lightened because we see you as you are.
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We ask that you grant us a foretaste of that. Open our eyes, and we may see the glory of your
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Son Jesus Christ through your word. And I ask that you'll pour out your Holy Spirit on Josh, and grant him clarity and power by your
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Holy Spirit. Make your word penetrate our hearts, make your word go forth clearly, and above all, have your way with us, to transform us into the image of your
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Son, we pray. We confess that we're inadequate, and we have no power to make this happen, no matter how delivered our son, apart from your
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Spirit. And again, just ask that you'll abundantly provide him to grant power, transforming power to your work.
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And we ask these things in Jesus' name, for your glory, amen. Amen. Thank you, Steve. Please be seated.
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Elijah and the Widow. God's merciful and miraculous provision for his prophet and for this poor, starving,
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Gentile woman. The word of God, taken from the people of God, sent to a people of stammering lips and another tongue, as Elijah was sent first to the brook
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Cherith. The word of God in Elijah, the exclusive place where God at that time was delivering his word, through the prophet
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Elijah, taken away to the brook, and now told to leave the brook and go to this nation,
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Sidon, the city Zarephath, in this nation, far from Israel. As did
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Paul, as did Barnabas with him, when they shook the dust of the unbelieving Jews from their garments and took the gospel of the
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Gentiles, so God has judged unbelieving Israel and sent his word by Elijah to Sidon.
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As did Jesus, after he declared the fulfillment of prophecy, which Steve just read to you in Luke chapter 4.
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He declared the fulfillment of what he had read from the book of Isaiah in himself. And what did he find?
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The same as Elijah had found many centuries before, rejection. Ahab, at the time of this history, which we will look at this morning, was searching diligently for this prophet.
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We learn in chapter 19, when Elijah goes to his friend Obadiah, Obadiah tells him,
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Ahab has not left a stone unturned, as it were, to find you. He's looked in every nation, and when a king of that nation says,
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I don't know where Elijah is, he makes him swear out an oath, an affidavit of sorts, to confirm that word.
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He's looking to kill the prophet. Just as these men at the synagogue in Luke chapter 4, when they heard the truth from the truth of God, they went to throw him off the cliff.
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What we have in 1 Kings 17 and 7 -16 is a passage laden with promises.
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In fact, the whole structure of it can be seen in a command, promise, obedience, fulfillment sort of pattern.
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The Lord commanded Elijah to go to the brook Cherith, promising that he'd have food and water there despite the coming drought.
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Elijah obeyed and found God true to his word, as every day he was fed by the birds and was able to drink from the brook.
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The same pattern holds for his journey from there to Sidon, as well as for the widow.
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The command, do as I have said, he told the widow. The promise, it shall not be used up or run dry.
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And of course she obeyed and they ate many days, just as the Lord had said. Well, this is our text this morning.
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Elijah and the widow. The widow's jar of flour. Excuse me, her bin of flour and the jar of oil, sometimes called a cruz.
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And here she is found by Elijah collecting sticks, unexpectedly confronted by this man of God and given this incredible promise that is proffered to her as the word of God.
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Thus says the Lord God of Israel, the bin of flour shall not be used up, neither shall the jar of oil run dry.
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And on faith she acts. What do we find in this passage?
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Do we find here a promise to ourselves that if we are doing God's work, if we're following his word, that we will be guaranteed to be cared for in this way?
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Do we find promises like that, that we are to apprehend, claim if you will, for ourselves and our lives?
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I would suggest we find nothing here in this passage but one thing, the glory of God.
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We find in Elijah and the widow the glory of God. God glorified himself earlier in the chapter, chapter 17, verse 1, he glorified himself by warning
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Ahab through Elijah of the impending disaster. Recall that Elijah didn't just say bad things are gonna happen if you don't act better,
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Ahab. He said, thus says the Lord God of Israel, before whom I stand. The word of God came to Ahab.
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And that's God's glory, is it not? Is that not in accord with Amos chapter 3 and verse 7, where through the prophet
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God declares that he does not act unless he reveals it to his people through the prophet.
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And they're warned, and that is to his glory. This whole passage is God's glory. He glorified himself in the extraordinary means he used to care for Elijah and the widow.
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And I want us to come away this morning seeing this. This is the point of the passage.
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This is the point of 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Chronicles, 2
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Chronicles, Revelation, Elijah, Nahum, Proverbs, Genesis. You get the point.
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God's glory. We must see God's glory, or we come away as ignorant as when we started.
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God's glory is the point. The continuous wheat and oil are no more meant as promises we can claim for ourselves than is the answer of a drought meant to be taken as God's normal response to prayer.
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Remembering that Elijah prayed for the drought based upon God's word. And God answered that.
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That doesn't make it normative for us. It speaks to God's glory. Too many
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Christians have been misled in the hope of seeing such things realized in their lives, coming away weaker in their faith, less sure of God, and stymied in their growth into the image of Jesus Christ by taking these extraordinary events, these amazing things that God did in a particular time and place meant for our enlightenment, written for our edification, for our instruction.
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And yet, we must see this. We must see God's glory in it, or I feel we go astray and misunderstand the passage.
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We keep our eyes on the goal. I think we're much safer. The goal of Scripture is to reveal the mighty works of God and His Son, Jesus Christ.
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The goal of Scripture is for us to get a glimpse of God's glory, which is tantamount to knowing
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His works and seeing Jesus Christ as the sum and the goal of all that God does.
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Let us look at this magnificent story. Let us see in it the unvarnished glory of our
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Savior. And then let's go forth confidently in the promises of God, which in Jesus Christ are all yes and amen.
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Remind ourselves of the context here. I've alluded to it a little bit. Elijah appears suddenly in chapter 17, verse 1.
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He confronts Ahab's idolatry with this challenge from God. As the Lord God of Israel lives, before whom
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I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except at my word.
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Now, I'm fairly certain that this is either the opening or the closing statement of a much longer message. This word from God likely included a total indictment of Ahab's institution of his wife
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Jezebel's favored demon, which was Baal, the master of nature, sometimes called the
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God of thunder. I think that this was just the part of the message, just the thesis statement, if you will.
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As when Jonah went to Nineveh, and he said, you have 40 days and Nineveh will be destroyed. And the city repented all the way up to the king.
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I don't think it's unsafe to assume or speculate a little bit there in Jonah that he said quite a bit more than just that one sentence to bring an entire city all the way up to their king, this great city, to repentance.
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And so with Ahab going before, or so with Elijah going before Ahab, excuse me,
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I think Ahab was given a much more complete warning than just that one word, just that one sentence.
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The direct word, what is important to the chronology we have is that drought is coming, and with the drought, of course, famine.
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Now in that day, there were no aqueducts, there were no reservoirs for water storage, so if it didn't rain, all the crops failed.
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And if crops failed, not only did people starve, but the economy suffered as exports got staunched, they being an export type of country for their agricultural goods.
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And so other lands outside of Israel also suffered, some directly because like Israel, they had no rain, others because the foodstuffs they come to depend on weren't coming in.
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They had no food being imported, Israel had no commerce from the food they were selling, the whole land is withering.
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And the challenge from God through Elijah to all the paganism that Israel at the time was falling under is this.
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You want to worship Baal, you want to worship and fall down before this God of nature, this
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God of thunder, as though he can do something, let him overrule this decree from the
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God of Israel. Because the God of Israel has openly challenged
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Baal at his supposed strong points. And it's almost like a shrug of the shoulders, though that might seem too flippant, but it's like that, it's like let him fix things.
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As we unpack this text, keep in mind the heavenly perspective, that God is displaying his might in the face of this false
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God and his devotees. As God contests Baal, so Elijah does
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Ahab. As God abhors all falsehood, so Elijah will go after Jezebel's prophets.
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Everything that happens here on this terrestrial ball is but a dim mirror image of what is going on in the spiritual realm.
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And make no mistake, it is in the spiritual realm where the outcome is decided. Verse 17 -7 says that after a while, the brook dried up.
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Of course, that's the brook Cherith. The language says that the creek's decline was a steady one.
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For some time, Elijah watched his only source of water flow slower and slower.
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Every day, there is less and less for him to take. Now here's the patient obedience of the faith.
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He had been directed to this spot, and there he stayed. He was told ravens would bring his food, and so they did.
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Note carefully, he did not leave the brook Cherith while it was diminishing. He left at God's word.
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He didn't leave when necessity might have warranted. Common sense would have found a way to make a canteen and gotten out of there while the getting was good, while there's still a little water to pack up, as it were, and get going.
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But faith is not necessarily common sense. It can be, and praise
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God, it very often is, but not necessarily. Not always so.
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Elijah watched the creek dry up. He didn't leave because it finally stopped.
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Note this carefully. He did not leave the creek because it finally stopped.
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Why did he leave the creek? Why did he leave the brook where he had been for many days?
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We don't know exactly how long. We're not given the precise timing. He left when and because God told him to, and for no other cause.
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That's why he packed up and went to Zarephath, because God told him to go there. And it is wrong to think that God sent him there only, or even primarily, or even largely, for his provision.
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And that's where we get some promises in quotes that God will take care of you as long as you're in His will, as long as you're doing
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His work. He will send you to Sidon, and some poor widow will care for your needs, and you will be okay.
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That's not what's happening here. And we're not given a ubiquitous promise that we can take home in that way.
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The miracle of the flour and the oil, as necessary as that was for Elijah, for the widow, for that matter, the purpose behind it, was no more food than was
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Jesus changing the water to wine, only so there would be wine for the wedding guests. I sort of stumbled over that a little bit, and I want to say it again.
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I got a little tongue -tied. The miracle of the flour and the oil, as necessary as that was for Elijah, and for the widow, for that matter, the purpose behind it was no more food than was
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Jesus changing the water only so there would be wine for the guests. Thank you.
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I got that one out. The flour and the oil were living parables proving that only
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God is God. The flour and the oil, although there was benefit to those who partook of it, the purpose behind it, the purpose behind the promise to the widow in the first place, was to be a showcase of God's might, his power, his glory, his holiness.
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They were living parables proving that only God is God. It anticipated Israel's confession of this at Mount Carmel, which,
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Lord willing, will come up in a couple of weeks. Jesus provided wine for a much larger cause than just to save the host the embarrassment of running short.
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It proved his deity. It demonstrated the overflowing, the superabundant joy that is to be had by faith in him.
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God provided flour and oil at Zarephath for this widow and her son, for I would argue exactly the same reason.
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Not for their stomachs, but for his glory. If God's jealousy for his glory results in blessings on our table, so be it.
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Let us enjoy what God has given. But we dare not expect it as if this history described a normative case, as if it were our right to expect.
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You see, we cannot read this history or any other in the Bible and conclude that God always provides for our needs, at least for our physical needs, at least the way we see them.
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Applications like that fall flat in the face of reality. Did God provide for Zechariah's needs when he was murdered between the temple and the altar?
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Matthew 23, 35, the words of Jesus. Did he provide for Stephen when he was stoned for having told, and we might add, having proven from Scripture that what he said was truth?
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They were both murdered. What about James and John the Baptist? King Herod murdered them both.
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Read Foxe's book of the Christian martyrs. What of Paul, who wrote of trials and shipwrecks and beatings and privations and slanders and floggings and scourgings?
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What of Jesus, who after having been declared innocent was scourged and mocked and beaten and spat upon?
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Elijah, James writes, was a man with a nature like ours. But Jesus was not.
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He took on our nature when he humbled himself to be clothed in our human flesh. But other than that, his nature was not at all like ours or Elijah's because Jesus was without sin.
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And yet he was condemned to the cross. He no more deserved that than Elijah deserved food, either from ravens or from the widow.
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But in all this, Paul's persecutions, Elijah and the widow's provision,
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Stephens and James and the Baptist's death, God glorified himself. And in this, when
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God glorifies himself in the deaths of his martyrs or in the provision for his prophet or in the provision for his prophet and for his hostess,
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God is glorified. He's more concerned for his glory than any of us can imagine.
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Four times in Ezekiel 20, the Lord says that he acts for Israel but for my name's sake.
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In Ezekiel 36 .22, he says that this was not for your sake, O Israel, but for my name's sake, for my purposes.
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God being so jealous of his glory that we can't even imagine what he would do to preserve and magnify it.
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Ezekiel's revealing the gospel of Jesus Christ in as clear a terms as the
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Old Testament has when he said, not for your sake do I do this because he's speaking of the new heart and putting his spirit within the people, taking out the heart of stone and giving a heart of flesh.
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Not for your sake do I do this, O Israel, but for my name's sake. You see, the gospel of God's forgiveness is not really for our sake.
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I seem to be a little off topic from Ezekiel 17, 7 through 16. We will get there.
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We'll get there when we have God's glory clearly set in front of us as the purpose of all this and who gets the credit for what happens and who benefits ultimately.
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You see, even the gospel of God's forgiveness in Jesus Christ, for those who will repent of their sins and flee to him, even that is not ultimately for our sake but for his glory's sake.
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Yet what benefit do we gain? By repentance for our sins, by faith in Jesus Christ, you can be saved.
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By this you are grafted into Christ and given his Holy Spirit, God himself residing within you, within us.
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This is all for his glory, for his name's sake. But what a glorious prize is ours when
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God moves to magnify his own name. What benefit accrues to us.
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Nor is this glory better seen than in Jesus, the prophet, the one whom Elijah, as great as he was, was but a faint glimmer.
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John 1, 14 puts it this way, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the
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Father, full of grace and truth. Where Elijah was a conduit of God's glory,
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Jesus is God's glory. Later in the Gospel of John, chapter 12, verses 37 to 41,
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John writes this, But although Jesus had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in him, that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke,
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Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? Therefore they could not believe, because Isaiah said again,
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He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they should see with their eyes, lest they should understand with their hearts, and turn so that I should heal them.
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These things Isaiah said when he saw his glory and spoke of him. When Isaiah saw the glory of God in chapter 6 of his prophecy, who was it he saw?
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It was Jesus. Man's refusal to believe does not diminish him at all.
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Any more than Ahab's and Jezebel's and Israel's unbelief did anything but rebound to the glory of God.
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So Elijah, I did promise you we'd come back to 1 Kings 17. Elijah is sent from a dry creek to a starving widow, to Zarephath, about 100 miles from Cherith.
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Now I want to stop and think about this for a moment. First he goes all by himself to confront a powerful, idolatrous, violent, murderous king.
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Then he goes to Cherith to live all by himself at the mercy of ravens in a trickle of a creek.
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And from there he walks 100 miles, remember the creek had run dry by the time he left, to go to Zarephath, a city smack in the middle of Phoenicia, still ruled by Jezebel's father.
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Jezebel's father's name was Ephael. We learn that at the end of chapter 16. He's named after the god they worship,
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Baal. And that's the city Elijah is sent to. And his goal when he arrives there, according to the word of God, is to find a widow.
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Not just a widow, but the widow that God had in mind. To find a woman, a person, at the lowest rung of society.
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The one who would, of all the people he might meet in any city in that whole area, who would be least likely to be able to care for his needs.
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His physical, then, temporal needs. Now if I were in his shoes, and I think most of you would agree with me, but if I were in his shoes, if we were where he was, we would have concluded that we'd stumbled into a closed door.
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We've heard this before. We've gone through this before. Most of us have. This open door, closed door cycle that we go through.
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So a dried up creek. That can't be God's will for us. I must have been mistaken to go here.
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God told me to go to this other place, and what do I find? A poor old widow. Better keep looking.
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This must be a closed door for me. We've heard this all before. And then
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I went over there, but that door was closed. I went back to the door God had opened before, but there was no job there.
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Can we say that the brook had dried up? So that door was closed. So I went on to Vanity Fair, and what a door
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God opened for me there. And I got all my needs met, and everything I thought God was sending me to, there
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I found it. And we go through this whole cycle, open door, closed door. What are we doing?
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Are we at all imitating Elijah? This history was written for our edification, for our comfort, for our rebuke.
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This example we're given. And I see we tend to see God's will where the going is easiest.
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Where things line up with our preconceived notion. With what we've got up in the morning that says, you know, it'd be really nice if I had this, or was able to live there, or worked at that place.
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We're sure we went into the open door when we see the job we want, the house we desire, the weather is just so, and on and on it goes.
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We forget that Elijah knew God's will because God told him. And remember that he did not leave that creek because it dried up.
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It dried up. And sometime after, could have been the moment, could have been a week later.
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We don't know. That's when Elijah left. Compared to Elijah, we're just a bunch of little
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Goldilocks. We're looking for porridge that's just right, a bed that fits us just so.
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We seem to have this desire to appear holy, all the while having my perception of my needs being met.
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We find what we desire and then we force fit the scripture to declare that that must have been God's specific will just for me.
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Now much of this kind of silliness can be avoided if we refuse to go beyond what is written. And one way to do this is to take the extraordinary events of the
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Bible as they're presented to us. Extraordinary. God does not regularly rearrange the dew to be on or off a fleece or change water to wine.
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He has not recorded more than once having stopped the sun. Water flowed from rocks. How many times?
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Was it two times? Maybe three? How many times did the Holy Spirit appear as tongues as a flame and give people the ability to hear in their own language?
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Once, if I read my Bible correctly. Just once. You see, discerning between what is normative and what is descriptive and what was particular to a certain time and event is not really that hard.
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All it takes is to read the Bible on its own terms. And that's gonna spare us reading things like the second verse of Hosea and concluding that we should look for a prostitute to be a wife.
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If it's extraordinary in the Bible, the record of our extraordinary God doing extraordinary deeds, then how can we expect such things to be ordinary?
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I don't mean to imply that God does not miraculously provide for his people. And I don't mean that every breath is a miracle and each heartbeat is a specific gift from God.
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I'm thinking of people like George Mueller. In the 18th century, he ran an orphanage for poor and abandoned children as a ministry to Jesus Christ.
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He refused to seek out financial support. He depended fully and exclusively on what?
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On prayer. Now here's a brief excerpt from one experience out of many that he had.
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The children are dressed and ready for school, but there is no food for them to eat. The house mother of the orphanage informed
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George Mueller. George asked her to take the 300 children into the dining room and have them sit at the tables.
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He thanked God for the food and waited. George knew God would provide food for the children as he always did.
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Within minutes, a baker knocked on the door. Mr. Mueller, he said, last night I could not sleep. Somehow I knew that you would need bread this morning.
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I got up and baked three batches for you. I will bring it in. Soon there was another knock at the door.
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It was the milkman. His cart had broken down in front of the orphanage. The milk would spoil by the time the wheel was fixed.
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He asked George if he could use some free milk. George smiled as the milkman brought in 10 large cans of milk.
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It was just enough for the 300 thirsty children. I don't imply that God does not today act miraculously for his people to meet their here and now temporal needs.
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But I'm saying when we read 2 Kings 17, 7 -16, and the perpetual oil and wheat, let's not take that as a normative promise of God to all his people at all times and every place.
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The testimonies outside the Bible go on. During World War II, the Ten Boom family, a
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Dutch family, was sent to a Nazi concentration camp for having hidden Jews in their place.
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Corrie Ten Boom's sister, her name was Betsy, she needed this special vitamin treatment to stay alive.
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But the Nazi guards allowed nothing into the concentration camp where they were sent. It was called
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Ravensbrück. They searched every prisoner and you were allowed nothing to be brought in.
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But the Nazi guards, when it was their turn, Corrie Ten Boom's and her sister Betsy's, rather than search them, they just waved them along.
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So the vial and their Bible made it into the barracks safely. Let it never be said that this church does not believe that God acts today, here and now, in miraculous ways.
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I want to go on a little bit more about Corrie Ten Boom. There, inside the barracks, they found 25 women who also needed the very same vitamin drops on which
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Betsy's life depended. So Corrie Ten Boom took over and she daily administered the drops to all who had need for the drops.
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Her testimony, take this as you will, Christian woman, our former pianist,
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Don Penhill, we lost a few years ago, went to be with the Lord. He knew her. This is her testimony.
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The vial never ran dry. During all this time in this concentration camp, Betsy and the other women who needed this particular vitamin to stay alive, had their needs met.
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And the Nazi guards, known for their efficiency, never found it. Take that as you will.
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That's the testimony of a Christian woman whose faith was put to the test and who gave all the glory to God. God does provide for our needs.
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When we sit down to dinner tonight, as most of us will, our tables are filled by God's gracious bounty. Every bite we eat is from his hand.
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And he does this so routinely, at least for us in this rich nation, it is so routine that we sort of get used to it.
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I hope we maintain a balance between presumptuous expectation and faithful confidence in him.
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We don't serve a miserly God who we have to fall down and beg for a bite to eat and then thank
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God that you gave us just enough nutrition that I'll have enough power to get to the car and get myself to work.
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That's not our God who gives bountifully and joyously to his people. There's a balance.
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I don't know quite how to describe it. Presumptuous expectation. God, you owe this to me. You made me.
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You better feed me. That's wrong. And just la -di -da, and I expect it every day.
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And get used to it and forget to give real thanks for it. We're accustomed to God's largesse, but let's remember that he didn't suddenly stop working in marvelous ways when the canon of Scripture was closed.
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Let's just understand that our definition of what we need at this moment might not be, in fact, it usually isn't, quite what
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God's definition is. I vote for God to be right. Elijah wasn't playing open -door, closed -door roulette.
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He was obeying the Lord. In good times, a widow's lot would be only poverty.
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In times like these, poverty would be an improvement for a widow. Open door?
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Are we looking for an open door? He found her gathering sticks. She was only hoping to die as comfortably as starvation would allow.
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But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise and the weak things of the world to put to shame the mighty.
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Foolish. Weak. A poor widow anticipating only starvation.
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It seems if you read the text, it's going to be any moment. She has nothing left to eat.
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And who's put to shame by this? Baal, this demon god that this land worshiped.
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This was the center of worship of that god there in Zarephath. Ahab, military, economically, politically, administratively, perhaps one of the most competent kings
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Israel ever knew. The most wicked king they'd ever had. He did more evil than all the kings before him, so I don't commend him at all in any of his parts.
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But this mighty king, this powerful king, is he not being put to shame by a poor, starving widow?
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Elijah didn't look for someone of prestige like a rich widow or a powerful duchess or anything like that.
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His eye was focused by his faith for we walk by faith and not by sight. How easy it is for us to slip into a man -fearing preference -giving way of looking at people.
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And so this panorama of God's power narrows down to the most implausible of all options.
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Not just a town, but the center of Baal's devotees. Not just a widow, but a poor widow.
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And not just a poor widow, but a poor widow at death's door from starvation.
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Remember, Israel wasn't saved from the Midianites by a huge army, but one so small, 300 men, that as with Elijah and the widow in Sidon, only
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God gets the glory for his mighty acts. Dependent on a woman and a
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Gentile woman at that. And a Gentile woman who's a widow and a
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Gentile woman who's a widow and poor. And a Gentile woman who's a widow and poor and at that moment at death's door.
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Now that's a closed door if ever there was one. Time to repent. Time to find an easier ingress into God's will, right?
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Time to find a better, more open door that swings more smoothly. And when you look through it, you see something a bit more pleasant.
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Just imagine if Elijah had. Just imagine if Elijah had said, well,
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God said I'm going to be fed and this woman's got nothing to feed herself. She's ready to die.
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So let's find one with a few more resources. Is there someone in town who, oh, she could be a widow, but do you know a widow who's a little bit more upscale than you?
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Where's the Saratoga neighborhood for me to go to? Just imagine if he had done something like that.
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Who would have gotten the glory for Elijah's sustenance?
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The host. Where would be the miracle where God would get the glory?
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It wouldn't. Well, he went to widow so -and -so. And of course, everybody knows that her husband died, left her lots of money.
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So even in this drought, she's got plenty. Oh, it was miraculous that she had hospitality for this
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Jewish man, she being a Gentile and Baal devotee. But you get my point. That's just giving credit.
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That's not giving God the glory. She had nothing. She had enough for one last bite of food before she succumbs to starvation.
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I don't know how to read verse 15 quite, but it says there that she and her household, she had a whole household.
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So there's more that are going to be cared for than just her and her son and Elijah. Maybe she had already released the household to go and die as best they could.
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You take my point that this widow is the least possible of all means to keep
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Elijah alive. And yet that's where he goes. This is where God sent the prophet. It was
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God's word that he cast her so near starvation. Before her was the vehicle
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God had used to bring this miserable providence upon her. It was Elijah who called for the drought.
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Here in her house was the only man who could improve things by praying for the drought to come to an end.
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Here, dependent on her, was the enemy of Ahab who was already searching for him as Saul had searched for David.
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Here was the stalwart opponent of her own king, Ethbaal. Here, should she choose, was certainly a great reward if she should turn him in.
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Ahab's search was well known. Kings were signing affidavits that they didn't know where Elijah was. It's implausible to think anything but that if she had turned him in, she would have gotten some handsome reward.
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And certainly she could use the money. I wonder, did Elijah watch her as Ahab's servant watched
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Rebekah to see if she might be the one the Lord intended for her, for him? And we don't know for certain.
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But we're safe to notice that she couldn't feed herself, her son, and certainly not her household.
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But what did God say? God told Elijah, I have commanded a widow. There's no record of God actually speaking to her.
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Do we see again God's glory? Do we see His power, His sovereignty?
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There's no record of God speaking to her, but is it necessary that God condescend to speak in order for His will to hold absolute sway?
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Does God have to speak in an audible voice or through His Spirit to your spirit and in that way communicate for His will to take hold?
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No. Of course it does not. Subsequent events prove that her spirit had been prepared to eventually recognize
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Yahweh as the true God. But I wonder if it's too much to classify her with the
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Samaritan woman, the one who so readily believed Jesus to be the Christ. Could she join the
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Ethiopian eunuch in Acts chapter 8, the one who was reading the Word of God with no understanding, but with a heart that wished to penetrate the words and find
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God behind them? Think of Cornelius, who said to Peter, Now therefore, we are all present before God to hear the things commanded you by God.
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Lydia, in Acts chapter 16, who with her whole household believed when Paul spoke the
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Word during their prayer meeting because, Acts 16, 14 tells us, the Lord opened her heart.
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The Philippian jailer who begged, What must I do to be saved? The examples abound, but in each case we could easily say
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God commanded them. In an audible voice? No.
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But because His sovereign, decreed of will was that this one shall believe, this one is prepared.
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This one will obey me. This one will provide for Elijah's needs because I have commanded it.
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He didn't write it down in a letter. He didn't speak it in a voice. It's simply the enactment of His sovereign, powerful, holy, and right will.
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Is the Lord any less responsible for the fish which swallowed Jonah? Or the plant that suddenly sprouted up and gave him shade?
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Was it not the Lord who appointed a fish to have in its mouth a coin and then be attracted to the very hook offered to it by Peter?
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Who appointed the man who owned the colt to surrender it on being told the
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Lord has need of it? Who but God could have had Rebekah come and satisfy the servant's conditions?
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So the widow heard the command of God, but it was in her spirit and then from Elijah in words with the embedded promise.
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See, her obedience has stayed in the simplest terms, so she went away and did according to the word of Elijah.
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Who could have prepared this but God? Who could have commanded her to take her last morsel of food and based on a promise from a prophet who represents a
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God that she didn't know and say, here you go. It's all yours.
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When I first saw that, I wanted to call it the widow's mite. That's sort of an offering. I don't think that's it. It's more simple than that.
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She doesn't know Yahweh. She doesn't know the true and living God. Why does she give her last bite to this man she's never met?
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Very simple. God commanded it. God prepared it. God did it.
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Who gets the glory? God's people all say, God and God alone and only
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God. Her final morsels delivered by faith to the prophet at the word of God.
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Her example shamed or at least it should have shamed Israel, God's covenant people.
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While their ears were more and more attuned to the false prophets of Jezebel and Ahab's God, here this pagan woman at the lowest rung of society has faith enough to hear
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God speak through the prophet and obey the word that she heard. We can note the progression there.
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First, he asks for some bread. She doesn't refuse, but she tells him truthfully she has nothing to give him.
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And Elijah does not say to her, oh yes, you do have bread. Instead, he says, you will have bread.
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The very bin and jar where her last morsels were kept by God's word would not, because of that word, could not go empty.
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As often as she dipped her hand into either one, she would find it filled. Now the
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Bible says in 1 Timothy 5 .8 that someone who doesn't care for their own family is worse than an unbeliever.
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But here's the prophet inciting this destitute woman to care for him before her own son.
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There are two ways to go here. First, she could refuse him as a madman, which would have meant that she is not the widow, and she can go back to her forlorn business of collecting sticks to die with.
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Or, of course we know how this worked out, or she is the very one commanded by God.
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Like the very fish at that very spot that swallowed that very prophet. Or the other fish in that very spot with that very coin in its mouth that took that very hook.
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All those being irresistible actions by those animals because of God's command.
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The very owner of that very colt hearing that it was the Lord who had need, making no protest to His animals higher.
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Or that very Jesse, least of all his brothers, being anointed king over Israel. She obeyed the word of Elijah and offered her last crumbs, and so she found hers and her son's needs met.
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The lesson here is not that if we offer our last morsel of bread to a man of God, or to God through the church, or some offering to a ministry of some sort, they will suddenly find ourselves with a constantly replaced food supply.
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But we do learn that the best care we can take of our loved ones is obedience to God.
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We don't learn that God will commit Himself every time to fill the flour and the oil perpetually.
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That's an extraordinary event. My little homiletics excursion.
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We do ourselves a lot of good when we read the Bible, and we simply keep in mind that when it's extraordinary in the
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Bible, it's pretty sure to be extraordinary in our life, but we do learn that the best way to love our loved ones is to obey
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God, whatever comes. Now, as for perpetual flour and oil,
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I mean, this is a small thing for God. When Joshua needed more time, the Lord provided it by halting time for a time.
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When Israel needed water, rocks gave it. When the widow caring for Elisha had need, the jars kept filling with valuable oil.
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I mixed up the prophets there. Excuse me. I went forward to Elisha there. I was thinking of Elisha.
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When the widow he was with had need, all those jars of oil kept filling, and she was able to sell them and take care of herself.
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Outside of the Bible, when the Maccabees regained the temple, they found they only had enough oil to keep the eternal lamp burning for one day.
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And yet, while the messenger went to get the other oil, the replenishment for it, that one -day supply lasts for eight days.
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So we get the eight days of Hanukkah. Let it not be said that I said, or I took from this passage, or this church in any way believes that God has stopped acting marvelously and miraculously on behalf of His people.
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I only caution us, keep the extraordinary things extraordinary. There is one extraordinary thing
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God does ordinarily, an incredible thing
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God does as if it were commonplace. He forgives sinners.
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That's extraordinary. If we have any glimpse of just who
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God is and His nature, His holiness, His perfection, and any realistic idea of who and what we are compared to Him, and wonder for a moment, how can
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I stand before God? And I don't mean by that in what way, what do
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I have to go through, what do I have to manage, what do I have to do to get there. I mean, how can a worm like me ever stand before a true and just and holy
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God? It's all by faith.
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The sort of faith Elijah had when he left Cherith, going to Zarephath, come what may.
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Trusting he'd be cared for in whatever way God knew, God thought to be best. Trusting himself to God's will completely.
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That sort of faith. But not just a general faith, not just believing things that sound good.
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Faith in Jesus Christ, God's only beloved
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Son. God's Son, we've spoken about Him a couple times in this message already.
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Sinless Son of God who lived a perfect life here on Earth, never sinned, with not a single breath, did not reflect the holiness of God.
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Everything He did, a perfect reflection of God the
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Father. That Jesus who went to the cross willingly because of the
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Father's will, and there helplessly pinned to that tree,
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God poured out His wrath for our sins upon Him. The eternal fury of the eternally holy
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God all poured out on Him. I spoke about it this morning.
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My favorite one verse gospel, 2 Corinthians 5 .21, God the Father made
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Him, God the Son, who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
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This is by faith. Repent of your sins. Confess yourself a sinner and repent of that sinful nature and the sinful acts that that nature willingly led to, and know that God in Christ, because God in Christ poured out
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His wrath on Him, and in Him, your sins have been punished. Because brethren, you cannot be punished for your sins and survive because the punishment for our sins is eternal hell.
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But at the cross, we find God's love, His mercy, His wrath,
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His justice, His holiness all publicly, wonderfully displayed.
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And there, if you will but believe, if you will but flee to that cross and trust
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Jesus Christ as your one and only Savior, the extraordinary thing will happen, and God will forgive your sins, and He will accept you to Himself on the basis of Jesus Christ.
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He does this ordinarily. All who call on the name of the
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Lord shall be saved. And yet, as often as that happens, and Lord willing, it will happen today, maybe even in this place if God wills, it was
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Jesus say, all the angels stop and rejoice in the presence of God when a single sinner repents.
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An ordinary event, but it's extraordinary that God should save sinners.
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But this is a trustworthy and faithful saying, God saves sinners of whom I am the chief.
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When God acts for His namesake, as He did with Elijah, with the oil and the flour, as He does every time a sinner repents and God forgives him and places him in Jesus Christ, it's
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He who gets the glory. It's His name that gets magnified. And He gets that which
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He shares with no other more and more glory. And yet, in His kindness, in His mercy, because He is love, when
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He magnifies His name, when He glorifies Himself, we do benefit here and now.
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Not always with a cruise of oil that won't go dry or a jar of flour that won't empty.
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But how many of us are going to sit down to dinner tonight, as George Mueller did, with an empty table and bless the food that we by faith believe will come?
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We're going to sit down to tables that we're going to fill and thank God for the food that's there. God's glory does benefit us.
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We do receive what we need in the here and now. God's glorified when we receive
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His gifts with humble thanksgiving. He's glorified when we acknowledge that whatever we have, it is from Him.
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Whether we have a jar of flour that won't empty or receive bread and milk at our moment of need, whether we have a vial of vitamins that refuses to run dry or simply tonight's dinner, if it's taken with thanksgiving and praise, then we've aligned ourselves with God's will that all we have and all we do is for His glory.
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Amen? Heavenly Father, thank You, Lord, for the day that You've given us again and for the time that we've had together in Your Word.
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And I just pray, Lord, that we would look to these histories that we have before us, especially now with the prophet
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Elijah. Give us, Lord, a rugged faith to believe as He believed. Give us,
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Lord, His sternness of spirit that follows God no matter what.
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Lord, we make no presumption upon You. There's no expectation. But we do thank
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You for Your gifts and for Your promises for watching over us. I pray, Lord, that the strength that we have from all the bounty that You've given us will be used to Your glory, to the expansion of Your kingdom, to the broadcast in the name of Your Son, our