The Living God Brings Life

If you brought a Bible to church, let me encourage you to find 1 Kings in your Bible — 1 Kings. Since it is Kids in Service Sunday this morning, let me just encourage the young ones, if you haven’t already, to pick up one of these — they’re hanging up in the foyer. This is going to be a worship guide that walks the young ones through the number of things we’ll be doing in the sermon here today.

Here at Piqua Baptist, we work our way through books of the Bible, and today we are in Kings — 1 Kings, chapter 17. If you don’t have a Bible, we have a handful of Bibles under the chairs in front of you, so hopefully there’s one nearby if you don’t really know where 1 Kings is, because it’s kind of an unusual book. You’ll find 1 Kings 17 on page 299 of the church Bible. We’ll also have the text on the screen so you can follow along with us.

I had to call an audible this morning. Those of you who read the worship guide know we were planning to do chapters 17 and 18. But as I got into things this week, I realized I’d rather camp out in chapter 17 for the entire time we have together and save chapter 18 for next week. 1 Kings 18 is one of those chapters in your Bible that everyone loves — me included. It’s going to be a good one. Come back next week, Lord willing. Only chapter 17 this morning.

Let me go ahead and pray, and then we’ll jump right in.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to Your great mercy, You’ve set Your love on us. You’ve caused us to be born again to a living hope, to an imperishable inheritance, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for us, who by Your power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. God, open our eyes that we would behold wondrous things from Your Word. In Jesus’ name we ask. Amen.

 

Here’s the central claim I’ll seek to make from 1 Kings 17 today: the living God brings life. You can trust Him and His Word when everything else around you is dying.

Setting the Scene

Imagine, as much as you’re able, a Jewish father in the sixth century BC, in exile in Babylon, putting his seven-year-old son to bed. Much of who he is — as a man, as a father, as a Jew — is tied to his lineage, to his people, to his God. Much of what it means to be a Jew is inseparable from the land that Yahweh had given to his ancestors — a land that is a distant memory to him and little more than a myth to his son.

Imagine him telling his son bedtime stories — stories of his fathers and grandfathers, doing as all good fathers do: tying his child’s identity to the history of his people. Just as important, using those stories to instruct his son, to warn him of the dangers of disobeying God. Imagine him saying to his son: “Yahweh gave our fathers the land, and a unique and wonderful purpose on earth. But our fathers forsook the Lord and sought after other gods — false gods that don’t speak, that can’t save, that can’t provide. And Yahweh contended with our fathers for decades, showing mercy, exposing the danger of their ways. But our fathers would not listen.”

Part of that imaginary father’s story to his son is the passage we’ll be studying this morning.

So far in our study of Kings, the first sixteen chapters have covered about a hundred years of Israel’s history. Here, Kings slows the narrative down. We’ve covered the reigns of eleven different kings — one who showed promise, and ten who sent the aircraft into a tailspin. It is a dark time in the history of God’s people.

The latest king is a king called Ahab, and the Bible says he’s the worst of them all. He married a wicked woman called Jezebel, a pagan priestess. Together they abandoned the worship of Yahweh and established a national religion to the Canaanite demon Baal. Now, you may have heard “Baal” pronounced “Bay-al,” but that’s because you were trained by hillbillies — it’s pronounced “Bah-al.” Not only have Ahab and Jezebel set up a false religion across the kingdom, Jezebel in particular has slaughtered the prophets of Yahweh. Anyone who spoke God’s word to God’s people was a target in her bloody campaign, and anyone who has survived it is in hiding.

It is into this dark time that the Lord sends the prophet Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead. You might be wondering, where in the world is Tishbe? And that’s the point — Elijah comes out of nowhere. Later we learn Elijah wore a garment of hair and a leather belt around his waist — so maybe Elijah was a hillbilly too. Maybe he called him “Bay-al.” Sorry for making fun of you. No, I’m not.

A few things we learn about the character and nature of God from our passage this morning. The first is this:

I. You Can Trust God in a Drought (vv. 1–7)

Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.” And the word of the Lord came to him: “Depart from here and turn eastward and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. You shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.” So he went and did according to the word of the Lord. He went and lived by the brook Cherith that is east of the Jordan. And the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook. And after a while the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land.

 

Elijah is sent to King Ahab with a word of judgment. Every word in verse one is significant — down to Elijah’s own name. The name Elijah means “Yahweh is my God.” Elijah comes and opens up the truth to King Ahab: Yahweh, the God of Israel, lives. That becomes thematic in the ministry of the prophet Elijah — God is a living God. Ahab’s god, Baal, is about as alive as the bronze and stone and stump from which he was carved. He is dead. He can’t speak. He can’t save. He can’t provide. That becomes a theme in the ministry of the prophet Elijah.

Now, the Canaanites worshiped many Baals — everyone seemed to have their own flavor — but one consistent feature of all the different Baals is that he was a storm god. In the myth, Baal defeated the sea god and built a palace in the heavens from which he would pour out rain on the earth. But every year, the god of death comes and defeats poor Baal and takes him to the underworld — which is why we experience the dry season, of course. And then every year, Baal’s big sister has to come and save poor Baal from death so that he returns to his palace, and then the rains return in the fall. Of course.

So it makes sense as the point of God’s judgment against Ahab and Israel: there shall be neither dew nor rain until I say. There is one true and living God, and He does not die, and He does not need saving. He is God — in the rain and in the shine, as Pastor Matt said.

Through Moses, God had told His people: if you obey My commandments, if you love Me with all your heart, I will give you rain in season; but if you turn aside and serve other gods, I will shut up the heavens and there will be no rain (Deuteronomy 11:13–17). So this prophecy from Elijah to Ahab, to Israel, has a very fine point. It is the fulfillment of a prophecy. There is one true God, and all who trust in Him are saved and supplied against all odds. But all who turn from this one God are judged and perish.

This fact about the character and nature of God as provider is modeled for us in the life of Elijah. The author shows us how the Lord provides for the prophet. This week we’ll see how the Lord provides in Elijah’s private ministry; Lord willing, next week we’ll see how the Lord provides in his public ministry.

I want you to notice the language of verse four. The Lord says, “I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.” You can trust the Lord in this drought. By God’s word, ravens will bring the prophet bread and meat in the morning and again in the evening. The man of God will be well supplied even through a drought. The prophet must learn, personally, that God will supply all his needs according to His riches in glory.

And eventually the effect of this years-long drought is felt by the prophet too — notice, in verse 7, the brook dries up. Yet still he must trust the Lord when in a drought. First God provides for the prophet through the ravens. Next we’ll see the Lord provide for the prophet in a different way, from a different source.

II. You Can Trust God With All You Have (vv. 8–16)

Then the word of the Lord came to him: “Arise and go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.” And as she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.”

 

Verse 8, and again in verse 16 — this section, called “the widow of Zarephath,” is bracketed by the same phrase, “the word of the Lord.” That’s because the prophet must learn to trust the word of the Lord in secret, as with the ravens, and now he must learn to trust the word of the Lord while exposed, in the city of Zarephath of Sidon.

That’s a particularly important part of this story. Zarephath of Sidon is not just a random place — it’s the stomping grounds of the bloody Queen Jezebel, who is seeking the life of Elijah. So the Lord sends Elijah into Gentile territory, into enemy territory, into the very heart of demon worship. The man must be careful, because there are dangers here. The Lord commanded him, and the Lord will provide for him, and the Lord will protect him.

But that’s not the only repeated phrase. Notice the phrase repeated in verse 9: “I have commanded a widow to feed you there.” This is a graduated level of trust in the Lord. The prophet must learn to trust God to save and to supply all his needs while he’s in secret, and also while he’s exposed.

But he’s not the only one who must trust in the word of the Lord. We’re introduced to an unnamed Gentile widow, and both she and Elijah have a lot on the line. Elijah is in enemy territory, as I’ve mentioned. He has nothing to eat, nothing to drink. And she is in a really bad way, as we’ll see in a moment. Here comes this Israelite preacher who says to her, “Give me a little water, that I may drink.” Excuse me, sir — get it yourself, we’re in a drought, have you not noticed? That’s what I would have said. But that’s not what she says. She just simply goes after a jug. And before she’s out of earshot, Elijah has the gall to say to her, “Oh, hey, miss — hold up, I need to add to my order. The ravens seem to be running late today. Can you bring me bread as well?”

And she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. And now I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die.” And Elijah said to her, “Do not fear; go and do as you have said. But first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterward make something for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth.'” And she went and did as Elijah said. And she and he and her household ate for many days. The jar of flour was not spent, neither did the jug of oil become empty, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.

 

It’s an odd pairing, these two — Elijah, prophet of God, on the run in enemy territory, hungry and parched; and to provide for him, the Lord sends, of all people, a widow gathering sticks to prepare a fire on which she will bake her last meal for herself and her son. Pair him with a Gentile widow, an unbeliever preparing to watch her son and then herself starve to death, and to provide for her, the Lord sends her a renegade preacher of Yahweh with eclectic fashion and a weird thing for birds. And both must trust in the word of the Lord.

Elijah tells the widow: my God will supply all your needs. The flour will not be spent, the oil will not go dry. Church, it’s the same thing the Apostle Paul told the church at Philippi, isn’t it? When he was commending them for giving beyond their means to the advance of the gospel to the ends of the earth, he said, “And my God will supply every need of yours according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”

The widow has a choice: take Yahweh at His word, or go her own way. Now, Elijah knows — and our imaginary father with his son knows, and you know — that the Lord will provide, that the flour and the oil will not run out. But she doesn’t know. She has to act on faith. She does not know this Yahweh, God of Israel. Did you catch, in verse 12, how she calls Him “your God”? Yahweh is not her God — Baal is her god. She’s never brought an offering to Yahweh. Why would He take notice of her and her son?

And so the widow has to act in faith. She has to take Yahweh at His word — which she does. She bakes a cake for the man of God, and the Lord keeps His word and provides. The jar of flour was not spent, and the jug of oil did not go empty.

Friends, we too have a choice this morning. I don’t know what it is you’re facing. I don’t know where the Lord is calling you to trust in His word. Maybe the Lord is calling you to trust Him in a terrifying health situation. Maybe He’s calling you to trust Him to care for an aging parent while you’re already spread thin. Maybe He’s calling you to trust Him in a dire financial situation. Maybe He’s calling you to trust Him while one of your children is not following Christ. Maybe He’s calling you to trust Him when your marriage has gone cold. I don’t know what you’re facing. Here’s what I know:

• 2 Corinthians 9:8 — God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things and at all times, you may abound in every good work.
• Matthew 6:8 — Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.
• Romans 8:32 — He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?
• When Jesus Christ asked His twelve disciples to feed five thousand hungry men with five loaves and two fish, there were twelve baskets left over. The flour was not spent. The oil did not run dry.

Christian, trust the Lord with all that you have. Spend for His sake, even when it feels like there isn’t enough. If unending flour and unending oil were not enough to convince this Gentile widow that the living God was alive and faithful — look what the living God does next.

III. You Can Trust God When the Worst Thing Happens (vv. 17–24)

After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill. And his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. And she said to Elijah, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son!”

 

Hardly a worse thing can be imagined. Not many days before this, this woman was preparing her last meal for her son. This weirdo prophet shows up, promises that God will spare her and her son — and He does. And then her son gets sick and dies. What? And why?

I wonder if you’ve ever been in a situation where you witnessed the Lord do a great thing in your life, only to find yourself soon after in a situation even worse than the one from which the Lord delivered you. If so, then you know a little of what this widow is feeling here. Notice she blames Elijah — why’d you even come? You only made matters worse. Why would you give me hope and then just take it? You show up with your Yahweh, exposing my false worship, you save me, and then my son dies. So not only do I not have to starve, I have to watch him die and live the rest of my life with this. What is the point of the flour and the oil if I can’t share it with my child?

If you’re a visitor with us, if you’re not a Christian, I wonder if you may feel a little bit like this widow. Maybe you came to church hoping to get a little help for something you’re going through — maybe a little wisdom to know how to navigate something difficult in your life. And you turn up at this church, and all you’ve heard so far is that you’re a sinner, that you’re under the judgment of God, and that unless you repent before God, you’ll spend eternity apart from Him in hell. You might be wondering, maybe like the widow was with Elijah: what in the world? How does this even help me at all?

Well, my unbelieving friend, understand that a physician will at times inflict pain — not to harm, but to help. The Lord must open our chest, cut it open, in order to heal the infirmity of our heart. That may feel judgmental and unloving, but is the scalpel that removes the cancer judgmental and unloving? This God loves you enough to diagnose your sickness and provide you with the path of healing. He sent His Son Jesus Christ to become man, to heal what was broken in your life and in the world. Like Israel, all of us have turned away from the Lord and worshiped the Baals of our own liking — whatever it was we believed would bring rain, bring prosperity, that’s what we looked to for the good life. And Jesus Christ came and died on the cross and rose on the third day to provide a way for sinners to avoid the judgment of God for their sin and to find peace with God and eternal life. So sinner, turn from your sin today. Trust in Jesus Christ. Receive His mercy and the forgiveness of your sins. Take God at His word, like this widow does.

Let’s keep reading, verse 19. Elijah said to her, “Give me your son.” And he took him from her arms and carried him up into the upper chamber where he lodged, and laid him on his own bed. And he cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?” Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again.” And the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah, and the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper chamber into the house and delivered him to his mother. And Elijah said, “See, your son lives.” And the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.”

 

Elijah’s response to the death of the boy was similar to the widow’s, with one major difference. The widow saw only death — she was in a drought in the land of Baal, her god was dead, her son was dead, everything around her was dead. All she saw was death, death, death. But Elijah, who knows the living God, who knows that God is the God of life, takes his protest to the Lord.

Learn this lesson, PBC: do not fear bringing your questions and objections to the Lord. “Cast your cares on Him, for He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). The prayer that prays, “How long, O Lord, will evil and death reign,” is a prayer of faith. It implies that God will one day make things right. And so we pray, and we lament, and we protest against evil and against death, because we know this is not how it ought to be. Famine and death and drought and disease are invaders here. And one day we know death itself will be swallowed up in victory by the Lord Jesus Christ. Church, take your questions to the Lord, as Elijah did.

But I’d like to point out that what Elijah did is weird — weird in general, and weirder for an Israelite prophet. First, he takes the boy into his arms. Understand: under the old covenant, touching a dead body made someone ceremonially unclean. Clean things became unclean when they came into contact with unclean things. So Elijah is making himself ceremonially unclean — cut off from the worship of Yahweh — when he comes into contact with the dead. Then the Bible says he stretches himself out on the boy three times, acting almost like he’s dying with the kid — living out this boy’s death in his own body. Three times the prophet identifies himself with the boy in death.

And then the prophet prays: “O Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again.” Now, that might not seem weird to you, but it is really weird — God has never raised the dead. He does this later in the Bible, but not up to this point. Why in the world would Elijah think God would raise the dead when he’s never seen it done, never heard of it done? I don’t know. But Elijah knows that God is a living God, a God of life. So he prays in faith: God, raise the dead. And the Bible says the Lord listened. Life came into the child again, and he was revived.

Elijah takes the boy and returns him to his mother, saying, “See, see, your son lives.” The living God gives life. All she saw was death; now all she sees is life, life, life. And she says to Elijah, verse 24, “Now I know that you are the man of God, and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is truth.” Now she believes. That is what the Lord used to bring this woman to faith — a son risen from the dead.

The Greater Elijah

Now, PBC, this is not the only time this kind of thing happens to a widow with a dead son. If you have your Bible open in front of you, turn to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 7. If you’re using one of the church Bibles, Luke 7 is towards the back, page 863. Luke 7, beginning at verse 11 — we’re now in the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Soon afterward he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.” Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and “God has visited his people!” And this report about him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country.

 

Note the similarities between these two stories: a widow at a gate with a dead son, the son is raised, the son is returned to the mother, the man of God touches the unclean thing, and the power of God gives life. But notice the differences: unlike Elijah, Jesus did not pray for life — He spoke it. Elijah prayed to God. Jesus Christ is God. Jesus is the greater Elijah.

The Bible says the wages of sin is death. This is why death has invaded our world. We who have participated in sin have brought the sentence of death upon ourselves. We have given ourselves over to the Baals. We dwell in a dry land, a weary land racked with death, in a culture of death, serving the god of death. And on the cross, the Lord Jesus took the penalty of sin. Jesus touched death. Like Elijah, Jesus laid Himself down, identifying Himself with us in death — three days, not a coincidence, just as Elijah stretched himself out three times. God the Father raised the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead on the third day. And like the widow, this is what the Lord uses to bring us to faith — seeing a Son raised from the dead. And so we can say with her, “Now I know this is the man of God, and His word is truth.” The change in her is the change in us: from death to life. Before Christ, all we knew was death and death and death. Having been raised with Christ, now all we have is life and life and life.

Application

Christian, are you praying for an unbelieving family member or friend? Take heart — your God raises the dead. Are you praying for a loveless marriage? Take heart — your God raises the dead. Do you have a son or daughter who’s not following Christ? Take heart — your God raises the dead. Are the bills stacking up and you’re just trying to stay afloat? Take heart — your God raises the dead.

In a room this size, there are many who know something of losing a baby in the womb or outside of the womb. Sisters, hear what your heavenly Father is saying to you this morning: one day, very soon, you will be received into the eternal kingdom, and the man of God, the risen Christ, will say to you what Elijah said to the widow — “See, your son lives.” Jesus keeps His word. He is the man of God, and His word is true.

Church, trust in Him to provide for you in the drought. For God’s people who are in danger, there will always be ravens with meat in their beaks. For God’s people being asked to give more than they think they can afford, the flour and the oil will not be spent. For God’s people facing the worst possible tragedy imaginable, God will bring life from death. God keeps His word. God will provide. You can trust the Lord when everything around you is death.

The Apostle Paul, writing in a time when he was surrounded by death, put it like this: “We felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.”

Christian, this is your story. This is your promise. God’s word is truth. Your God raises the dead.

Let’s pray. Oh Father, what a humbling thing it is that You would look upon us, having brought death to ourselves, and that You would speak life — that You would unite us to Your Son and grant us His righteousness and raise us to life. Give us mouths and hearts and lives that will sing the praise of the One who raises the dead, for all of our days. In Jesus’ name we ask. Amen.