[0:00] Seeking God's blessing, we'll turn to the first portion of scripture we read.
[0:11] And the first book of Kings, chapter 17, and verse 8.
[0:38] 1 Kings, chapter 17, and verse 8. Now we saw that the Lord had two purposes in view in sending Elijah beside the brook Cherith.
[1:21] First of all, the very removal of the prophet there was a rebuke to Israel itself. Because by removing the prophet, God was effectively removing his word from the land.
[1:35] And that we saw was the greatest judgment that can come upon a people or upon a soul when the Lord removes his word from a person or from a people. And in the second place, we saw that Elijah beside the brook was taught again the great power and the great mercy of God.
[1:57] And he was taught that through the instrumentality of the ravens who brought him his food morning and evening. God's power was shown there in changing the nature, as it were, of the raven altogether.
[2:09] God's power was shown there in the nature of the raven.
[2:39] God's power was shown there in the raven. God's power was shown there in the raven. God's power was shown there in the raven. God's power was shown there in the raven. God's power was shown there in the raven. So Elijah was learning humility and he was learning how to trust the Lord continually.
[2:52] And that meant that the Lord would use him again. And he would again be useful in the service of God. Because God empties people when they are to be used of himself.
[3:04] We must be emptied of pride and of vanity for the Lord to use us in blessing anyone else in any way at all. And that is why it's always good to go willingly to our chariots and to our places of seclusion that the Lord may empty and humble us.
[3:23] Now after a while, mysteriously, the brook dries. And this is a mystery to Elijah. Elijah, we're told in verse 7, it came to pass after a while that the brook dried up.
[3:35] A strange providence because he had been asked by God to go there and he had been told that he would be sustained there and now the brook dries. And when a brook dries up in your own life or when a providence remarkable comes into your experience, it's time again to seek the Lord's face and to diligently ask, what is he requiring of you now?
[3:57] And I'm quite sure that Elijah began to ask that specific question when he saw the brook drying up. And he waited for an answer from the Lord and he received it.
[4:09] Notice that he didn't just run away when the brook dried up. He waited until God confirmed that providence and God does that in his guidance. He speaks in the mouth of two or three witnesses.
[4:20] Watch for two or three providences or watch for two or three particular words applied to your soul. He waits. And sure enough, like Israel, who rested when the pillar rested and moved when the pillar moved, Elijah waits and he hears the word.
[4:37] And that word comes to him, arise and get thee to Zarephath. Verse 9, which belongeth to Zidon and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.
[4:50] Now, if the command to go to Cherith was strange, this command was stranger still. To begin with, the journey from Cherith to Zarephath is approximately 100 miles.
[5:04] And that is a journey that Elijah would have had to make on foot as a man who is in flight, who is in a dangerous position all the time.
[5:16] He has to remove himself from the east of Jordan, where the small tributary of Cherith flows, and he has to cross the promised land and to go westward, right to the Mediterranean Sea, to the country of the Phoenicians, and to a town there called Zarephath, which lay between the two major Phoenician cities of Tyre and Zidon.
[5:40] So that was a long and arduous journey that the Lord required of Elijah to make. And it was in time of famine, and it was in a time of danger.
[5:51] So there was dryness and desolation. And I say danger particularly because Zarephath, being a Phoenician city, was a particularly dangerous territory for Elijah to enter.
[6:06] And if you remember, a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned to you that that was Jezebel's home country, the wife of Ahab, the persecutor of the people of God.
[6:17] She was the daughter of Ethbal, the king of the Phoenicians. And the two principal cities, you could perhaps say the Edinburgh and the Glasgow of Phoenicia, were Tyre and Sidon, and Zarephath was right between the two.
[6:31] It seems in many respects that although it was perhaps a smaller town than the two, it was undoubtedly that it was a dangerous position and a dangerous place for this man of God to be found in at that time.
[6:45] All the more so when you consider that Ahab was by now in a fury. He was in a rage, and he had sent out messengers north, east, south, and west to find the man Elijah.
[6:57] Look, for example, at chapter 18 here and verse 9. And Obadiah is speaking to Elijah here.
[7:09] And listen to what Obadiah says. Verse 9. And he said, What have I sinned that thou would deliver thy servant into the hand of Ahab to slay me? And listen, as the Lord thy God liveth, there is no nation or kingdom where my Lord Ahab hath not sent to seek thee.
[7:26] And when they said he is not here, he took an oath of the kingdom and the nation that they found thee not. Look at the rage and the devilish, vehement fury of Ahab, prompted and spurned on by his wife Jezebel.
[7:40] Into every surrounding country, Ahab sends a message. Have you seen the man Elijah? Is there a man who claims to be a prophet of God? Does he wear a leathern girdle?
[7:51] Find him and bring him to me. And Elijah is walking right into the heart of enemy territory, as it were. And it's worthwhile stating that the famine of God was obviously in Phoenicia at the same time.
[8:07] Because God was cursing the worship of Baal. God was cursing idolatry. And so he doesn't just send the famine to Israel. He sends it to its root. He sends it to Phoenicia.
[8:19] And into the great kingdom of the king, Ethbaal. So it's dangerous for Elijah. And another strange aspect of the commandment is this, that the Lord says to him, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.
[8:36] And it turns out when Elijah meets her, that the widow woman has a son. And I'll tell you, my friend, the poorest person you could meet in the Near East in these times was a widow woman with a son too young to work.
[8:55] That was the poorest person you could possibly come into contact with. And the Lord says that I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.
[9:07] It's as though Elijah is told, you are to be a dependent upon a dependent. You are to make your, or to be sustained in a famine by one who herself requires to be sustained in a famine.
[9:21] And that is the full strangeness of the command that presents itself to Elijah. Arise, go to Sarephath. I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain you.
[9:34] And make no mistake, my friend, it's not just a strange command, it's a difficult one. I said already he was going into the heart of enemy territory. And he's going to see a widow.
[9:46] And for all Elijah knows, this widow would give anything, or would take anything, to betray the prophet of God. What if Ethbal had come along and said, I will give such and such to anyone who can show me where the prophet of Israel is.
[10:02] And he's trusting himself to someone he thinks is a heathen woman in the midst of a heathen land. And he has to trust the care of God in that situation.
[10:12] I know the ravens are fed up, but my friend, it's much more difficult to trust with respect to people than it is to animals. What I mean by that is this.
[10:23] You remember when David said, let me not fall into the hands of men, let me fall into the hands of God. What does that mean? Well, it means that when we are trusting, as it were, upon God alone, or when God is even moving the animal world to look after us, there is something more certain and more stable in that than there is in looking to man.
[10:48] Fickle man, frail man, who can change in a moment. And so I would say that he was moving from the lesser to the greater in moving away from the ravens to a heathen widow woman in the midst of Sarephath.
[11:03] He was leaving the relative certainty of the ravens to the uncertainty of a woman he had never seen or heard of before who possessed a wicked heart, a deceitful heart like all other men and women.
[11:15] So there was undoubtedly a difficult test involved in that as well. And let me say to you, my friend, in the passing, that every single thing that God requires of you is difficult.
[11:26] Now, I suppose you could come back at me and say, well, surely that's an exaggeration. Well, I don't really know if it is an exaggeration at all. Faith is the great requirement in the word of God.
[11:41] And as the Christian goes on, he discovers that he needs faith for absolutely everything. Even a command that looks simple or that looks sweet and that may even look pleasant to perform, you'll find that it has its catch in it.
[11:54] You'll find that it has its difficulty in it to the point where you have to ask God's help and God's assistance to go through with it. And that is why the word of God is full of commands and full of promises because life is full of difficult providential situations.
[12:13] And in this command, inside it, there is a trial which he must rise up by God's strength and meet and which he must meet successfully. And you'll notice what he does.
[12:25] He rises up, verse 10, and he goes to Zarephath. Now, I pointed this out before. There's a pattern in Elijah's life and it appears again and again and it appears in the life of the believer who is walking with the Lord.
[12:44] There is, first of all, a need of some kind. That need drives you to earnest, fervent prayer. That fervent prayer is met with a word by God and you'll find that that word by God always carries a test and a promise.
[13:07] You'll always find that God's word carries a test and a promise. Arise, get thee to Zarephath. Zarephath. That's a test. Get thee to Zarephath. It's a test. I've commanded a widow woman to sustain thee.
[13:19] There's the promise. Do as I say. Go forward. Put your face to the task. Don't look at the difficulties. And I have commanded to sustain you. And when that is obeyed, the child of God discovers a reward following upon that.
[13:37] and the reward is to see the glory of God. Whenever you obey the Lord and whenever you follow him and the path he has put out for you, God will reward that.
[13:49] God will honor it. Did I not say unto thee, Martha, that if you would believe you would see the glory of God? That is what the Lord does. If you but do what he asks, he will open the heavens and he will reveal himself and he will reward you with that.
[14:06] Just as Abraham when he when he defeated the coalition of kings against him. You remember the king of Sodom came to him and offered him a tithe.
[14:17] He said, take this. And Abraham would take none of it in case people would think that a heathen had made him wealthy.
[14:29] No. God said to Abraham, I will make you great. And he would not let anyone else make him great. He took none of what the king of Sodom offered to him. And in the next chapter you find the chapter beginning with the Lord appearing to Abraham and saying, fear not Abraham, I am your shield and your exceeding great reward.
[14:48] And the Lord gives him a vision of himself. That is the way the Lord works. And you, my friend, or me, if I have a stinted vision at any time of the glory of God and if I am not caught up with the greatness and the majesty of the Almighty, it's because I am disobedient.
[15:02] Or it's because I am unprayerful. It's because I'm out of my place and out of line. And the Lord will honor it when we turn our faces towards himself and when we but do what he asks us to do.
[15:16] And Elijah here sees the glory of God. Now, well, we'll see how in a moment, but as he arrives in Sarephath, he sees a sad sight.
[15:29] There's a woman there and she's gathering sticks. And if anyone's face ever told a tale, this woman's face tells a tale. It is emaciated.
[15:41] It is starved. This woman looks like a woman who is at death's door, sad and sorrowful. And when Elijah speaks to her, she's gathering a couple of sticks because she's going to make her last meal for herself and her equally sorrowful, emaciated and starving son.
[16:03] She has a little meal and a little oil left. And she's going to make one last meal. And what a pathetic sight it makes for us to think of this poor woman. And she is poor.
[16:15] She has no servant to gather sticks for her. She is just a poor widow woman with a very young son who is not able to perform even this task for her. And she's going to sit with this child and she's going to feed the child and feed herself and lay down to die because there's nothing else except to look death in the face.
[16:36] We have the gall to claim our own poverty. We have the affrontery to claim sometimes that we are poor or that we have difficult providences. Let these things shame us in reading of them.
[16:49] Let the lives of our own mothers and fathers and our forefathers shame us for we know not what poverty means. We don't know what these things mean. And that is the sight that Elijah saw when he went near Zarephath, this poor widow woman gathering sticks for one last meal.
[17:11] But I'll tell you, my friend, forgotten she may be by all but not by the Lord. And interestingly enough, she already knows the name of the Lord.
[17:23] Now listen in verse 12 to how strange this is. Elijah asks her for some bread and she says, As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake but a handful of meal in a barrel and a little oil in a cruise.
[17:39] Now you notice that the name Lord is in capital letters. That means it is Jehovah, the God of the covenant, the God of Israel. She knows the name and what's more, however she knows it, she knows that this man is also God's man and God's prophet and she will receive him in the name of a prophet and she will receive a prophet's reward.
[18:06] She uses the name of Jehovah, she uses it reverently and she uses it respectfully. And I would argue that faith is at least beginning in this woman.
[18:21] Faith is at least beginning in this woman and the Lord knows her and the Lord will find her. He will find his elect wherever they are. He will search for them and he will seek them out even if they are in the middle of Zarephath, in the middle of heathendom, in the middle of a famine, God will seek them and he'll work in his soul and he'll send consolation and he'll send a prophet to them and that is what he does here.
[18:51] But interestingly she doesn't say my God, she says in verse 12 as the Lord thy God liveth. Now I don't think we should understand that to mean that she was growth and the language of assurance isn't there.
[19:03] I know it comes easy to some people today but the language of assurance isn't there. As the Lord thy God liveth, almost as though she was saying would that he were my God or I pray and hope that he is my God but he is certainly thine as the Lord thy God liveth.
[19:21] This is all that I have. But my friend God has sent Elijah a hundred miles for her sake. He has sent Elijah a hundred miles for her sake because this is the day of her visitation and she will be glad and she will rejoice in that day.
[19:42] And I think there is nothing more wonderful to behold than the way in which God brings his own people in. Isn't that right Christian friend? Is it not something that makes your own heart rejoice and makes you glad when you hear of a soul here or a soul there?
[19:57] And perhaps you watch the progress day to day and you have seen how the Lord has done this, how he has moved here and how he has worked powerfully and effectively. Well Elijah saw it and I am quite sure he took his own breath away and caused him to marvel at the grace of God.
[20:15] And before I move on to the woman which is what I really wish to look at with you it is worth again thinking of what Elijah himself learned from this. What but this that God reigneth?
[20:27] What does he learn but that God is Lord of all of heaven and earth? That even when Jezebel is destroying Israel God is right in the heartland of Jezebel's homeland and he is calling people out of the heart of enemy territory as though God is saying to Elijah fear not Elijah she can do nothing but what I permit her to do to you who have forsaken my altars and broken my covenants but to show you Elijah that I still rule look at her home country and look at the poor widow woman that I am calling to myself and it's almost a foretaste for Elijah of the day when the gospel will be taken from the Jews and when it will be given to the Gentiles and when for hundreds of years the Jews will die in ignorance and the Gentiles will grow and the church of Christ will grow amongst the Gentile people until the Jews are finally brought back again into the kingdom of God Elijah sees God's grace going out to the
[21:27] Gentiles and I think Christ himself is referring to that when he's preaching in the synagogue he says there were many widows he says in Israel in the days of Elijah but to not one of them was Elijah sent except to the widow in Sarephath what is Christ saying there what is the Lord revealing well he's revealing this that the kingdom of God is taken away from a nation which does not bring forth the fruits thereof and it's given to another Elijah was sent outside the country as a judgment on the country and he brought the word to another country he brought it to Sarephath he brought it to Sarephath and that is the wonderful way in which the Lord himself works and by the way I can't help but trace some kind of analogy there between that and the way in which Christ himself for once in his in his own ministry goes outside the borders of the land you can read of it in
[22:29] Matthew 15 he goes into and listen to where he goes to he goes to Syrophoenicia and he meets a woman there and he tests that woman and that woman has great faith he pronounces and she herself is a forties of the harvest of the Gentiles to come that again parallels just exactly what we have here now I want to turn with you to look at this woman in a little more detail and what I want us to notice regarding her is this that like every other believer she is also tested and she is also rewarded we find it here in this chapter twice she is tested and she is rewarded now look at it with me and see her faith grow and see what we can learn from her experience ourselves now let's look at the first test in verse 10 and when he came to the gate of the city behold the widow woman was there gathering of sticks and he called to her and said fetch me
[23:46] I pray thee a little water in a vessel that I may drink it now that's the first test give me some water she probably doesn't have too much water herself but she goes to get it but that's not enough for Elijah the very quickness of his response seems to make him come in again and he says bring me I pray thee a morsel of bread in your hand as well as for the water he asks for the bread and then the woman's agony comes out and she says in verse 12 as the Lord thy God liveth I have not a cake but a handful of meal in a barrel and a little oil in a cruise and she says I'm going to make the last meal before I die myself and my son now Elijah doesn't bog at that he doesn't retreat in fact he comes forward and he seems to lay a command on her as though this is going to test her life and her faith one way or the other he says now is the hour of crisis fear not go and do as thou hast said but make me a cake first and bring it to me and after make for thee and for thy son for thus saith the
[25:05] Lord God of Israel the barrel of meal shall not waste neither shall the cruise of oil fail until the day that the Lord send of rain upon the earth now notice there first of all again you have the same thing this woman has been needy and I have no doubt that she prayed every day to the Lord for help Elijah came and the word of God came with him but it comes in the form of a test a test a command and a promise attached do you notice the same thing here's the test or the command make me a cake first and after make for yourself and your son and here's the promise for if you do what I tell you the barrel shall never waste and the cruise of oil shall not fail and she goes and does it verse 15 she went and did according to the saying of
[26:06] Elijah now notice my friend that is obedience we're specifically told she went and did according to the word of Elijah now she didn't do this she didn't sit down and reason with unbelief and say that a bird in hand was worth two in the bush she didn't say well it's better to have this meal of which I'm sure than to trust this man that I've never seen before that this will multiply that was unbelief and she didn't reason that way and neither did she say for that matter I'll take a chance and go and do it we are told that she did according to the saying of Elijah that means that she took his word as the word of God she took the prophet as a prophet of God and she knew that this was God's word to her soul do or die the hour of crisis the day of salvation has really drawn near to this woman and her incipient growing faith is now put to the test what will she do will she falter and stumble and perish with the rest or will she rise and take made him a cake first and lo and behold when she went to make the food for herself and for her son almost miraculously not almost but entirely and altogether miraculously in her hand it multiplied the oil multiplied and the meal multiplied she received a prophet's reward as
[27:41] Christ said give a cup of cold water if you receive a prophet in the name of a prophet you shall receive a prophet's reward she obeyed she rose to the test and she did what the Lord asked and here's the reward that the cruise never failed and that the barrel was never empty and like any child of God she would apply these natural phenomena miraculous as the way she would apply them to her spiritual life that's what the child of God always does and she would know that this is but a parable of what God does for her and will do for her faith her faith I believe was flickering low have you ever had that experience where your faith is just flickering low it seems that you've been praying for long enough but the answer never really came or it seems to be long in coming but it's right at the last hour or when you're on your last legs that God comes in he intervenes when it's his time and he came to this woman and
[28:48] God is as it were in a parable telling here I will never fail you just like the cruise of oil and the barrel of meals I will never fail you he didn't give her 20 barrels and 20 cruises of oil he just gave her enough every day multiplying as it were through the night or even under her hands I don't know but it multiplied and it just grew whatever she took from there was something there God multiplied it and I think there are many lessons for us to be learned there with respect to the life of faith God keeps you day to day and he wishes you to learn that from this give us this day our daily bread pray for that spiritually God will give you what you need sufficient unto the days the evil thereof and sufficient unto the evil is the grace that you receive for it day to day the Lord will give you little by little as he sees that you have need and there are many things that the
[29:52] Lord gives us in small portions to remind us that we should look at the giver and not at the gift itself this woman would never sit back and admire the cruise of oil and the barrels all around her because she was dependent every single day on the Lord bringing something out of nothing and that's how we should live by grace day by day that the Lord will give the manna was like that itself if you didn't use the manna it bred worms and it stank and that's what happens to some people in their spiritual lives they begin to breed worms and to stink in their spiritual lives because you're not putting to use the means of grace not putting them to use God gives you use and as you use he gives more use your talents God will give you more talents and
[30:54] God gives a reward to those who use well but I'll tell you this as well my friend not only was her reward in the food but it was also in the fellowship of the prophet there was a house next to her house or can we say there was a house or a house that was attached to the roof of her house this was common in the near east it was a common structure it was accessible from the outside just in case you think that there was anything indecent in it there was not the access to the house was from outside these structures are still apparently common amongst the poorer people in the near east and Elijah lived there and dwelt with this woman for over two years this woman and her son and that my friend was the greatest reward that this woman received how many days of fellowship did they have together in how many ways did Elijah help this woman to understand the
[31:55] Lord God of Israel bringing her on in the faith teaching encouraging exhorting rebuking admonishing she had the privilege of the prophet of God with her in the home the last shall be first out goes the gospel out of Israel and into the house of this poor woman it goes she did a lot with a little when Israel was doing a little with a lot and the Lord honored her and the Lord blessed her to them that hath shall be given and from them that hath not even that which they have shall be taken from them and the Lord blessed the woman and blessed her richly indeed now the interesting thing here is that this cycle is again repeated in this woman's experience she's tested she passes and she sees the glory of God but it happens to her again another test comes and you'll notice that it's harder than the first one now some people preach and practice a sugary spicy
[33:05] Christianity one that's very very easy and they pretend to you sometimes even when they preach that oh you just come and believe and that's it it's all plain sailing after that the Christianity of the Bible is nothing like that nothing like that at all it is a year they get harder was Abraham's hardest trial not at the twilight of his own years this woman's second trial is certainly harder than her first apparently the name Zarephath means a crucible or a melting place now actually there's a little dispute over what exactly the name means it could mean two things but it seems to be the case that it means a melting place or a smelting place a furnace and there was indeed in that area a place for the refining of metals how aptly named the place was because this woman was really put into the crucible the second time because the worst thing that could happen to her fell to her in verse 17 it came to pass after these things that the son of the woman the mistress of the house fell sick and his sickness was so sore he died her young child died and only those who have gone through that know the pain and the loss of losing a child when he or she is still young she holds him for a while and then it seems almost to take herself by surprise
[34:40] I'm sure it was the last thing she was expecting when the child expired and briefed its last and this woman so recently favored surrounded with the miracles of God is suddenly left holding the dead body of her own child my friend God's greatest tests sometimes come in the midst of his greatest blessings and his greatest providential kindnesses you mark that it's as though one was just a cushion or a cushion for the other the child dies and she turns to Elijah in near despair and she says to him in verse 18 what have I to do with thee O thou man of God art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance and to slay my son now the one thing I want us to understand from this very clearly is that this woman is not blaming
[35:42] Elijah for what happened to her it sounds like it but she is not blaming him at all there is fear in her voice and she certainly feels in some way that she would be better distant from the prophet but it's not because there's something wrong with a prophet notice and read the words carefully it's because she's conscious that there's something wrong with herself read it again verse 18 and she said to Elijah what have I to do with thee o thou man of God art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance and to slay my son she doesn't blame the prophet she blames herself she blames herself and as far as I'm concerned that is a good mark on this woman because she's talking about her sins and she's talking about her past and she knows now through two years of fellowship and through two years of blessing from the prophet that she deserves nothing but the wrath and curse of
[36:52] God and that is a child grown in grace she is conscious that she never deserved the child she knows that if God were to mark her iniquity she would have nothing left in the world she knows that she knows it now and if ever have you come to bring my sins to remembrance and to slay my son but let me say this that if there is any harshness in this towards Elijah notice how Elijah takes it and Christian man and woman you notice how Elijah takes it he doesn't turn and say who are you to talk like that to me he knows that when grief comes into a person sometimes words escape their lips that might not escape their lips in other circumstances but he had a tender heart and he had a compassionate soul like the Lord himself had to the disciples when they said in the midst of the storm carest thou not that we perish what words they were to use
[37:58] Elijah deals with her tenderly and you remember that if you hear someone in their extremity perhaps speak or even cast an aspersion upon the Lord I don't excuse such a thing in myself or in anyone else save this that we are weak and frail vessels you remember it and be kind and tender and patient to such people who knows what you would say if such grief came upon yourself who knows what words would escape your lips Elijah says nothing I know his own soul is in torment and in turmoil he just picks the child off her bosom where she is holding him so closely he picks the child off her bosom he goes outside and he ascends his own loft he shuts the door he's in a secret chamber and he lays the child on the bed and a strange thing happens he lays himself on top of the child and he does that three times and he prays earnestly to
[39:06] God to put life back into this child now if you come across a strange act in the bible you know that there's a significance behind it and this was a strange act now there's a part of it that's not strange and that is his cry to God it is his prayer he cried to God the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous man availeth much and he knows that he must take this whole thing to God the only one who can deal with it now it doesn't tell us too much detail but Elisha did the same thing some years later and we're told that when he stretched himself on the child he would get up and he would walk back and forth for a while and then he would come back and lay himself on the child again now I have no doubt that Elisha learned from his master and if
[40:08] Elisha did that he knew that Elijah had done it so here you have the phenomenon of this man crying to God pacing back and forth and then lying again down on the child mouth to mouth hands upon hands eyes upon eyes and he asks and pleads with God to give life back to this child and you saw his prayer a couple of weeks ago it's earnest he cries like everything else in the Christian life for Elijah it was business for him he meant it he was in earnest he wasn't playing games he wasn't having his faith like a badge people wear on their lapels it was his whole life he cried to God about this matter he desired to God to do something and you'll notice that he expected an answer here you have the number three again three times he laid himself on the child three times went away to pray three times our
[41:09] Lord prayed in Gethsemane three times Paul asked for the thorn in the flesh what did it mean it meant expectant prayer until an answer was given that's what it means he again prayed expectantly until God sent an answer and you'll notice that he asked specifically a specific request in verse 21 he stretched himself upon the child three times and said oh Lord my God I pray thee let this child's soul come into him again what a prayer that was never before had it been offered up in the Old Testament in the history of the world never before was there a resurrection as far as I can understand this was the first person brought back to life and Elijah puts up that prayer he puts up that petition for something never seen before bring this child let the child's soul come back into him again now if I'm not mistaken
[42:16] I believe that that fact that it's the first resurrection explains the mystery of the stretching in other words this first resurrection from death to life is done in such a way as to teach us how God always brings life from death how does he do it well the key is in the hands upon the hands and the mouth upon the mouth and the eyes upon the eyes the fact of the matter is that God brings souls to life first of all by contracting himself I speak with reverence by contracting himself to their situation and to their need here is a small child he can be but a few years old but Elijah comes and meets him mouth to mouth eyes to eyes and hands to hands as
[43:18] Elisha was to do afterwards he is bringing himself as it were to the dimensions of the child I cannot help but see the incarnation of the Lord in that did he not become bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh in order to save us did he not have to as it were put the palms of his hands upon yours his eyes upon yours to impart his sight to you and above all his mouth upon yours to kiss you with the kiss of life and to impart life to your soul is that not how the Lord brings life out of death by as it were swallowing your death and imparting his life to you that is how the Lord awakens the dead and breathes life into a soul I kill and I make alive and you who are dead today and there may be people weeping over you your mother or father or your children even sad or still may be weeping over you that you are still dead well
[44:22] I pray that the prophet of God might lie upon you hand to hand mouth upon mouth and that he may impart to you the life that you need and as it was true of the living man the first physical living creature God breathed the breath of life into his nostrils and he became a living soul so may Christ the prophet breathe into your soul to become a spiritual living soul Elijah contracts himself to the child identifies with the child and the child is brought as it were to life and he takes the child finally down to his mother verse 23 and Elijah took the child and brought him down out of the chamber into the house and delivered him unto his mother and Elijah said see thy son liveth and the woman said to Elijah now by this I know that thou art a man of
[45:23] God and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth her faith is brought to full fruition the work of God is accomplished you don't know sometimes why you have to do a certain thing but then you discover why it was for this person or for that person her faith is ripened her faith is full she sees that God is a God of resurrection and he is the God of life and that God will never leave her and that God will never forsake her she learns and Elijah learns and how much more blessed their fellowship afterwards the greater your trial the greater your reward the greater your blessing the better your fellowship you share with one another it is as simple as that God's work brings its own reward he obeyed and they both saw the glory of God well that's very well but then the time comes for
[46:27] Elijah again to leave because it's time to face Ahab again in fact it's time to face the 450 prophets of Baal on the top of Mount Carmel but he has had Cherith and he has had Sarephath so he's now ready to stand on Carmel and you will also be close to the Lord and you can defeat his may the Lord bless his word let us pray eternal God we pray that they would strip from us all self confidence and reliance upon the flesh help us to look to the one who is the resurrection and the life who can impart to us life that we may have it indeed and have it abundantly we pray for any who may be dead in their souls among us tonight thou knowest them and thou knowest them all wilt thou not visit them with thy salvation draw near to them take away anything that may have been inconsistent with thy truth let thine own word prevail and may it be blessed for
[47:40] Christ's sake Amen Amen