Elisha Series

We're gonna read now. We're doing a series in in Elijah. And Elijah, we've done Elijah, and we've moved on to Elijah. And it's been a really interesting series to to get to grips with. And we're in 2 kings and chapter 4.

That's in the old testament, 2 kings chapter 4 and verses 1 to 7. And we come to this story with Elai shirt. Now you might have thought, hold it. Haven't we dealt with this? Well, there's a very similar story with Elijah and perhaps Ben will tell us what similarities are.

I'm not sure. Ben is gonna come and open this up after I've read this. And it's 2 kings and chapter 4 and verse 1. The wife of a man from the company of the prophets cried out to Elijah. Your servant, my husband, is dead.

And you know that he has he has that he revered the lord. But now his cred creditor is coming, to take my 2 boys as his slaves. Elijah replied to her, how can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house? Your servant has nothing there at all.

She said, except a small, jar, of olive oil. Elijah said, go round and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don't ask for just a few. Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons. Pour oil into all the jars, and as each is filled, put it to 1 side.

She left him and shut the door behind her and her sons. They brought the jars to her, and she kept pouring. When all the jobs were full, she said to her sons, bring me another 1. But he replied, there is not a jar left. Then the oil stopped flowing.

She went and told the man of god, and he said, go, sell the oil, and pay your debts, you and your sons can live on what is left. Well, good morning, everyone from me, and good morning out the back. It doesn't get boring that. Good morning out the front. Morning at home?

Nothing. Hopefully, you're still there. Yes. So my name is Ben. I'm a trainee pastor here at the church.

And we had a break last week because we were looking at Tabitha. To sort of kick start our acts of kindness month, which has been a joy. We've enjoyed We had beautiful smiling face at our door dropping something off, and we've gone and knocked on people's door and doors and dropped some stuff off. And it's I think the smile on people's faces has been better than the delicious things we've been exchanging in some cases. So keep going with that as well.

It's not just this week either. So if you haven't done it yet, don't panic. I know someone was speaking to someone the other day. They thought, oh, I haven't done it yet. It's fine.

You've got a month. So if you've done it already, maybe do it again. Or think of someone else you could do it for Anyway, back to this story. As Pete said, there's a bit of deja vu going on here. Maybe you have got deja vu because in 1 Kings chapter 17, which we looked at a few months ago, The prophet Elijah encounters a widow who with her son is in trouble because they have nothing left to live off.

But the word of the Lord comes to the prophet Elijah, who provides the miracle of provision of oil and flour, but oil in a jug which sustains her and her son. In this passage that we just read, in 2 Kings chapter 4, the prophet Elijah encounters a widow who with her sons is in trouble because they have nothing left to live off. The word of the lord comes to the prophet who provides the miracle of oil in a jug, which sustains her and her sons. And it doesn't stop there either in 1 king 17, after the miracle of this jug of oil, the woman's son dies and she goes to the prophet Elijah for help. The prophet, if you remember, stretches himself out on the boy and the boy comes back to life.

Well, guess what? Guess what happens right after this story. We'll see -- as we'll see next week in 2 Kings chapter 4 versus 8 to the end of the chapter. A woman sun dies and she goes to the prophet Elijah for help. Elijah comes and stretches himself out on the boy and the boy comes back to life.

And you just think, what? What's going on here? Did the did the writer of 2 kings just sort of run out of ideas? You know, flip back and go, oh, gosh. What what have I done?

That's quite good. Oh, yeah. That was a good story. That was dramatic. Death and resurrection.

That was good. Maybe we'll do that again. But the thing is no 1 really likes a sequel, do they? I've not even seen Lion King 2 or Lion King 3 for that matter. They're never as good as the first ones.

Months 2 was a bit of a letdown, I thought. Incredibles 2, I can't even remember what happens in it. And Frozen 2, although I think and Elaine is a big fan. I can't really even remember what happens in that. So what on earth is going on here?

Why have we got a sequel to the to something that's already happened? What did we not learn the first time around that God's going, oh, goodness. I need to do this again. For us to learn again. Well, my first point this morning is authentic profit.

I'm going to waste no time because we've got a lot of good stuff to get through here. Authentic profits. A few weeks ago, Tom explained to us that the way to spot an authentic profit was by following the bread crumbs of their ministry. And what he meant by that was that by performing the same miracle or kind of miracle as as prophets before them, was verification from God that this person continued in the prophetic line. So Moses, genuine prophet, led the people out of slavery by crossing the Red Sea And then Joshua, who took over from Moses, led God's people into the promised land by crossing the Jordan.

So it was it was the crossing of water that verified showed that these men's ministries are related. They followed on from each other. They served the same God. So Elijah crossed the Jordan on his farewell tour, if you remember that. And he was showing by doing that that he's in the same prophetic line as these men before him.

And then the very first thing Elijah does. The first thing Elijah does, when he picks up the mantle, is crossed back over the Jordan in exactly the same way as Elijah had literally just done. So Repetition of miracles is not lazy writing. It's not that the writer is gone, I can't think of what else to do. So I'm gonna do this again.

It's not even a kind of confused storytelling like, oh, I think I've told this before, but I'm not quite sure. A repetition of miracles is God's stamp of approval. On these men. These are my messengers, God is saying, I've not stopped speaking, I've more to say to you, So listen to my profit. So with this passage that we've just read, that's what's going on here on 1 hand.

God is continuing to speak. His line of profit is still active, his word is still alive and these repeated miracles authenticate it. That is important to know. But actually, we we also have to remember that these events are happening to real people. This is not just a fictional woman painted into history.

Just simply to authenticate Elijah and his ministry. She's actually she was a real person. She had a real problem. So my second point is authentic woman. She is a real Human who lived in this world that you and I are living in today, she breathed the air that we breathe in this world.

She was in history and she had a real problem. And I actually want us to really hear her cry. This morning to the Lord, because I think actually we all know her cry quite well. I actually think that what's happened to her and her experience here is actually something that has happened to all of us. I think at some point or other in this world, it's going to be our experience because she is living in a world where suffering comes on the faithful.

Suffing comes on the faithful. It's interesting. 2 weeks ago when we last were looking at Elijah, we heard about those 3 kings were in the desert. You remember that? And they were shown a blessing from God even though they were unfaithful.

They had abandoned God, hadn't really gone to him for help, and yet God is still bent down and blessed them. We had a blessing on the unfaithful. But here, we seem to have a suffering on the faithful. So verse 1, says this, the wife of a man from the company of the prophets cried out to Elijah, your servant, my husband is dead, and you know that he revered the lord. But now his creditor is coming to take my 2 boys as his slaves.

So a couple of things here. First of all, this woman has come straight to the profit. Yeah, compare that to the kings in the desert. Who ran into battle without God, only called on him reluctantly when they'd run out of all other ideas and were desperate. This woman in contrast is coming straight to Yairwe and his profit for help.

Her husband was also in the company of profits we're This is a faithful family. And we we've kind of forgotten about Jezebel already, haven't we? But actually, this is right after that sort of time. And Jezebel hated God and his people. So if she was married to a prophet and they were living as a faithful family in this time, even under persecution from Jezebel, then they're a faithful family, aren't they?

And lastly, this is not just a kind of an unknown random profit. He's actually known by Elijah to be faithful. She says to him, Your servant, first of all, he was your servant, is dead, and you know that he revered the lord. You actually knew him and you know that he revered the Lord. So this woman in this story that we're looking at is a rare faithful woman.

From a rare faithful family in the middle of an unbelievably unfaithful time. And yet, Her husband has died, and now the creditor is coming to take away her 2 sons of slaves. I mean, I recognize that cry out to the lord. Do you recognize the situation? I've been faithful to you God, but now I'm struggling in this lockdown.

I was serving in the church lord, but now I'm too ill. They were honoring you with their life, father, and then they died. I was being generous with my wealth, and now I'm in debt. I was following you closely, and then I was abused. I think this is our cry to some extent in this world, isn't it?

Lord, you know how I revere you, but now the creditor is coming. Suffering comes even on the faithful. So the question today is how is this profit going to respond to this cry? How is the lord going to respond to her need. Because on the 1 hand, he's dealing with kings.

He's got 3 kings in a desert and there's a battle going on. And it's a huge epic. You know, those scenes and films where the camera zooms out and you see the armies attacking each other. That's what he's got going on in 1 hand. And then on the other hand, this Little nameless widow is coming to him and saying, help.

Is he gonna stoop down and pay any attention to this woman? So my third point is this, utter willingness to help. I want us to see, not just her cry, but I want us to see just how eager God is to hear her cry and to help even the smallest and most insignificant of his people. When they come to him for salvation. Again, going back to the last chapter, we saw Elijah say to the king of Israel in what is quite a comedic scene when the king of Israel reluctantly comes to him.

He says this. He says, why do you want to involve me? Yeah? Go to the profits of your father and the profits of your mother. Shove off basically.

And then he's pushed a little bit and he says, oh, as surely as the Lord almighty lives, whom I serve. If I did not have respect for the presence of jehoshaphat, King of Judah, I would not pay any attention to you. In other words, you're lucky he's here because I've absolutely no time for you. You have no interest in the Lord whatsoever, what he thinks. You actually don't want his favor You don't care what he thinks of you.

You're just trying to save your own skin, and that was his response to the king of Israel. The king. We'll compare that response to what we see here when this unnamed seemingly insignificant, but faithful woman comes to him for help. In verse 2, Elijah said to her, how can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?

Yeah. I'll drop everything to help. Tell me, what can I do for you? How can I help? What have you got?

What have we got that we could work with? What have you got in your house? I want to help. How can I help you? Do you see how completely different that is to his response to the king of Israel?

Do you see how utterly willing God to bend down and help even the smallest people who come to him. In those days, widows were among the lowlier in society. They were among the most vulnerable and unimportant. So the king of Israel wouldn't give 2 hoots about her. If he passed her on the street, he probably wouldn't even look at her in the eye.

Wouldn't even acknowledge she existed and yet the king of kings. The king of all kings is quick to bend down. Low and help. How can I help you? Tell me what do you have in your house.

We see this with Jesus in the new testament when a man with leprosy comes to him for help, and he kneels before him this man. And he says, Lord, if you are willing you can make me clean. And what does Jesus say to the leper? I mean, the leper shouldn't buy any rights be anywhere near him because it's so infectious. It's someone coming to you without a mask and touching you and being like, sorry, Carrie.

She's my wife, so we're in a bubble together. But the the leper couldn't do that. He shouldn't be anywhere near Jesus. So when he says, if you're willing, what does Jesus say? Well, he actually touches him himself.

He reaches out when he says, I am willing. I am willing. Be clean. That is the heart of God for those who come to him for refuge and for help. He was willing for the widow, he's willing for the leper, and he's willing for you too.

If you come to him for help. So I thought I'd ask you at this point, when trouble comes, in your life, when the creditor is on the horizon and you can see him and you've spotted him, whatever that problem is coming towards you. Are you more like the 3 kings in the desert? Who have to be told when they've tried and failed at their own plan and everything else first, then to go to God. Do you find yourself mostly being reminded by other people to pray?

You know, that dreaded question, have you prayed about it yet? Damn it. The people text you, you know, offered to pray for you. Say, how can how can I pray for you? You think, Gosh.

And you haven't done any of it yet. Maybe you wait to be asked at home group. You really cherish that moment in home group when it your turn, and they say, how can we pray for you? And you think, wow. Or are you more like this woman?

Who comes immediately to God with a cry. It's the first thought in her mind when she sees the creditor coming a long way off. Lord, the creditor is coming. He's on his way. The kings would say, Lord, I saw the creditor.

So I had to go at rearranging my finances, to try to sell some of my stuff. I bartered with the creditor when he actually got here. I even fought him a little bit, but now I'm in real trouble because he's taken my stuff and I need help. The woman says, the creditor is coming. So if you're more like the kings than this woman, then why not ask God to change you?

That's my prayer. Lord, prompt me to cry out to you first, make me like this woman, make me like the leper who went straight to you, Even though he knew he shouldn't have done by society's rules, but he did without hesitation because he knew you were willing. I hope we can see how incredibly willing God is to bend down to us and help us if only we'd come to him for help. So my fourth point is power to help. We've seen his willingness to help.

He's spilling over with willingness. He's on he's the edge of his toes, tips of his toes. But now we get to see his power as well. And it's kind of a strange mix of ordinary and supernatural what happens next. And it's ordinary because Elijah starts with what she already has.

So in verse 2, Elijah says to her, how can I help you? Tell me what do you have in your house What have you got that we can work with? God is gonna provide a way out of this, but he's gonna use what you already have. The problem is that this widow doesn't think that God can use anything that she has already. She says, your servant has nothing there at all.

Accept this small jar of olive oil. In other words, I don't really have anything that God would be interested in doing anything with. I've got nothing special. Nothing special. I've got nothing to offer at all.

I accept this small little jar of olive oil, but that is completely insufficient to deal with the size of problem that's coming my way. Your servant has nothing here at all. She says, but you could say to her, look, God only needs a couple of fish, a piece of bread. Yeah? God only needs 7 days in a few words.

And he can do wonders with even your ordinary insufficiently small jar of olive oil. So Elijah says in verse 3, go round and ask all your neighbors empty jars. Don't ask for just a few, then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons, pour oil into all the jars, And as each is filled, put it to 1 side. So just like the widow in Zarephath in 1 King's Chapter 17 with Elijah, who poured the oil jug daily and put her hand in the flour jar and she found them never to run dry. The plan here, similarly, is to ask around her neighbors, get as many empty jars as possible, like you're making Christmas chutney.

You ask everyone, give me your empty jars. And then she's gonna pour the small oil jar into each 1 of them, and it should keep pouring. Verse 5. She left him oh, it's on there. She left him and shut the door behind her and her sons.

They brought the jars to her, and She kept pouring. She kept pouring. I think if I was her, the first pour would be a bit cautious. Because she obeys bless her straight away. She trusts the word of the lord from Elijah, but I can imagine it must have been a bit strange.

It's always a bit manky, isn't it? These olive oil jars as you use them by the kicking? Maybe just in our house, There's bits in it, I don't know. Anyway, so she starts pouring. And she finds that it just Even though it's an insufficiently small jar, there's nothing special about this jar, because of the word of the lord, it's now flowing and flowing and flowing until every single jar they could find is full to the brim.

So verse 6, When all the jars were full, she said to her son, bring me another 1. She's quite excited by this point. She's just getting into a bit of a groove. You know, I kick in 1 jar out, bring another 1 in. Pour it, and kick that 1 out the way.

And she says, come on, bring me another 1, but he replies, there's not a jar left, then the oil stopped flowing. The Lord provided the exact amount of oil that they were able to store. And notice how this isn't just God sort of doing a big massive Amazon dump delivery on her to make her go away, like, ugh, I'm trying to deal with kings here woman. Can't sort of see Right. I'm gonna press a massive Amazon order and you're just gonna get a a massive buttload of oil coming your way.

He doesn't do a bulk generic delivery. The Lord knows exactly to the milliliter how much she needs. There's not a drop over that she can store. The sun told her, there's not a jar left, then the oil stop flowing. The oil only stopped flowing when she ran out of jars.

That's the amount that God provides. And do you know that's how God deals with you as well? He doesn't just classify your problems as high, medium, or low. Urgent. Not so urgent.

I'll deal with that later. He knows exactly what you need in your problems, in your life to the milliliter. And what that means is we shouldn't actually worry about knowing what to say to God when we see the creditor a long way off coming. Because this woman's cry wasn't lord. The creditor is coming, so I need a hundred and 52.7 liters of oil that should cover my debts, and actually I need it by 2 PM tomorrow because that's the exact moment he's gonna arrive.

Thank you very much. Her cry was just help. God knows how much she needs, and it's the exact same with us. So don't not pray, just because you don't know what to pray. So once she's filled all the jars, she goes back to Elijah to learn what to do next.

And I think she must have been so excited or or dubious maybe with the first instruction that she actually didn't think ahead to ask what to do with these jars after she'd filled them. So in verse 7, she goes back to him and says, and he says to her, go sell the oil and pay your debts. You and your sons can live on what is left. So this was God's plan to provide for her. She came to Elijah with the problem, the creditor is coming to claim the debts And with the oil that she now has, she can sell enough off to pay every single penny.

God has totally satisfied her debt. This huge debt that that panicked her that freaked her out, that she knew she couldn't pay herself. God has satisfied it. So the creditor can come now. He can come.

Open him in, make him cup of tea. And he can take what he's owed, and her sons in her life are not gonna be taken from her. Praise God. I think the relief that must have flooded her when she heard those words, go and sell the oil, pay for your debts. But it gets even better, because see what Elijah says at the end of verse 7.

He says, you and your sons can live off what's what's left. So, there's enough left even after satisfying this huge debt that she and her sons have got like a living wage here to live off after. That the debt's gonna be paid off, God's gonna deal with her immediate need, but he's actually gonna go beyond her immediate need, what she's even asked for. And bless her with life, your debt is paid and there's enough for you to live off here too. That again is the heart of God for those who come to him for refuge.

He's not just gonna send you bulk generic aids to deal with your little problem. And then, oh, she's to come back to me. Oh, she's come back to me. It's gonna bless you over and abundantly. This is some lines from a song we sing here at Cornerstone.

For the 1 who holds the heavens, and commands the stars above is the God who bends to bless us with an unrelenting love. Not only is he ready to hear us. I am willing. And deal with this reason that we've cried out, but he wants to relentlessly bless us over and above what we can even ask of him. Because of his love for us.

And so my last point is our help. He's willing to help. He's got the power to help, and he's also our help. I said at the start of the sermon that we're like this woman because her cry is also our cry in this world. Her experience is our experience.

But we're also more fundamentally just like this woman because her problem is also our problem. The creditor was coming for her because she was bankrupt. And we too are spiritually bankrupt. The wages of sin is death, and we have accrued unfathomable debt against God, our entire lives, and now the creditor is coming. And God is not against justice, by the way, Maybe you noticed this, the creditor is actually rightfully coming for us and demanding payment.

You know, in this story as well as our lives, God is not gonna stop this creditor from coming. His plan isn't to sort of knock the creditor on the head and then run away or evacuate the woman to another town. Justice must be done. God is perfect in every way. If if there's been debt, it has to be paid.

But our problem is that we have offended him. Our debts are against him, and so God is actually our creditor. He is coming himself. He is the creditor, and he's coming to claim the debt. Against him, and so we seriously need to wake up and realize our situation that we're in.

This widow knew her situation. She could see her estate was nothing in comparison to this debt. And she says, your servant has nothing here at all. She says I'm bankrupt. I know I'm bankrupt.

There's nothing I have that can come anywhere near paying off this debt that is coming my way, and her little jar of oil was utterly insufficient. And so Jesus asks us What righteousness do you have? What desire do you have to follow me? What claim do you seriously have against this debt that you owe? And when we look at ourselves, we need to be honest.

What we have is a tiny little pathetic jar of oil against the ledger of our hearts. Your righteousness is not enough. Your desire even to follow Jesus is not enough. You have nothing in your estate that comes anywhere near close enough to pay this debt off. And so the woman realized the situation she was in we need to read our own bank statement clearly and realize the situation that we're in.

But she came to the Lord for help. And what happened to her next, I think, is a wonderful picture, a wonderful foreshadow of the cross of Jesus for us. Because remember, this woman's little jar flowed and flowed and flowed to cover the debt of the cost of her debt. And Jesus' blood spilled on the cross, flows, and flows, and flows to cover the cost of your sin. To the milliliter, God knows how much of his own son's blood has to be spilled to cover the payment of your debt.

And so, by the way, for anyone here who doubts that God could save them or worries whether a certain sin will not be accounted for, then look at the story again and see how the oil did not stop running until the last jar was full. The blood of Jesus was poured out until every last jar of your sin has been completely filled. You might have a lot of jars by the way. You might have a lot of jars compared to the people around you. You might even have a huge jar, an ocean sized jar that you can never forget about that keeps you awake day and night, but let's read verses 5 and 6 again.

They brought the jars to her, and she kept pouring When all the jars were full, she said to her son, bring me another 1, but he replied, there is not a jar left. Then the oil stopped flowing. The oil stops flowing when there's not a jar left, not a hidden 1, not 1 you're embarrassed about, You know, there's not a single 1 left, not even the couple you've forgotten about left, there's not a jar of your sin that is not being filled to the brim. With the blood of Jesus. And so your debt has been paid by the blood of Jesus.

Did creditor God has been satisfied because Jesus' blood has run so that yours doesn't have to. And just like this widow, the picture doesn't end there either because the blood of Jesus doesn't simply satisfy the debt that we're owed, but it actually buys us ridiculously, eternal life. 1 Peter 2 verse 24 says, he himself bore our sins in his body on the cross so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness by his wounds you've been healed. So this is the double cure that God provides for us. We have died to sin in Christ.

The payment has been made, and now we live for righteousness. And so, just to finish, let me ask you this question. You are the woman standing in this room with the doors closed. You have the oil of jars all around you now. Are you going to walk out of that house and meet the creditor with just your little jar of oil?

Do you think that little jar of oil is enough? Are you maybe offended by the idea that someone else has to pay for you? Do you deny maybe that the credit is even coming? Or are you going to gladly hand over all the jars of oil? That are filled to the brim around you, because that's the choice that we have today.

It's interesting that in the story that the jars were filled behind closed doors. No 1 else can see how many jars you have, except you and the creditor. He knows to the milliliter how many jars you have, and yet he's offered to pay for them all. It would be madness for this woman, wouldn't it? To walk out.

Oh, these I'm just gonna leave these here and go and try and pay with my little jar of or oil. It'd be madness for us to reject the blood of Jesus, wouldn't it? I'm gonna pray. And then afterwards, we're gonna sing our last song, which is his mercy is more. And it's a great song to finish with really because the whole song is about the sermon.

His mercy is more than the debt that we owe him. But there's 1 line in particular that says we stood beneath the debt we could never afford. Our sins, they are many, his mercy is more. So let me pray and then we'll just go straight into that song. Father, we thank you for this repeated miracle.

Another story in the bible to show us just how utterly willing you are to help us, and how powerful you are to help us. Lord help us to be like this woman, to cry out to you for help when we see trials on the horizon, and help us like her to gladly accept and welcome the provision that you provide for us. Father, please keep us from meeting the creditor with our own little jars of oil. Help us to accept the blood of Christ that has been poured flowing and flowing on our behalf. And we thank you that every sin every jar is full to the brim and paid for in Jesus' name, amen.