1 Kings 17:9

THE UNEXPECTED IN LIFE

‘Arise, get thee to Zarephath.… I have commanded a widow woman to sustain thee.’

1 Kings 17:9

I. Notice how God often takes us by unexpected roads.—From Cherith, by the command of God, Elijah was sent to the little town of Zarephath. Now Zarephath was a Sidonian town. It lay on the sea-coast between Tyre and Sidon. It was not a place where the true God was worshipped; it was a haunt and home of foul idolatry. It was indeed the last place in the world where we should look for a prophet of Jehovah. Of course, as we look back on it to-day, we can see the meaning of the command of God. Here Baal was worshipped, in all his horrid foulness, and Elijah was to be the antagonist of Baal. Where better, then, could he see the moral death that would creep upon Israel if she turned to Baal, than in this city where that worship was supreme? All this is very plain to us to-day; but it was not plain to the prophet when he went there. Like Joseph, when he was carried down to Egypt, Elijah was led by an unlooked-for road. Yet just as Joseph, by that unlikely path, was brought to his true sphere and highest honour, so it was in this leading of Elijah. It is well that we all should carry that in mind. We are often led by paths we would not choose. Like St. Paul, we essay to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of God in Providence suffers us not. And we think it hard, as Paul and Elijah did, until we find ‘He knoweth the way that we take,’ for Macedonia is better than Bithynia, and we would have failed but for our years in Zarephath.

II. Notice how God is often using us when we know it not.—This widow woman never thought of God when she acted so kindly to the alien prophet. She did what she could for him out of her kindly heart—how was she to know that his promises were true? And she did it (or at least she thought she did) just because it pleased her, and of her own free will. Yet all the time, although she knew it not, she was obeying the Divine commandment—‘I have commanded,’ the Lord had said to Elijah, ‘a widow woman to sustain thee there.’ Let us be taught, then, that our service of the King is a far wider thing than sometimes we imagine. When we are kind and charitable and good and loving, we are carrying out some mandate of the Master. Lord, when did we see Thee hungry or in prison—when did we see Thee sick and visited Thee? ‘Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto Me.’

Illustrations

(1) ‘Not unseldom God bids His servants hide themselves towards the sunrising, but in these periods of enforced seclusion, He makes Himself responsible for the supply of their want. The brook may dwindle, only to reveal other resources. Not nature only, but human hearts are at the disposal of our Master, Who can make a cruse of oil and an handful of meal outlast a famine. Our one aim must be to know God’s plan and live on it, then no good thing can fail.’

(2) ‘There is a terrible epitaph on an old Roman tomb, “Quod edi et hibi, mecum habeo”—what I ate and drank I have with me. But I am certain that the widow of Sarepta would never write that upon her headstone. She had learned the truth of these words of John Wesley, “What I gave away, I have still.”