1 Kings 17:15

Trust And Get The Blessing

She went and did according to the saying of Elijah: and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days. 1 Kings 17:15.

During World War I and World War II, food was so scarce that it had to be strictly rationed so that everybody might have a little. Mothers planned and schemed to make the small meat allowance go as far as possible for their families. Everyone had only a scrape of butter or margarine on their bread, tea hardly tasted of sugar, and jelly on bread was a rare treat. Now days, your family might not always be able to eat what you would like because it costs too much.

Today's story is about a time in the history of Israel when food was ten times as scarce as it was during World War I and World War II. But the reason for the scarceness was not a war, it was a three years' drought three years of no rain, during which the crops withered for lack of moisture, and the cattle died for lack of food, and the people perished of hunger.

And the awful thing was that the famine was the people's own fault. God had sent it to them as a punishment for their sins. They had been forgetting God. Worse than that, they had been worshipping a false god in His stead. Sad to say their king, Ahab, was largely to blame for this. For he had yielded to the wishes of his wicked heathen wife Queen Jezebel, had built a temple in Samaria to her favorite god Baal, and had encouraged the foolish people of Israel to worship him.

So one day God sent his prophet Elijah to warn the king that there would be neither rain nor mist in the land until the day when he, Elijah, said so. And as Elijah prophesied so it came to pass. The prophet himself went and lived for a time in the wilderness beside the brook Cherith, and the ravens, you remember, brought him food night and morning. But at last, for lack of rain, the brook dried up, and God then told Elijah to go to a certain city called Zarephath. There God promised he would find a widow woman who would feed him and give him a home.

The prophet was rather surprised at God's command; for Zarephath was a city of Zidon, and the people of Zidon were heathens in fact Jezebel's father was king of the Zidonians and to go down to a city where Jezebel might hear of him and seize him was like walking into the jaws of the wolf. But though Elijah was surprised he never dreamt of disobeying. He trusted God and set out on his journey.

When he arrived at the gate of Zidon there he saw a poor woman gathering sticks. Something told him that this was the widow God had spoken of, so he went up to her and asked her if she would be kind enough to bring him a drink of water. She turned away to find a little water for this strange-looking man with the stern face and the camel's-hair mantle of a prophet, and as she was going he called after her, “And please bring me a morsel of bread too!” The woman stopped and looked at him and then she said sadly, “Bread! How can I bring you bread? I have only a very little meal left in the barrel, just enough to make one baking of bread; and I have only enough oil left in the cruse to bake it with. These sticks are to make the fire. Then my son and I shall eat our last meal. After that we must starve and die.”

“No,” said the prophet. “No. You need not fear that you will die of starvation. Do as you said. Bake your bread and give me some of it. I promise you in the name of my God that neither your barrel of meal nor your cruse of oil shall be empty so long as the famine lasts.”

It was an extraordinary thing to say and I'm sure the woman gazed in amazement at this strange prophet who promised her such wonderful things in the name of the God of Israel. Always to have plenty while the famine lasted! It sounded too good to be true. Was she a fool to trust him and give him a share of the last bite of food she possessed? He was an absolute stranger and he was very likely making up a story for his own ends. Could she, dare she, trust him?... Yes, she would.

She went and did exactly what he had told her to do, and the result was that so long as the famine lasted her barrel of meal was miraculously filled and so was her cruse of oil.

Don't you think that woman's faith in Elijah and her obedience to his wishes were splendid? Don't you think she deserved the blessing that she got? Would you have done as she did?

Boys and girls, we can still show the same faith as that woman of Zarephath. Elijah's command to her was really God's command. And God's command is the same today as it was in the days of that far-off famine. He still says to you and to me, “Trust Me and do My will.” But some of us won't trust Him. We prefer to trust ourselves and go our own way, and so we miss the blessing. Shall I tell you a story to make this clear?

Once upon a time there was a certain king who wanted to find a servant and friend whom he could trust. He gave out that he wanted a man to do a day's work, and two men applied for the situation. The king engaged them at a fixed wage, and then he told them what he wanted them to do. They were to spend the day drawing water from a well but and this was the odd thing they were to pour the buckets into a basket.

After emptying his bucket once or twice, one of the men pitched it away in a rage crying, “This is a fool's job! I shall do no more of it!” But the other said, “It is the job the king asked us to do, and it is the job we are being paid for doing. We have no right to stop.” So he went on faithfully dipping his bucket into the well and pouring its contents into the basket.

Later his eyes caught the glitter of something shining in the mud at the bottom of the well. It was a precious diamond ring. “Ah!” said he, “now I see why the king set us to this task, and why we were told to pour the water into a basket. If the water had brought up the ring before the well was dry, the ring would have been found in the basket.” So he took the ring to the king.

But the king said, “Keep it. You are a man whom I can trust because you obeyed and trusted me when you did not understand my reasons. I see I can trust you in greater things.” And he gave him a high position.

Boys and girls, you will find, especially as you grow older, that sometimes it seems difficult to do as God commands, for you don't see the reason behind His command. But never mind that! Just go on obeying and trusting, and you will find a blessing as surely as did that faithful servant, as surely as did that poor starving widow of Zarephath.