This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Life of Elijah” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, April 24, 1988.

Tonight we are reading from 1 Kings 17, and we are beginning with verse 8, and we will read to the end of the chapter. Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and stay there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you.” So he arose and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks.

And he called to her and said, Please get me a little water in a jar that I may drink. And as she was going to get it, he called to her and said, Please bring me a piece of bread in your hand.” But she said, as the Lord your God lives, I have no bread, only a handful of flour in a bowl and a little oil in the jar. And behold, I am gathering a few sticks that I may go in and prepare for me and my son, that we may eat it and die. Then Elijah said to her, do not fear. Do as you have said, but make me a little bread cake from it first, and bring it out to me, and afterward you may make one for yourself and for your son.

For thus says the Lord God of Israel, the bowl of flour shall not be exhausted, nor shall the jar of oil be empty until the day that the Lord sends rain on the face of the earth.” So she went and did according to the word of Elijah. And she and he and her household ate for many days. The bowl of flour was not exhausted, nor did the jar of oil become empty according to the word of the Lord, which he spake through Elijah. Now it came about after these things that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became sick, and his sickness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. So she said to Elijah, what have I to do with you, old man of God?

You have come to me to bring my iniquity to remembrance and to put my son to death. And he said to her, give me your son. Then he took him from her bosom and carried him up to the upper room where he was living. and laid him on his own bed. And he called to the Lord and said, O Lord my God, hast thou also brought calamity to the widow with whom I am staying by causing her son to die?

Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and called to the Lord and said, O Lord my God, I pray thee, let this child’s life return to him. And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah. And the life of the child returned to him, and he revived. And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper room into the house and gave him to his mother. And Elijah said, See, your son is alive. Then the woman said to Elijah, Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord is and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is true.

Our Lord, we realize that your word does not return to you void, but accomplishes what you have sent it to accomplish. For ourselves, in our lives, we look for the fruition of that word, and we also look for the fruition of your word in the lives of those whom you are calling. For surely, through our efforts, through the proclamation here, through our participation in the gospel, your word shall be heard, and there shall be that response that pleases you. Therefore, Lord, with all confidence, may we give ourselves over to that gospel which we have embraced, that gospel which is the hope of the world. May we ourselves be committed to it without reservation, May our prayers be in keeping with the things that we have heard and read, and may our souls be strengthened in keeping with your provision. We ask this through Christ our Savior. Amen.

In so many ways, The time of Elijah was a time of crisis for the Word of God. A time of crisis for the Word of God. You’ll note in this passage which we’ve read, and also in those verses that have preceded, just how serious this issue of the Word of God was in the days of Elijah, and how central the whole matter of the Word of God is to the stories that appear here.

You will know, for instance, the end of the sixteenth chapter. How it was in the days of Elijah and Ahab, the king of Israel, that Hiel, the Bethelite, built, or shall we say rebuilt, Jericho, in direct contradiction to the word of God, that word which had been spoken through Joshua, the son of Nun. So it is that the word of the Lord is rejected by Israel in the days of Elijah the prophet. Note also, as we move into the seventeenth chapter, the prophet’s word being the word of God, it also there being central to the prophecy now that has been given to Israel and to the king Ahab. The first verse of the seventeenth chapter, as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives before whom I stand, says Elijah, Surely there shall be neither do nor rain these years, except by my word.

Verse two, the word of the Lord came to Elijah. The effort then is in keeping with a restoration of that word for the Prophet, as he labors for Israel, as he labors before the Lord, the word of the Lord being re-asserted, re-established, if you will. Verse eight, once more those words appear. The word of the Lord came to Elijah, saying, note also how it is at the conclusion of that second episode that we have in the seventeenth chapter, verses eight through sixteen.

The woman goes and does as Elijah had bid her. According to the word of Elijah, the word of the prophet, once more the word of the The fulfillment of that word which he had spoken to her, that the bowl of flour would not be exhausted, nor the jar of oil become empty. Verse 16. And note also how this chapter concludes. Then the woman said to Elijah, verse 24, Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth. The age of Elijah is an age of crisis concerning the word of God, and in that respect not unlike our own.

We aren’t certain that what God has said is true. We’re not confident that what he has proclaimed will actually come to pass. We devise substitutes for the Word. Now even though we are engaged in constructing substitutes or joining ourselves to substitutes for the Word, That doesn’t mean that we’re not religious. We may be very, very religious. But the word is something that we can play fast and loose with.

The word, possibly taken seriously, possibly not, Some circumstances, yes. Some circumstances, no. The Lord takes his word with absolute seriousness. For the word, you see, is an extension of the word himself. One cannot take the word any less seriously than they take the Lord. The word of God in crisis in the day of Elijah. That word by a very religious people challenged and rejected. They have decided that the word is vacuous, empty. Obviously, Hiel had concluded that. Obviously, Ahab had concluded that.

There would be no recrimination for abandoning the word of the Lord. What would, in fact, happen They had decided in that day that whatever the Lord had projected with regard to the future certainly would not come to pass. And therefore there was no fear of God and there was no fear of his word. The word was empty.

Interestingly, The sin of Ahab, the sin of Israel, is so much like that original sin that we hear about in Genesis chapter three. Who is God to say that if you eat of this fruit, partake of this tree, you will die? Certainly that will not happen, so the word then is challenged, challenged by Satan, and then consequently rejected by Eve and her husband Adam. The word spoken by God is vacuous. What God has said will not come to pass. There is therefore no reason to fear Him. there is no reason to obey him.

You might also take note that the word of God is challenged and rejected because it is judged to be unprofitable It is judged to be a word suggesting to us delay in the fulfillment of our desires. It is judged to be a word that compounds the frustration of our lives, and in what it denies us, extends to us death rather than life. suggesting such things as these with regard to the Word of God, then drives someone to conclude that embracing the opposite, in rejecting the Word of God, one will then experience profit and satisfaction, gratification, and life to the full. Once more you may drift back through the pages of the Old Testament to the story of the Garden of Eden and realize that what is being suggested here in the days of Ahab and Elijah is not different from what was suggested in the Garden and the conflict that arose between God and Satan around our first parent. For what was it that Satan was suggesting? He was suggesting that a rejection of the word of God and the acceptance of his word was the route to profit, to life, to satisfaction, to gratification. But to accept the word of God and to live by it was to accept a road of inordinate delay, in which our satisfaction was put off, and life and the fullness of its promise was denied us, and that deliberately by God, if in fact there was a God at all. Now you think about it. You think about your sin, and the arguments that go on inside of yourself.

What’s the argument? God doesn’t know. If He does, He doesn’t care. So I’ll do it like this. The Word of God says, I’ll die. Oh no, I won’t die. The Word of God says, I will be judged. No, I won’t be judged. My sin suggests to me that life is somehow truly being denied. That the only way to live is to live in terms of my desires and their instant, immediate gratification. If I am not perfectly satisfied while I am worshipping God, then the worst for God, because I simply will not put up with that.

Battle lines are drawn. Will you live by the word of God, or will you not? Will you accept what he says, or will you not? Does God actually know what the future will bring, or does He not? Will I deny myself now, on the basis of the word of God, knowing that if I do, God will supply me such satisfaction in Him that surpasses any gratification that I can presently know?

Well, Israel was not willing to wait. And Israel was not willing to trust. So, Baal presents himself as if he were an extension of that serpent out of the garden. A God, if you will, offering immediate profit and prosperity and instant, immediate satisfaction.

Why deny yourself when there is a God who will give you everything that you could wish for in this world? And he took him up into a high mountain. And he showed him all the kingdoms of this world. And he said to him, all of this I will give to you if you will bow down and worship me. Well, these stories of Elijah, then, are for the purpose of reasserting the claim and the power of God’s word.

And so it is. The theme over them could well be, the Lord, not they, the Lord gives life in accordance with his word, and life is sound nowhere else but with God and by his word. Jesus says in a later context, the words that I speak unto you are spirit and life. Peter confesses to Christ, to whom shall we go? For you are the Holy One of Israel and you have the words of eternal life. Word then in relationship to life The Lord gives life and that in keeping with his word.

And these stories that are given us here for the purpose of reasserting that claim and demonstrating the power of God’s word over against the world, the word of pretended gods. You have the structure of these two stories. The story that you find in verses two through seven that speaks about Elijah’s sojourn in the Transjordan by the brook Cherith. And then Elijah’s trip into Zarephath and his sojourn there with the widow and her son.

And in each story, the word of God is prominent. Faith in this man, this servant of God, with regard to that word. He embraces the command of God and he obeys that word. He doesn’t hesitate. There is promise given with the command, and by that faith he embraces the promise too, and he sees the fulfillment.

I tell you, Elijah, you’ll go and the ravens themselves will provide you food, and the brook cherub will supply you drink. Go to Zarephath, Elijah. I have commanded a widow there to provide for you. He arrives and the widow is at the point of death, and in keeping with that which God Himself has declared, He commands that widow then in light of that which God Himself has said.

The Word of God gives life. We see the fulfillment. And in reading these stories, our souls ought to be strengthened, our hearts themselves revived, because we now, seeing these things worked out in the life of Elijah, take heart. God’s word is true.

He will provide for his people. And especially if we read these things in light of the history of redemption. For Elijah crosses the Jordan and he goes into the land east of the Jordan as an anticipation of the exile of the people of God themselves. Will God desert his people or will he enable them to survive? Indeed he will. How? By the word. He will sustain his people by the word. Elijah doesn’t remain in the East. Neither did the children of Israel. They came back from the outside. They passed through the land, if you will, through the regions of Israel to the West and into the territories of the Gentiles.

Will God’s purposes fail? No, they will not. Why? Because his word is sure and you can count on it. That for your encouragement, but also that for your chastisement. For your falterings and your failings are proportionate to your lack of confidence in that Word, your refusal to live by faith. But having given us this lesson with regard to the matter of the Word of God, Our life, if you will. These stories are not without complication, and we’ve spelled that out in part already.

For here you have Elijah going, in keeping with the command of God, into this territory of the transjordan, to the east, to live along the banks of the brook Cherubim. But then the brook dries up. Complication comes. What will you do when the book dries up? Will you continue to live by the word of God, or will you cave in and say, well, I guess Baal was right after all?

I might as well go and serve him. And what use is this prophet? We move on to the next story about the widow and her son, and we find out that the prophets there, the one who’s carrying the word of God, and when you know her son is dying. Now, let me tell you something about the word of God.

Is it there simply to provide you the comforts of life so that you in embracing are guaranteed of a better annual income? So once you take up with God, life will be rosy and you won’t know a period of depression or decline or declension the rest of your days. Yes, the book dries up. and the child dies. To what end? Well, with regard to the drawing up of that book, we are being taught that life is not to be found in the things of this world, but in God himself and in his word, to drive us to trust all the more in that word which shall sustain us.

And the significance of the story of the widow’s son, why this word is so powerful. And so much is it the fact that it has its focus in life, that this word is able to give back life from the dead. Isn’t it ironic that as the gospel word moves into the Gentile regions, that at the center of that message of the gospel will be the resurrection, and the word’s connection with that resurrection. You’re playing with life and death issues here. So great, so wonderful, so powerful is this word. That God, by it, gives life back to the dead.

Even if it’s true that Elijah has made his visit, that the sins of the widow may be exposed, and the judgment of those sins may be extracted. Yet, in keeping with the word, life comes. The prophet of God may visit you His word may be read out over your life. You may be slain by your sin. All of the judgments read out over you justly in keeping with that word. But is that the end? the word of God promises you life and the God who gave the word gives you life through his word so indeed The life lived in keeping with the word sees complications arise. The book dries up. The widow’s son dies. But the word cries out to you. Life. And not just life here. Eternal life. Now do you believe that? Does it make a difference to you? Eternal life.

Let us pray. Father, if we have fallen away, if the Word of God has slipped from us, if we have forgotten it, if we have put it on the shelf, if we have even in rebellion refused to open it, to read it, to store up that Word in our heart, Lord, be gracious. Turn us around. And as you prevailed with Israel, May you prevail with us. May we, Lord, be receptive to that word. And may there be life, life in us, because of the word. A life that will never end.

We pray, our Father, that you will increase our faith. We may rely upon you completely, because you’re the God of truth. You have proved it over and over. You proved it in the days of Elijah. And even more perfectly, you proved it in Christ your Son.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.