In 1 Kings chapter 17, verses 8 to 23, we see something very unusual.
We see food from empty vessels.
There comes a time in the life of a prophet by the name of Elijah and a woman and her
son where they began to live and they live in such a way that they are actually being
fed from empty vessels.
Let's just look at this for just a few minutes and let's see how it unfolds.
First of all, let's go back.
Let's go back, if we can, to the end of chapter 16, all right?
Toward the end of chapter 16, it says in verse 30, Ahab, chapter 16, 1 Kings verse 30, Ahab's
son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him.
Now here's the problem, he's the king of Israel.
He lives in Samaria and at this time, Samaria is the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel
and that's where this man lives.
He is the king and the Bible says he lives more wickedly than any one of his predecessors
and many of them had done a lot of things that were terrible.
So Ahab becomes the king in Israel.
Now what happens is because of the way he lives, God sends his prophet Elijah and here's
what he tells Elijah to do.
Look at chapter 17, verse 1.
Now Elijah the Tishbite from Tishby in Gilead said to Ahab, as the Lord, the God of Israel
lives whom I serve, there will be neither rain nor rain in the next few years except
by my word.
Because of the sin of a king, a drought came over the entire nation of Israel.
Folks, we need to understand when sin touches the leadership in a church, leadership in
a nation, leadership in a home, the results of that can be and often are far reaching
to people who have nothing to do with what's happening.
Now Elijah at that point becomes somebody who's not very popular with the king because
you see he tells him this and then the drought happens.
Stops raining, they get up and they go outside in the morning, there's no dew on the ground,
crops begin to fail, rivers begin to dry up, people get very irritable and the king decides
he doesn't want this guy around anymore so he sets out to kill him.
So look if you will at what the Lord tells the prophet to do.
Look at verse two, the word of the Lord came to Elijah, leave here, turn eastward and hide
excuse me, in the carith ravine east of Jordan.
Notice what he says, you will drink from the brook and I have ordered the ravens to feed
you there.
Now go down to verse eight, verse six.
The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening
and he drank from the brook.
So he's faithful to God and he pronounces the drought and then the king decides I want
to kill this guy.
So he's got to run for his life and God says you go over here and what happens?
He gets over there, he has nothing, he has maybe a little duffel bag with some clothes
in it but when he gets there what does he do?
Well he sits down underneath the trees basically, there's still some shade trees there, there's
this brook flowing by, he has plenty of fresh water to drink and the ravens come.
Now what do the ravens do?
They don't bring him what they eat, they don't bring him seeds, what do they bring him?
The Bible says they bring him bread and meat, you know I got to think about that, early
this morning, about 5.30 this morning I was thinking about that when I was sitting at
my kitchen table and praying and finalizing this message and you know what?
I got to wondering, I wonder if one day it was bagels?
Maybe the next day it was wheat bread, you following me?
Next day it was flat bread with all the good stuff on it and then one day they had Texas
toast, wow.
And then I wonder about the meat, maybe one day it was steak and another day it was fish
and another day it was brisket, yeah brisket, we like brisket.
And you know all this good stuff.
So here's Elijah, he's followed the will of God, God says go over there and take a
seat for a while, he does it and look what happens, my goodness he's eating like a king,
matter of fact he's eating better than the king because God's feeding him and the drought
has no impact on his life for a while, here's what happens.
After a while the drought has an impact on his life, the stream drives up, you can read
it for yourself, stream drives up, the trees die, and I guess the ravens stop coming.
And at that point God moves in his life and Elijah and some other folks began to see miracles
of God that they never thought about before.
There's a couple of key words that we want to look at as we go through the remainder
of the story.
The first is the word unlikely, what you and I need to watch for is how God used the
unlikely in Elijah's life and in the life of the people he was sent to.
Now you know what, he will use the unlikely in your life.
As a matter of fact it is a pattern of God, God probably didn't have a pattern, that's
probably a bad choice of word.
God chooses to use the unlikely in our life often because it causes us to focus on him
and not on ourselves.
It causes us to see his provision and not the provision we can make for ourselves.
And so I want us to think about this, he's sent to the unlikely, all right?
He's sent first of all to an unlikely place, I want you to see this, all right?
What God tells him to do is to get up, look at verse 9, go at once to Zeraphat of Sidon
and stay there.
So he went to Zeraphat of Sidon, okay?
What does that mean?
First thing it means is he leaves Israel and he goes to a Gentile land.
But here's the interesting thing about this Gentile land.
Go back up with me again now to chapter 16.
As God speaks about Ahab, this evil king, here's what he says.
He says he not in verse 31 of chapter 16, verse kings.
He not only, speaking of Ahab, considered it a trivial thing to commit the sins of Jeroboam,
son of Nebat, but he also married Jezebel, daughter of Ethbal, king of the Sidonians,
and began to serve Baal and worship him.
Now here's another component to this story.
Ahab doesn't like him, but you know what else doesn't like Ezeki, folks, give me a second.
I'm trying to move forward.
I want to cover a lot of ground quickly, all right?
Elijah, all right?
You know what?
King Ahab didn't like him, but his queen didn't like him either.
And later on, his queen makes it her sole goal to kill him.
He wanted nothing else in life but to kill him.
Now God's protection is provided, and that's a whole other story.
Here's what happens though.
See, he pronounces the drought.
He sits underneath the tree.
Things are great.
He's fed by the ravens.
Things are happening well.
But all of a sudden now, God says, I want you to go to another place.
Where's the place he's going?
The hometown of Jezebel.
This is the seat.
This is the center of Baal worship for that part of the world.
You know what Elijah means?
Yahweh is God.
Yahweh is God.
That's what his name means.
Yahweh is God.
So he goes to the place where people are worshiping Baal as God.
And then he goes to the hometown of Jezebel.
Interesting place for God to send you, right?
It's kind of like you go from being able to hide out out there in this large land of Israel
and over here you're at this place now where any moment Jezebel may show up again and there
you are.
So it's an unlikely place.
But what I also want you to see, go back to verse 9.
Last half of that verse says, first thing he says is, he says, I want you to go to Zeraphath
and he says, I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food.
Now here's what had happened.
This part of the world is dependent upon Israel for a good part of their food.
The drought hits Israel and then probably spills over into their land.
And so now you have the people of Sidon and they're going through the drought too.
Here the most likely people are to suffer the effects of the drought first, the widows
and orphans.
God doesn't send him to some rich landowner who maybe has stockpiles of food and can store
up water.
No.
He goes to a poor widow woman.
And so he's not only sent to an unlikely place, but he's sent to an unlikely person.
But he goes.
He goes.
In the center of God's will, he takes the steps and he does exactly what God has asked
him to do.
And he leaves the place of protection and he goes to a place that in his mind has to be
very, very questionable.
But he trusts God.
Now here's another word that comes into place, the word only.
Often, this is how we look at our life.
Well, God, you're asking me to do this, but I only have.
God, you're asking me to do this, but I'm only a.
And this word only just begins to leap out of our life.
See, what that does again is it causes the focus to be on us.
It's not the provision of God.
It's not what God can do.
It's what I'm capable of doing.
So God only.
So when Elijah appears on the scene now in Zarephath, he finds only.
He finds only a woman's meager assets, meager assets of this lady.
Look at verse 12, they are meager.
Let's go up above that.
Let's see what he does.
Let's go to, let's go up to verse 10.
So he went to Zarephath.
When he came to the town and the gate, a woman was there gathering sticks.
He called to her and asked, would you bring me a little water in a jar so that I may have
a drink?
And as she was going to get it, he said, and bring me please a piece of bread.
So there's the introduction.
He sees the woman, he's come to the town, he's in the unlikely place.
He sees the woman and somehow he understands from God this is her.
And when we ask her for water, and then as she starts, he asks for bread.
And at this point, he begins to see her lack, her meager, meager provisions, the meager
provisions of the woman.
Look at verse 12, as surely as the Lord your God, now notice she didn't say my God or our
God, your God.
So here's this, here's this Gentile woman speaking to this Jewish man, as surely as
the Lord your God lives, she replied, I don't have any bread.
Only a handful of flour in a jar, a little oil in a jug, and I'm gathering a few sticks
to take to my home to make a meal for myself and my son that we may eat and die.
The woman's meager assets, a handful, a handful of flour, that's it.
A little bit of jar, a little bit of oil in a jug, and the thing that gets me is I'm gathering
a few sticks.
She wasn't gathering wood, she was gathering sticks.
She wasn't gathering a lot of sticks, she was gathering a few, you know why?
Because it wasn't going to take a very big fire.
Didn't need much heat to make bread out of that little bit of flour.
So she's gathering just a few sticks.
So we see here the woman's meager assets, but compared to that, what we also see are
Elijah's great assets.
Now it's rather interesting when you say that, because here comes Elijah.
Where's his house?
Well, he didn't have one.
Where's his suitcases?
Well, he didn't have any.
Where's his lunchbox?
Well, he didn't have one.
Where's his jug with the fresh water in it?
Doesn't have one.
Okay?
Water his great assets.
Well, here's what we see.
We see God's great asset, we see Elijah's great assets in the fact that he has the promises
of God.
He comes into this city, the unlikely place.
He comes to this woman, the unlikely person, and he comes with the promise of God.
Here's what it says in verse 14, the jar of flour will not be used up, and the jug of
oil will not run dry.
Ma'am, if you will do what I've asked, the jar and the jug will never be empty again.
You know what?
It doesn't take much in God's hands, not much at all.
Jesus standing on a mountainside, 5,000 people there.
He takes two little fish and five little biscuit-like things, and he feeds all of them.
I remember a day going to the airport in Orlando to go to the Southern Baptist Convention
in Houston, arrive there, and they'd change the airline that we were to ride on.
It was smaller, and there were a lot of people leaving that day.
It was back in days when we had like 40,000 people attending the conventions, a lot of
decisions being made.
And so there were literally probably about 100 people standing there who no longer had
a seat on that airplane, and I was one of them.
I could go back home and maybe get a flight the next day or the next day, but the convention
only lasts a couple of days.
They said, you want to go stand by?
We can send you somewhere else, and we can work you back around.
I said, okay.
What I didn't think about was, no matter where I went, the same thing was happening.
People were trying to get to Houston.
So I waited a long time in the airport, and finally they contacted me and said, there's
a plane going up to Minneapolis.
We'll send you there, and maybe you can get a flight from there down to Houston.
I said, okay.
So I get on this flight, go stand by, I got the last seat.
They put me on this airplane, and I fly up there.
This was early in the morning when I started out.
After a while, it's after dinner time, and I'm still in Minneapolis.
Finally they come to me and they say, well, there may be a seat over here on this plane
going down to Houston.
So I go over there, and I wait, and I wait a long time, put my name in, and finally they
come up, and they say, folks, we have one more seat, we're sorry, and well, Mr. Hester
come to the podium.
So I went up there, and I got the last seat.
By this time, it's about eight or nine o'clock at night, and it's going to take us, it's
going to be close to midnight when I get there.
I'm hoping that they still have my room, and they still have my car, because I'm about
to go to Houston, Texas, and if I don't have those two things, I don't know what I'm going
to do.
I get on the airplane, I'm tired, I'm grouchy, I sit down.
I'm about 35 years old at the time.
There's a guy sitting next to me who's 30.
I ask him how old he was at one point, 30.
As we were flying along, he began to talk to me.
See, I was tired and grouchy, I don't want to talk to anybody.
As we're flying along, all of a sudden he begins to talk with me.
At one point, I ask him what he did, 30 years old, he had two other partners.
They would spend somewhere between 100 million and 500 million at a time, buying skyscrapers
and malls and huge developments all over the world.
I'm listening to this guy talking, and he's showing me stuff, and I'm thinking, wow.
I knew there were people like you, but I've never met one before, and look how old you
are.
That's all I get to you thinking, he's 30, look at this.
Then he asked me what I did, I told him, I said, well, I'm a pastor, I teach the Word
of God, and I preach it.
He said, you know, my sister's been talking to me about that, and he started asking me
questions about Daniel.
I took up my Bible out, and I opened to the book of Daniel, and I went back and I started
showing him all these answered prophecies from the book of Daniel, and he was familiar
with them.
His sister had been talking to him about it, and we went through all those things, and
he said, well, what does all this mean?
I said, okay, here's some that hadn't been fulfilled yet.
I began to talk to him about the end of time.
Now, he didn't make a profession that day, but I'll tell you what, he was so interested,
he took notes, and he said, I'm going to call my sister and talk with her tonight, and he
said, I'm going back home in two days, and we're going to meet, and we're going to talk
about this, and maybe then.
So I don't know if he ever invited Christ to come into his life, but I'll tell you what,
God sent me, instead of taking me on one direct flight from Orlando to Houston, he sent me
to Minneapolis, I had to wait all day, I was grouchy, I was tired, I was hungry, I didn't
want to go that way, and then I sat next to this man, and God opens the door, and I share
with him the beautiful, beautiful truth of the Word of God, and he's so receptive.
He has everything, and probably there was only one thing at that point in his life that would
touch him.
And somehow God prepared me through my study, through the years of prophecy, and I shared
with that man.
You know what happened when we got to Houston?
Made my way down there as quick as I could to the airplane, to the car rental place,
I get there, and there are three of us come walking in about the same time, and we all
say, we have reservations, and the man looks at us and goes, I'm thinking, you've got
to be kidding me, I don't even know who I am.
He says, well, he turned around and he took two keys off, he said, I knew you were coming
because there's your paperwork, gentlemen, I don't know who you are, but I have two cars,
and he threw the keys.
One of them landed over here, the last one landed over here, and you know what, it landed
on my name, on my paperwork, and that little economy car I was going to get turned in to
be a luxury Cadillac for the same price.
I drove around Houston for three days in a car I'll never own, man, did I feel good,
that car would talk to me, man, it was great, then I get to my motel room, sir, we've given
your room away, oh, now I don't have either Cadillac, I'm going to live in it for three
days.
I said, well, you know what, I'm not supposed to do this, but she said, we have one of our
luxury suites available, we'll just give it to you the same price.
You know, for three days, I lived in the best room they had in that hotel, three days for
the same price.
Here's what I want to tell you, I only needed one car, folks, one, and I only needed one
room.
God made sure I had it.
A little in the hand of God changes life, it meets our needs, it puts us where we need
to be.
Now, I've discovered that sometimes a not so flowery approach, I think we all have.
You know what the sad thing is, though, in our credit card society, here's what happens.
Our credit cards and that provision that we make draws us away from God's provision.
For most Christians in America, we've never really seen it.
That's sad, but you know what's even worse, we've never lived in it.
I want you to see how Elijah and a woman and her son lived in it.
You see, they were brought to a moment of decision, this lady was brought to a moment
of decision because in the verse prior to this, in verse 13, here's what the Word of
God says.
Elijah looks at her and he says, first, remember she said, I only have a little bit, I'm going
to go home and make this for me, my son and I were going to eat it and die.
Here's what he says, first, make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring
it to me, then make something for yourself and your son.
I would venture to say that every person in this room, every person will listen by radio
and every person will watch by television.
You've been to this place before and you'll be to this place again.
Where God says, all right, this is what we see together, now here's what I want you to
do with it.
And then he watches to see if we'll do it.
The woman goes back to the cupboard with her sticks and she lays them out.
She goes over and she takes that jar off and she scoops her hand in there and she puts
the jar back and there it is, the handful of meal.
She puts it out on the cabinet.
She takes the little bit of oil and she sprinkles it on there and sure enough, it's enough.
Now, now's the moment of decision, what's she going to do?
I can just see her as she looks at it.
She thinks about the words of this man, she thinks about her son, she thinks about the
predicament they're in.
She takes that and she needs it together.
She makes it into a little bitty loaf and she cuts it in two.
Half for herself and half for her son, no, because then she takes one half of it and
she cuts that in two.
And then she takes them and she puts them in the oven and when they're cooked and she
brings them out, she goes over to Elijah and she takes that cake that she made half of
it and she puts it there in his presence and he eats it.
And when he's through eating, she goes over and she gets the other half and she walks
over to her son who's sitting at the table, she gives it to him and she sits down and
she eats her portion and he eats his morsel and now it's gone.
She pushes herself back from the table, just sits there in silence.
She looks over to Elijah.
You know what Elijah does?
He smiles, then he gestures with his eyes back over at the cupboard.
She looks at him, he does it again.
So she gets up and she walks over, she takes that jar.
She can't believe what she, she reaches in and there's a handful of meal.
She puts it down there.
She's amazed.
She starts to put it back up, but wait, there's another handful and she scoops it out and
she puts it there and she looks back over to Elijah and he just gets this big old grin
on his head.
Don't you see it?
Don't you wish you were there?
She smiles so big and she looks in again and there it is and then she does it this time
and now she looks back and it's ready to stick her hand in before she ever looks because
she knows it's going to be there.
What do you know what she does?
She gets out a big old pile of meal and then she reaches up there and there's only a little
bit of oil in there, the amount there was before.
So what she does, she sprinkles it after it's all gone.
She goes like this and there's some more.
She sprinkles it again until she has made the biggest loaf of bread you could ever imagine.
You know why? because what they ate before wasn't even appetizer, now they're going
to eat dinner and she puts that back in, she makes this huge loaf of bread, she brings
it out, she takes it over and each of them eats until they're full and she goes back
and she takes that jar down and looks again and there it is, the flour, the meal and for
the rest of the days of that drought, she would scoop it out.
Her friends would come by because they had nothing and she'd say, oh here's a loaf of
bread for you, folks, you know why that happened?
It happened because there was a moment of decision and here's what I want you to think
about for a minute, Elijah had been at a moment of decision.
Remember when he was back underneath that tree, yeah, when he was back underneath that
tree, he had to decide whether he would go to Zarephath in Sidon or not, but he went.
He had seen the ravens come and feed him, now he watched a widow go to a jar and every
time she went there was something there and God was meeting his needs again in a different
way.
Think about that woman preparing the meal, she prepared it in faith, you know what this
tells me?
Every miracle, large or small, begins with an act of obedience, this is faith.
What you and I have got to understand is very seldom will we see the moving of God, very
seldom will we ever come to the end of what God really has in our life unless first we
are willing to take an act of obedience in the moment that God calls us to it.
Very seldom will we ever see it.
Most often we don't see the solution until we take that first step and so we see the
miracle of God's continuous supply for this family, but you know it doesn't end there.
This is powerful, God makes a provision.
Some say Elijah stayed there over two years, but I want to show you the results.
There's a result that comes from this for both the woman and Elijah that goes to a whole
another level.
First of all, for the woman, when you travel on in this chapter down to chapter 17 and
through verse 24, verses 17 through 24, you know what you find?
The woman's son dies.
They carry him up into the room where Elijah stayed.
She sends for Elijah, Elijah comes.
The Bible says three times he lays on top of that boy and he prays to God.
First time you see the resurrection of a human being in the Word of God and a little while
he comes walking down the steps with her son.
Now think with me for a minute when that woman sliced what she had prepared and cooked the
first part and gave the first part to the prophet before she ever took any for herself.
In that moment, God did something, but I want you to see this.
The resurrection of her son would not have happened.
Had she not cut that bread, that unprepared bread into three pieces, it would never have
happened had she not given the bread to Elijah first.
You see, God does miracles in our lives and sometimes they're small and sometimes they're
very powerful.
I mean that flower appearing at time and again, that's a powerful thing when you don't have
anything to eat.
Man, that's powerful.
But let me ask you this, which miracle, if you came up to her and she said to her today,
she could stand right here.
We could say which was the greatest miracle you ever saw God do in your life.
What do you think she would say?
My son alive again.
God calls us to give to him first our lives, the tithe, and there'll be other times where
he says, do this first.
And in that moment, we're responding, but it will lead to something else.
Let me tell you, it led to something else in Elijah's life.
You see, Elijah said what he was supposed to say when he pronounced the drought.
Elijah did what he was supposed to do when he went over underneath the bush.
Elijah did what he was supposed to do when he got up and he went to a hostile place and
put himself in even greater danger.
And every time he did, he saw God move.
It was a great miracle when she'd stick her hand in there and pull out the food for him
and for two years they lived that way.
If you go to chapter 18, you know what happens?
God sends Elijah back and he says, you go tell that wicked king.
Get 400 prophets of Baal and 450 prophets from the ashrith and you have them meet you
on Mount Carmel.
Elijah goes to a man who's trying to kill him and says, you get those prophets there.
And here's what he said.
They're going to call out on Baal.
I'm going to call out on God and whoever God sends fire from, whichever God sends fire
from heaven and consumes the sacrifices we will offer that day, he is God.
Ahab takes him up on it.
All day long, 850 prophets of the false God beat themselves, cry out to him.
They prepared this altar.
They prepared this sacrifice and nothing happens.
And then it comes time, Elijah says to God, Lord, would you now take this sacrifice and
consume it?
These people may know who you are.
The Bible says fire came from heaven.
Consumed the sacrifice, consumed the wood, consumed the stones.
Not only they done all that, they dug this big trench and they poured water all over
the precious commodity at that point and it licked up every bit of the water.
See it was a great thing that Elijah could pronounce something like that to the king
that there would be a drought and live.
It was a great thing that the ravens came.
What a miraculous thing to see.
It was a great thing to see that widow's head go inside that jar.
But I want to tell you, when God sent fire from heaven and he proclaimed to the entire
nation of Israel, I am God, and Elijah stood there, one against 850.
If you could go to Elijah and say to Elijah, of all the things you saw, what was it where
God moved in such a powerful way and changed so much?
And he would say, oh, it was great to have him give me the privilege to proclaim.
It was great to be underneath that tree.
It was great to be in the hole of that woman and watch her dip into that jar.
So when the fire fell on Mount Carmel, God moved and Israel was changed.
It goes back to one act of obedience.
Make for me first a cake and then make one for yourself.
God you learned and the widow learned that they have to trust God rather than the resources.
Pastor by the name of Watchman Ni years ago in China wrote these words.
Because of our proneness to look at the bucket and to forget the fountain, God has frequently
to change his means of supply to keep our eyes fixed on the source.
Where are your eyes fixed this morning?
Fixed on what you like and what you don't like.
About life, about your family, about church.
Fixed on what you have or are they fixed on Jesus?
You are called to be a sent church by a God who sent his son.
That means you and I have to live sent lives.
Here's what God says, give to me first.
Give me your life.
Everything is a part of it.
You know when we do that, we don't know what we may see.
We may see fire out of an empty jar.
You know what we may see?
We may see fire fall from heaven.
I'll tell you this, you'll never see any of it.
I won't, you won't, the church won't, unless we are willing to be obedient all along the
way with each step he asks us to take.
He's asking you to take some steps in your life.
He's asking you to do some things and you need to recommit your life to those things
today, whatever they are.
This altar will be open for you to come and pray if you'd like.
We'll be seeing you in just a moment.
You can come and pray.
Pastures will be here.
We'd love to take your hand, talk with you and pray with you if you'd like.
You don't want to say speak with anybody, you don't have to.
It's clear to you and you know without a doubt that you're to take a step of obedience and
you're to do it in some public way today, joining the church or maybe sharing the fact
you've invited Christ to come in your life, committing yourself to a ministry he's called
you to and you've just been wondering should you do something about it and he's saying
now yes.
I don't know what God is saying but you do, that's the point you do.
Just like I know what God speaks to me.
I know he's been speaking to me over the weeks that I've been looking at this message and
praying.
He doesn't just throw this out there and say oh well, no he throws it out there and says
okay now let's do something together.
Here it is.
We need to respond to him.
We need to say yes Lord.
So would you stand with me and let's pray and then let's go where God wants us to go.
Father, in the precious name of Jesus we stand in your presence.
Lord we praise your precious name and glorious songs of proclamation have come from our mouths
and Lord we've opened your Word and we see, we see the power.
Father we long to experience that power in our lives I believe every one of us does and
I pray right now for every single one of us that whatever is keeping that power from moving
in our lives that it can be swept away right now.
So Father whatever it is you'd ask us to do in this moment that would take us from one
act of God to another act of God in our lives to the point of you doing the things that
you really want to do innocent through us that's what I pray for.
Whatever that is and for each of us exactly what it is.
I pray this in Jesus' name, amen, amen, alright, now's the time to respond.
