Now it happened, after these things that the son of the woman who owned the house became sick, and his sickness was so serious that there was no breath left in him. So, she said to Elijah, What have I to do with you, oh man of God? Have you come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to kill my son? And he said to her, Give me your son. So, he took him out of her arms and carried him to the upper room where he was staying and laid him on his own bed. Then, he cried out to the Lord and said, Oh, Lord, my God, have you also brought tragedy on this widow with whom I lodge, by killing her son? And he stretched himself out on the child three times, and he cried out to the Lord, and he said, Oh, Lord, my God, I pray, let this child’s soul come back to him. Then the Lord heard the voice of Elijah. And the soul of the child came back 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 lives. Then, the woman said to Elijah, now, by this I know that you are a man of God and that the Word of the Lord in your mouth is the truth. I Kings 17:17-24

 
    God had dispatched his man Elijah to Zarephath, to a widow’s house. She was down to her last meal. She was out gathering sticks. She said, “I’m going to take my last meal. I’m a widow. I don’t have anybody to take care of me. I’ve got one son, and we’re going to eat our last meal, and we’re going to die.” 
    She gave what little she had into the hands of God. She cooked a meal, with that last little bit of meal, for the man of God. 
    We saw how God worked a miracle in her life and that she never ran out of meal and she never ran out of oil until the day it rained. God is a God who does impossible things. 
    What a happy ending to such a tragic story, that a widow woman with a starving child, down to her last meal, at a time of famine, had an encounter with a holy God, and God miraculously and supernaturally supplied her needs.
    I love happy endings. I like the old television shows and old movies with happy endings, where there is resolution. I was raised on the old westerns. It was always the same when it came to the end—no matter if a damsel was chained to the railroad tracks, no matter that the good guy was surrounded by 25 bloodthirsty villains, no matter how bad it was, in the end, the good guy shot all the bad guys, he got the beautiful woman off the train tracks, they rode off on a horse together into the sunset to get married and to live happily ever after. I love happy endings. 
    But you may be a person who hates happy endings, because your life doesn’t have a happy ending. Your life is filled with constant problems. Your life is filled with constant needs. 
    But I want you to understand this story didn’t end with the woman and her son dancing around the dinner table, saying, “We’ll never go hungry.” No, the story goes on, because, you see, this woman lived in Zarephath, and that word means ‘refining.’ That words means ‘crucible.’ That word means ‘a place where by fire things are refined.’
    There is an old song that used to be sung by little children. I believe it helps explain a lot of what God is wanting to say to us from this woman’s experience of her son dying and the man of God, Elijah, having to raise him from the dead. The old song says, “He’s still working on me, to make me what I ought to be. It took Him just a week to make the moon and the stars, the earth and the sun and Jupiter and Mars. How loving and patient He must be. He’s still working on me.”
    The Bible teaches us that God refines the faith of His children. God wants to make your faith into a weapon that will empower you to take the worst that life has to ‘throw at you’ and to see God Almighty get into that situation and turn what was an obstacle into a beautiful opportunity for Him to do something impossible. The Bible teaches us something about faith. Elijah was a man of faith, and he entered a house with a woman whose faith was wavering surrounded by people who had no faith. But, if you’re going to dare to be different, you’ve got to be a man of faith or a woman of faith. You’ve got to have faith when nobody else has faith. The Bible tells us that the just shall live by faith.
    We see three things about faith in these scriptures, beginning with verse 17. First of all, the Bible teaches us something about the strengthening of faith. God is constantly stretching us, so that He can strengthen our faith. Notice what happens in the life of this woman and Elijah to do this. Notice the tragedy that they face.
    The Bible says, in verse 17, “and it came to pass, or it happened, after these things that the son of the woman who owned the house became sick and died.” It must have been a sudden illness. It was evidently so sudden that the prophet wasn’t aware that he had even been sick. It happened so quickly that Elijah could not stand over this boy and prevent him from dying. The Bible says that very suddenly this woman, who was rejoicing and laughing and happy, was weeping and crying, because she held in her arms her dead child.
    Isn’t that the way life is for many of you? It seems like yesterday you were laughing, but today you’re crying. It seems like last week everything was good, and this week you face a week where everything is going to be bad. It seems like last week was a week of triumph, but, all of a sudden, one phone call, one letter, just one event, one night, one moment, and now you’re facing a tragedy, your dreams are dead, and you wonder, ‘Where is God?’ You’ve had trouble worshipping God. You’re perplexed. God is wanting to use this sudden difficulty in your life to strengthen your faith, to make it a powerful weapon in His spiritual arsenal.
    Remember, she was a widow. In those days, there was no Social Security, no Medicaid, no Medicare. There was no help from anybody. There was no job. There was a depressed economy. This was a time of famine. This was not recession. This was not depression. This was a time of drought. The Bible says that the woman’s only hope was the woman’s only child. She did not have ten kids, eight kids, five kids. She had one child. Her husband was already in the grave. And the Bible says that the woman’s only son got sick, and it was so serious, there was no breath left in him, and that means that he died.
    You’re not facing a nuisance. You’re facing a harsh, horrible, heartbreaking burden. A flat tire is a nuisance, but you’ve got a spare in the trunk, and you can change a tire. If the washing machine is not working, that’s a nuisance, but you can get it fixed or get another one. But, if your child dies, it’s not a nuisance. It’s a harsh tragedy. 
    Can God use the hard stuff I’ve been going through to strengthen my faith? That’s exactly what I’m telling you, because that’s exactly what happened here in the Word of God.
    God tests our faith to reveal what it is made of. The only way He can make our faith stronger is to put it in the fire. And, as a part of the refining process, the only way God can strengthen our faith is to help us understand where our faith is weak, because, when we realize where our faith is weak, we cast ourselves totally on the Lord, and we decide not to try to explain our situation, but to simply believe what God said—not the lies of the devil, not what our emotions are saying, but believe what God says.
    This woman had trouble believing what God said. In that moment when we cannot believe what God said, that’s when the difficulty points out the weakness and drags us into the arms of God, through the fire’s testing, and He can make our faith stronger.
    If you’re going to make a difference in this world, you’ve got to have faith, because you’re going to face obstacles. You’re ‘swimming upstream.’ You’re going ‘against the tide.’ The world, the flesh, and the devil are all fighting you. The devil has put a target on you. He’s bothering you, because you’ve sold out to the Lord. 
    You said, “Jesus, wherever You lead, I’ll go.” When you ‘stepped out from the crowd’ and said, “I’m not going to be lethargic, apathetic, or half-hearted, but my life is an instrument in the hands of God,” the devil ‘turned on a siren’ in hell and said, “We’ve got trouble. Go get him.” 
    But God has the power to use the difficulty even the devil himself puts on me to strengthen my faith, and, instead of believing my feelings, I begin to believe what God said is so—because God says it’s so, no matter how I feel. That’s faith. Do you understand? That’s what God wants to make stronger. 
    The minute the devil lies to you, you say, “I’m not listening to that. I’m listening to what God said.” The minute your feelings say to give up, say, “I’m not listening to that.” The minute your flesh says to retreat, say, “I’m not listening to my flesh. I’m listening to the voice of God in the Word of God, and, if God says it’s so, that’s what I’m going to believe. The Bible says that God is good. I’m going to believe it, no matter what my circumstances. The Bible says that God is unchanging, and the Bible says that God is a God of love. That means He’s always going to be a God of love. He is a God of mercy and is always going to be a God of mercy. He’s a God of grace, and He is always going to be a God of grace. I’m going to believe what God says about Himself. I’m going to believe He’s good even when things don’t look good. I’m going to believe that He loves me even when I don’t feel that He loves me. I’m going to believe He’s for me even when it seems I’m going to be overcome by my enemy. I refuse to stand on anything but the Word of God. And, if God says it’s so, that’s where I take my stand.
    The Bible says something about the strengthening of our faith.
    The Bible also says something about the working of faith. Elijah shows us what to do when we face a challenge, how to exercise our faith. Elijah is an inspiration to me. He’s my kind of man. He’s not like everybody else. He doesn’t care what everybody else thinks. He says what’s so because God said it’s so. But, not only does he deliver the message from God, he believes the message from God. He believes the Word of God. He has learned to walk in faith. God has strengthened his faith. He has learned to walk in faith, because he had to stand up in front of Ahab and Jezebel. In a time of famine and drought, God sustained him twice a day, with food dropped to him by ravens. And God made the brook Cherith give him water. And, then, when it seemed like everything was dried up, God directed him to the home, and, to his own amazement, when he believed the Word of God and said, “God is not going to let your bottle of oil run dry, and God’s not going to let that barrel of oil go empty,” God did exactly what He said. Every victory he experienced, every time he decided to believe God, God strengthened his faith.
    So, how does faith work? I see it working in verse 19. Notice that he keeps calm. The woman is a ‘basket case’, but not the man with faith. This shows that her faith needs to be strengthened, and God is refining her. This whole event with her son has a purpose. God is going to make her faith stronger. The Bible says, she said to Elijah, “Why are you having anything to do with me? Have you come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to kill my son?” I don’t know what that sin is, but, when you go through a time of testing, you’re going to confess every known sin, you’re going to get right with God, you’re going to uncover every rock, to make sure there is no area of your life that is not under the lordship of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It’s the challenge, the difficult, the painful time in life that causes you to rush into the arms of God, who is the only one who can make your faith strong. He stays calm. Look at verse 19. He says to her, with no rebuke, no panic, no wringing of the hands, “Give me your son.” He took him out of her arms and, while she waited downstairs, he carried him to the upper room where he was staying and laid him, this dead body, this dead boy, on his own bed. This is one of the greatest challenges, when you face a difficult situation—to stay calm, to not panic, and to keep your mouth shut, and say, “I’m going to turn to God in this moment.” So he stays calm. That’s faith. Notice something else he does. He trusts God, even when he doesn’t understand. It’s obvious in this moment in time that Elijah doesn’t really understand what’s going on. He cried out to the Lord in verse 20 and said, “Lord, my God, have you also brought this tragedy on this widow with whom I lodge by killing her son? God, you’re in control. The only way the boy died is that you allowed him to die. Lord, it’s a time of famine. The woman is a widow. And you blessed her and you brought her this far. It seems kind of cruel to raise her hopes, to say, ‘You’re not going to starve to death, but I’m going to kill your boy.’” 
    Sometimes, God’s ways do not make sense. And many of you are facing challenges that are beyond anything that I have ever faced. You have a heavy heart. Your daughter or son is facing absolute disaster. Your marriage is facing absolute disaster. Your finances are facing absolute disaster. You got a report from the doctor that said ‘go make your funeral arrangements as soon as you possibly can.’ And you’re thinking, “I know I’m going to heaven. I know Christ as my personal Saviour. But there is a lot of living that I want to do. I want to see all of my grandkids. I want to do something for the Lord. I don’t want to file for bankruptcy. I don’t want my daughter to throw her life down the drain. I don’t want my son to throw his life down the drain. I’m perplexed. God is in control? I don’t believe it.” 
    I understand. In your heart, it doesn’t make sense. But all I can do is preach faith and tell you that I have to believe that God says it is so and, if He says it’s so, it’s so. And, really, Elijah is, by example, showing us in I Kings 17. He is saying, “God, I don’t get it. I don’t get why he has died. But I am not doubting you. I’m not cursing you. I’m not going to get bitter.” 
    Let me caution you. You can allow the difficulty to work out the purposes of God in your life, or you can shut a door toward God, and you can get mad, and you can get angry, and you can get bitter, and you can spend your life blaming God. When you start blaming God, for the rest of your life, you’ll spend all of your time blaming everybody around you. You’ll never have a healthy relationship with other people. You’re not going to be able to have friendships. You’re not going to have a good relationship with your spouse. You’re going to have difficulty with children. You’re going to have difficulty in your life, because you’re mad, you’re angry. 
    Some who are the maddest at God are having to walk through some things that aren’t really problems.
    This time of the year, in our community, near a salt marsh or water, we pay a price for beautiful, sunny winters—in two ways, sand gnats and nosiums, yellow flies. Those are nuisances. If I step on a rattlesnake, that’s a different story. Some of you are whining and griping, and all you’ve got are nosiums, not crocodiles, not rattlesnakes, but yellow flies, aggravations. “I can’t believe it. They took away my parking place at work. I don’t know how a loving God can treat somebody like that.” “We went to Disney, but my husband said that, because of our budget, we had to stay at the Hampton Inn and I wanted to stay at the Disney Resort.” You don’t know what trouble is. There are people with cancer. There are people who need life-changing transplants. They’ve got to have a liver transplant. They’ve got to have a heart transplant. There is probably someone who found out a loved one has AIDS and is going to die if there’s not a miracle. And you’re talking about your sand gnats and yellow flies. 
    This woman had difficulties. The Bible says the man of God trusted God even when it didn’t make sense. Notice what he did. The Bible says, in verse 19, that the first thing he did was he took the boy from the woman. He was going to be faithful in a faithless world. In other words, he said, “Give me your burden. I’m going to share your burden with you.” That’s the kind of people we need in the church today. We need people of faith to say, “You’ve got a burden? Share it with me. You’ve got a heartache? Share that burden with me.” Notice the next thing he did. The Bible says that he took the boy up to a secluded place, so that Elijah could get alone with the only person who could turn this situation around—and that was not a committee, but a holy God. Notice what the man of God, the man of faith, does. The Bible doesn’t say he whispered. The Bible says, in verse 20, that he cried with passion, eagerness, anticipation. He cried out to the Lord, and he said, “Oh, Lord, my God, I am a believer. I’m a man of faith. I’ve been saved. I’m a member of your family. You’re my heavenly Father. There are heavenly blessings for your children.” Notice what happens in verse 21. The Bible says that he stretched himself out on that boy three times. That’s a strange thing. He stretched himself out on that boy and he got up. He stretched himself out on that boy and then got up. He stretched himself out on that boy and then got up. He was identifying with that boy, fully and completely. He was saying, “It’s as if I’m dead. It’s going to be like this is my boy. This was a death affecting me. It’s going to be like I’m dead.” And then he physically asked God for a miracle in faith. The Bible says, in verse 21, that he cried out to the Lord and said, “O Lord, my God, I’m praying, let this child’s soul come back to him.”
    God is a God who does impossible things. Don’t give up, because God can heal cancer. God will see that you get that transplant. God is going to turn your situation around. God does what man can’t do. Start believing. Stop doubting. Put your eyes on God. Cry out to Him. Believe that God does answer prayer and does things man can’t explain. 
    The Bible says, in verse 22, that, when he prayed this bold prayer, the Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and the soul of the child came back to him, and he revived. There is the gospel, right there. Some folks have never been saved. You’ve never received into your heart Jesus Christ. You’re full of death, not life. You’ve got to face the heartaches and difficulties of life. You can’t do it by yourself. You need someone to live in you—not religion, but Christ to be in you, your Saviour. Jesus Christ died on the cross, and, when He died on that cross, he fully identified with sinful humanity. The Bible says that God became flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus died in a human body on that old rugged cross, and He shed His blood.
    Notice, he lay down once. He lay down twice. But he got up, after that third time on that bed. My Saviour identified with sinful humanity on the cross, and, after three days, He came out of that grave. When He came out of that grave, He didn’t come out to give death. He came out to give life. It was after Elijah being on the boy three times that God put life in that dead boy. If you’ll place your faith in Jesus Christ, my Saviour won’t give you religion. He’s going to give you His life and raise you from the dead. That tells me that God’s got power over death. That tells me that Christians never die. That tells me that there’s a heaven up above. That tells me that the greatest weapon of fear that the devil has has been overcome by God. Death has no victory in the life of a Christian.
    I want to tell you something about the encouraging of faith. When you’ve got faith, you’ll encourage other people to have faith. When you trust God, you’ll encourage other people to trust God.
    Fear is contagious. And I believe that faith is not just taught; I believe faith is caught. And, when people see you actually believing, trusting God, they’re inspired to follow suit. You need to be faithful and faith-filled in a faithless world.
    Notice what happens to this woman. Remember that this is the woman who said, “I can’t believe this. What have I done to you? Is it because of my sin? I don’t understand this.” Can you imagine the picture? The man of God was up there, praying with passion. She could probably hear him. “God, let this boy’s soul come back in him.” The woman was down there, thinking, “Oh my goodness, what on earth is going on?” And, then, all of a sudden, Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper room in the house, and he gave him to the mother. He stated the obvious. He was dead as a hammer when he carried him up the steps. He brought him down the steps. The kid was looking around everywhere. He was breathing. His eyes were blinking. And Elijah wanted to encourage her faith. He wanted her to move beyond where she is. He said, “See, your son lives.” Notice what the woman said. Her faith was encouraged. The woman said to Elijah, “Now by this I know that you’re a man of God.” When you’re a man of God and a woman of God, you don’t have to go around saying you are one, because they’re going to see God’s power all over you. Remember that the problem with her faith was that she had trouble believing what God said, because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. She said, “I know” (not I think) that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is the truth.”  That is the secret of faith. In this messed up world, with all of its heartache, through faith, you will see that there is an unseen hand at work in your life. It’s God’s hand. You don’t see it with your eyes. You see it with your faith. You don’t believe that unseen hand is there because you see it’s there. You see it’s there, because you believe it’s there. I’m thankful for that unseen hand of God. Sometimes, He is saying, “Go that way, son, go through that door.” And, then, sometimes, I’m trying to go through a door I’m not supposed to be going through, and there’s the unseen hand of God. I say, “I’m going to go through that door,” and He says, “No, you’re not.” And, then, there’s that unseen hand on my back, patting me on the back. “Good job. Keep up the good work.” Sometimes, there is a hand on each shoulder, and He’s saying, “Have you lost your ever-loving mind? Get right.”
        You say that you don’t see that unseen hand of God at work? Let me tell you this. Just because the burdens and challenges of your life have obscured that unseen hand of God, that doesn’t mean it’s not there. Just as the clouds have blocked the sun, that doesn’t mean the sun has ceased to shine.

Dr. Herb Reavis is Pastor of North Jacksonville Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida.

    Link: www.njbc.org