Text: 1 Kings 17:7–16
Topic: Claiming God's promises in the midst of hard times

• Illustration: Denison begins the sermon with a series of humorous stories about early financial hardships that he and his wife, Janet, faced as a married couple.
• Few things can be tougher in a relationship than financial difficulty. But the other side is also true: few things can call us to greater spiritual renewal than financial pressure.
• Some of us are already facing financial difficulties from what's happened in the stock market and the economy.
• Some of us are worried about job security.
• Some of us watched our investments crumble.
• Even if none of that applies to you, we all need to know more of what God says about the relationship between finances and family, the key people in our lives.

• In 1 Kings 17, the prophet Elijah explodes on the scene without an introduction, stepping into the greatest spiritual crisis the nation of Israel has seen for generations.
• Wicked King Ahab and the even more wicked Queen Jezebel have led the people into worshiping Baal, the Canaanite god of fertility and rain.
• To show Israel that he is the one true God, God doesn't allow a single drop of rain to fall on the land for three-and-a-half years.
• Over time the people repented of their sin and gave up their worship of Baal.
• But along the way, as always seems to happen, some innocent people had to pay the consequences for the sins of their leaders.
• Because of the evil deeds of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, the Lord sent Elijah to the Kerith Ravine, an area just east of the Jordan that fell outside of Ahab and Jezebel's jurisdiction.
• Shockingly, though, God allows the brook at Kerith Ravine to dry up.
• The text then says the word of the Lord comes to Elijah—not before but when the crisis comes—to "go at once to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food."
• To you and me, that doesn't mean anything. We don't know Zarephath from Kidron Valley from Kerith Ravine. But in Elijah's day, there was no worse advice than that, apart from the providence of God.
• Zarephath of Sidon was a commercial trading center 20 miles north of Tyre in Phoenicia on the Mediterranean coast. This was the center of Baal worship, which means Zarephath was also in catastrophic ruin.
• To make matters far worse than that, the king of Phoenicia was headquartered in Zarephath—a man named Ethbaal, Queen Jezebel's father.
• To make matters still worse, a widow in that place is going to supply him with food. In the ancient world, widows were the least likely to survive a drought because nobody provided for them.  
• In summary, God is sending his prophet to the center of the idolatry which has created the crisis, to a place where the drought is at least as bad as it is where Elijah's been, to the headquarters of his enemies, to be sustained by a widow who has no sustenance.
• Despite this seemingly ridiculous situation, the text says Elijah went to Zarephath.
• The theme of obedience runs throughout this story, and as will soon see, Elijah's obedience was critical to his survival.
• Like Elijah, you have no way to know the future significance of your obedience to God today. If God is telling you to do something right now, please understand how crucial it is that you do it.
• Elijah goes to Zarephath, and the first person he sees is the widow, just as God promised.
  • Illustration: As someone once said, coincidence is when God prefers to remain anonymous.
• Elijah asks the widow for water and some bread. But the widow says she has no bread, just a little flour and oil to make a meal for herself and her son.
• Though the situation looks dire, God says, "Don't be afraid." So Elijah tells her to make a small cake of bread and the Lord will see to it that the jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry.
• How does Elijah know this to be true? Because God said it!
• Deuteronomy 10:18
  • Illustration: Denison's pastor once said that "the will of God never leads where the grace of God can not sustain."
• Now, what does this remarkable miracle say to us? What lessons are in this for us to apply to our lives so we can share in the kinds of blessings Elijah and this widow experienced?

• Just as God was using a drought to call his people to recognize a spiritual and eternal truth, God can use our difficulties to point us to a spiritual truth about our lives.
• Sometimes God causes difficulty; sometimes he simply permits it; but he is always willing to use it.
• Whatever the difficulty, ask yourself What is God saying to me? What is God doing with this? What is God's plan? What is God's purpose? How does this show me who I am spiritually?
• Illustration: Someone once said that if you want to see what's inside a bottle, shake it up.
• God uses money and possessions to show us who we are—to reveal the true nature of our spiritual health.
  • Illustration: Henry Ford once said, "Money doesn't change men; it merely unmasks them. If a man is naturally selfish or arrogant or greedy, money will simply show who he really is."
  • Illustration: The great Christian communicator Fred Smith once said, "God gives us money to test us, as you give a toy to a child to prepare him to handle things of greater value later."
• Are you more worried about your stocks than your soul? Are you more worried about your possessions than the people in your life? Are you anxious or trusting today?
• The first decision for you and me to make right now is to decide even this day that we will use our circumstances as a motivation to examine our spiritual health, to see where we are with God.

• An examination of your spiritual health should lead to our deciding to rely on God in the tough situations of life.
• Elijah and the widow could have left Zarephath, but they chose to stay where God said to stay. They chose to count on the provision and the promise of God.
• Because we tend to think we are entirely self-sufficient—and because we are taught to think we are entirely self-sufficient—this is an especially difficult choice to make.
• We can't fix anything on our own. We need God!

• The third thing you must do today is work as God works.
• Does it strike you as interesting, even ironic, that God tells this widow to make bread out of the flour and oil he will provide? If God could provide flour and oil, don't you suppose he could have provided bread?
• Throughout the Bible, God forms a partnership of sorts with us.
  • Illustration: Denison offers a list of examples, ranging from Noah to Moses to Jericho. Though God was going to flood the earth, part the Red Sea, and tear down the walls of Jericho, he requested work on the part of Noah, Moses, and the Israelites to do such things.
• As we work, God works. As he works, we work.
• Have you asked God what he wants you to do about the troubling issue that faces you?

• Finally, we must choose to be financially faithful no matter what our circumstances might be.
• If anybody in the Bible had an exemption to God's expectation, it would be a woman who with her son is about to starve to death. Yet even she gave to the man of God for the plan and the purpose of God.
• When the economy experiences a downturn, we get to find out if we're giving to God out of convenience or sacrifice, out of religious habit or worship and love.
• Such times give us the opportunity to discover how great and wondrous are the riches of God indeed.
  • Illustration: Martin Luther once said, "I've held many things in my hands across my life and lost them all. Only that which I placed into the hands of God, that I still possess."
  • Illustration: Someone else once said, "What you can't give away, you don't possess; it possesses you."
  • Illustration: Anne Graham Lotz said, "Gold must not matter much to God, because he uses it for pavement in heaven."

• Understand today that Jesus will provide all our needs according to his riches in glory. But you and I must be willing to do certain things first to be in a position to receive what he wants to give.
• Along the way God will build in our relationships a strength and a spiritual unity we could never have known otherwise.