Where is the God of Elijah? part 3

When the Shadows Fall 1 Kings 17:7-24

^{Sermon by Pastor Dennis Gleason -- August 20, 2006}

¹⁷Some time later, the woman’s son became sick. He grew worse and worse, and finally he died. ¹⁸She then said to Elijah, “O man of God, what have you done to me? Have you come here to punish my sins by killing my son?”

¹⁹But Elijah replied, “Give me your son.” And he took the boy’s body from her, carried him up to the upper room, where he lived, and laid the body on his bed. ²⁰Then Elijah cried out to the LORD, “O LORD my God, why have you brought tragedy on this widow who has opened her home to me, causing her son to die?”

²¹And he stretched himself out over the child three times and cried out to the LORD, “O LORD my God, please let this child’s life return to him.” ²²The LORD heard Elijah’s prayer, and the life of the child returned, and he came back to life! ²³Then Elijah brought him down from the upper room and gave him to his mother. “Look, your son is alive!” he said.

²⁴Then the woman told Elijah, “Now I know for sure that you are a man of God, and that the LORD truly speaks through you.”

The story is told of a man who was walking across the road when he was hit by a car. The impact knocked him on his head which caused him to be in a coma for a couple of days before he finally regained consciousness. When he opened his eyes, his loving wife was there beside his bed holding his hand.

He said, "You know, Judy, you’ve always been right by my side. When I was a struggling college student, I failed again and again. But you were always there with me, encouraging me to go on trying."

He said, "And when I got out of school and went for all of my interviews and failed to get any of the jobs, you stayed right there with me, cutting out more classifieds for me to check on..."

“Then I started work at this little firm and finally got the chance to handle a big contract. But I blew it because of one little mistake, and yet you were there beside me all the way. Then I finally got another job after being laid off for sometime. But I never seemed to be promoted and my hard work was never recognized. And so, I remained in the same position from the day I joined the company until now... And, through it all, you were right there by my side."

Her eyes are starting to fill with tears as she listens. He says, "And now I’ve been in this accident and when I woke up, you’re the first person I see. There’s something I’ll really like to say to you...."

He said, "Judy, I think you’re just plain bad luck!"

Don’t we wonder where God is when things don’t go just right? Isn’t that the common experience of the people you and I know? Of course it is.

I wonder if there are times when we treat God that way. Every time something bad happens, God is right there with us, getting us through the rough spots, holding us up, giving us strength. And instead of appreciating it, we sometimes blame God when bad things happen.

As Paul said in I Corinthians 1:27, God often chooses the foolish things, the weak things, the despised things of this world to accomplish his will. And the reason he gives in that chapter is "that no flesh should glory in his presence." (I Corinthians 1:29). God never wants us to forget that in every situation of life, he is the one who takes care of us. Where is the God of Elijah? He is right here with us right now!

Our text for today presents us with another crisis in Elijah’s life -- and sometimes it seems that’s what life is made up of, one crisis after another. You know what I’m talking about. You get one thing squared away, and something else falls apart. You get one car running, and the other dies. You get the doctor bills cleared up and someone else in the family gets sick. In the middle of the heat wave the air conditioner gives out. It never stops -- there’s just seems to be one thing after another. You’ve often heard it said, or said it yourself: “When it rains it pours." When trouble comes, it seems to be in floods.

And sometimes, as in the experience of Elijah, the great crises in life come after some act of commitment, when you have determined to do God’s will. There may be some area in your life where you struggle to do what God has called you to do, and you give way to the Lord and commit yourselves to obedience, and you think everything’s gonna be fine -- but it’s not. And you begin to wonder, "What’s going on? Here I am doing what God wants me to do and this is the result!"

Somewhere we picked up the idea that doing God’s will means that life will always go smoothly, that there will never be hard times or distressing circumstances. And that just simply isn’t true.

Elijah has been in the home of the widow in Zarepath for some time. The miracle of the replenishing of the oil and the flour has been caring for the need for food for Elijah, the widow and her son. T-bone steak it is not, but it has kept them alive. Day after day there has been enough to eat. No matter how much they have taken out of the bowl and the jar.

Everything is wonderful, except that one day the widow’s son become sick. (vs 17). As the days passed, he became worse until one day he died. The shadow of death became a reality in that little family. Think about what has happened. Before Elijah met her outside Zarepath on that day she was gathering sticks, she had resigned herself to dying along with her son. She had accepted the fact that they were going to die.

But along comes the Prophet Elijah and with him came hope when she had none. Death was beaten back from her doorstep when Elijah came to her and God began providing the food needed for them to survive.

Hope had been raised anew and now is shattered. Oh, how painful that must have been. How it must have crushed that little woman, destroying the very joy of living.

Look at her. She assumes that her son’s illness and death are a direct punishment from Elijah’s God. In some way God is punishing her for her past misdeeds. The prophet came to her home and now somehow God has found her out. Surely she wonders, “Why did he have to come into our lives?” “Why did I let him intrude into our family affairs?” “What a fool I have been to even consider giving him room and board.”

She has been double crossed and she is angry and bitter about it.

Someone whose child has died goes through a series of characteristic reactions. Not all bereaved parents suffer in the same way, but according to the experts most will experience many of the following responses: shock, denial, depression, loneliness, tearfulness, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, feelings of guilt, anger or hostility, and a lack of energy.

This widow of Zarephath may have been experiencing a number of those reactions, but it was her feelings of guilt, anger and hostility that especially stand out. She responded by lashing out at Elijah. "So she said to Elijah, ’What have I to do with you, O man of God? Have you come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to kill my son?’" (I Kings 17:18). "Elijah, it’s all your fault. None of this would have happened if you hadn’t shown up."

Never mind that if Elijah hadn’t shown up, both she and her son would have died long ago. It was Elijah’s God who had preserved her life for months. Never mind that the flour and oil had been miraculously replenished day after day. During times of crisis, we have a tendency not to think too clearly. You would think that she would turn to the prophet and say, "I need your help." But instead of turning to him for help, she turned away from him and blamed him for her son’s death.

What is it that characterizes the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian? Well, in this case it is the way each faces pain and sorrow. Her response is anger and lashing out in caustic bitterness. Put bluntly this woman is telling Elijah that it is his fault.

She has forgotten the goodness of God that has sustained them for months. She has forgotten that God has caused the oil and the flour to last and last and last so that they could live. Her son is dead and it must be somebody’s fault. And Elijah is elected.

How does Elijah respond? He responds with love and kindness, with generosity and gentleness. He takes the boy from her arms. And by doing this he begins lifting the burden from her. His actions speak volumes to her. They say: “Your pain is my pain.”

 “Your loss is my loss.”

 “Your burden is my burden.”

 “Your heartache is mine.”

Elijah identifies himself with this woman in her time of need.

Elijah does an amazing thing when he takes the boy in his arms. Leviticus 21:1-4 tells us that a man of God was not permitted to touch a dead body outside of his own family. That is what the Law of Moses forbade.

And when Elijah takes the dead boy in his arms he is essentially saying to this widow, “I have accepted you completely. I have taken you to my heart as my own family. I love you as dearly as my own. We are one.”

There is a complete identification of himself with this woman and her dead son in her grief. He is literally bearing her burdens. Now isn’t that what Jesus did for us on the cross. He came into our world and became one of us identifying himself with us completely. And then he took the burden of our sin upon himself as he shed his blood on the cross. He was the payment of the ransom to set us free from sin and death.

Even if this woman in her grief will not accept Elijah; he is accepting her. “Give me your son.”

He took him to his room and began praying. He asked God to return the life of her son to his body. God gives life and when it has been taken God can renew it.

Elijah simply believed God could return life to her son.

Elijah applies spiritual logic to this situation, much as he did with the flour and oil. God sent Elijah to the woman and her son. Because she was willing to make a place for him and obey the commands God had clearly given her, their lives had been spared. Therefore, it was not God’s will for the child to die and leave her all alone. So he would pray and ask God to intervene for the sake of the child and his mother. “OH, God, let this boy’s life, your very life, your life from above come into this body again.”

Elijah prays and God responds. James tells us, you will remember, that “the fervent prayer of a righteous man will accomplish much.” There is no cloud of sin or shadow of wrongdoing that will obscure Elijah’s view of God. Elijah’s spirit is moved by the very Spirit of God to believe and then to act on that belief. His petition to God is irresistible. How could God not return life to the boy?

We need to understand that there are prayers of intercession that originate with God himself. He is the author of our faith. And there are those times when he causes us to have faith that is beyond the normal faith we exercise every day.

The mother of the boy is incapable of praying in that way. She does not really know God or much about Him. She is incapable at this point of seeing that God is a God of love, mercy and compassion. She is aware that she has sinned. But her perspective is that God is in heaven with his hand on the smite button and she is directly in his sights. God is punishing her through the death of her son.

But Elijah has a clear conscience, a righteous heart and a clear view of God and that leads him to believe and to pray in simple faith for the life of her son.

How much faith does it require to raise the dead? What do you think? How much do you suppose it takes?

Is it only the Billy Grahams and Louis Palau’s of the Christian faith who are super spiritual enough to do something like this?

Well, the scriptures tell us that if we have faith the size of a mustard seed we could move mountains. Raising the dead is nothing compared to uprooting a mountain and casting it into the sea. And Elijah is a man just like us. He simply believed God would return the boys life to him. And he prays. And God responds by returning the boys life to him. He takes the boy back to his mother and says, “See, your son is alive.”

How does she respond? Her response is a curious statement: “Elijah, now I know you are a man of God and that what you say is truth.” This demonstration of God’s love and power has convinced her that God is real. Preparation for the conviction expressed here has been the oil and the flour being replenished every single day. But it took the shadow of death and her son being raised from the dead for her to declare herself.

“Now, I know…” she says.

“Now, I can accept this…” she says.

When Elijah had first entered Zarephath, the widow had identified him as a man of God. But now she knew it from experience. When Elijah brought her son back to life, she had to acknowledge that Elijah’s God was not only the source of life, but also the source of truth. So her statement was not simply that she now believed that what Elijah had been telling her was true, but rather that what he had been telling her was absolute truth.

What has made the difference in her life?

God’s man open before God.

God’s man believing that God’s plan for the widow and her son was for them to survive the drought and famine.

God’s man being the catalyst for he miracle of the flour and oil that saved their lives.

So, how could the boy die? How could this loss happen after God had provided for them and they had survived the famine and drought?

Elijah was convinced that God would act to restore the boy’s life to him. How could God do anything else?

So Elijah could pray.

So Elijah could pray expecting God would return the boy’s life to him. He simply expects God to move on their behalf.

Now what are we to make of all of this? How does this apply to us today?

Why don’t we see things like this today?

Maybe God has changed. I mean we now have the Holy Spirit dwelling within us and we have the Word of God. God has changed the rules of the game so to speak. I think we have to question that. Should this kind of faith and the corresponding results of that faith be normative or is it just descriptive of what God did in the past? There are those who argue that even the events of the day of Pentecost are merely descriptive in the Book of Acts and not normative. God doesn’t do that any more. He has changed.

The problem I have with that is this: Scripture tells us that “God is the same yesterday, today and forever.” He is unchanging. And one must ask why God would change what was working well enough to reach the known world of that time within a generation. Why would God exchange that for something that doesn’t work all that well?

The truth is that God has not changed. We have changed.

God has not changed…the church has changed.

God has not changed. And when people, people of God have a righteous heart, a willingness to obey God and know God well enough to understand what he is doing and what he desires to do in a particular situation we will see God move in power. Those people will have prayers that are irresistible. They will be irresistible not because of who we are, but because God is faithful. He will honor the faith and prayer of righteous men and women who like Elijah simply believe.

Where is the God of Elijah when shadows fall?

He is one step away.

He is one prayer away.

He is one breath away from those who are righteous and who have simple faith.

When people take that step, they will see God act with love and compassion and with power to accomplish His will.

And when that happens someone will say to us: “Now, I know that you are a man/woman of God and what you say is truth.” They too will believe and have their sins forgiven. They too can have a righteous heart that sets the power of God free.

Take the step…believe him.