>> Jen: Hey, faithful listeners. Welcome to the Day Before Christmas Eve. I hope you've had a fantastic weekend and a nice festive one as well. But today we're not going to be talking about Christmas. We're going to be talking about First Kings, chapter 17, and introducing Elijah the Prophet. That'll be coming up shortly. I'm very excited to talk about Elijah the Prophet because he's one of my favorite Old Testament prophets.
I just really enjoy him a lot. But with his story, we're going to talk about faith through fear, because Elijah struggled with fear. And also this widow that he's going to meet also was struggling with fear as well. But before we get into all of that, I do want to do a little bit of housekeeping. So tomorrow there's not going to be a regular scheduled episode. Instead, the episode is going to be aired at midnight. It's the annual candlelit Christmas special that I do every single
year. And tomorrow night, I have a very interesting subject for you guys, specifically regarding fear, actually. And then Wednesday, obviously, because it's Christmas, there is not going to be a regular scheduled episode. Same for Thursday. And then also Friday, I'm going to be taking off for you members. So today is the only day this week that is going to have a regular scheduled episode. And I'll see you guys all next week if I don't see you tomorrow night for the candlelit Christmas special.
But for now, let's go ahead and read 1 Kings 17, 1 16. I'll be reading this out of the web as usual. Elijah. Uh, the Tishbite, who was one of the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, as Yahweh, the God of Israel lives before whom I stand. There shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word. Then Yahweh's word came to him, saying, go away from here, turn eastward and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, that is before
the Jordan, you shall drink from the brook. I have commanded ravens to feed you there. So he went and did according to Yahweh's word. For he went and lived by the brook, Cherith, that is before the Jordan. And the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening. And he drank from the brook. After a while, the brook dried up because there was no rain in the land. Yahweh's word came to him, saying, arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs
to Sidon, and stay there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to sustain you. So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and said, please get me a little water in a jar that I may drink. As she was going to get it, he called to her and said, and please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand. She
said, as Yahweh, your God lives. I don't have a cake, but a handful of meal in a jar and a little oil in a jar. Behold, I am gathering two sticks that I might go in and bake it for me and my son that we may eat it and die. Elijah said to her, don't be afraid. Go and do as you have said. But make me a little cake from it first and bring it out to me. And
afterward make some for you and your son. For Yahweh, the God of Israel, says, the jar of meal will not run out and and the jar of oil will not fail until the day that Yahweh sends rain on the earth. She went and did according to the saying of Elijah. And she and he and her house ate for many days. The jar of meal didn't run out and the jar of oil didn't fail according to Yahweh's word, which he spoke by Elijah.
So now enters one of the most famous prophets of the entire Old Testament, and this is Elijah the Tishbite. In fact, out of all of the Old Testament prophets, Elijah is one of my favorites because to me, he's the most relatable out of all of the prophets. I just really enjoy Elijah. So it says that Elijah the Tishbite, who was one of the settlers of Gilead, went to King Ahab. And as we know from the last chapter, we talked about King Ahab. He was a really nasty king. He was a bad guy. He
was a murderer. He also brought in BAAL worship to the people of Israel. We talked about why BAAL worship specifically was a very egregious religion to follow. And so Ahab was a nasty guy. So now Elijah has a message for Ahab. He says, as Yahweh, the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word. So this was a prayer of faith that Elijah had, which James,
chapter five talks about. So if you go over to the book of James and read verses 17 through 18, this is out of the NIV version. It says, Elijah was a human being even as we are, but he prayed earnestly that it would not rain and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. And then again he prayed and the heavens gave rain and the earth produced its crops.
So James there is talking about the prayer of faith and using Elijah as an example, because Elijah was just a man, just a human being, the same way as you and I are. But he had great faith and he had a great prayer life. And so he prayed earnestly to God that it wouldn't rain on the land of Israel for three and a half years. And it actually happened. God listened to Elijah. And the reason God listened to Elijah to send this drought, it wasn't just to judge Israel. Actually,
there was a point for this drought. If you remember what BAAL was, he was the God of fertility, of rain and of weather and of good crops. Well, if they're going and praying to BAAL for three and a half years and yet it's continually not raining, people might start to think, hmm, m, maybe BAAL worship isn't working out for me so much. So there was a point to God sending this drought not just a judgment on Israel, but also showing them who the true God really was. And it was Yahweh, of course.
So after Elijah tells King Ahab this, the drought takes place and Elijah's life is in danger. So Yahweh goes to Elijah in verse two, and he says, uh, go away from here. Turn eastward and hide yourself by the brook Cherith. So God was protecting Elijah's life because Ahab once again, was a nasty king who had no problem killing whoever he wanted to kill, which we'll get into more of Ahab's story in the next coming chapters. But he was definitely not afraid to kill people he did not like,
especially God's prophets. So God protected Elijah and sent him to this brook Cherith to live there and hide himself away from King Ahab for three and a half years, or until the brook dries up. God says, you shall drink from the brook. I have commanded ravens to feed you there. So Elijah listened to God's word. He went and lived by the brook Cherith, that is before the Jordan. And the ravens did in fact bring him bread and meat in the morning, and then once again,
bread and meat in the evening. And where were the ravens getting this bread and meat? We don't know. God was the one who was actually providing the bread and meat. So the entire thing was a miracle. But God was the one sustaining Elijah this entire time, teaching Elijah faith that in the morning there would be food for him, and in the afternoon and Evening, there would be food for him, and it would be just enough food for him to not be hungry for the day, so there wouldn't be any left over.
Elijah would have to wait till the next morning to go and get his food. And that would be a growing of Elijah's faith in God, that God was actually going to provide for him day after day and evening after evening. And then also he was to drink from the brook as well. But of course, because this drought was taking place, the brook ends up drying up after a little while.
It says there was no rain in the land. Now, you would have thought maybe at this point that Elijah would have started praying to God that rain would start falling on the land again because it was Elijah who gave the Word. It says that specifically in verse one, when Elijah told Ahab that there wasn't going to be any rain falling on the land, he said, at my word, there will not be any
rain on the land. So you would think that once the brook starts drying up, the average person would start praying to God and being like, okay, God, you know, my. My life is in danger. There's no water here, so please send rain again. But maybe that's why God was having Elijah go through that faith test every day with the ravens bringing him food.
He was growing Elijah's faith so that Elijah doesn't immediately start praying for rain the second he doesn't have water, because he's going to understand that God will protect him and supply all of his needs. So that's why, even though Elijah's life was potentially in danger from lack of water, that's why Elijah did not pray for God at that moment, because it wasn't time yet. Israel had not learned their lessons
yet. If Elijah had started praying to God after the brook Kidron started drying up, then the Israelites would have been like, oh, you know, baal, you know, he knew the right time to bring the rain. We just had to wait a little bit for him. It had to be a longer period of time so that the Israelites would get it through their heads that BAAL was a, uh, nothing God and that no amount of prayers to BAAL was going to send rain. So God does supply Elijah's needs.
In verse eight, it says Yahweh's Word came to him saying, arise and go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and stay there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to sustain you. So it should definitely be noted that this area of Zarephath did not belong to Israel or Judah. It says it belonged to Sidon. So Zarephath was a Gentile city. And Jesus talks about this widow of
Zarephath, actually in Luke chapter four. And the reason Jesus brings this story up was because he was in his hometown of Nazareth, and his people, the people that he grew up with, his neighbors, were completely rejecting him. So Jesus says, no prophet is accepted in his own hometown. Not even Elijah was accepted in Israel. In fact, he had to run away from Ahab, and he had to run away from his own people for fear of his own life. So God sent Elijah to a Gentile woman because Elijah
would be accepted there. So here's what Jesus says in Luke 4:24 through 26. Truly, I tell you, Jesus continued, no prophet is accepted in his own hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah's time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath, in the region of Sidon. So God sends Elijah to a gentile widow to take care of him and
to sustain him. And God actually says that he commanded this widow to take care of Elijah. But what's really interesting is when Elijah gets to Zarephath and finds the poor widow and asks her for some food, it doesn't seem like she knew that she was supposed to be feeding Elijah, but yet she obeyed and went and fed Elijah. God put something in her heart that made her obey when Elijah asked for food. So here's the story. Elijah arose and went to
Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, uh, a widow was there gathering sticks. So he called to her and he said, please get me a little water in a jar that I might drink. And as she was going to get it, he called to her and said, please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand. Now, a question some of you might have is, how did this widow have water if there was a drought in the land? Well, a, uh, drought does not mean that there's literally no water.
Otherwise everybody would be dead, including Elijah, and this story wouldn't be told. A drought just means a shortage of water. And we don't know exactly what the layout of the land was in Zarephath. It could be that Zarephath just had more water. Deeper wells, maybe more rivers, deeper lakes. Uh, who knows? Maybe this widow had more water than the typical widow of Israel, but probably not, because a drought just means a water Shortage, not a complete lack of water, just to clear that
one up. And plus, Jesus here In Luke chapter 4, he mentions that there was a severe famine, not necessarily a severe water shortage. So this drought more likely was making it so that water was harder to find and farmers couldn't go and water their crops. So there was not enough food to go around because the crops were all dying due to lack of water. And that specifically
was what was causing the famine. And this woman, this widow, was really feeling the effects of this terrible famine because as she's going to get the water, Elijah calls to her and he says, please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand also. And she says, as Yahweh, your God lives. And this is before she even knew that Elijah was a prophet, it seems like. But she did know that Elijah was a Jewish man, because the Jews at the time did dress very
distinctively. So this woman would have known that Elijah was a Jew, that he was a faithful Jew, because maybe he was wearing the tassels, and also that Yahweh was his God. So she actually pays homage to Yahweh specifically, not to baal, but to Yahweh. She says, as Yahweh, your God lives. I don't have a cake or any food, but a handful of meal in a jar and a little oil in a jar. Behold, I am gathering two sticks that I may go in and bake it for me and my son, that we may eat it and
die. So now Elijah finds out how absolutely destitute this widow is. She is so poor that she is about to cook her last meal. She was coming outside to gather a couple sticks that she could light a fire and that she could bake her bread in the oven, eat it with her son, and then die tomorrow because they would have zero food after that. So Elijah says to her, don't be afraid.
Go and do as you have said, but make me a little cake from it first and bring it out to me, and then afterward, make some for you and for your son. So he asks the woman to step out in faith and make food for Elijah first before she feeds herself and her son. And this is where the woman obeys God to provide for Elijah. She listens. Any other woman, I think, in her situation would have been like, get out of here, you old man.
I'm going to make food for my family because we are destitute and starving and we don't have food. So leave me alone and find somebody else to get you food, because it's not Me, any other woman would have done that. But clearly this woman was at least a little bit faithful, and she had an obedient heart toward God. And this is why Jesus recognizes her in Luke chapter four.
Because this woman was special and was different than a lot of the women at the time period, and even the women of Israel who supposedly worshiped Yahweh. So the woman does what the prophet, she went and did, according to the saying of Elijah. And she and he and her house ate for many days. The jar of meal didn't run out, and the jar of oil didn't fail, according to Yahweh's word, which he spoke by
Elijah. So every single day, the woman had just enough food left in the bottom of her jars to make another loaf of bread for Elijah, for herself, and for her son. Just enough food to sustain them. And don't forget, Elijah's already been sustained by ravens up until this time. So Elijah had faith that God was going to provide through this widow. But this widow now was learning that God was providing for her and her son and for Elijah
as well. So now this widow was having her faith tested that every single day there'd be just enough flour at the bottom of that container to make another loaf of bread. And sometimes we might wonder, why doesn't God just give us everything we need all at one time? Why does he give it to us in small little bursts like that? Well, I certainly think it's to grow our faith in him. But I also think that it's for our
good in some way. Because if you think about it, if this woman had been given a whole container full of food that she could use day after day after day for a very long period of time, people in the area who were desperate might start hearing about that and causing trouble for that widow. It was actually better that that widow only had enough food every single day to provide for herself, her son and
Elijah. And plus, people probably would think that since Elijah was staying with this woman now, that she was getting just enough money from him through his support of her to go out and buy a little bit of food every single day. And nobody was going to mess with this widow at that point. So, honestly, it was not just to test the faith of the widow, but to protect her and take care of her. And that's why God, uh, sometimes gives us what we need in just small little
bursts. It's to grow our faith and to help us always be dependent on Him. For example, you know, right now I'm going through a lot of stomach problems. Every time I have one, I just have to call out to God and just be like, God, heal me today. Heal me right now and protect me today. And a lot of times He does, or a lot of times He will just give me, you know, strength to do something that I need to do in spite of the stomach ache. Now, do I wish that God would just totally take them all away all
at one time? Yes. And I don't understand why He doesn't sometimes. But what I do know, based upon the story of Elijah and also this widow, is that God gives us exactly what we need at the exact right time. And we just have to have faith that He is going to continue to provide for us day after day, even when things are distressing or scary. Well, faithful listeners, tomorrow is the annual candlelit Christmas Eve episode that I do
every single year. I air it at midnight on Christmas morning, or, um, Tuesday night, whatever you prefer. And every single year, I talk about a specific topic relating to Christmas. And this year I'm going to be talking about fear, because pretty much every person struggles with fear of some kind. So I definitely hope that you tune in and listen along and, uh, invite people to listen along with
you. One of the reasons I air it at midnight is because a lot of churches don't do midnight Christmas Eve services anymore. I know many people enjoy staying up till midnight to celebrate Christmas Day, so this episode will be a good family event and a good thing to invite your friends to listen to as well. So I will see you guys tomorrow evening, or rather Christmas morning at midnight. But until then, happy listening and God bless.