>> Jen: Good morning, faithful listeners. Welcome to the Bible Explained podcast. Hope you all had a fantastic Christmas week and are ready to get back into reading the Bible with me. So we're going to be reading First Kings, chapter 17 today and finishing it up. So make sure to grab your cup of coffee and join along with me. I hope you all enjoyed the Christmas Eve special that I did this year. That episode was cutting it real close for me.
I finished that Christmas eve special at 11:20pm and got it up for you guys at, uh, like 11:30pm So a half hour before it was supposed to air, I actually finished it. I was just really struggling because the song that I chose for the episode was a very obscure Christmas song, which meant there was no sheet music for it. So I actually had to learn the song and make my own sheet music for it. And for some reason, I thought it would be a great idea to make it in the key of D flat.
Yeah. After about an hour of not getting the piano piece, I was like, nope, I'm, um, playing it in the key of C. So I changed all my sheet music for the song and relearned it in the key of C, which was much easier for me. But then because I was cutting it so close, I only got one take with the singing, and I was like, you know what? The singing, it is what it is. So I hope you guys appreciated the, um, song that I sang and played for you guys on the Christmas Eve
special. If you guys didn't get a chance to listen to it, I highly recommend it. Because even though it's a Christmas episode, it's actually an episode. I think that relates to the entire year because it talks about fear and how Jesus coming into the world abolishes basically every fear that we have. So if you haven't gotten a chance to listen to it, I highly recommend that you do.
But anyway, because we've taken about a week off of the podcast, I'm going to do a quick recap as to what we're going to be talking about today. So, last we left off, Elijah was introduced. And Elijah is one of the major prophets of the Old Testament. So Elijah goes to King Ahab of Israel, and he tells King Ahab that there is going to be a severe drought in Israel for several years. And the reason Elijah does this is because he is proving God's power to
Ahab and to all of Israel. Because at this moment in time, Israel and King Ahab were worshiping baal. And baal was the god of weather. He was the god of good. Crops. So if the people are going and praying to baal for rain and rain isn't coming, that's going to make the people think twice about worshiping baal. So Elijah prays to God, and God listens to
Elijah and sends this drought. So Elijah, while this drought is happening, he also has to figure out how to survive, because the brook that he was living next to just dried up. So God tells him to go to this widow's house. And this widow would take care of Elijah until the end of the drought, basically. So Elijah goes, he leaves his home and he travels and finds this widow. And this widow was absolutely destitute. She had nothing.
All she had left in her house was a tiny little bit of flour to make her last loaf of bread to share with her son. And then she and her son were going to die. That is what she tells Elijah. She says, I am making my last piece of bread to share with my son so that we die. But Elijah tests her faith a little bit and says, make me a little bit of that bread as well. And the woman does it. The widow actually gives, uh, Elijah a small piece
of her last bit of bread. And because of this widow's faith, even though she was a Gentile woman, by the way, God ends up blessing her household and giving her just enough food to eat every single day to sustain her household. And it was just her and her son and now Elijah living there. So let's go ahead and read the rest of this chapter. This is 1 Kings 17, 17, 20, uh, 4. And we're going to discuss the widow and her son dying and why God would allow that. I'll be reading this out of the web.
After m these things, the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became sick. And his sickness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. She said to Elijah, what have I to do with you, you man of God? Have you come to me to bring my sin to memory and to kill my son? He said to her, give me your son. He took him out of her bosom and carried him up into the room where he stayed
and laid him on his own bed. He cried to Yahweh and said, Yahweh, my God, have you also brought evil on the widow with whom I am staying by killing her son? He stretched himself on the child three times and cried to Yahweh and said, Yahweh, my God, please let this child's soul back into him again. Yahweh listened to the voice of Elijah and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived. Elijah, took the child and brought him down out of the room into the house and
delivered him to his mother. And Elijah said, behold, your son lives. And the woman said to Elijah, now I know that you are a man of God and that Yahweh's word in your mouth is truth. So many days have passed, and Elijah is staying with this widow. She has a young son, it looks like, and this son is the only person she has left in her life. Not only that, this son would have been the sole provider for her once he grows up and
is able to get a job. So not only was this son very precious to this widow, but he was also her strength as she gets into her old age. Because once again, this woman was absolutely destitute since her husband died. She had very little way of supporting herself, especially through this drought and this famine that was going on. And so her son is not just the love of her life, but also her hope for the future.
But yet this little child of hers, the only person she has left in the world, becomes so sick with a fever that he ends up dying. His sickness was so severe, it says, that there was no breath left in him. So she immediately blames Elijah. She says, what have I to do with you, you man of God? Have you come to me to bring my sin to memory and to kill my son? So apparently, this woman had some sort of sin that she'd committed in the past
that she was guilty of. And she believes that Elijah's presence is causing God to judge her. But Elijah doesn't respond to her. Instead, he says, give me your son. And he takes the child out of her arms. So this child was dead in this woman's arms, and she was holding him and crying because the only thing she loved in this life was now gone. And he walks to his room, which apparently was a separate area outside
of the house. It looks like Elijah would have to go outside and walk up some stairs to get into the upper room of his house. And that was where he was staying. So he takes the boy to the upper room, and he's crying out to Yahweh. So not only is the widow very saddened by the death of this child, but Elijah is also very sad as well, because he's confused. He's like God, why would you allow this widow's son to die? Why would you allow something like this to happen? So this brings me to some other
passages of scripture. Luke chapter seven talks about a very similar story of a widow who lost her only son. This was during the days of Jesus. In Luke 7:11 - 17. It says soon afterwards Jesus went to a city called Nain. Many of his disciples, along with a great multitude went with him. Now when he came near to the gate of the city, behold, one who was dead was being carried out. The only son of his mother, and she was a widow. Many people of the city were with
her. When the LORD saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, don't cry. He came near and touched the coffin and the bearers stood still. He said, young man, I tell you, arise. He who was dead sat up and began to speak, and he gave him to his mother. Fear took hold of all and they glorified God, saying, a great prophet has arisen among us and God has visited his people. This report went out concerning him in the whole of Judea and in all the surrounding
region. So that is a very similar story we find in the New Testament of a widow who lost her son. And then Jesus shows compassion on this widow and raises her son from the dead. We see another story of Jesus rising somebody from the dead in John chapter 11. This is the famous story of Mary and Martha when their brother Lazarus had died. Now, Mary and Martha obviously were women who wouldn't be able to take care of themselves as well without a man helping them.
And Lazarus was their source of income, most likely because both Mary and Martha that we know of were were unmarried and lived with Lazarus. So Lazarus dies and Lazarus was one of Jesus best friends as well. So Jesus goes and visits Mary and Martha after Lazarus had already died and had been dead for
several days. It says in John 11:32, Therefore Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, and she fell down at his feet, saying to him, Lord if you would have been here, my brother wouldn't have died. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping and the Jews weeping, who came with her, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled and said, where have you laid him? They told Him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. So that's two very similar stories to the one we see in 1 Kings 17.
A family member very special to these women dying, but not just a family member who's special to them, also their source of income and their source of hope for the future. And in all three cases we see Elijah and Jesus being very sad over what happens. And In John chapter 11 it actually says that Jesus wept and he was angry over the death of
Lazarus. And that's very crucial that it says that Jesus was angry at the death of Lazarus quite Honestly, I used to think that the reason Jesus was angry in the story of Mary and Martha was because he was angry that Mary and Martha didn't have more faith in him. Um, more faith that Jesus could do whatever he wanted because he was God and he could, you know, raise the dead or something. That's what I used to think Jesus was angry at. But now I actually think that Jesus was angry at death itself.
And the reason I think that is because death is considered to be one of Jesus's enemies. We see that in 1 Corinthians 15, which. I'm sorry, I keep referencing 1 Corinthians 15. I think I've referenced it now probably four times in the last week. In fact, I even talked about it during the Christmas Eve special, which you guys should listen to if you didn't yet. But the reason I keep mentioning it is because it's so relevant, and it actually opened my eyes a little bit more toward what death and
resurrection really is. So let's read 1 Corinthians 15, 21, 26. For since death came by man, the resurrection of the dead also came by man. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive, but each in his own order. Christ the firstfruits, then those who are Christ's at his coming. Then the end comes when he will deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when he will have abolished all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies
under his feet. The last enemy that will be abolished is death. So death is actually an enemy of Jesus. And I think the reason Jesus was weeping In John, chapter 11 was because he was angry, just angry and upset over the fact that death is happening in this world. Because death is not natural to us. We were not created to die. In fact, it actually says in Scripture that the human mind is set on eternity. So God never created
us to die. Death was not in the original design in the garden of Eden, but Adam chose death. So everybody that is born of Adam, which we all are, because we're all related to Adam and Eve. All of us are born of Adam, and so we all
die. Genesis, chapter 2, verses 8 and 9, and then also 15 through 17, says, now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east in Eden, and there He put the man He had formed, the LORD God made all kinds of trees to grow out of the ground trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life. And also the Tree of Knowledge of Good and
Evil. Then in, uh, verse 15, the LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man, you are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, for when you eat of it, you will certainly die. So God gave Adam the warning that
sin causes death. And eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil would cause Adam to not just disobey God and sin against Him but also to understand evil, because Adam was created innocent. He was created for the eternal. But the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil would cause Adam to actually understand how to do evil and how to sin against God when he took a bite from that fruit. And that is what Adam chose. And you might be like, well, why did God put that tree
in the garden to begin with? Well, the most obvious answer is that God doesn't want a whole bunch of robots following him. He wants people to choose. And even now, you and I have a choice. We can choose to accept God and gain the free gift of salvation that undoes everything that Adam did, or we can choose to follow the path of Adam and sin and die in our sins. So we still have a choice. And God has always given us free will. So free will exists,
as is proven in the Garden of Eden. And obviously in your relationships with people. You don't want them to love you because they are forced to love you. You want them to love you because they choose to love you. That's why I get so mad at my husband sometimes because. Because he does something just because he thinks I want him to do it. And I'm just like, no, I want you to choose to want to do it. Not just because I want it. I want you to want it.
But that is why God put the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the garden in the first place. But. But of course, because Adam chose it, sin entered into the world. And because sin entered into the world, as God warned, death also entered into the world. So death is an enemy. It is something that is unnatural to us. It is something that God hates. It is something that Jesus weeps over and someday is going to completely and totally destroy it. It is an enemy of
God. But nevertheless, because all of us are born of Adam, we all die. And we caused that. But because God is so merciful, sometimes He will reverse the course of death. So going back to 1 Kings chapter 17. This is the first story in the Bible of somebody raising somebody from the dead. So Elijah brings the boy who has died up to his room. It says that he cried out to Yahweh, Yahweh, my God, please let
this child's soul come into him again. And it says in verse 21, he stretched himself on the child three times and cried to Yahweh. So Elijah wasn't giving up. He was distressed. He was confused as to why God would allow this, but he was not giving up. It doesn't seem like this happened quickly. The way Jesus was able to raise that widow's son in Luke chapter seven, Elijah had to pray and had to have faith that God
would perform this miracle for him. So Elijah is stretching himself out on the bed over this boy, just like praying and hugging this boy and asking God to bring the soul back into this little boy again. And it says God listened to the voice of Elijah and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived. And once again, this is the first known raising from the dead that we have in Scripture. Now, this is different than a resurrection,
as we've talked about before. This boy was not resurrected because this boy, even though his life has come back into him again, someday he would die once again. A resurrection is when your body is changed into something immortal, which is the way it happened When Jesus rose from the dead, He experienced a resurrection, the first resurrection ever. But this little boy is the first raising of the dead that we have in Scripture, not a resurrection. So the soul of the
boy comes back into him again. And Elijah takes the child and brings him down out of the room into the house and delivers him to his mother. And Elijah said, behold, your son lives. And the woman says to Elijah, now I know that you're a man of God and that Yahweh's word in your mouth is the truth. So if this woman had any doubt of Yahweh's existence or of the power of Yahweh before, she has no doubt in her mind now that Yahweh is all powerful and that He is the
truth. So not only did God show mercy and gentleness and kindness to this widow by giving her her son back, who was taken prematurely by the enemy called death. But God also proves His power to this woman and saves this woman's soul at the same time. But this story is just a foreshadowing of what Jesus is going to do for everybody. It says that all of us, once again, in 1
Corinthians 15, which I keep referencing. It says that all of us, someday, all of us Christians who believe in Jesus, who have the knowledge and understanding that Jesus is our Savior, all of us will someday experience a resurrection. Not just a raising from the dead, but something so much better than that. A resurrection where our bodies actually become immortal and made for eternity the way God wanted us to be from the very
beginning in the Garden of Eden. It's going to go back to that original design that God had for us. And someday we will live in eternity with Jesus. Alrighty, Faithful listeners, I hope you enjoyed today's episode and if you did, make sure to share it on your social media platforms and tell people the Bible Explained podcast exists. Now. Just to let you guys know, I will be taking the next few days
off since it is New Year's. But on Friday there will be an episode for you members and then next week everything will be back to normal. We'll have the normal Monday through Thursday for all you guys and then Fridays for the listeners once again. So I hope you all have a good few days until I see you next time. But faithful listeners, have a wonderful rest of your week. Happy listening and God bless.