Alright, good morning. Welcome
to our continuing study in Luke chapter 4. We left off last time
in verse 21-22 after Jesus had gone into the synagogue here. as was his custom he stood up
for to read and as it said in other scriptures. And as we learned
in our last lesson that typically the custom was on the Sabbath
day they would have seven readers of Scripture. They would have
a priest and then a Levite and then five of the Israelites. Each would read and they would
each get up and do their religious duty in reading the Scriptures.
And so the Lord, as was His custom, He went and we discussed that
there was delivered unto Him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And He had read from there and
it was because that God the Father had determined from eternity
that that would be the place where He read. Because it was
about His Son in whom He was well pleased. And then he declares
in verse 21, this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. The one that the scriptures talked
about, I'm here. And so now, we come to the part where, as
the title of our lesson series has been, where the rubber meets
the road. They said, oh, it's nice that you read those scriptures.
But they said, is this not Joseph's son? And so today he says, but I tell
you a truth. God is sovereign, is what he's
talking about. Sovereign mercy. So we'll take
up our reading here today in verse 24. Verily I say unto you,
no prophet is accepted in his own country. Remember they'd
said, he said, verily I, surely thou shalt say unto me. He knew
what was in their hearts. You'll say unto me, all those
miracles that you did in Capernaum, do here in your own country.
We want to see the miracle stuff. We want to see the show. He says,
but I tell you of a truth. Many widows were in Israel in
the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six
months, when great famine was throughout all the land. But
unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of
Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were
in Israel in the time of Elias. the prophet, and none of them
was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian. And all they in the synagogue,
when they heard these things, were filled with wrath. And they
rose up and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the
brow of the hill, where on their city was built, that they might
cast him down headlong. But he, passing through the midst
of them, went his way." So, He went back down to Capernaum
in Galilee. Here we find that he was in that
synagogue, the place where the gospel should have been declared,
preached, but was not. Jesus was reading the scroll
of Isaiah, which had been brought to him by that determinate counsel
and direction of God. Then we had Jesus declaring in
no uncertain terms that the very Scriptures He read that day were
testifying of Him. Remember He said, they are they?
Search the Scriptures, they are they that testify of Me? In John
5.39. Clearly he knew what was in their
hearts and the gospel wasn't really what they were interested
in. They were just kind of interested in the religious functions and
ceremony. And then, now as is always the
case, the Lord gives them kind of a spiritual answer to an answer
they weren't really prepared to accept. He just read the scriptures.
Now he gives them a spiritual truth. They like the scriptures,
they like the show of the miracles, but by themselves they would
have no effect without the drawing of the Father, the revelation
of the Son, and the new birth by the Holy Spirit. We have another
example of the very same thing in the Gospel of John chapter
6. If you'll turn to John chapter
6. And we find that Jesus had just fed the 5,000 with the two
loaves and the five fishes. And Jesus answered them in verse
26 and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, you seek me not
because you saw the miracles. But because you did eat of the
loaves and were filled, labor not for the meat which perishes,
but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which
the Son of man shall give unto you. For him hath God the Father
sealed. And then they said unto him,
what shall we do that we might work the works of God? And Jesus
answered them and said, the work of God is that you believe on
him whom he has sent. Then they said it therefore unto
him, what sign showest thou then that we may see and believe what
thou dost work? And our fathers did eat manna
in the desert, as it is written, he gave them bread from heaven
to eat. So again, they know the scriptures, they know the words,
but they don't know the spiritual meaning or the depth of them
and the application of them. Jesus said unto them, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from
heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven,
for the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven and giveth
life unto the world. Then said they unto him, Lord,
evermore give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am
the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. But,
and he's about to give them a spiritual truth here, but I said unto you
that you also have seen me and believed not. All that the Father
giveth me shall come to me. And him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven not
to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this
is the Father's will which has sent me, that of all which he
hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again
at the last day. And this is the will of him that
sent me, that everyone which seeth the Son and believeth on
him may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the
last day. And then the same thing we find
over in Luke happens here. The Jews then murmured at him
because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven.
And they said, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father
and mother we know? How is it then that he said,
I came down from heaven? Jesus therefore answered and
said unto them, murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to
me. except the Father which has sent
me, draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day." Spiritual
truths again that people weren't in their natural condition already
willing or able to accept. And Jesus, these spiritual truths,
He is the bread of life. The Father had given the Son
of people in the covenant of grace. And all of them, everyone
whom the Father had given Him in that covenant, He said, shall
come to Me. And he would not reject a single
one who was given him by the Father and who came to him. And then he said, and none are
even able to come to him without the aid of the Father, drawing
them to his Christ. No man can come to me. No man
is able to come to me except the Father which sent me, draw
him there from John 6, 44. So what was the result of the
spiritual truths given? If we read on through John 6,
verse 59, these things said he in the synagogue, as he taught
in Capernaum, and he's here in the synagogue where he's at now,
the same thing is happening. Many, therefore, of his disciples,
when they heard this, said, this is a hard saying. Who can hear
it? No one can come to God. All that the Father did with
me shall come." All these things are spiritual truths that were
hard for them in their natural condition. It's a hard saying,
who can hear it? And Jesus knew in himself that
his disciples murmured at it. He said unto them, does this
offend you? And what if you shall see the Son of Man ascend up
to where he was before? It is a spirit that quickeneth
the flesh, profiteth nothing. And the words that I speak to
you, they are spirit, they are life. But there are some of you
that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning
who they were that believed not and who should betray him. And
he said, therefore, I said unto you that no man can come unto
me except it were given him unto him of my father. And from that
time, Many of his disciples went back and walked no more with
him. And that is what we find in religion even today. You give
a spiritual truth and most of the time the result is going
to be in the unregenerate, they're going to not walk with you anymore.
They are not wanting to have anything to do with you. And
if you're among them, they're gonna wanna cast you out over
the brow of the hill and headlong and be rid of you. And so we
find this similar circumstances here in Luke chapter four. Is
this not Joseph's son? It's okay for Joseph's son to
stand up and read the scriptures, but when he makes a spiritual
application, a spiritual truth out of them, it's no good. When we want the miracles that
you did in Capernaum, not the gospel message that he'd been
teaching them, that they were following him around listening
to. They wanted the loaves and the fishes and the miracles like
the casting out of devils and the healing of the lame and the
sick and all those things that were exhibitions of his power
to show who he was. So we see here again in Luke
chapter 4, the Lord giving another spiritual truth about sovereign
mercy. And so in this book, in this
block of scriptures, there are just so many blessings for the
people of God. When I was going through it,
I was just hard to know where to begin. And we could spend
as much time here as we wished and never exhaust all the blessings
that are revealed here. I tell you of a truth. The miracles
in Capernaum were examples of sovereign mercy displayed in
the vessels of mercy, which he had before prepared unto glory.
We get from Romans 9, 24, that block of scripture there. You
like the scriptures read from Isaiah. And so you no doubt are
familiar with a couple more is kind of implying here. Well,
you like that scripture from Isaiah where, where The Spirit
of the Lord is upon me. He's anointed me to preach the
gospel to the poor, heal the brokenhearted, preach deliverance
to the captives, and all those wonderful things that Christ
does for his people. He says, well, here's a couple
more scriptures. I'll tell you a truth. And both
the examples that we have in the next couple of verses come
from the book of the Kings, one in 1 Kings and one in 2 Kings.
And both regarding prophets of God who brought the gospel to
a time and place where the reality of God was largely rejected. The same thing that Jesus finds.
There's religion, but it's ceremonial. There's hardly anybody that really
understands or looks for God, as the scriptures say. There's
none except the Lord draw them. And so, We have these examples of these
prophets who brought the gospel to a time where idolatry was
rampant, and these folks here in the synagogue wouldn't have
considered themselves to be idolatrous, but really they weren't. The
Lord said, you're just doing it on the outside. The inside,
you're worshiping yourselves and your own self-righteousness. You're your own worst idol. And
so we have two examples of the prophets, Elijah the Tishbite.
Remember that we found that from earlier in our study of Luke
regarding John the Baptist in Luke 1.17, Elijah the Tishbite. And that Tishbite kind of meant,
gave the implication of Turner, Elijah the Turner from Luke. Chapter 1, verse 17. He shall go before him in the
spirit and power of Elias, or Elijah, to turn the hearts of
the fathers to the children, the disobedient to the wisdom
of the just, to make ready a people for the Lord. And that's what
Elijah was doing back in his day. Same thing. His name, Elijah, meant my God
is Jehovah. My God is the eternal Lord God
Almighty. And Elisha in verse 27, many
lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha, or Elisha in the Old
Testament, the Hebrew name there. His name reveals God is my salvation. So you have these two names next
to each other. My God is Jehovah, my God is
salvation. Interesting that he would select
out of all the scriptures, he picked these two examples, these
two prophets. There were many prophets in the
days, but he picked these two because they both perform miracles,
but more importantly, they both declare the gospel of the son
of God, the Lord Jehovah. God my salvation. So why we might
ask that Jesus reference these particular men from these particular
scriptures to declare, as it turns out, many spiritual truths. And you know, overall, clearly,
he's implying and stating clearly that God is sovereign in dispensing
mercy. And that thought is paramount
overall as the miracles that you did in Capernaum. He sovereignly
dispensed those miracles according to His purpose. And in Romans
9, verse 15, Paul is bringing this very fact
out, and even regarding Pharaoh, who was clearly against God and
against God's people back in Egypt. He said, For he saith
unto Moses, I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy,
and I will pity whomever I will pity. That quote taken from Exodus
chapter 33 verse 19. Sovereignty is such a powerful
attribute of God, and yet it's so misunderstood and rejected
of men who have no understanding of that concept. And they're
quite willing to say, well, God is sovereign, but, and then they'll
bring up a litany of things that God is not sovereign about. Well,
sovereign is an absolute, in context, there's no ambiguity
about it. Sovereignty means sovereign.
And the Bible is replete with examples of sovereignty being
exercised. This king would issue a decree
and it couldn't be undone. And they would have to live by
it. So, they were sovereign in their
nations. And God is sovereign over their
sovereignty. He is absolutely sovereign, period. So you cannot say God is sovereign,
but I have a will. I have more power than God because
I have a will. I can accept or reject God. I can overpower God. I can take
or leave Him. He has no power over me. And
boy, we find out that is not the truth. But if you bring up
that spiritual truth, Nine times out of ten, you're going to be
taken out and cast over the brow of the hill, as it were. Man
has a will, but that will is always against God and can only
be overcome by Him. And as we shall see, no man can
come to me except the Father which sent me draw him. And then
we see, thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power. That's
from Psalm 110 verse 3. wonderful verses to people that
are regenerated. They say, thank God He overpowered
me. Thank God He made me willing in the day of His power, because
the day before I was not, I never would have been. And so we note the parallels
here between Luke's introduction of John the Baptist in chapter
1 and the sovereign mercy of God displayed in Luke chapter
4. In Luke chapter 1 verse 76, And
thou, child, shall be called prophet of the highest, for thou
shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways. And
here is his mission in verse 77, to give knowledge of salvation
unto his people by the remission of their sins. To tell them their
sins have been paid for. Tell God's people that their
sins have been paid double. Through the tender mercy of our
God, whereby the day spring from on high hath visited us, to give
light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to
guide our feet into the way of peace. All those things are activities
of God in our behalf that He directs and guides us to. Give light to them that sit,
the people that are sitting in the darkness didn't come up with
their own light. The people in the shadow of death didn't heal
themselves. The people, their feet, they
didn't guide their own feet to the way of peace. They're always
on the wrong road, on the wrong path, the wrong direction, till
God redirects their steps. A man directs his steps, but
God directs the heart. We often say in this Bible class
that God will intersect his people with the gospel at the time which
he is appointed and in the manner in which he is appointed and
with the effect that he is appointed. And here in these examples given
by the Lord, we find the one in which the man of God, Elijah,
comes to one who is a Gentile with the gospel. So we find in
this case, God directs a man with the gospel to go to a person
that's one of his elect, one of his sheep, one of his jewels,
as was mentioned in a Wednesday night Bible study, the jewels
of the Lord. And in the other example we find
of Elisha and Naaman the Syrian, we find God directs the steps
of a Gentile, another Gentile, name in the Syrian to where the
gospel is given by another man of God, Elisha. So in one case,
we have the man of God going to the person and the other example,
we have the person going to where the gospel is. So those two interesting
spiritual truths that God directs those things. And we, and we
find certain words here that, that are illustrate this, uh,
And so both these jewels of God the Father to whom he has sent
redemption through his son being intersected with the gospel in
the way that God the Father has directed. A spiritual truth. Neither was a godly person Neither
of them knew or desired God. Naaman was a Syrian. He was kind
of on the enemy. He was one of those people that
came down from the north and invaded Israel from time to time.
In fact, I think they did it kind of annually. After the harvest,
they came down and pillaged. Israel and took all the good
stuff and then went back north and and feasted on it and it
was kind of an annual concern by those those folks, but They
they didn't they were not of God. They didn't know anything
about God there and it was just an example it was just a metaphor
for the spiritual condition in which we find all men by nature
and so in example one here in Luke 4, 25 and 26. I tell you
of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias,
or Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months,
and when great famine was throughout all the land. So we find a number
of things here that are directed by God. God caused Elijah to
pray that it rain not, and it rained not for the space of three
years. When you have no rain for three years and you don't
have irrigation, stuff won't grow. And there was a famine
throughout all the land. And there were widows. There were lots of widows. Just
like today, there's many widows throughout the land. But this
one particular widow, God had in mind here, because It was
one of those jewels that he had in mind, one of those elect,
one of those sheep. And in the time of Elijah, there's
another thing that we look at here. He was in constant conflict
with false religion. Remember, if you went back there
in Kings and you would find the recording of him versus the 450
prophets of Baal, or the servants of Baal, and he told the people,
how long halt you between two opinions? If the Lord be God,
serve him. If Baal, then him. and follow
him, and the people answered him not a word. Well, they were
just kind of willing to go with whoever won the contest, and
we've seen that before. Well, you guys duke it out, and
we'll just go with the winner. Well, you know how that turned
out, that contest with those prophets. Also in the time of
Elijah, there was great persecution of those who declared the gospel
of God. Remember Obadiah hid a bunch
of them, prophets of God, in caves because Jezebel was out
to kill all of them. And she did kill a lot of them.
And Elijah, he says, I'm the only one left and they want to
kill me. And in 1 Kings 18.21, we find that scripture there
about Elijah telling them to not halt between the two opinions.
And in 1 Kings 19, verse 18, the Lord instructing him in sovereignty,
he says, I think three times Elijah mentions, I'm all alone.
I'm the only one left. And they want to kill me. I think
it's three times he mentions that in Kings. And the Lord says,
yet I have left me 7,000 in Israel, all the knees of which have not
bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which has not kissed him. declared this same truth in his
letter to the Romans in Romans chapter 11 verse 1. He says,
I say that if God cast away his people, God forbid, for I also
am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham of the tribe of Benjamin.
God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Watch ye not
what the Scripture saith of Elias, how he maketh intercession to
God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed thy prophets,
and digged down thine altars, and I am left alone, and they
seek my life? But what saith the answer of
God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven
thousand men who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. Even so, then at this present
time also there is a remnant according to the election of
grace. So this sovereign election of grace brought out in Elijah's
time and those were the circumstances under which he was operating.
And so now back to our particular example here in Luke, which deals
with Elijah and 1 Kings 17, We note that the sovereign and determinate
counsel of God directing all things according to his own will
to accomplish his sovereign purpose. And so often we just kind of
overlook that. We just, well, this happened,
that happened, and we don't really pay much attention to it. But
sometimes in retrospect, we get a view of it that's awe-inspiring. From where Elijah was, God moves him. God moves Elijah
about as per his sovereign will and purpose. And so he moves
him from where he was to where God wanted him to be for the
purposes that God had decreed. So turn with me back to 1 Kings
chapter 17 and we'll take a closer look. Jesus just kind of gives
us the CliffsNotes version here in Luke chapter 1 verse 25 and
26. But we turn back to to 1 Kings 17, verse 1. And Elijah the Tishbite, who
was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord God
of Israel liveth, before whom I stand there shall not be dew
nor rain these years, but according to my word. And the word of the
Lord came unto him, saying, Get thee hence! And we find that
happens. You know, it's not sometimes
it's in this case, it was the word of the Lord came to him,
but many times we just think of it, we're just motivated to
do what seems the thing for us to do at the time. But then we
find out later, God had said, get the hints, get the hints. And turn, turn thee eastward
and hide thyself by the brook Cherith that is before Jordan. So he directs him from where
he is. to another place. And God at the moment, in all
moments, working all things according to the counsel of his own will,
working all things together for good to them who love God, to
them who are called according to his purpose. Now, at this
very moment, there's a widow woman over in Zarephath, which
is a city to the north in another kingdom of Sidon, that's not
a They're not of God. She's up there and there's a
famine in the land, there's no rain, nothing to drink, nothing
to eat. She thinks they have a limited
time to live even. And so these are the circumstances
that God has arranged according to his purpose for his jewels. As our pastor said Wednesday
night, God directed things as we find he often does by steps. He sends you where you, and I've
seen this so much in my own life, that He sends you somewhere and
intersects you with someone or something to you get what He's
directed you to get. And when you have that, then
he moves you on to some other place. And then you get what
you get there. And then you move on to some
other place. And then somehow it all gets applied, as it were. So we find these things going
on with Elijah. He says, get thee hence, leave
where you're at, and go to the brook sheriff. And he says, hide
thyself by the brook sheriff. It's kind of giving us a picture.
He says, you need. time to be alone, alone with
God. And this Cherith, this name Cherith
is from the Hebrew word. which implies to cut and is used
in a spiritual sense of a covenant where the the symbol of the covenant
usually in the Old Testament they would take an animal and
they would divide it in half they would kill it and cut it
in half and they would lay the two pieces out and then the two
persons that were entering into a covenant would walk between
the pieces and that would symbolize the pact, the covenant. So here
we have the spiritual picture of that covenant of grace, and
we have Elijah saying, I want you to go there by the spiritual
picture of the covenant and be alone there for a while. And hide thyself by the brook,
be alone with God. And while he was alone with God
at the brook, God said he would feed Elijah by a raven. Now,
up in Alaska, where we come from, ravens are a nasty bird. They
are a garbage bird. You usually find them hanging
around the dumpsters. And they will take a garbage
sack and just peck it apart and drag all the garbage all over
the place. And in the Old Testament, they were what you would call
your unclean beast. So isn't it interesting that
he says, I will feed you by a raven. I will feed you by an unclean
beast. And it just, things dawned on me
when I read that. And Spurgeon said, God may bring
a good word to us through an unclean vessel, a spiritually
unclean, like a raven, Second, one can bring spiritual food
to others and still be unclean spiritually themselves. Many
of us have experienced that very same thing. And God's word may
have come to us many times by one who had no spiritual understanding
of the very word that they were telling you, reading you, preaching
to you. And I'm sure many out there have
had that experience. They're like, well, we want you
to read that scripture to us, but we do not want you to tell
us what the spiritual application of that is. Just read it and
leave it go at that. And Paul experienced this as
well. In Philippians, in his letter
to the Philippians in chapter 1, 15, he's talking about some
of these ones that preach gospel of Christ for various reasons.
Some of them just did it for notoriety. Some of them did it
for one reason or another. But he says, some indeed preach
Christ even of envy and strife, and some also of goodwill. The
one preached Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add
affliction to my bonds. They're doing it in a mocking
way, a way that meant to hurt. And he said, but
the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defense of the
gospel. What then? Notwithstanding every way, whether
in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached. And therein I do
rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. Because he knew that the gospel
is not hindered by the deliverer. And God will, His Word will not
return in Him void. It will accomplish His purpose.
And the truth of it, when God reveals the truth, these, I tell
you of a truth, when God reveals them to you, then they can't
be unrevealed. And that makes for conflict with
the child of God to whom those things are revealed. And then
with those that it's still unapparent to them. They read it and they
say, I know that's what it says, but I know God is sovereign,
but I just can't go there. I just can't believe that. We find, back to our record here of Elijah
in 1 Kings 17, we find he's at this brook Cherith and he's being
fed night and day by this unclean beast. And we've gone through
the metaphor for that now. And then we find that when God
had had him there long enough, he dried up the brook. He arranged things so that he
wouldn't stay there anymore. He caused him to go to where
God directed him next. And he's still, he's working
all things for good. And a lot of people said, oh
man, the brook dried up. That's not good. But it was,
God was working it for good to accomplish his purpose. He dried
up the brook where Elijah was, and now he sends Elijah to go
to Zarephath. In Luke, it's called Sarepta,
that's the Greek rendition of that, Zarephath. A city in Zidon,
in the Old Testament it was Zidon, in the New Testament it was Sidon.
A Gentile city. And this word, xerophath, is
an interesting word. It's called the smelting or refining
place. Isaiah 1.25 says, I will turn
my hand upon thee and purely purge away thy dross and take
away all thy tin. It's a process. So we have this
step-by-step process that he's taking Elijah through all the
time. He's getting him to go to where
he wants him to be to accomplish the purpose that he wants him
to purpose for this jewel that's sitting there in this Gentile
city in Sidon. I will bring the third part to
the fire and will refine them as silver is refined and try
them as gold is tried and they shall call upon my name and I
will hear them and I will say it is my people and they shall
say the Lord is my God. Now it's interesting keeping
that verse there from Isaiah or from Zechariah 13 9 in mind They shall say, The Lord is my
God. This widow of Sidon, one of God's jewels, who in her natural
state knew not God, nor desired Him, but one whom God would make
willing in the day of His power. Turn back to 1 Kings 17 verse
8. And the word of the Lord came
unto him, saying, Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth
to Zidon, and dwell there. And behold, and here's one of
those sovereignty words, I have commanded a widow woman there
to sustain thee. Now, she did not put on her robot
costume and say, I have been commanded of the Lord to feed
you. And knowing quite the opposite, we find that she doesn't want
nothing to do with it. So he arose and went to Zarephath,
and when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow
woman was there, gathering of sticks. And he called her and
said, fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel that
I may drink. And as she was going to fetch
it, he called to her and said, bring me, I pray thee, a morsel
of bread in thine hand. And she said, as the Lord thy
God liveth, I have not a cake, but a handful of meal in a barrel,
and a little oil in a cruz. Behold, I am gathering two sticks,
that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may
eat it and die." So, she says, the Lord thy God. And remember our verse back there
in in the previous Scripture that
we read from Zechariah 13.9, they shall say, the Lord is my
God. And so she's in the opposite
camp. She's saying, the Lord thy God. She's about to say,
the Lord my God. So, she had no hope. She was about to do the last
things that she could do under her power, her own power to live,
and then resign her and her son to die. And then Elijah brings
her the good news, the Word. He says, fear not. Fear not, go and do as thou hast
said, but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto
me, and after make for thee and for thy son. For thus saith the
Lord God of Israel. the word of the Lord. The barrel
of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruise of oil fail
until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth. And she
went and did according to the saying of Elijah, and she and
her house did eat many days. And the barrel of meal wasted
not, neither did the cruise of oil fail according to the word
of the Lord, which he spake by Elijah. And then later on her
son dies and he resurrects him. So all these pictures that we
find. I'm not going to go into that
portion of it today. But the Scriptures that we were
looking at today had to deal with Elijah going to this particular
widow during this time of famine and no rain, and her and her
only. There were many widows, but he
was sent to this particular one. And God had prepared him every
step of the way to do what He had purposed him to do. He had,
in fact, worked all things for good. And things that we may
look around today and look at all the things that we are faced
with today. In her time it was no rain. They
had no rain for three years. They had a famine in the land.
They didn't have anything to eat. They were in the midst of
a nation who knew not God. All things which seem insurmountable
were made possible by God, and He used every single bit of it
according to His own purpose, working all things for good for
them who love God, who are the called according to His purpose.
She certainly didn't say, hey Elijah, come over here, I'm the
called. She says, I don't know nothing
about thy God. I'm just trying to get by. I
don't want anything to do with it. But the Lord caused her to
be willing in the day of His power, and she did. according
to what the Lord said. And so we have an example of
sovereign mercy. I will have mercy upon whom I
will have mercy. And it wasn't any of the miracles, although there was
a miracle here that the cruise of oil never wasted and they
didn't run out of meal. But it was the word of God that
was the thing that was important. And so that concludes our lesson
today. Next time we'll go into Naaman
the Syrian. Many lepers were in Israel in
the time of Elisha, the prophet. And none of them was cleansed,
saving Naaman the Syrian, another Gentile, Naaman the captain of
the host of the king of Syria. What a wonderful story. And we'll
look at all the things that these people no doubt had knew these
records that were in the Old Testament in 1st Kings, 2nd Kings. And so when he brought them to
their attention, they probably thought back on all these scriptures.
And now he's giving them the, I tell you a truth. So thank
you for your attention. And as always from John Jeffery,
be free.