The authority may be of God and not of us.
If you're going to hear the Gospel, you'll hear it from the lips
of another sinner saved by grace. That's who you'll hear the Gospel.
That's God's ordained way, isn't it? That's what He said. That's
what the Apostle Paul said back in 1 Corinthians in his first
letter. He says, this is what pleases
God to do. to save His people by the foolishness of preaching.
Not preaching of foolishness, but the foolishness of preaching.
That's what we're doing tonight. Not having sharing meetings.
Well, let's all come together and share. No, we don't do that. Let's all come together and have
testimony meeting. We don't do that. What do we
do? We use as our guide the Word
of God, specifically the Book of Acts, which is the transition
book. What did those men do? They preached. Who did they preach? They preached
the Savior, Christ Jesus the Lord. In what capacity did they
preach Him? As the successful Savior, as
the risen Savior, as the exalted Savior, not poor little Jesus
who needs you to do a favor for Him and let Him save you, but
they preached the Lord, sovereign Jesus Christ. That's who they
preached. And that's who we preach. And
so if you're going to learn the Gospel, God's going to have a
raven fly your way. Or a bird of another color. But He's going to use something,
an unlikely means, to deliver to you that which will be life-saving
for you, that which will be nourishing to your spiritual life, that
which you will feed on, that which will strengthen you, He'll
send to you one of His preachers. Somebody who's no better off
in themselves than you are. He'll send you another sinner
saved by grace. You see, all I am is just one
beggar telling another beggar where you can find a good meal.
You can find the same place I find it. One sinner telling another
sinner where you can find forgiveness. One wicked man telling other
wicked men and women where they can find righteousness in the
Lord Jesus Christ who is the Lord, our righteousness. One
old hell-deserving sinner telling other hell-deserving sinners
how heaven can be obtained, how salvation can be obtained, that
it has actually already been accomplished. And that God works
miraculously in the hearts of sinners and He draws sinners
unto Him. He just pulls you in. He hooks
you like some of you who go fishing. You hook a fish and you just
pull it in. I got another big one. Well,
I'll tell you what, every sinner the Lord catches is another big
one. We're all just big sinners, aren't we? He hauls us in. He cleans us up. Washes us. And robes us. The Lord provided for Elijah. I think about when Abraham offered
up Isaac, or was ready to offer up Isaac, and I mentioned this
this morning, that take the ram caught in the thicket, offer
him up in the stead of Isaac. Abraham did that, and Abraham
said the name of this place is Jehovah-Jireh. God will provide,
or literally, God will see to it. God will see to it. God will take care of it. And
I say to you, to all of God's people, God will take care of
everything. It's for us to just rest in His
arms. Take shelter underneath His wings
of love and grace. My grandfather, Bert, I loved
him so much. He died when I was 15 years old. Pop Sam. I spent lots of time
with him. He'd tell me he was going to
do something. He'd say, Jim, I'll see to it
directly. And whenever Pop Sam said, I'll
see to it directly, I knew what that meant. It's as good as done. You don't have to give another
thought. I'll see to it. And actually, literally, that's
exactly what Abraham was named in that place, Jehovah Jireh,
because God said, I'll see to it, Abraham. I'll see to it. I'll see to it that one likened
to myself gives his life a ransom for many. I'll see to it. I'll
see to it that all of my people are saved. And I'll see to it
that all of my people are taken care of. And here with Elijah,
God, He gave a command to the ravens, to the ravens, be my
preacher. And I tell you, I guess they
came from everywhere, bringing them a meal. These ravens,
they have voracious appetite. They love to feed on flesh. They
bring him flesh, bring him bread. Got a brook there. Get down to verse 7, it says,
And it came to pass, after a while the brook dried up, because there
wasn't any rain in the land. And I tell you, in my Bible,
I look over right in the middle of it, it says, in Hebrew it
means, at the end of days. Does your Bible have that? At
the end of days. Which suggests to us this was
a definite period of time. A definite period of time. Somebody
said it signifies a year. I don't know. Maybe it does in
the Hebrew. I don't know much Hebrew. But
that's what suggested that this lasted a year. If that was correct,
if it was a year, I'd just say what a glorious year. What a wonderful way to spend
a year. Just you and the Lord. Fed by the ravens every day. Every day having fellowship and
wonderful communion with God. Being fed every day by an ongoing
miracle. Where'd he get the food from?
Twice a day? Some say that the ravens went
into Ahab's house and got the food and then took it to God's
preacher. I don't know. That's Jewish tradition. I know this, God provided it
for him. And I'll tell you, God has provided
for us spiritually everything. Everything we'll ever need. In
fact, we've already been blessed with every spiritual blessing
in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. And He'll take care of
all the other needs also. He said, seek ye first the Kingdom
of God and His righteousness. Not your righteousness, but His
righteousness. All these other things will be
added to you. God said, you take care of this business, seeking
the Lord, and I'll take care of you. That's what He did for
Elijah. And then the brook dried up,
because God wanted Elijah somewhere else, so He forced him out. You
see, Elijah had hot meals on wheels. Put meals on wings. And then the wings stopped. God
told the raven, said, don't feed him anymore. God dried up the
brook. God wanted him elsewhere. He
had to leave that situation. But when the brook dried up,
he waited for God to lead him. It's like the children of Israel
when they had the pillar of fire by night, pillar of cloud by
day. Wait for the cloud to move. If
it doesn't move, stay right where you're at. When it starts moving,
that's time to break camp. Keep on moving, watching the
cloud. Cloud stops, you stop. That's
the way it was with Elijah. God just dried up the stream. I don't know how long He was
there, but He just waited. Waited for God. After all, doesn't
the Scripture say, trust in the Lord with all your heart? Don't
lean to your own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him.
He shall direct thy paths. That's what the Scripture says.
And so He waited on God. Then God's Word came to Him.
And this is what God's Word said to him. Look at verse 9. Arise,
get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, or Sidon,
and you dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow
woman there to sustain thee. First of all, he commanded ravens.
God commands a widow woman. A widow woman. He spoke to the widow woman's
heart. You see what he was doing, the Lord was doing, was making
her heart ready to receive the message. And that's what the
Spirit of God does. With God's elect, God's people,
the Spirit of God makes the heart ready. Then the Lord said, now
deliver the word. I've already commanded a widow
woman. I've spoken to a widow woman.
I made all preparations for the word to lodge in her heart. I
commanded a widow woman." It's interesting, you know, if
you look at your map, this is about 75 or 100 miles from where
he was to get to Zarephath. Presumably on foot. And I kind of have the suspicion
that Elijah wondered why he is being sent to Zarephath. Why
not Israel? There are lots of widows in Israel.
They had had wars. They had had battles. The Jewish
men died on the battlefields. There were many Jewish widows
in the days of Elijah, but God did not send His prophet to any
of the Israeli or Israelite widows. He sent His preacher instead
to a Gentile widow. Now what do you make of that?
We'll go back over to Luke chapter 4 where brother Joe read to us.
This is an example of God's sovereign grace. That's what it is. It's an instance of invincible,
specific grace. The religious community, they
don't mind if you speak of grace in generalities. Oh, God's full
of grace and He's full of love. They don't mind if you speak
of God's grace and love in that way, but when you make it specific,
Distinctive. See, this right here in Luke
chapter 4, this is an illustration of specific grace. This is not
grace in general. This is not grace that sort of,
you know, goes around the world and take advantage of it and
use it if you want to. That's not the grace of God.
The grace of God is saving its sovereign, and it's always successful. And God sent His prophet and
sent His grace to this widow woman who, by the way, was from
Sidon. She lived in Sareptor, Zarephath. And you know, that's where Jezebel
was from. Yeah, Jezebel's daddy, he was
king of the Canaanites. That's where Jezebel's from. God's sending His preacher right
into the teeth of the enemy. And later on, He's going to show
some little fear of Jezebel in His life. We'll get to that later.
But this is in Sidon. That's where she's from. These
are Gentile dogs. These are not sweet Jewish women. These are the dogs. God said to Elijah, you take
care of this Gentile widow. I have commanded her, or you
go preach to her, because I have commanded her to take care of
you. It's an illustration of sovereign
grace. Look here in Luke chapter 4,
verse 25. The Savior said, but I tell you
of a truth. Many widows were in Israel in
the days of Elijah. When the heaven was shut up three
years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the
land, but unto none of them, none of them, God passed them
by. You understand that? He passed
them by. They died in their hunger. They
died of thirst. Their children died of hunger.
Their children died of thirst. God's preacher wasn't sent to
any of them. Instead, verse 26, but unto none
of them was Elijah sent except to serept a city of Sidon unto
a woman, a Gentile woman, that was of a widow. And then, of course, it gave
another illustration of specific grace, distinctive grace. He says, many lepers in Israel
in the times of Eliseus, the prophet. That's Elisha. None
of them, none of them had their leprosy cleansed. Instead, God
sent his preacher to Nahum and the Syrians. And this is the
reaction of the natural man to sovereign grace right here. You
preach sovereign, distinctive, saving grace. And this is the
reaction of the natural man. And all day in the synagogue
when they heard these things, they were filled with wrath.
And you know what they said? That's not fair. I can just hear
them now, can't you? That's not fair. So they rose up, thrust Him out
of the city, led Him up to the brow of the hill whereon their
city was built. They was ready to cast Him down
headlong, but He passing through the midst of them, went His way. Came down to Capernaum. This
is an illustration of sovereign grace here. You see this woman
over here in 1 Kings 17, She wasn't any more deserving of
the presence of God's preacher than anybody else. Now remember,
God's preacher, he's got the truth. He's got the gospel. While we read in the New Testament
in several places, all the prophets spake of Christ Jesus. That was
their theme. He was their message. Our Lord
opened the Scriptures to those disciples on the road to Emmaus
and He broke open the Scriptures and gave them understanding that
all the things in the Old Testament they speak of, they point to
the Lord Jesus Christ. This woman is not deserving of
a visit from God's preacher. Just like I wasn't. I was in
religion and I was quite satisfied. And then I had a visit from God's
preacher. A raven came to see me. And he
dropped down meat and bread. He dropped down on me the gospel
of God's free grace in Christ Jesus. And I never will forget
what he said. He said, the gospel is not a
plan, it's a person. That's what he said. It's somebody. And boy, that is the absolute
truth. This is distinctive grace. And
God's making this woman ready to receive the message. So he
gets to the gate of the city, verse 10. Behold, the widow woman
was there gathering the sticks. The widow woman. Ah, there's
a lot of other widow women there too. One, God chose one. God chose one. Just like he chose you. Maybe
he didn't choose your brother or your sister. Maybe not your
husband or your wife. Maybe not any of your brothers
or your sisters. He chose you. I tell you, if
you believe this Gospel, if this is good news to you, it's because
God chose you. Let's just get this straight.
The origin of our salvation, you've got to go way back yonder
before God ever made the heavens and the earth. You've got to
go back, back, back into the deepest depths of eternity in
the past, to the very mind and heart of God. This is an everlasting
salvation. He's always loved us. He chose
us in everlasting grace. He gave us to His Son for safekeeping. These are yours. Be their shepherd. They're your sheep. And our Lord
Jesus received us as a gift. We're His elect. This woman's
always been the Lord's elect. She might be a Gentile dog to
the Jews, but she's a beloved child of God. Well, he goes to this widder,
the widder. He says, fetch me, I pray thee,
a little water and a vessel that I may drink. And as she was going
to fetch it, he said, and also, verse 11, bring me something
to eat. A morsel of bread that's in your
hand. While you're getting me, I sure
would like a big glass of water. And while you're at it, fix me
a sandwich too. That's what she said. Well, she
said, well is the Lord thy God living? I don't have a cake of
bread. I got a handful of meal in a
barrel. I got a little oil in a cruise.
And behold, I'm gathering two sticks that I may go in and dress
it for me and my son will eat and die." And Elijah said unto
her, don't be afraid. Here's faith versus fear. There's
always a war going on in the hearts of God's people. It's
faith versus fear. Faith versus fear. If you're
believing, you won't be fearful. If you're fearful, you're not
believing. It really is that simple. Here's
the word of Elijah, he says, fear not. You go and do as thou
hast said, but make me a little cake first, bring it to me. After that, for thee and thy
son, for, that word means because, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel,
the barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the crews
of all fail, unto the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the
earth." This little cake made out of
ground up meal. That's our Lord Jesus Christ
right there. except a grain of wheat fall
into the ground and die, it abideth alone. But I tell you, if that
grain of wheat, corn of wheat, once it's planted in the ground,
that's a substitutionary death and burial of our Lord Jesus
Christ. There's going to be a big harvest. He's the bread. He's the bread and the stone,
The nether stones of God's justice ground Him to fine powder. And He became the bread of life
for us. And that cruise of oil, that's
the work of the Spirit of God. See, the Spirit of God, He makes
everything ready for the entrance of Christ Jesus. He gives us
life. He gives us an interest in the
Savior. That's what the Spirit of God
does. He's the Cruz of all. A Cruz of all. Christ Jesus crucified. He's the bread. Cruz of all. It's the work of the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit of God works upon the basis of Christ Jesus having
finished His work. The Spirit of God. This is vital
in this experience of salvation. But don't ever pit the work of
the Spirit of God against the work of the Son of God. The death
of our Lord Jesus is the greatest event of all time in eternity. Everything in eternity past,
look to Calvary. Everything in eternity future,
look back to Calvary. The sacrifice, the blood. That's
what's most important. Now God is satisfied and on the
basis of Jesus Christ satisfying God's justice, the Spirit of
God comes and makes us alive and says, look to Jesus Christ.
Look to the Son of God. Don't pit the Son of God and
the Holy Spirit against one another as though one of them One of
their work is the work of the Spirit of God is more vital than
the work of the Son of God. I know the work of the Son of
God was vital. It's the most vital thing there
is. And I know the work of the Spirit of God is vital. But it doesn't stand by itself. There's a Savior that He reveals.
He comes to us upon the basis of Christ Jesus. having finished
the work of redemption. Well, she went and did as Elijah said,
she and he and her house, and they ate many days. You take
care of God's preacher. That's what the Lord told her
through Elijah. Take care of God's preacher,
he'll take care of you. And the crews of all didn't fail
according to the Word of the Lord which is spake by Elijah.
Well, it came to pass after these things that the son of the woman
of the mistress of the house, she fell sick and his sickness
was so bad there was no breath in him and he died. It's her
only son, she's a widow, now she's by herself. She said to
Elijah, whatever I ought to do with thee, O thou man of God,
are you coming to me to call my sin to remembrance and to
kill my son? And he didn't rebuke her. People
say some awful things in times of grief, in times of great trial. All he said to her was this,
give me your boy. He took him out of her bosom
and carried him up to a loft where he abode and laid him on
his bed and then he prayed. He prayed. I already read the
effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man of Eilath Mudge. Elijah is
the righteous man. Made righteous through the imputed
righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, O Lord my God,
hast thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourned
by slaying her son? He stretched himself upon the
child three times. He cried unto the Lord and said,
O Lord my God, I pray thee, let this child's soul come unto him
again. The Lord heard the voice of Elijah.
The soul of the child came unto him again and he revived. And
I tell you, like that boy, we've contacted an awful sickness. It's called sin. And as a result
of sin, we've died spiritually. Thank God for the regenerating
work of the Spirit of God who quickens us from the dead and
revives us. Elijah took the child, brought
him down to the chamber of the house, down out of the chamber
of the house, delivered him to his mother, and Elijah said,
see, your son lives. And the woman said to Elijah,
now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the
word of the Lord in thy mouth is the truth. You want to know how great our
God is? He raises the dead. That's how great He is. And you're
an example of it. You're an example of it. All
of you who are believers, you're an example of the fact that our
mighty God raises the dead. You were dead in trespasses and
sins. You weren't seeking the Lord.
You weren't interested in the Kingdom of God. The Spirit of
God did something for you. He convicted you of sin, righteousness,
and judgment. He made you alive. You're born
again from above. And then you said, the Word of
the Lord is the truth. God's Word is the truth. And
you live for His glory by His power. Made alive. And God takes care of you. He
takes care of you every day. And every Sunday and every Wednesday,
He has a raven come in, drop a little bread, drop a little
meat for you to feast on. That fountain of water flowing
from the very throne of God, it flows and you drink and you
drink again. This gospel is so satisfying,
isn't it? To the hearts of God's people.
Well, let's sing it.