The name of the message tonight
is The Widow's Oil. The Widow's Oil. Now this chapter
brings us back again to Elijah. At the end of last chapter we
saw the three kings going up against Moab and the final city. And we saw the king of Moab sacrifice
his son to his pagan gods. And the three kings and their
armies were astonished at this and so they left, lest all the
people of Melmoab be destroyed by their own king. And this chapter
brings us back to Elijah and we see a certain woman who was
a wife of one of the sons of the prophets at the beginning
of this chapter. Some say she was the widow of
Obadiah. who hid many prophets in a cave.
Others say that she was a widow of one of the 7,000 that did
not bow their knee to Baal. And since it's not declared,
it's enough to say that she was a widow of one of the sons of
the prophets. She was a wife of one of the
sons of the prophets. How she got in such straits is
not identified. But we can see that she represents
the child of God who is utterly dependent upon the help of the
prophet, the Lord Jesus Christ. Every child of God, every one
of us, we are utterly dependent upon the prophet, capital P,
singular, the Lord Jesus Christ. In the pictures, this pictures
every believer in his reminiscent of the believer who throughout
his life comes to a place sometimes where we may have a diminished
view of what we have in Christ. Maybe trials and tribulations
have diminished that view. Maybe great sorrow has diminished
that view. But we know that all those things,
right? We know that all our trials,
all our tribulations are designed to bring us closer to Christ. We don't see it when we're in
the midst of it, but we can look back when they passed and go,
my, look what the Lord done. Look what he's done. So let's
read our text tonight, which is found in second Kings chapter
four, We're gonna read verses one to seven. Now there cried
a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto
Elijah. So we see right away that she
was a wife of the sons of the prophet, one of the sons of the
prophets. Saying, thy servant my husband is dead and thou knowest
that thy servant did fear the Lord and the creditor has come
to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen. Now obviously,
she's saying, you knew my husband. He was faithful. He feared the
Lord. And then she's telling him the
condition that she finds herself in. The creditor has come to
take unto him my two sons to be bondmen. And Elijah said unto
her, what shall I do for thee? Tell me, what hast thou in the
house? And she said, thine handmaid
hath nothing or hath not anything in the house save a pot of oil. All she's got left is a pot of
oil. She probably sold everything trying to pay her debt off. And
we see she's got a pot of oil left. Then he said, go boil thee
vessels abroad of all thy neighbors. Even empty vessels. Boil not
a few. Boil as many vessels that will
hold liquid as you can. Now it doesn't tell us how many,
but there must have been a lot of them. Just go to all your
neighbors and say, I want to boil your empty vessels. Anything
you have. And you know, people being neighborly,
they'd have given them to them. Some big vessels, probably. Some
small vessels, right? but they were given things. And
when thou art come in, thou shalt shut the door upon thee and thy
sons, and shalt pour out into all those vessels, and thou shalt
set aside that which is full. So she went from him, and shut
the door upon her and upon her sons, who brought the vessels
to her, and she poured out. And it came to pass When the
vessels were full that she said unto her son, bring me yet a
vessel, bring me another one. And he said unto her, there is
not a vessel more, and the oil is stayed. Now what that means,
that means that the oil, it's still there, it's just full. I looked into that word stayed
there, it's full. My oh my. Then she came and told
the man of God what happened. And he said, go sell the oil
and pay thy debt. And live thou and thy children
of the rest. Thy children of the rest. Who's the children of the rest?
That's us. Our rest is in Christ, isn't
it? Our rest is in Christ alone. He's our only rest. There's so
much going on in this world, we have no rest. But our rest
in this world is Christ. You notice the world is just
go, go, go all the time? Well, we rest. Now, we live in
the world and we function in the world, but we do rest in
Christ, don't we, while we're in this world. And that's the
hardest thing for us to do, just to rest. just to stop and rest
in Christ. It's hard for all of us. My, oh my. My, oh my. Now think about the great service
Elijah had done in the previous chapter. Think of the great service
he'd done. God had used him, right, to tell
those kings what he was going to do. And we saw God deliver
them, right? And then he delivered the Moabites
into their hands, so much so that they just, they went right
through that whole land and ravaged the land right to the final city. They owed their lives and triumphs
to God, didn't they? And one may have expected that
we would see honors and dignities conferred on Elijah for how the
Lord had used him. Maybe Jehoshaphat would take
him back to Israel and make him like Pharaoh did to Joseph, right?
His prime minister. My oh my, or giving him a great
role in his kingdom. But Elijah knew that it was God
and God alone who did that. He knew that. Just like anything
that comes about of the preaching of the word, it's God that does
it. It's God. The preacher don't. We're just
a mouthpiece. God is the only one who can make
the word fruitful. Can make the preaching of his
gospel fruitful to you as believers and for the unsaved who are the
sheep of God to hear the call of the Savior. By God the Holy
Spirit's regenerating power. Only God can do that. He gets
all the glory. And Elijah knew that. He'd be giving all the
glory to God. We may speculate, at least I've
speculated this afternoon, that he probably just said, no, I
don't want nothing. Glory be to God for what he's done. I
don't want no honor for him. All the honor goes to the Lord.
All the praise goes to the Lord. That's what we say, right? As
believers. Give him all the glory. And I
would think that Elijah probably did that too. He'd rather go back and serve
in the school of the prophets than be in some high stately
position in the kingdom of Israel. He was called to be a prophet
of God, not called to be a prime minister, right? Now Joseph was
called to be a prime minister of Egypt and God put him there. But the only reason he became
in that position became the prime minister is because God was using
him all according to his purpose and his plan so that he might
get all the glory, that God might get all the glory and honor and
praise. And God magnified Elijah, and
that sufficed Elijah. He was fine with that. He was
fine with that. Do you know, I remember Donny
Bell saying this a long time ago, and I now know it's true. He said, I'd have to step down
to be President of the United States. What a great honor to
preach the gospel. What a great honor. I never forgot
that when he said that, but now I understand. Now I understand
what he means. It's a great honor to pastor
the Lord's people. It's a great honor to preach
the gospel each week. It's such a great honor. Again,
I agree with Donnie. I'd have to step down for me
to be Prime Minister of Canada. It'd be a step down, beloved.
I could never be President of the United States because I'm
a Canadian. Oh my. But I know exactly what
he means. And that's true of all of us.
That's true of all of us. And God used Elijah in great
ways, and we're gonna see he performed more miracles than
any other prophet in the Old Testament. God used him mightily. But the thing I see with Elijah,
he's a very humble man. He always gives the glory to
the Lord. He always gives the glory to our great God and King. And he, by God's grace, is a
true servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. Just as every one of
us who are born again blood-washed saints, we are true servants
of the great and glorious God. We're servants of His. We are serving the King of kings
and the Lord of lords. No wonder Donnie said it's a
step down. Think of this. Who are we serving? The King
of kings and the Lord of lords. To serve anyone else, we'd have
to step down, wouldn't we? And we're just servants. Oh, how high and lofty is the
King of kings and the Lord of lords. How great is our King,
beloved. How full of majesty is our King
and glory. My, look at verse two here. We
see in verse two that the widow had a pot of oil. It's brought
forth that there's nothing else. And Elijah said unto her, What
shall I do for thee? Tell me what thou hast in thy
house. And she said, Thine handmaid hath not anything in thy house
save a pot of oil. Because of the circumstances
she was in, she looked at this oil as nothing. It's the last thing there. She
looked at it as nothing. She knew it couldn't fulfill
the creditor's debt that she owed. She knew
it couldn't suffice the creditor. It couldn't pay all her debts.
But we see in the narrative tonight, one little pot of oil filled
all the other pots. One little pot of oil. It filled
all the pots that she could boil, and not just her, now remember,
her sons went out, she went out. They must, how many, how many
things did they come back with? Three people coming back with
empty pots. I imagine they probably came,
or empty, empty, yeah, pots of oil, pots, and they put them
down, and maybe they went back to get more. One neighbor might have had 20
of them. We don't know. It doesn't tell us the numbers,
but we know it's a lot. Because she never had need again. She became very wealthy. Sister
Diane said something to me last week. She said, I'm looking here
with you at the richest people in the world. We are the richest
people in the world in Christ. She's right. We are. You know why? Because we have
all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus our Lord. And those are,
we're heirs. And those spiritual blessings
are more valuable than any gold or silver or anything men value
on this earth. Take all the precious diamonds
and stones, it doesn't even come close to the value of the spiritual
blessings that we have in Christ. And they're ours, beloved, in
Christ, by the grace of God. Turn, if you would, to Ephesians
chapter one. So, she went out and her sons went
out and they filled They filled all the other pots that she could
boil and had enough left over to provide for her family without
end. My, oh, my. So what does this
pot of oil picture? Well, it pictures the fact that
all spiritual blessings for the believer are in Christ. Look at Ephesians 1. We'll start
in verse 2 and go to verse 6. Grace be to you. Oh, I love that. Grace be to you, beloved, and
peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed
us with what? All, A-L-L, all. There's not
one missing. All, justification, sanctification,
redemption. Just keeps going on and on and
on, beloved. Wisdom, righteousness through
Christ. all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places, and here's the key, in Christ. That's the key right
there. They're all in Christ. They're
nothing we do. We don't deserve them. We don't merit them. They're
all in Christ and they all come to us. He's the conduit. from
God the Father, through Christ Jesus our Lord, all because of
God's mercy and grace, and look what it says, according as he
has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that
means what it says, before the foundation of the world, that
we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having
predestinated us into the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to
himself, there's the heirs, according to the good pleasure of his will. We are saved, washed in the blood
of the Lord Jesus, regenerated by the Holy Spirit of God, all
according to the good pleasure of God's will. We say hallelujah. And then look at this. This is
our response to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein
he has made us accepted in the beloved. Accepted in who's the
beloved? Christ. My. How long have we had these
spiritual blessings? Well, Ephesians 1.4 answers that. Before the foundation of the
world. That's how long we've had them. We weren't even born
then, were we? No. Oh, they were ours from before
the foundation of the world in Christ. And we were only made
aware of that when we were born again by the Holy Spirit of God,
and taught by the Holy Spirit of God that this is truth. Because people can read the words
of the Bible, and if they don't have the Holy Spirit of God in
them, they won't understand the words, and they won't believe
them. But by God's grace, we have the Holy Spirit within us.
We believe the words. We believe he is the author of
these words. We believe what God says in his
word, by the grace and mercy of God. And he showed us, he showed us
the true message of God's grace, that it's all in Christ, plus
no works of ours. Not by works of righteousness,
which we have done, but according to his mercy, he has saved us. And how's that? By the renewing
and washing of the Holy Spirit. We're born again, beloved. And
when we're born again, then we hear the truth. Then we hear
the shepherd's voice through the preaching of the gospel.
Oh my. or a witness for Christ, one
of His people, witnessing, telling them about Christ. And the Holy
Spirit, if it's His will, and that's one of His lost sheep,
goes in and just regenerates them. My oh my, isn't it wonderful? But it's all about Christ. It's
all about Christ. So the setting here is she's
widowed, she's being left destitute, she's in debt, she can't get
her way out, there's no means that she has to pay for it. All
she has left is this pot of oil. And obviously in her eyes, it's
worthless because it's the only thing left. Worthless because her debt is
a mountain of debt probably. And if she sold that, it wouldn't
even touch the debt. My oh my. So who does she come
to? She comes to the servant of Jehovah.
Remember, Elijah is a picture of Christ, right? He's a picture
of Christ. So she comes to the servant of
Jehovah. And who's the servant, the true, the elect of the elect? Christ. He's God's servant. He's the son. Right? My oh my. Let's read verse one again. Now
there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the
prophets unto Elijah, saying, Thy servant my husband is dead,
and now knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord, and the creditor
is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen. So her human
provider and protector had been removed by the hand of death,
again all according to God's will and purpose, Think of this,
too. She didn't understand it, but
all that happened according to God's will. And now she's going
to have a great miracle in her life. And she's going to be mentioned
in God's word forever. Isn't that incredible? And we're
going to meet her one day in glory. We'll meet her one day
in glory, beloved. So her husband's died. So she has no provider right
now. She's being left in debt, and she has absolutely no way
to pay it off. And this is a burden which has
now been magnified. Think of this, too. So here her
husband is dead now. But now it's even more magnified
that the creditor is going to come and take away her two sons,
which is going to leave her completely alone. My, oh, my. And she's probably hoping that
her sons will take care of her as she gets older. My. So her heart is just breaking. Not only will she be without
her husband, she's going to be without her two sons. Sorrow
upon sorrow. Right? Sorrow upon sorrow. And she comes crying to Elijah.
And we see the pressure that she's under is very great. Sometimes
we go through great situations of pressure, don't we? And we find out that we don't
have the strength in ourselves to get ourselves through the
situation. God must give us strength. And he does. In our weakness,
what? He is strong. And he shows us that over and
over and over again. She comes crying to Elijah because
the pressure she's under is very great. And she's appealing to
Elijah earnestly. Sometimes God permits his people
to go through great trials and great heaviness. Circumstances,
hard circumstances. And it's not always because of
chastisement. Religion thinks that right away.
Oh, you're being chastised for something you've done wrong.
No, it's not like that. Number one, God doesn't chastise
his people in anger. So anything we go through as
believers, it's not God chastising us in anger. He doesn't do that.
His anger is being appeased against us in Christ. It's out of love. This all is happening according
to God's will, like everything else. And sometimes the Lord is pleased
to bring us to the end of our own resources, and the end of
our own strength. I've experienced that, have you?
We're here to bring us to a point where we have nowhere else to
turn but Him. We don't have any strength. we're at the end of ourselves,
and he just comes in with that comforting balm, I love you,
and manifests that to us. And when he brings us to those
situations where we're emptied of ourself, emptied of our strength,
emptied of all our resources. We see then that God by his almighty
hand delivers us. And through that time of where
we have nothing left, it becomes evident that it's God who carries
us through that. He just manifested himself to
be a loving father, isn't he? Taking care of us, delivering
us, acting on our behalf. Our upholder, our refuge, our
strength, our shield, our buckler, our banner. He's our king. Now look at verse three, and
we see that Elijah tells the widows to go and gather a lot
of empty vessels. Then he said, go borrow three,
borrow thee, I always think that's three, go borrow thee vessels
abroad of all thy neighbors, even empty vessels, borrow not
a few. So we see here that God's thoughts are our thoughts. Can
you imagine what, can you imagine? If we were there, and Elijah
said to us, Go to your neighbors and get all the empty vessels
you can. See, that's not human logic, is it? Empty vessels? Wouldn't you go and boil things
that you could maybe sell and things like that? Or, hey, you
got any things you want to get rid of that I could sell? See,
but God's ways are not our ways. God's ways in no way depend upon
the arm of humanity or our strength. God's ways are
not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. And so he has Elijah. Elijah
here tells her, go and collect a bunch of empty pitchers. Empty
vessels. Not a few. As many as you can
get. Again, God's ways are often the
opposite of our ways. Was this not true when he overthrew
the Midianites? When the Lord said unto Gideon,
the people that are with thee are too many for me to give the
Midiites into their hands, lest Israel vault themselves against
me, saying, mine own hand has saved me. Remember, Gideon started
off with 20,000 men. The Lord said, you cut it down
to 300. Gideon's armies was reduced down
to a mere 300 men. And when that little company
went forth, it was with trumpets. It was with trumpets and empty
pitchers and lamps inside the pitchers in their hands. Again, God's ways are not our
ways. Let us remember that we are to
come before the Lord, even after we're saved, we are to come before
the Lord as empty vessels. Empty of our self-sufficiency. Empty of ourself. What does that old song say?
There's an old song, what is that one about? Oh, I can't remember,
but just come into the Lord with nothing. Nothing in my hand I
bring. Simply to the cross I cling,
right? Nothing. Nothing means nothing. We don't
bring anything. We just bring ourselves and our
sin. My oh my. Now let's read verses 4 and 5
of 2 Kings chapter 4. and when thou art come in thou
shalt shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons and shalt pour
out into all those vessels and thou shalt set aside that which
is full so she went from him and shut the door upon her and
upon her sons who brought the vessels to her and she poured
out turn if you would to mark chapter five mark chapter five
now When I read this, I thought, well, that's interesting. Elijah said, tell them to go
in there, shut the door, and start pouring. You know why? No one else is
to be aware of this miracle. Exactly, brother. No one's to
be aware of this miracle. Elijah tells them to go into
their own house, shut the door. This is similar to when the Lord
raised the daughter of Jairus When he arrived at the house,
it was full of skeptical and scoffing company. And you know what the Lord did?
He put him out. Jairus didn't. This was one of those moments
when I was reading the scripture and go, I didn't see that until
just now. I had always thought that Jairus
put him out. Look at this, God's gonna do
a miracle of grace. So out go the scoffers, and out
go the unbelievers. Look at this, Mark chapter five,
verse 37. And he suffered no man to follow
him, save Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. And he
come to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and see at
the tumult, and them that wept and wailed greatly. We know it's
Jewish custom that they have women who come and wail. Even
if they didn't know the person, sometimes they would bring people
in to do that. But it could be family members
here, we don't know. And when he was come in, he saith
unto them, why make ye this ado and weep? The damsel is not dead,
but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn.
Look at that. This is the King of Glory speaking
to them. They don't even know. But this is the King of Kings
and the Lord of Lords. This is the God-man incarnated
in the flesh. The second person of the Trinity. And He's saying, why are you
fussing like this? She's just sleeping. And they laughed Him to scorn.
But look at this. Look what it says. But when He
had put them all out, the Lord put them all out. That was my
aha moment this morning, this afternoon. He put them out. My oh my. Remember when the Lord
instituted the Lord's Supper was after Judas had left? Look at this. He put them out.
The Lord put the scoffers and unbelievers out. Those who laughed
in discord. He taketh the father and the
mother of the damsel and them that were with him and entered
in where the damsel was lying and he took the damsel by the
hand and said, Telithia, Kumai, which is being interpreted, interpreted
damsel, I say unto thee arise. What happened? In straightaway,
the damsel rose and walked for she was of the age of 12 years
old and they were astonished with a great astonishment. He
put out the unbelievers in the scoffers. My, oh my, he put him
out. Christ put him out. Not Jarus. Who was outside of the ark of
safety? All those who scoffed and mocked. They mocked Noah,
and God shut the door, didn't he? God shut the door here. God did it. God in the flesh
did it. Shut him out. My. Let's go back to verses 5
and 6 of 2 Kings now. Back to our text. 2 Kings chapter 4 verses 5 and
6. So she went from him and shut the door upon her and upon her
sons. She brought the vessels to her
and she poured out. She started pouring, just like
Elijah told her, she started pouring that oil into the other
vessels. It came to pass when the vessels
were full, that she said unto her son, bring me yet a vassal.
And he said unto her, there's not a vassal more. There's no
more, mom, they're all full. I betcha there was vassals all
over the house. Oh, my. There's no more. There's
no more. There's not a vassal more. And
all the oil stayed. My. The pot of oil was not even
regarded as important by the widow. It appeared to be so utterly
inadequate to meet the demands of her creditor that it was the
only thing left in the house. And that's not by chance either.
That's by the providence of God, beloved. There's nothing but
chance and luck. That stuff should be striked
from our vocabulary as believers, brother. Brothers and sisters.
Oh my. My, but under the blessing of
God, that one vessel provided amply sufficient just as the
five barley loaves. Think of that too. What do we
have? Five loaves and five fishes.
When they were all done, they collected 12 full baskets. 5,000 men, not including women
and children. Some people estimate that's going
to be like 20,000 people were filled. Oh, that was good. And it was still 12 baskets,
just like there was still oil in this pot. My, oh my. My, oh mine. We see that God,
God's grace, do you know, we can never exhaust God's grace.
That's what we see here. We can never exhaust the mercy
of God. We can never exhaust the grace
of God. Never. Never, ever, ever. It's all in Christ. And Christ
is a fountain open, isn't he? For sin and uncleanness. So we
see here that It's the little things which God is pleased to
use, the insignificant things. God has not chosen the wise of
the world, has he? But the foolish things of the
world, to confound the wise. The insignificant things of this
world. That's me. Is that you too? Isn't it wonderful? Oh my. And think upon this. There was
a pebble in a brook. And a young man picked that pebble
up, put it in his pouch, and went and stood before the
enemy of Israel. He put that pebble in his sleigh,
and he swung his hand. And he fired that stone and that
stone was divinely guided stone. And it hit Goliath right between
the eyes and he dropped dead. But it was just a little insignificant
pebble in a brook, wasn't it? My, oh my, beloved. Turn if you
would to 1 Kings chapter 18. Do you know a little cloud was
used to produce a great amount of rain? God uses the little things, the
insignificant things. Look at this, 1 Kings 18, 44
and 45. And it came to pass at the seventh
time that he said, behold, there arises a little cloud of the
sea like a man's hand. And he said, go up, say unto
Ahab, prepare thy chariot. and get thee down that the rain
stop thee not. And it came to pass in the meanwhile
that the heaven was black with clouds and wind and there was
a great rain. And Ahab rolled and went to Jerusalem. My, oh, my. Do you know a little
child was used by the Lord Jesus Christ to teach his disciples? The lesson that he spoke of in
Matthew 18. And you know that a little strength
supplied by the Holy Spirit of God enables us to keep Christ's
word and not deny his name. we're kept by the power of God
scripture says this I know thy works behold I have set before
thee an open door and no man can shut it but thou has a little
strength and has kept my word and has not denied my name revelation
chapter 3 verse 8 how did they not deny his name by the power
of God the Holy Spirit see we're kept by God we're kept by God So what a blessing to see that
this widow did not despise the means, did she? She did what
Elijah said. She promptly did it. She obeyed
the prophet's instructions. And her faith lie in hold of
the clearly implied promise in the gathering of all those vessels.
She said, gather the vessels. Go to your neighbors and get
them. Now let's read verses six and seven together. And it came
to pass that when the vessels were full, that she said unto
her son, bring me yet a vessel. And he said unto her, there is
not a vessel more. I love that. And the oil stayed. It's still full. Then she came
and told the man of God, and he said, go sell the oil and
pay thy debt and live thou and thy children of the rest. You're going to live. You're
going to live, you and your children, on the rest of what's left over.
Isn't that amazing? Isn't that amazing? Beloved God, in times of trouble,
when we're overwhelmed, we as believers often turn to our own
strength. Often turn to our own strength
and when things beset us, But when we turn to the true prophet,
the Lord Jesus Christ, he speaks to us through his gospel.
And we who are the born-again, blood-washed people of God are
about to see that in that pot, in Christ, all our debts are
paid. They're all paid, completely. And now we live off him, don't
we? Now we live off Him. He's the
bread of life. And He has grace sufficient for
all our days, even throughout eternity. And the fact that all things
are His is clearly seen when Christ reveals the grace of God
is not only sufficient, but it exceeds that which we could ever
think or ask for. It's more than we could ever
have imagined, isn't it? Grace to cover all my sins. Every
single one of them. Mine. Every single one of them. And the oil is figurative also
of the Holy Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ that takes the
things of Christ and shows them to us as believers. He's our
comforter. He's the one who will guide us
into all truth. We don't come about by the knowledge
that we have of Christ on our own. It's all because the Holy
Spirit's revealed it to us. And it's magnificent. It's magnificent. And there's no new inventions.
Holy Spirit doesn't use any new inventions. He reveals the truth. He reveals Christ. He reminds the believer that
all that we need is in that pot, in Christ. All spiritual blessings come
from Him. And what else does He remind
us in this text? That His grace will never be
exhausted. Take. Take all you need, right? We
need a lot of grace, don't we? Take all you need. fill the pots,
and still fall. God's throne is called the throne
of grace. Let us come therefore boldly
unto the throne of grace, that we may find grace to help in
time of need. All we need is in Christ. He's everything we need. My, oh my. So what a picture
we've seen tonight. of redemption we have here in
and through the Lord Jesus Christ as believers. Lastly, let us
observe how all the leading features of redemption are brought forth
in this chapter, not just in this narrative that we're looking
at tonight, but we're going to see it again in the other narratives
as well. Tonight's text, the leading features
of redemption are clearly brought forth, which are all found in
the Lord Jesus Christ and him alone. Think about the widow. She was
not always a widow. No, she'd been married to one
who feared the Lord, but death had severed that happy bond and
left her desolate and destitute. Even though she was one of God's
elect, she found herself in dire need. She felt alienated from God,
which was our natural state, wasn't it? That's the natural
state that we were in. Paul writes this in Ephesians
4.18, having the understanding of dark and being alienated from
the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the
blindness of their heart. That was our natural state, beloved. And also think about her creditor.
Do you know he was enforcing demands legally by the law. And he had come to seize her
sons to be bondmen. He said, I'm coming back. If
you can't pay, I'm going to take your sons. My oh my. You know the Hebrew
word for, let's actually read the Hebrew word for creditor.
In 2 Kings 4.1, see the word creditor? It means one who extracts. This is this. What is justly
due him? It's translated that way in the
book of Job where it says, and that he would show thee the secrets
of wisdom that they are double to that which is. Know therefore
that God exacteth of thee less than thine iniquity deserveth. And this law goes all the way back
to Leviticus, and it says this, in Leviticus 25, verses 39 and
40, it says this, And if thy brother that dwelleth with thee
be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him
to serve as a bond-servant, but as an hired servant, and this
is Jorner, he shall be with thee, and shall serve thee until the
year of Jubilee. So they would have had to serve
the creditor until the year of Jubilee. That's the law. And in Matthew 18, if you want
to turn there, we can. Turn to Matthew 18, if you would,
quick. We'll just read a few verses there. Our Lord had reference
to this practice in this parable here. In Matthew 18, 23 to 25, See, the law had a claim. Look at this, 1823-25, Therefore
is the kingdom of heaven like unto a certain king which would
take accounts of his servants. And when he had begun to reckon,
one was bought unto him which owed him ten thousand talents.
But for as much as he had not to pay, his Lord commanded him
to be sold, and his wife, and his children, and all that he
had in payments to be made. That's in reference to what we're
seeing tonight in the text. Therefore, the creditor of 2
Kings 4.1, who showed no mercy to the poor widow, you know what
he's a picture of? He's a picture of the stern and
unrelenting law of God. The soul that sinneth it must
die. That's what the creditor, he's
like that law, unbending, no mercy. See, all the law does
is condemn. There's no mercy in the law.
Grace and mercy comes through Christ Jesus, our Lord, who fulfilled
the law in our room and place. The law of God is unrelenting.
It says, the soul that sinneth, it must die. Christ, our great
substitute, dies for us, the sinless one dying for sinners. And note in our text that our
widow was unable to pay her creditor. She had no hope of paying the
creditor. We have no hope of fulfilling God's law, do we?
Not even one. She was utterly incompetent to
satisfy the demands of the law, just as we are. In our natural state, and even
after we're saved, we in no way can fulfill the law of God. Praise
God, we don't have to as God's people. Christ fulfilled it.
He's the end of the law of righteousness for us. But this creditor shows how unbending
the law of God is. The widow like us could only
rely on the mercy of God being justified freely by his grace
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Romans chapter
3 verse 24. And this is exactly what we should
expect to find in this miracle. My oh my, grace upon grace upon
grace. Note also the means used, oil,
multiplied. Oil is a figure of superabounding
grace of God. Psalm 23, 5 says, thou preparest
a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest
my head with what? Oil, my cup runneth over. Then in Isaiah 61, 3 it says,
to appoint unto them that morn in Zion, to give unto them beauty
for ashes, oil, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of
praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they may be called trees
of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be
glorified. oil of joy for our mourning,
and the garment of praise for our heaviness." Oh my, what a
great God we serve. And it was a grace that was wrought
through righteousness which obtained the freedom of the widow's sons
by the meeting of the full due of her creditor. He said, go
pay your debts. And she had more left over. for
her life and for her son's lives. My, oh my. Beloved of God, it's
only because of God's grace and mercy shown to us in Christ Jesus,
our Lord, who is our righteousness, that we have eternal life. The
forgiveness of all our sins. The debt's been paid, beloved,
in full. And the redemption cost was the
precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And now that we're born
again by the Holy Spirit of God, we understand that, don't we?
And we rejoice. We rejoice. God saved my soul. Mine. So both aspects of redemption
are seen here. First, we see the price. Sell
the oil. Sell the oil. And then, pay thy
debt. When Christ redeemed us, He redeemed
us with His blood, and He paid the debt in full. In full. And then the power, which is
the miraculous supply of oil, the supply of God's grace, the
Holy Spirit of God, Christ in us, the hope of glory, Look at
verses six and seven again. And it came to pass when the
vessels were full, absolutely full, that she said unto her
son, bring me yet a vessel, and keep going. Oh my, I just love
that. And he said unto her, there's
not a vessel more, and the oil stayed. It didn't even go down. Then she came and told the man
of God, and he said, go, sell the oil, and pay thy debt. and live thou and thy children
of the rest." Of the rest. My, so the price of our redemption
is the precious blood of Christ, right? We're bought with a price,
we're not our own. And we have a continuous supply
of grace, beloved. Just like what we see here. And
our grace, Our redemption and our grace is all in and through
the Lord Jesus Christ. Not by anything we've done or
said or thought, nothing. All in and through the Lord Jesus
Christ. And note, one last, couple last
things here. Note that this was not a general
redemption. It wasn't a general redemption
from all deaths. The neighbors didn't get delivered
from their deaths, right? It was particular, wasn't it?
Certain, particular. Do you notice that too? Oh, it's
wonderful, isn't it? Not anyone. This certain widow. Remember the Lord had to go to
Samaria? I must needs go to Samaria. And there was a woman at that
well, wasn't there? Now there'd be another woman that had visited
that well that day, but he wasn't there to see them. He was there
to see a certain woman. So here we see this isn't a general
redemption, a deliverance from deaths of all the people around
the area. No, it was a definite and particular
deliverance because it was this widow, this widow. She was the special object of
God's notice. She was a special object of God's
grace. She was the special objects of
God's mercy. Hmm. This, just like we who are the
receivers of God's mercy and grace through the Lord Jesus
Christ, was not due to anything she had done, anything she had
said, but all by the mercy of God. My, isn't he wonderful? That's true for you.