Mandurah, 13.09.2008
Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.” 2 And the word of the Lord came to him: 3 “Depart from here and turn eastward and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. 4 You shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.” 5 So he went and did according to the word of the Lord. He went and lived by the brook Cherith that is east of the Jordan. 6 And the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook. 7 And after a while the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land.8 Then the word of the Lord came to him, 9 “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you.”
10 So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.” 11 And as she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” 12 And she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. And now I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die.” 13 And Elijah said to her, “Do not fear; go and do as you have said. But first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterward make something for yourself and your son. 14 For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth.’” 15 And she went and did as Elijah said. And she and he and her household ate for many days. 16 The jar of flour was not spent, neither did the jug of oil become empty, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.
17 After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill. And his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. 18 And she said to Elijah, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son!” 19 And he said to her, “Give me your son.” And he took him from her arms and carried him up into the upper chamber where he lodged, and laid him on his own bed. 20 And he cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?” 21 Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again.” 22 And the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah. And the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. 23 And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper chamber into the house and delivered him to his mother. And Elijah said, “See, your son lives.” 24 And the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.”” (1 Kings 17:8-24).
Background
· Zarephath was a town in Canaanite territory subject to the rule of the king of Sidon, whose daughter Jezebel married the Israelite king Ahab, and turned most of the nation to the worship of the god Baal (1 Ki 16:31). For Elijah this is enemy territory.
Elijah and the Widow
· even though the drought God has sent had brought the widow and her son to the brink of starvation, she receives Elijah as a divine messenger ““As the Lord your God lives”(1 Ki 17:12). This does not mean she believed the LORD was the only god (1 Ki 19:2; Exod 20:3) or here God.
· nevertheless, she shares with the prophet her last meagre rations, perhaps as a gamble, for without a miracle death was certain. Whatever her motivation God multiplied her food supply and restored life and hope to the widow and her child.
· a little later story takes a surprising turn, her son dies. In grief and confusion she takes this to be a judgement on her sin and strikes out in rage at God’s messenger, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son!” (1 Ki 17:18)
· Elijah accepts that God has killed the boy and cries out in frustration, ““O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?”” (1 Ki 17:20). Part of Elijah’s confusion is that, unlike the drought, he knows this is NOT an action of divine wrath upon sin; so he prays and the LORD restores the boy to life (1 Ki 17:22 -23).
· from his perplexity we understand that at this stage of his ministry Elijah does not grasp the fullness of God’s pattern of restoration.
· now able to differentiate the power of God from that of other gods, the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.”” (1 Kings 17:24) No matter what could conceivably happen in the future, she knows that any god that can give life, take it away and give it back again, who “kills and makes alive” (Deut 32:39) is the only true God.
· Elijah moves on to greater things after this – the triumph over the prophets of Baal on Mt Carmel, his successful intercession for the drought to break (1 Ki 18:20 -46), the man of God seems to be at the peak of his ministry. Surely now he will be acclaimed throughout Israel in the way he was honoured by the widow at Zarephath.
· the very opposite happens, Jezebel is infuriated and swears by her gods that Elijah is a dead man (1 Ki 19:1- 2)
· to the surprise of most readers the man of God is filled with fear and flees into the wilderness (1 Ki 19:3ff); he does not yet understand God’s pattern of restoration
· God speaks with Elijah in his hidey – hole cave in the abyss of his depression and despair on Mount Sinai, he is commissioned to anoint successors, then he is finally taken up alive into heaven (1 Ki 19; 2 Ki 2). At last Elijah, who has so often ministered from the outside, understands God’s pattern of restoration from the inside.
Jesus and the Pattern of Restoration
· when it comes to our understanding of the core truth of the Zarephath story we must turn to Jesus
· in his first sermon in Nazareth (Luke 4:25 – 26) he shocks his audience by saying, “But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, 26 and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow.”
· even though throughout the Old Testament God has a special heart for widows (Exodus 22, Deuteronomy 10, through the Psalms e.g. 68:5; 146:9, Isaiah 1), it was not a widow in Israel that was supernaturally preserved but a heathen.
· so infuriated were Jesus neighbours that they tried to kill him by throwing him over a cliff (Luke 4:28 – 29). Even though they knew the Zarephath story by heart they hated God’s pattern of restoration.
· Jesus was not in the least surprised by their murderous actions (Orissa), for he had just pronounced, ““Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown.” (Luke 4:24). Like Elijah, Jesus had been performing mighty works, but unlike Elijah, Jesus does not flee under the threat of death, because he understood from the beginning God’s pattern of restoration
· he understood that after a period of mighty ministry and thronging crowds longing to make him king (John 6), culminating in the peak miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead (John 11:38 – 51), that he himself must experience the ultimate rejection of crucifixion
· he knew that he could not fully restore our humanity until his own humanity was destroyed and raised again in the resurrection power of his Father
· this rise and fall and rising to a much higher level of glory is always God’s pattern of restoration
The Early Church and the Pattern of Restoration
The early church’s understanding of God’s pattern of restoration was the secret of their powerful witness to Christ. Peter’s life reflects this pattern. First he is called and released by Jesus into a powerful ministry of preaching and healing (Matt 10)named as the leader of the church (Matt 16:16 -19), like Elijah after Mt Carmel he hits a high point and surely believes that he is the greatest (Luke 22:24 -34). Shortly after this he is so afraid that when he denies Jesus 3 times and plunges into bitter grief (Matt 26:75). This is however never the final step, the risen Jesus restores to be the first preacher and miracle worker in the power of the Spirit that raised Christ himself from the dead.
Peter, the new Peter, boldly proclaims the authority of Jesus because he knows that whatever happens to him, prison, torture, death it can only be that God will raise him to a higher place in glory. This is God’s pattern of restoration (Luke 24:26).
Application
What are you praying for in the realm of restoration? It may be something for yourself – your marriage, your family, your finances, your health. It may be broader than this - the dignity of indigenous people, the rehabilitation of addicts, the healing of those with sexual dysfunction, the mending of broken women, wholeness for the mentally ill, prosperity for the physically poor….. I have no doubt that God has laid such things on all our hearts, and in various ways, on the heart of all Christians. Yet we see so little lasting restoration in our time because unlike the man who chose to embrace the cross (Matt 26:39) we have not willingly entered into God’s pattern of restoration
This is a hard word to listen to and most disciples will not embrace it(John 6:60 – 66).Let me use an example to help. I recently visited a Christian brother who is a relatively young man but has been through 2 failed marriages. As I entered his house, intending to speak on other matters, I sensed to talk to him directly about a third marriage and what it would take to see it successful in the purposes of God. In all seriousness I needed to do this because the God of all the prophets, and the Father of Jesus and one we must worship in Spirit and truth (John 4:24)loves us so much that, if necessary, he will break us again and again and again, this is what he did for centuries in the history of the nation of Israel, who to this day refuse to accept God’s pattern of restoration , this is what he did to Jesus (for us cf. Heb ) in the cross, and this is what he will keep on doing to shatter our proud dependence on our national, racial, financial, relational, and physical powers, until he can fully restore us in the power of Christ’s resurrection life. The spirit and power of Elijah (Luke 1:17) always points to “Jesus, 21 whom heaven must receive until the time of the restoration of all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.” (Acts 3:20 -21). [Jesus said about John the Baptist, and this principle is true of all ministries of restoration, ““Elijah does come first to restore all things” (Mark 9:12)]
Only those who have been taken from strength to weakness, from wealth to poverty, from wholeness to brokenness, can be the very embodiment of Christ’s resurrection power in bringing LASTING restoration to the weak, poor and broken of this world (1 Cor 1:25; 2:3; 9:22).
Are you an insider or an outsider in understanding God’s pattern of restoration? Most of the church is still stuck in the place of the prophet Elijah when he went down to Zarephath and even when he went on to do mightier works at Carmel? Good comes through your life, but substance is missing. Only those who are insiders, like the poor defenceless helpless widow and the man of the cross, can minister in and impart to others the depth of God’s pattern of restoration.
God is raising up a new generation who will move past old church fears and compromises, a generation for whom “enemy territory” is an opportunity to enter into God’s pattern of restoration.
Dedication
What then are we doing in dedicating Zarephath? The answer to this question is beyond me. But we can willingly dedicate ourselves and those who will come after us to God’s pattern of restoration in this place.