Walk with Jesus if you want to see fireworks

I Kings 17:7-16, II Kings 4:1-7

We start this morning with three questions that came out of my study of the Elijah and Elisha stories we read this morning.

Why does God do miracles?
How should we respond to miracles?
Where do we go if we want to see miracles?

Why God does what he does is a mystery to us. We don’t know why it is that some people are healed and others not. We don’t know why some people suffer and others do not. It is presumptuous to say that this is why God does something or another, but there are some hints from time to time and in the passages from I & II Kings read this morning, we can find some indication of why it is that God does miracles.

The readings from I & II Kings are a pair of stories in which Elijah and then Elisha, in the course of their ministry, did what Jesus did later in time when he fed the crowd of 5,000 men plus women and children from just a couple fish and a few loaves of bread. These three stories are stories of God’s miraculous provision.

Let’s take a look at Elijah’s and then Elisha’s story and then we will see what these stories have to say about why God does miracles and how it is we should respond to God’s miracles in our lives. And then we’ll get to the question I know you are burning with eagerness to hear answered: Where do we go if we want to see miracles?

Elijah’s story begins with him sitting in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan river. Elijah had gone to King Ahab to announce that it would not rain until he gave the word and the drought that followed affected not only Ahab and Jezebel, it affected all of Israel, even Elijah himself.

So God spoke once again to Elijah
“Go at once to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food.”

Zarephath was a town in the kingdom of Tyre, along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, between Tyre and Sidon. But if you remember from last week, the kingdom of Tyre was where the father of Jezebel ruled. The king of Tyre was also a priest of Astarte.

Jezebel’s soldiers were searching the land to find Elijah to kill him and God told him to go to the stronghold of worship of Baal and Asherah. Was this good strategy? Would they least expect Elijah to go there and thus he would escape being found? On the other hand, Zarephath is only 80 kilometers north of Mt. Carmel so it is not so far away that news of Elijah would not get back to Jezebel. At any rate, as we will discover as we move along in the story, Jezebel seems not to have known Elijah was in her father’s kingdom and Elijah lived there in safety until he returned to Israel two to three years later.

God spoke to Elijah, as he had in the past and would again in the future and told him to go into enemy territory because he had selected a widow to care for him. Actually scripture does not say God selected her, it says he commanded her. But if he commanded her, she was either hard of hearing or too depressed to hear what he said.
“Go at once to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food.”

Elijah went to Zarephath, found a widow at the town gate and asked her to give him a little water and a piece of bread.
12 “As surely as the LORD your God lives,” she replied, “I don’t have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die.”

It is clear that the widow was at the end of her rope. She was deep in despair. She had given up and was ready to die and at that moment, Elijah arrived and God provided for her. Elijah told her to go bake him some bread and then make some for herself and her son. Elijah told her that her jug of oil and jar of flour would not run out until it began once again to rain.
She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family.  16 For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the LORD spoken by Elijah.

We will come back to this story to learn some lessons from it, but before we go on to Elisha’s story, I have to stop to tell you how impressed I am becoming with Elijah as I work on sermons in this series.

Notice that Elijah was not so fearful of going into enemy territory that he did not obey what God told him to do. After all, if he was willing to obey God and go into the palace of Ahab and Jezebel, he might as well go into the kingdom of Tyre. Elijah’s obedience to God becomes more and more impressive to me as I make my way through the stories of his life.

Now turn to II Kings 4 and look at the story of Elisha and a widow. Once again there is a widow in a difficult circumstance. After Elijah defeated the prophets of Baal on Mt Carmel, he attracted a group of prophets who followed him. One of the prophets who followed Elijah and then Elisha died leaving his widow in debt. (A Jewish tradition says that this widow was the widow of Obadiah who brought news of Elijah’s desire to meet Ahab and the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel.) Under Jewish law, her sons would be sold into slavery until the debt was repaid. In her despair she came to Elisha and asked for help. Elisha turned her jug of oil into an oil factory and she was able to sell enough oil to repay her debts and still have enough left over to support herself and her sons.

These were wonderful miracles, but why did God do them?

As I said, I can’t pretend to know the mind of God, but I do see a pattern in the miracles of God. Have you ever noticed how many times miracles are done for widows? Over and over again in Scripture there is an emphasis on caring for widows and others who were without rights and without protection.

Moses came down from Mt. Sinai with the Law God gave him and said (Deuteronomy 10)
For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes.  18 He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing.

Psalm 146:9
The LORD watches over the alien
and sustains the fatherless and the widow,
but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.

Zechariah 7
And the word of the LORD came again to Zechariah:  9 “This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another.  10 Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.’

In Luke 7, it was the only son of a widow who Jesus raised from the dead as the funeral procession was making its way to the burial ground.

Why such a focus on widows? Because in Biblical times, widows could not own property. To be without a husband and without sons was to be destitute. And in the mercy of God, his hand reached down to assist widows who were without hope. In the mercy of God, not only widows, but orphans and aliens, those without rights in Jewish society were protected by God.

In the miracles of Jesus, notice how many times the Gospels say Jesus had compassion and then healed or delivered the person in need.

Matthew 9:36
When [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Matthew 14:14
When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.

Matthew 20:34
Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes. Immediately they received their sight and followed him.

Miracles of God are done because God is a god of compassion, a god of mercy. God is not distant, impersonal and uncaring. God is intimate and as present to us as the air we breath. God is a god of mercy and out of his compassion he does miracles of healing and provision and transformation.

In God’s mercy, he provided for Elijah and the widow of Zarephath and her son. In God’s mercy he provided for the widow of one of the company of prophets who followed Elisha.

But there is another layer of motivation of God for doing miracles revealed in this story.

When Elijah came to Zarephath in the kingdom of Tyre where Baal and Asherah were worshiped, he came as an agent of God in the battle between powers and principalities. Where do we see the evidence of this?

First of all notice that the drought that affected Israel affected the kingdom of Tyre as well. This should not surprise us since we know meteorological patterns, but the point is that not just in Israel, but even the stronghold of Baal was refused rain despite the efforts of Baal who was supposed to be able to bring rain.

Baal was not only the god who brought rain, but because of this he was viewed as the god of fertility who brought good harvests. So when Elijah came to provide flour and olive oil for the widow of Zarephath, he came to do in the name of Yahweh what Baal was supposed to do. When Elisha turned the widow’s jug of oil into an oil factory, it was a demonstration of Yahweh’s power over what was viewed as the responsibility of Baal. Next week we will look at two stories of Elijah and Elisha raising a widow’s son from the dead which was an even greater demonstration of the power of Yahweh over Baal.

When we see a miracle, we see the human, temporal side of it. But from a supernatural view, each miracle of God is a slap in the face of the devil. Each miracle is a victory over the powers of darkness. When God provides for one of his children in need, it is a victory for the forces of light and a defeat for the powers of darkness.

Why does God do miracles? God does miracles because he is a god of mercy. He sees us in our distress and has compassion on us and provides for us, heals us, transforms our lives, bringing us into his kingdom. And in the process he wages war against the devil who seeks to tear us away from God.

Now for question 2. How should we respond to miracles?

I found two lessons for us in these two stories. First, no matter how desperate the situation, do not give into despair. Often times there are lessons God wants us to learn as we wait for him to provide for us.

Think about the situation of the widow of Zarephath. When Elijah came to her, she was at the end of her rope. She had exhausted all her resources. She had sold all she could to buy food with the proceeds. She had borrowed all she could borrow. Day by day she saw her resources used up. Day by day she saw her supply of money dwindle until the morning came when she used her last coins to buy some more flour and oil. Day by day she saw that supply dwindle until this day, the day Elijah arrived, the day God came to her rescue, she had just enough to make one last bit of bread.

Often times God waits until the last moment to provide for us. God does not answer our prayer when the jug is full of oil or half full but waits until there are just a few drops of oil in the jug. We are at the end of our rope and then he provides. We can pray for years about a need and it is not until there is no time left that the answer comes.

Be encouraged. Don’t give up. God will provide. Do not give in to despair. And if you do give into despair, as this widow did, God will still provide because God is a god of compassion and he cares for you.

Don & Rose this past week received a miracle from the hand of God. Their money they had invested in a business here in Morocco and that seemed to be lost was finally returned to them (with the help of Francisco and his partner). But I have been praying with them for the 3 ½ years I have been here in Morocco and they have been praying for at least another 3 ½ years before that.

I have been so impressed with Don & Rose. Even though they have been treated shamefully, I have been impressed that they did not descend into bitterness and anger. They may have had moments of anger and despair, but they did not give into those emotions and have grown in their faith over these years. God has used these years of waiting to develop their faith and character. God has used them to richly bless others in these years of waiting. And now, in his time, God has rescued them.

Part of responding to miracles is developing patience to wait until it is God’s time for the miracle to occur.

Second, notice that God provides for us to the measure of faith that we have.
Elisha said, “Go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don’t ask for just a few.

How many neighbors did she ask? Did she go just to the neighbors on either side of her and the neighbor across the road from her? Did she go to the neighbors just nearby or did she go to the neighbors a five or ten minute walk from her home? Did she go to everyone in town?

When she collected the jars,
They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring.  6 When all the jars were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another one.”
But he replied, “There is not a jar left.” Then the oil stopped flowing.

If she had asked for one more jar, she would have had one more jar of oil. If she had asked for ten more jars, she would have had ten more jars of oil.

When God speaks to you, think big. There is another incident in the life of Elisha, at the end of his life. (II Kings 13)
Now Elisha was suffering from the illness from which he died. Jehoash king of Israel went down to see him and wept over him.

Jehoash was involved with a conflict against the Arameans and Elisha told the king
18 Then he said, “Take the arrows,” and the king took them. Elisha told him, “Strike the ground.” He struck it three times and stopped.  19 The man of God was angry with him and said, “You should have struck the ground five or six times; then you would have defeated Aram and completely destroyed it. But now you will defeat it only three times.”

When God speaks to you, think big.

Errol Muller is the director of the Village of Hope at Ain Leuh. The more I get to know Errol the more impressed I am with him. One of the reasons I am so grateful to be a part of what is happening at the Village of Hope at Ain Leuh is that when God gave Errol a vision of what the Village of Hope could become, Errol did not think small.

Every time I go up and talk further with Errol, my mind gets stretched. The Village of Hope is much more than a home for 100 children. The Village of Hope will offer education to some of the other children in the area. It will offer vocational training and agricultural training. A health clinic will help to improve medical care for the whole area, not just the families at the Village of Hope.

We are talking about helping people in the area start food processing plants so they can make more from the crops they raise. We are talking about setting up homes in Casablanca and Marrakech and Fes and other cities of Morocco where the children can live while they pursue University education or trade jobs after they graduate from high school.

The Village of Hope will bring hope not just to 100 children but to the whole region of Ain Leuh.

When God speaks to you, think big. Get all the jars you can find and then start pouring.

Why does God do miracles? God does miracles because he is a god of mercy. He sees us in our distress and has compassion on us and provides for us, heals us, transforms our lives bringing us into his kingdom. And in the process he wages war against the devil who seeks to tear us away from God.

How should we respond to miracles? No matter how desperate you become, hang on to hope and wait for the miracle to come. Wait for God to speak and then respond and when you do respond, have big faith.

Finally, where do we go if we want to see miracles?

Miracles do not come when we are thinking only about ourselves. Miracles come when we give our attention to God. Notice in the Elijah story that when Elijah came to the widow of Zarephath, he asked her to use the last of her flour and oil to bake him some bread. Only then, after she had used up all she had, was she supposed to go back and bake some bread from oil and flour that did not exist.

Elijah was not the only one with faith. The widow exercised great faith and went back and discovered that the jug of oil she had drained and the jar of flour she had emptied when she had made bread for Elijah, now had enough oil and flour to bake two more loaves of bread. And she continued to experience this miracle each day for the next two to three years.

If you lived in Israel in the time of Jesus and wanted to see miracles, what would be the best strategy?

There were people who arrived in town the week before Jesus arrived. They came and saw the blind, the lame, the demon possessed and then left. They missed the miracles of Jesus because they were ahead of Jesus.

What would have happened if the week before she heard from Elisha, the widow of the prophet had called her sons and told them to get some jars so she could pour the little bit of oil in her jar into them? Probably nothing. It was not that she lacked faith. It was simply that God had not yet given her instructions. We cannot pull miracles out of a hat. We do not have the power to make miracles occur. All we can do is respond to what God instructs us to do.

It does not help us when we get out ahead of Jesus. It does not matter how much we believe or how much we care, we must wait for Jesus. We can’t run ahead of Jesus and expect to see the miracles of God. We must wait for him and then respond in faith.

What would have happened if someone in the time of Jesus wanted to see a miracle and kept going to the place where he had heard a miracle had occurred? By the time news reached him and he arrived in the town, Jesus was gone and all he had was stories of what had happened. He never would have seen Jesus in action.

The only way to see miracles is to seek Jesus. The question is not where has a miracle happened but where is Jesus? If you want to see a miracle, don’t seek the miracle, seek Jesus. The best strategy in the time of Jesus was to find out where Jesus was going to be and go there.

Go to Jesus. Seek Jesus. When you are walking with Jesus, you are in the best position to see the fireworks. The best view of the fireworks will come if you are walking with Jesus. You don’t want to be ahead of him. You don’t want to be behind him. You want to be walking with him.

So seek him. Spend time listening to the voice of God in your life. Follow Jesus.

Every time I preach it seems to come down to this. Seek Jesus. When I preached a series of sermons on the Fruit of the Spirit mentioned in Galatians, it came down to this. If you want to see the Fruit of the Spirit in your life, don’t seek the fruit, seek Jesus and the fruit will be evidenced in your life.

Do you want to have a more intimate relationship with God? Seek Jesus.

Do you have a desire to see unity in the church? Seek Jesus.

Do you want to have a stronger marriage? Seek Jesus.

This is always the answer.

If you are praying with me that we will see the power of God revealed in this country through healings and other signs and wonders, then join with me in seeking Jesus.