Can you imagine how she must have felt as she arrived back home, opened that jar and poured out the last of her oil, reached in that bowl and scooped out the last little bit of flour clinging to the bottom? "What am I doing?" perhaps she thought. "I’m giving the very last of my food to someone I hardly know for a God I can’t even see."

People crowded into the small synagogue in extraordinary numbers on this particular Sabbath morning. The synagogue ruler was very pleased. They had a special guest speaker in attendance and the place was packed. A young rabbi was to speak and it had the whole community of Nazareth buzzing.

This was a hometown boy now famous and he was back in town. Jesus of Nazareth had returned to Nazareth and it was standing room only in the little synagogue where he had grown up.

They had all heard the stories of His marvelous teaching and his miracles. The gospel writer Matthew reports, "And Jesus was going about in all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people."(1) Many wondered as to His identity and mission. Now perhaps, they would find out for themselves.

Every eye was upon the young man Jesus as the attendant handed him the Isaiah scroll to read aloud as was their custom. The passage He chose was Isaiah 61:1-2:

The verses were messianic. As Jesus finished reading He handed the scroll back to the attendant, looked around at those whose gaze was so intently fixed upon Him and said, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." The passage needed no further explanation. The fulfillment of it was sitting right there before their eyes.

Yet to them it was preposterous. How could one who had grown up among them, whose family they all knew, be the Messiah? Wasn’t this Jesus just the son of a common carpenter that they all knew?

Jesus was very aware of where their reasoning was headed. He would be rejected in His own home town. Before this meeting was officially concluded, they would drag Him from the synagogue property, out to the edge of the city, and attempt to throw Him over a cliff!

"Truly I say to you, no prophet is welcome in his home town," He responded to them. "But I say to you in truth, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the sky was shut up for three years and six months, when a great famine came over the land; and yet Elijah was sent to none of them, but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow."(3)

In essence, Jesus was saying to those in Nazareth that God was going to pass over them because of their unbelief just as He passed over the majority of ancient Israel in the time of Elijah because of their unbelief. Instead He would seek out a people who would believe in Him just as God sought out an unlikely Gentile widow in the days of Elijah who proved that she was willing to believe. Jesus would do no miracles in Nazareth.

But it isn't the Nazarenes I want to consider this morning. Rather, I want to take a look at this unlikely widow that Jesus mentioned in his response to them - the one for whom God passed over all the rest of Israel in Elijah's day in order to send His prophet to her. What was there about this woman that would merit such a mention by Jesus? We’ll add her story to the two sermons we’ve already heard in this series we’ve called The Character of the Committed. We’re looking at the descriptions of a few committed people in the Bible and the character they exhibited.

I have named this message, The Widow of Zarephath - Who Would Ever Have Guessed?

The widow’s story is found in 1 Kings 17:8-24. It takes us back to the ninth century B.C. and the days of the prophet, Elijah. The two-faced Ahab was king of the northern tribes of Israel and the wicked Jezebel was his queen. Her introduction of idol worship into Israel’s culture and Ahab’s complicity in the same had for many years suppressed worship of the God of Heaven to the extent that He was viewed by the people only as one god among many. To get Ahab’s attention, God sent His prophet Elijah to announce a drought. For the next three years, as Israel parched under a brassy, cloudless sky God hid Elijah at Cherith where He gave him food from Ravens and water from a small stream. In due time the stream dried up and God told His prophet to move out of his desert hideout to stay in a most unlikely place with a very unlikely person, as we shall soon see. That’s where we pick up the story of this widow who was among those her culture had largely:

1 Kings 17:8-9 says:

A couple of things are important to note here. First, Zarephath was not in Israel. It was a Sidonian town and a place where idols were worshipped. Zarephath actually means "smelter" and it is believed by some to have been a place where they actually manufactured the brass Baal idols used in pagan worship. What an unlikely place for God to hide his prophet and to seek out a worshipper! This woman was a Gentile, not a Jew. She was also a widow. Widows were among the poorest of the poor in the ancient world. The Law of Moses made some provision for the support of widows, but in times like these, few were concerned about Moses’ Law. Besides, not being a Jewess, this woman had no such benefit. From human perspective she was among the discarded people of her culture, worth so very little in the eyes of her countrymen that probably no one cared or even knew of her plight. To make matters even more difficult, we’ll see in the next verses that this discarded woman actually had two mouths to feed. She had a young son, which brings us to our second point about her. This woman was:

Verse 10 tells us how Elijah met her:

Elijah’s request to this woman to get him some water and food seems a bit rude by our standards, but we must understand that in ancient cultures, getting water and cooking food was the work of woman. Back then such a request would hardly be noticed as anything but normal. Elijah’s request for water was met with a willing response, but when he asked for food, that was a different story.

This woman was gathering sticks in order to cook what she figured would be the last meal that she and her son would eat before they starved to death.

You simply have to love the way God does things sometimes! Modern merchandisers have a policy called J-I-T, Just-In-Time delivery of goods. Rather than haul things to be unloaded and stored in warehouses, then loaded again and delivered to retail stores, computer systems precisely time deliveries so that they skip the warehouse and are delivered right off the truck to retail outlets - "just in time." It saves time, money, and space. What we’re seeing here with this widow is some of God’s Just-In-Time delivery to those for whom He cares! To this woman who would be willing to believe, He sent His prophet to bring help just in time.

But the widow doesn’t know that yet, any more than we usually know ahead of time how God will deliver His promises to us. For now she was still a discarded, destitute woman. And, like so many forgotten people, she was also very:

Verse 13 says, "Then Elijah said to her, "Do not fear…."

Would you or I be afraid if we were cooking our last meal with no hope of finding anything else to eat for ourselves and our children? You bet! But times of fear and distress can be opportunities for us to grow in our faith – or, as in the case of this destitute widow, find faith in the first place.

I’m tempted to ask how many of you became Christians during a time of distress in your lives. I won’t do it but I’m fairly sure if I did there would be many hands go up.

We human beings have a troublesome independent streak in us. Such a trait is good in some things but it just isn’t good when it comes to acknowledging our Creator. Given times of safety and security, the memory that we have a Creator who has something to say about our lives grows dim. Only in a time of fear do many remember, or perhaps realize for the first time that there has to be more than just us. Remember 9/11? Remember how, after the terrorists hit the buildings in New York City, churches filled up all across the country? What is that condition now? Most people have forgotten their fear and correspondingly, they have forgotten their momentary acknowledgment of God.

A time of distress can be a time of spiritual opportunity as we shall see it was for this woman.

OK. What do we have so far? We have God reaching out to this very unlikely woman when the majority in Israel was making every effort to live so as to not have to acknowledge their Creator. Many of them were probably hungry at this point, due to the drought. God ignores them and goes only to this woman. Remember what Jesus said in Luke 4? "…There were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the sky was shut up for three years and six months, when a great famine came over all the land; and yet Elijah was sent to none of them, but only to Zarephath… to a woman who was a widow."

You get the idea, don’t you, that God does not want to gather multitudes of fickle, unbelieving people who would rather serve themselves than their Creator. He’s after the few who will truly turn their hearts toward Him.

You have heard me express before that I am troubled these days about the state of the church. So called "experts" are telling us that in these days of affluence, when many have little interest in the things of God, our message just isn’t getting across. If we’re going to get through to our generation, they say, taking their cues from those with marketing savvy, we must alter our message or risk becoming irrelevant. Churches are turning to play programs and self-help instruction aimed at meeting "felt needs," all the while ignoring the real spiritual needs the gospel is designed to take care of. Is this what God wants us to do? Should we jump on the bandwagon, quit preaching so much from the Bible, water down or stop pressing the gospel, and instead build a new gymnasium and start offering classes on cake decorating? No offense is intended to those of you who like sports or decorating cakes. And none to those who have gymnasiums attached to their church buildings. I’m just saying that these things, and a multitude of other activities, while there is nothing inherently wrong with them, are not what Christ died for. They are not the things we are to be holding up before a dying world! Christ did not give His life to produce large gatherings of lukewarm people who will not submit their wills to Him or His word. It would be easy, in the modern climate, to get sidetracked from the real issue of preaching and teaching the gospel.

You don’t find a more tepid, lukewarm, apostate, hard-to-reach culture than ancient Israel in the days of Elijah. Did God tell His prophet to water down his preaching? God was "becoming irrelevant" in the minds of the majority in that day just like in ours. Did that provoke a change in the message? Not on your life!

There are "in season" and "out of season" times for the spreading of the gospel. What do you think God would have us do during the "out of season" periods? I refer to those times when people are so self-focused that they’ve pushed God out. Thankfully, we don’t have to speculate. Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:1-5:

Timothy wasn’t told to return to school and get a Master’s degree in sociology or psychology so he could learn how better to "relate" to a self-absorbed generation. He was told to keep on preaching the word of God. That is what we must do today. There will be those who respond, though from human perspective, they may not be the "likely" suspects any more than this Sidonian widow was a "likely" suspect. The world had forgotten this discarded, destitute, distressed woman. But God had not forgotten her because underneath her difficult circumstances lived a person who was willing to obey Him. Verse 13:

Can you imagine how she must have felt as she arrived back home, opened that jar and poured out the last of her oil, reached in that bowl and scooped out the last little bit of flour clinging to the bottom? "What am I doing?" perhaps she thought. "I’m giving the very last of my food to someone I hardly know for a God I can’t even see."

What a marvelous story of God’s seeking out and caring for those who will respond to Him!

I’m reminded of that verse I quoted in one of the earlier messages from 2 Chronicles 16:9: "For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His." We see that here, don’t we? As His eye moved to and fro throughout the earth, His attention fell upon this widow. "There is one who will truly believe."

Remember what Jesus said in John 4:23 to the woman at the well? He said, "But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers."

We’re not going to convert everyone in the word. Jesus has told us that there are a relative "few" who will find the narrow road that leads to eternal life and stay on it.(4) Our job is to get in sync with the Father and seek those people, as He does, who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. We will know them by their willing response to His word. "My sheep hear my voice," Jesus said in John 10:27, "and I know them and they follow Me."

Just a couple more things to note about this widow, then we’ll close. For some time now, she had eaten from the bowl of flour and the jar of oil for some time, each day having the lesson of her faith reinforced by God’s provision. Then suddenly, tragedy struck. Her boy became sick and died. So now we find the widow:

Verse 17:

Faith once declared will, soon enough, become faith tested. This woman trusted God initially, and was rewarded for it. But that initial faith had to grow, just as it must grow in us. That’s why trials come.

In her shock and grief, the only thing this woman can think of in the loss of her son is that somehow God was remembering her past sin and punishing her for it. We get the same way when tragedy strikes, don’t we? "Is God mad at me? Is He punishing me somehow for my sins?" We either don’t know or we forget that testing is a part of life with God while we are here on earth.

In her bewilderment this woman could have demanded that Elijah leave and take His God with him. But we read nothing of that.

As Elijah watched this tragedy unfold in the little house where he lived with the widow, he felt great compassion. He went before God to plead for the widow and her son.

Verse 19:

Oh the joy that must have flooded that little house on that day! The widow’s child was alive again! God, though His prophet could provide for a destitute widow. He could even raise the dead! We see finally how this woman ended up:

From this time onward, I’m sure, there was a dedicated follower of the God of Heaven in that pagan Sidonian city. Right there in the same town where they cast the graven images of Baal, in the tiny house where an unlikely widow lived with her only son, prayers rose up daily in worship to the Creator of all things.

We’ve seen some fine examples of the character of the committed so far. We’ve seen the Macedonians who first gave themselves to God. We’ve seen Moses, who turned his back on Egypt, and now we’ve seen the widow of Zarephath – one who perhaps no one would have ever guessed would become a believer. What do all of these have in common? They all had a willingness to acknowledge their Creator and do whatever that meant they must do. Such people God seeks to be His worshippers. Are you one of them? If you’re not, could you be?

We don’t offer a lot of entertainment here. We offer you the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ. As humble believers in Him we offer you what He has given us – spiritual life and hope against the future. Would you like to have that? It doesn’t matter what your background is. If you will truly submit to the God of Heaven, He will receive you and give you life.

Footnotes: Please use your back button to return to your place.

1. Matthew 4:23
2. Luke 4:18-19
3. Luke 4:25-26
4. Matthew 7:14

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

Copyright © 1996-2008 by The Preacher's Study. Permission is granted to subscribers to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or anyplace beyond the local congregation is prohibited.

All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

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