How God Brings Sinners to Life

Introduction and Review of Dark Providences

0:03 And it came to pass, after these things, that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick. And his sickness was so sore that there was no breath left in him.

0:18 And she said unto Elijah, What have I to do with thee, O thou man of God? Art thou come unto me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son? And he said unto her, Give me thy son. And he took him out of her bosom, and carried him up into the chamber where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed.

0:45 And he cried unto the Lord, and said, O Lord my God, hast thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourned by slaying her son? And he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried unto the Lord, and said, O Lord my God. O Lord my God, I pray thee, let this child's soul come into him again.

1:13 And the Lord hearkened unto the voice of Elijah, and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived. And Elijah took the child, and brought him down out of the chamber into the house, and delivered him unto his mother. And Elijah said, See, thy son liveth. And the woman said to Elijah, Now I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth.

1:50 Let us pray and ask the Lord to speak to us afresh from this portion of his holy word. Our Father, we would once again consciously acknowledge our need of you and of your help and assistance.

2:08 For we remember your word which says, A man can receive nothing. Except to be given him from heaven. Cursed be he that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm. And Lord, we know that this applies no less when we handle the word of God than in any other area.

2:30 So we repudiate all confidence in ourselves, and pray that as little children we may come to be taught of your spirit. And as we apply our minds diligently to think, to meditate, to reason through the scriptures, to

3:15 our Lord Jesus Christ. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. And period. And period.

3:19 And period. And period. And period. And period.

3:20 And period. And period. And period. And period.

3:21 That's the Jesus Christ. And I'm sure the Bible sola facie wroteunda said, And present greatONUS, who, all of them do. That woman who's gone out to fix their last meal meets a prophet, and as a result of her Możagoth's 이는 and that prediction, that production took too many of their quarto cavemen did them out. And the text of the Moses have plain conclusion in 250 Pondalus and you.

3:22 of that visit instead of her last meal she has a never failing supply and her son and she are spared his little skinny body is fleshed out again and yet into that situation comes this terrible dark providence of death death which always brings darkness but a double darkness when it strikes little ones before they've lived out their three score and ten years and certainly god has something to teach us as he had something to teach his servant elijah in preparation for that greater conquest upon mount carmel and last week we looked at two of the basic lessons of this passage the first one it teaches us something about the domestic piety of elijah at a time when this

4:04 woman would have loved to have had any legitimate chink in the armor of elijah to uh drive some needling remark through she has to confess as she does in verse 18 oh thou man of god having lived there for two years she has seen him in every situation and she has to call him a man of god for she saw his contentment with the material provisions of that whole his purity and all of his personal dealings with her and then his patience and compassion in the midst of her distress and then in the last place we considered last week that this passage has some very helpful lessons concerning what i have called the dark providences of life what the child of god is to do

4:49 when a sunny day suddenly becomes a cloudy day and the smile of god is hidden behind some terrible foreboding dark billowy clouds of what seemed to be an angry providence and we saw first of all their relative certainty the scripture tells us in the world ye shall have tribulation secondly their unexpected suddenness who would ever thought when they had their pancakes that morning that before nightfall she'd be cradling the lifeless blue form of her little boy upon her bosom she never thought it and often the day that begins in brightness ends in darkness

5:29 their unexpected suddenness and then the primary lesson of the passage in terms of the dark providences of life is their hidden purpose what was the purpose of god in bringing this providence surely if he makes this barrel and this cruise to be a never failing source of provision he could have kept this disease from coming to this lab he could have healed him in the midst of it but he allows him to die why and we saw there were two purposes one in the woman and one in the prophet for the woman he wanted to bring her face to face with himself and it took a dark providence to do it and often it takes a dark providence to take a careless self-sufficient sinner and bring him face to face with the living god

6:13 and if it won't happen now it must happen in the day of judgment and so she's brought face to face with god in his miraculous power and in the awakening of his life and in the awakening of his life and in the awakening of his life and in the awakening of her own conscience and also the purpose was to drive the prophet to new dealings with his god for this situation of a dark providence drives him to the throne of grace and he wrestles with god and not only obtains blessing for the immediate situation but as we shall see god willing in subsequent studies he is brought on in another classroom of the school of intercession all of which is preparing him for that mighty conquest upon the earth

6:54 and in the last place we saw the best preparation for the dark providence is walking day by day with a good conscience an evil conscience a nagging conscience is a terrible companion in calamity for the moment this calamity comes she says what have you done brought this to pass to bring my sin to remembrance and i again exhort you don't carry a bad conscience with you in sunny days unless you're willing to do it to live with it in cloudy days. The best preparation for a dark providence is to have a conscience like that of the prophet, who, when this dark providence comes,

7:38 can go crashing straight through to the throne of God and know that he has a hearing with his God. Well, tonight I want us to consider a third area in which there are some very practical lessons in this narrative. Having looked at the lessons of the domestic piety of the prophet, of the dark providences of life, this third area is what I am calling how God brings sinners to spiritual life.

The Mystery and Danger of Categorizing Conversion

8:05 The ways of God in imparting spiritual life are a mystery. The Lord Jesus said in the third chapter of John, when speaking to Nicodemus about the impartation of spiritual life, that the ways of the Spirit are like the wind. Thou canst not tell whence it cometh, whither it goeth. You hear the sound thereof.

8:27 You feel the effect. You feel the effects of it. But there is an element of mystery, inscrutability about this matter of the new birth.

8:35 And so, whenever we are talking about how God imparts spiritual life, we must never think in terms of hard, fast steps and categories by which God always leads men and women to the enjoyment and sharing of divine life. Whenever you find a group of people, I don't care if it is a church or denomination or some evangelistic movement, that pretty well has the process of conversion step-by-step pigeon-holed, one of two things is true. Either they are reinterpreting their valid spiritual experience in terms of the accepted pattern. You know, in certain circles, you dare not talk about being converted unless, first of all,

9:20 you talk about having a prior law work and coming under conviction and being led by the hand to Moses before you are led to Christ. And so you get in certain circles and everybody's testimony has the same smell about it. Well, what they will do is they will take the sovereign, varied work of God and then they'll push it back through the accepted mold so that they will be part of the in-crowd of their particular area. We're such slaves to conformity and we don't want to be thought different.

9:50 So, if the spiritual way to get saved in a certain area means this happens, this and this, then people will reinterpret their valid experience, so that they appear as spiritual as others.

10:02 Now, that's not too bad if that happens. It shouldn't be. It shouldn't be done, but at least it's not damning. But the second reason why, in certain circles, the spiritual experience takes on a certain mold is this, that people, on the sheer steam of Adamic nature and Adamic energy, are meeting an acceptable pattern of so-called conversion and are nothing more than what Jesus said the Pharisees made, he says, you compass land and sea to make a convert and when you've made him, you make him two-fold more the child of hell than yourself.

10:37 And we're cursed in the professing evangelical church today, not so much with the former. That was the problem of a bygone day when they had mighty preachers and when people knew that God had to do the work and that generally conversion was a long work and that generally spiritual life was not imparted overnight, but there was a long period in which God dealt with men. And it's the second problem that is the greatest problem, is the great problem in our day when whole evangelistic movements all pretty much have the same pattern by which God is supposed to impart life. And throughout all of our churches, people can tell you that they went forward and they read their little verse and they did this and everything's all set.

11:16 When in reality, all they've been made is two-fold more the children of hell. No, Jesus said the ways of the spirit are like the wind. There is an unpredictableness. There's an element of divine sovereignty.

An Analogical Approach (Rejected) and the Woman's Natural State

11:30 And so as I speak tonight of this passage, setting forth the pattern of how God brings sinners to life, I am in no way inferring that God works as it were point one, point two, point three, in a rigid, categorical way. But there are principles that are operative in every genuine work of the Spirit of God. Whenever God imparts life, these three things that we see in the experience of this woman are always present. I first of all thought of trying to approach this from two standpoints.

12:03 One from the analogy of how this boy was resurrected. I think we have a beautiful analogy of how God gives spiritual life. But when you use passages to preach from analogies, you get into the realm where you're bordering on using your own imagination. And I just couldn't with good conscience do it.

12:21 I'll tell you what I might have done had I had the courage to do it. I might have shown, and here would be my points if you want to just jot them down and use your own imagination. I'm not preaching. I'm just telling you what I might have preached.

12:33 First of all, the prophet accepts the fact of death. Accepts the fact of it. If there was anything less than death, he'd have tried to wiggle his arms and help him, you see. But he was just plain sure not dead.

12:48 And before life is ever imparted, somebody's got to accept the fact of death. You see, you can draw that out. And then the prophet comes in living contact with death. A live man touches a dead boy.

13:01 And this is how God imparts spiritual life. He brings living men into contact with dead men. And then this living man lays hold of the mighty power of God. And sovereignly and powerfully, that boy is quickened to life.

13:16 A source of life comes from outside of him and enters him. And then there are all the manifestations of life. Elijah didn't bring down a boy still blue with death and cold with death and say, here, mama, here's your boy. Well, he's still dead.

13:32 Oh, no, he isn't. I got him to go through the four spiritual months. I got him to go through the four spiritual months. I got him to go through the four spiritual months.

13:35 And he was. He's alive. You see? No, he presented something that had all the marks of life.

13:44 And when God imparts life, they'll be the marks of life. So that's how I would have preached it if I felt. You see, there's enough material there, but I don't know if that's valid. I don't know if it's valid.

13:55 So what I do know is valid, I want to preach tonight. So we're not going to look at the analogy of how God imparts life to that boy, but we're going to look at a greater miracle than how God imparted physical life to that boy and see how God imparted life to that boy. How God imparted spiritual life to the woman. Now the first thing we want to consider about this woman is, what was she by nature?

14:17 And then secondly, what did she become by grace? And how did the grace of God make her that? What was this woman by nature? All the scripture tells us about her in verse eight is that the word of the Lord came unto the prophet, saying, Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, an area of the Gentile world.

14:38 And when she fell there, behold, I've commanded a widow to sustain thee. Now apart from the facts of her life, which come to light in the narrative itself, that she was apparently a true woman with her sensitive emotional makeup, who could go all the pieces in the midst of the calamity, a woman who was tenderhearted in responding to the need of a prophet, you find a few things about her character. What do we know about her spiritual state? Well, we don't find much in this passage.

15:09 But we find many passages which can, in a valid sense, be read into this passage so that this woman can be looked upon in the light of other scriptures as to her true spiritual state. What was she like spiritually before the prophet came? Well, she was precisely what you and I are, for Scripture tells us in Romans 5 and verse 12, as by one man sin entered into the world, and so death passed upon all men, for that all sinned. 1 Corinthians 15, in Adam all died.

15:44 She was a fallen, condemned, depraved, helpless, hopeless daughter of Adam. Just like you are by nature, just like I am by nature. And when God describes the state of Gentiles who were not only fallen Adamic creatures, but who for centuries were cut off from the peculiar revelation of the light that came to the nation of Israel, this is how God describes Gentiles in Ephesians 2, verses 11 and 12. Wherefore remember that once ye, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called circumcision in the flesh made by hands,

16:29 that ye were at that time separate from Christ. Alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. What was that woman like when Elijah came to her? She was just this.

16:50 Separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, a stranger from the covenants and promises, having no hope without God in the world.

17:02 Her physical hopelessness is a language, a little picture of the terrible spiritual hopelessness of this woman. She goes out in absolute hopelessness and despair to collect a few sticks, to go back and make a little fire, to cook something for her son and herself that they may eat thereof and die. And God says that's precisely the state of all men by nature, particularly we Gentiles, who were cut off and separate from that circle of privilege within the nation of Israel. She, like all of us, was dead in trespasses and sins, blinded by the God of this world.

17:43 She had a carnal mind. It was enmity against God that was not subject to the law of God. She was a child of wrath. She was bound by the devil.

17:52 She was under the canopy of divine judgment. That's what she was. That's what you are by nature. That's what I am.

God Sovereignly Brings a Divine Messenger

18:00 Now, what did she become by divine grace and how did she become that? And this brings us to the heart, to the heart of our message tonight, how God brings such people to spiritual life. Dead people, blind, enemies of God, under condemnation and wrath. Well, notice in the first place what God did.

18:19 God sovereignly brings a divine messenger.

18:25 She's going out, she thinks, to make her last meal and die in her hopelessness, material and spiritual. But the prophet of God comes to her at that precise, precise moment. Suppose he'd come a few days later. For all we know, she'd have been dead and had gone from a hopeless existence now into a hopeless existence for eternity.

18:54 But the prophet of God comes. And why does he come? Because God sovereignly sent him. Luke 4.26 emphasizes this very, very clearly.

19:07 There were many widows in the days of Elijah the prophet. Many widows in Israel, Jesus said, but to none of them was the prophet sent, but to a widow in Zarephath. The prophet was sent. He didn't say he just came.

19:24 He was sent. He had a peculiar commission, as we read it in verse 8 of the 17th chapter. Of all the widows in Israel, in equal physical necessity, of all the widows in that Gentile area of Zarephath, of equal material and spiritual need, also dead in sins, as well as impoverished materially, also blinded by the God of this world, also under the canopy of divine wrath, to none of them is the prophet sent, but to this widow God sovereignly brings a divine messenger. And I submit to you that this is always the first factor in bringing sinners to life.

20:07 God sovereignly brings. A divine messenger. We turn to the New Testament and we find this principle illustrated and categorically stated time after time. I quote from that well-known passage in the 10th of Romans, where we read in verse 12, there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all and rich unto all that call upon him.

20:33 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, whether it's Elijah or a widow with whom he stays. How then shall they call on him of whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?

20:50 And how shall they preach except they be sent? So the first factor in bringing sinners to life is God sovereignly bringing a divine messenger. One of the most shallow objections to the biblical doctrine of election is this. People say, well, if I believe in God, if I believe that God had chosen from eternity to save a people, I wouldn't witness, I wouldn't preach the gospel.

21:18 And I want to say to people, if you say that, you tell me something about yourself, you don't read your Bible. You don't read your Bible. For no one who reads his Bible can ever conclude that. For you see, election has to do with the decrees of God, which are laid in eternity.

21:37 Getting saved has to do with the gospel of God, which is something that's carried out here in time by human beings. Like you and like me. And so the same apostle who's dealt with the mystery of election in chapter 9 of Romans, in chapters 10 speaks of the necessity of a divine messenger. How can they call on someone?

21:58 He doesn't say, well, if they're elected, they'll get saved anyway. He says, no, they must hear. A divine messenger must come with the message of salvation. Election is unto salvation, but it is not salvation.

22:10 And the means by which God saves people is not election. Election is his purpose to save. The means that he uses is the preaching of the gospel through a messenger sent in his sovereign purpose. And so the apostle Paul has no reservation about putting those two things together, not only in two chapters back to back, but in one verse.

22:33 He says in 2 Timothy 1, 10, 2, 10, Therefore I endure all things. As a gospel preacher, I endure everything. Shipwreck, Roman prisons, rats crawling over me, people spitting in my face, throwing stones upon me. I endure all things for the elect's sake.

22:51 Why? That they may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. He said, if the elect are going to get saved, they've got to hear the gospel. And if they hear it, I've got to go through rat-infested prisons and through shipwreck and stoning.

23:03 Go through them, I will, but the gospel must get to them.

23:09 Must get to them. So he puts them right together. He has no problem living with the both of them. Find the same thing in 2 Timothy, 2 Thessalonians 2, 13 and 14.

23:18 But God be thanked that he hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto he called you by my gospel.

23:31 Thank God he chose you from the beginning, but he called you by my gospel. He puts the two together. But someone says, Pastor, have you used that word wisely and legitimately? God sovereignly brings a divine messenger?

23:48 Yes. For just as surely as that woman had to acknowledge that this divine messenger came by the appointment of the God whom he represented. She didn't know it at the time, but later on she had to acknowledge it. So you and I, to whom the word of salvation has come, must acknowledge that it has come by an appointment of divine sovereignty.

24:13 If you're not convinced of that, you read through the book of the Acts. And when you come to passages like that, in Acts 16, you can only conclude that this principle is true. Notice what it says. The apostle has been given a general commission to take the gospel to the Gentiles.

24:32 But now the specific doors through which he's to walk in the entire Roman Empire, who directs which ones he shall walk through? I read in Acts 16.6, and when they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden of the Holy Spirit, to speak the word in Asia. And when they came over against Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not.

25:01 He starts to move there, and the Lord says, no, not there. He starts to move there, the Lord says, no, not there. While he's on his way, he has a vision. And God says, Macedonia is where I want you to go.

25:12 God sovereignly brings a divine messenger. You see it in the 10th chapter of Acts. He's got to put Peter in a trance and give him a vision. And knock some providence out and knock some prejudice out of his heart.

25:24 He's also got to send an angel to talk to another man. Why? Because salvation, the impartation of spiritual life, is inseparably bound up with the communication of the message of life. Therefore, the first factor leading to life is God sovereignly bringing a divine messenger.

25:47 Oh, I say to you who sit here tonight, strangers to the grace of God, what a privilege is yours.

25:56 Millions have lived and died to whom God never brought a divine messenger. Whole civilizations have risen and fallen and gone into oblivion without one watt of gospel light.

26:19 And here you sit,

26:23 flipping the radio,

26:25 turning of your TV dial,

26:29 cranking up your Chevy, and here you are.

26:34 Why?

26:37 Why? Because God, in his infinite grace and mercy, in his love and in his kindness, has sovereignly disposed all the events and circumstances bringing you and me to this hour that you might hear the message of God.

27:02 That's what makes rejection of gospel light a double damnation.

27:10 When men look up to the heavens above them and out to the world around them and see, as it were, the imprint of a sovereign God, upon all of creation, but then they exchange that truth of God for a lie, as mentioned in Romans 1, they are without excuse before God.

27:28 The dim outlines of the character of God penned by the creation itself tell men enough of God that they know he's not that thing that they worship.

27:40 But when God fills in the dim outline in the fine details of his own character, of his holiness, of his grace, of his love, of his justice, as revealed, in his dear Son, and you look at that picture and say, I don't want it! Oh, what must hell be like for gospel rejecters? It'll be bad enough for creation rejectors without excuse. But how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?

28:19 And oh, dear child of God, do you thank God that he sovereignly brought a divine messenger to you?

28:26 How long has it been, since you thanked God you weren't born over in New Guinea,

28:34 that you weren't born down in the bush in the jungles of Brazil? How long has it been, since you thanked God you weren't born just a few hundred miles north of us, up in Quebec,

28:46 where you see the effects of pagan Romanism in the darkness that it brings over the minds of people?

28:57 Why was it that you were born, as it were, with a beam of gospel light upon your forehead from the first time you drew breath? Because God sovereignly brought that message to you. Oh, what a cause of thanksgiving, even as this woman, I believe, will have for all eternity. Well, that doesn't lead to salvation of itself, though, does it?

God Powerfully Applies the Message to the Heart and Conscience

29:24 Because as some of you hear, God sovereignly brought divine messengers to you, and you sit here and you're in penitency tonight. Jesus said of the people of his day, you have eyes, but you see not, ears, but you hear not, many in Israel. God said, I sent the prophets to you early and late, but you would not hearken, you would not hear. In the same way with this woman, she was no different from any of us by nature, blinded by the God of this world, her natural mind incapable of perceiving divine truth.

29:52 So if she's to be led to life, there must not only be God sovereignly bringing a divine messenger, but the second principle we see in this passage is this, God powerfully applies the message to her heart and conscience. God powerfully applies the word. The message to her heart and conscience. What did this dark providence do?

30:20 We looked at that verse last week in another light. Let's look at it tonight. When this son dies, her first reaction is to say to the man of God, art thou come unto me to bring my sin to remembrance? You see, she begins to think in terms of the great issues of God, that his law and sin and judgment, and grace and forgiveness and the frown of God.

30:51 It's one thing to have the divine messenger come and give you the divine message about God and your accountability to him and sin and judgment. Yet experience proves that men can live as though those things were just old wives' fables. And some of you sitting here tonight are witness to that. You hear that message, but you couldn't care less.

31:16 Many of us were that way for years. We heard it, but we couldn't care less. What needs to be done? Well, you see, not only must the sovereign God bring the message, but that same God must powerfully apply that message to the heart and the conscience.

31:31 And how does he do it with this woman? He uses three things. He uses the miracle of that cruz and that barrel. Every morning she went and saw a living demonstration that the word of this prophet, of the God of Israel, was more than just a lot of religious gibberish.

31:53 When he opened up his mouth and said, As the Lord God liveth, that barrel will not fail, that cruz will not fail. Every morning she went, she had an amen. Amen. Amen.

32:04 It's true. It's true. It's true. She had that perpetual miracle to affirm that whatever came out of that prophet's mouth was the truth of God.

32:13 Not only a miracle, but she had the example of his life. She watched this man. As we saw last week, at the very moment when she wished she could find something to throw up into his face, she has to say, What have I to do with thee, O man of God? It irritates me that you're a man of God, but I've got to confess it anyway.

32:32 There's something about you, Elijah. There's no explanation but that you're God's man. You imagine what that godly example did day by day to this woman and how it acted like salt upon an open wound in her conscience. And then God used, of course, what we would call, dark providences.

32:54 Everything seemed to be going well, and in some measure, perhaps she was able even to conform to the standards of the prophet and his godly influence checked the evil tendencies of that home. And it wasn't until that sun lay dead in her bosom that her conscience is finally awakened until she cries out, Have you come to bring my sin to remembrance? So God used a miracle example in circumstances to powerfully apply the word, the message, to her heart. Now, in one sense, God doesn't use the first anymore.

33:29 God has attested the divine message with the miracles wrought by his Son and by the apostles as set forth in Hebrews. God who spoke in times past by the fathers in many ways hath in these last days spoken unto us in his Son. Then he goes on to say that the apostles, those who were with him and heard him, were his messengers, and God confirmed them. He confirmed their messages with signs and wonders and diverse gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his own will.

34:01 So in that sense, we have no ground to expect the miraculous as an attestation of the truth of the message. Why do I call upon you to listen to the message I bring of sin and judgment? Because this is the message preached by the Lord, confirmed by the miracles of his own life, and by the apostles, confirmed by the miracles of their experience. And I want you to understand that.

34:23 When God's message is preached, you should believe, because if you don't believe, you should be simply unable to checks and checks. You should believe, you must believe, you must feel true faith, and it is this faith that you should be ready to believe. If you are a believer, if you know God and you feel that God is with you, then you must believe this message. That's what we have to be aware of, we have to believe, and if you are not, then you have to believe.

34:54 If you believe this in this message, then you are a good believer, and if you are a man, That somebody's crossed your path and you've said,

35:02 if it's all a bunch of words, how can I explain that person? How can I explain it? I'd love to be able to say it's just a lot of religious gibberish. That prophet says it's just a lot of, just a lot of stuff.

35:18 But their lives won't let you do it. Some of you have witnessed and lived next to and in the presence of people whose lives, evidence, sufficient, sufficient measures of grace that you're forced to acknowledge. It gets to you sometimes, doesn't it, huh? It gets to you.

35:42 When you ask, what makes you tick? What do you live for, they say, for me to live is Christ. I was made in His image. By nature, I was a sinner and He brought me to life.

35:53 And so they give you that same old message and you try to poop on it and throw it off. But there's that life continually there, reminding you that it's true. It's true. It's true.

36:03 It's true.

36:08 And so the example of the life of this prophet, was a vital factor in leading this woman to experience an application of the message with power to her heart. The Apostle Paul uses that in his own ministry. He said, Our gospel came unto you not in word only, but in power and in the Holy Ghost and in much assurance, even as you know what manner of men we were among you, for your sakes. The manner of his life was inseparably connected with the power of his ministry.

36:41 And then, of course, there is the matter of circumstances. And I want you to be honest with me tonight, you who are saved.

36:50 Can't you remember what you did, tried to do, when in your days of impenitence, when the message had already come, but the word had not been applied to your heart with power. Remember that time you had a near miss in a car accident? And how is it where your whole life flashed before you and the truth of the message came home with piercing power. And you said, Oh God, I must get right with you.

37:13 And then, perhaps you pushed it off and then God brought another providence and another until you could push it off no longer. Isn't that how God dealt with you? To bring the word home with power? And I want some of you who are still unregenerate and impenitent, I want you to be honest with me.

37:29 Try as you like, for sudden sickness overcomes you and you don't know quite what it is. Don't you think about the God who made you and the possibility that you might be standing before him pretty soon?

37:44 Much as you'd like not to. Doesn't that happen to you kids sometimes? You get good and scared in the middle of the night and maybe you think about what would happen if it was atomic warfare. You begin to think about mommy's God and dad's God and the God you've heard the preacher talk about and the Sunday school teacher and even the possibility of dark providences.

38:07 What does it do? It brings to remembrance the issues of sin and eternity and judgment. And oh, how gracious of God to send us previews of the day. To remind us that we shall yet stand before him.

38:21 And that's why the reflex action of any man or woman, fellow or girl, when they're in what we'd call an unexpected pinch, whether it's the fellow who flocks into the foxhole with shrapnel ripping through his body, whether it's the person whose car is out of control and he sees the pole coming toward him. Why is the first instinct, oh God, oh God help me, why? Why? I'll tell you why.

38:46 As try as we may, we can't. We can't erase that remains of the image of God that makes us know we're accountable to that God and we'll stand before him in judgment. You can't do it. You can't do it.

39:01 Try as you may, you can't do it. God won't let you.

39:07 And so God not only sovereignly brings the message to this man, but he powerfully applies the word to her heart and conscience. But I say that's not even enough because I read in the book of Acts that as Paul said, Paul reasoned of righteousness and temperance and judgment to a certain king. What happened to him?

39:30 As Paul talked about these things, the word came home with power. This man shook. Here the prisoner ought to be shaking before the king who, humanly speaking, has got his life in his hands. Instead, the little hook-nosed Jew ups up and begins to talk about the very things I'm talking about until the king begins to tremble.

39:52 Almost. You persuade me. Go away, Paul. Tomorrow.

39:55 Tomorrow. Tomorrow I've got to put my conscience to sleep.

40:00 If it were to God, we'd see some holy trembling.

40:04 But I'll never convert people. I didn't convert Felix.

40:09 Hebrews 6 talks about those who tasted the good word of God and the what? The powers of the world to come, and yet they turn away.

God Graciously Brings to a Hearty Embrace of the Word of Salvation

40:18 No, if people are going to be brought to life, they not only have to have God sovereignly bring the divine messenger, God powerfully apply the word, the message to the heart and conscience, but this third factor, and we see it in this passage, God graciously brings her to a hearty embrace of the word of salvation. Notice verse 24. After the effect of the example of this man's life, after the dark providence, after this miracle not only of the cruise and of the barrel, but also of the resurrected son,

41:02 notice verse 24. And the woman said to Elijah, Now I know that thou art a man of God. Well, wait a minute. Didn't she call him a man of God in verse 17?

41:13 Verse 18? What have I to do with thee, O thou man of God? Now she says, I know that thou art a man of God. Notice.

41:22 And that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth.

41:30 I know thou art a man of God. Thou art a messenger of God. And the message, the message you bring is true. I embrace it to my heart.

41:40 Now my question is, what message?

41:43 What word?

41:47 Well, by comparing Scripture with Scripture, I don't believe we can say it's the word that he spoke in verse 14. Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, Neither shall the cruise of oil fail until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth. She knew that word was truth because she saw the living proof of it every day. And she went to get her little handful of meal and her little jar of oil.

42:10 She knew that word was truth. Well, what word?

42:16 Well, just think a little bit, will you? Can you read between the lines without any flights into fancy?

42:23 If Elijah's a man of God and he knows God as he does and he knows the salvation of God as he does, can you imagine him responding to this woman's temporal need, the cruise of oil, the barrel of meal, to the physical need of her son, pleading with God to raise him from the dead? Can you imagine him responding to what we would call the domestic needs of her affection for her son, her physical need of food, and being silent about her greatest need? What was this woman's greatest need? Well, the same as yours and mine.

43:02 To have a personal knowledge of the living God and of his salvation. Now, what do you think Elijah did for two years?

43:12 You think she ever asked questions? What would you do? If you know, here's a man that has something to do with a terrible famine that brought you to death's door, you think you might just once in the two years say, hey, how come this famine? Think maybe you would?

43:28 I think you would. And I think this woman did. And when she asked Elijah, how come this famine? What do you think he told her?

43:35 I believe he took her right back to the beginning of the history of Israel and said, I am a son of Israel. I'm a prophet of the people of Israel whom God took to himself when he called out our father Abraham. And he called him out, for this purpose. And he went through the history of Israel and the whole concept of God's covenant relationship with his people and how this God can only be approached on the basis of sacrifice because he is holy and we are sinful.

44:08 And I'm sure Elijah had great delight in telling her the promise of Genesis 3.15 about the seed of the woman that was going to come through the nation of Israel that would bruise the head of the serpent and that all of his hope and expectation was upon that one whom God had promised. And his great jealousy for Israel now was not just a national jealousy. He said, I have been jealous for the glory of God.

44:35 Israel must be preserved from idolatry because Messiah, the Savior, is going to come through Israel. I'm convinced that that word that she talked about here was that word of salvation. Known not as clearly in its details as we know it, but known. And certainly, for we read in the New Testament, God preached the gospel unto Abraham.

45:00 It says Moses accounted the reproach of Christ greater treasures than the riches of Egypt. Away with this system of Bible study that looks upon these Old Testament men as poor, blind people who didn't know anything about the Son of God and His salvation. It's ridiculous. Sure, the word of salvation has been clarified now that the Lord has come in the inspired apostleship and the apostles have interpreted in detail the meaning and the effects and benefits of His word.

45:31 There's only one explanation for the life of Elijah and he told that woman what it was. And when she said, I know that thou art a man of God and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth, it is my conviction that that word is nothing less than the word of salvation through a promised Redeemer. And then, when she embraced that word, she knew, she knew life and life more abundantly. Krumacher, one of the older commentaries on this particular life and ministry of Elijah has a beautiful section on this where he goes into some detail and I meant to bring him with me but in the last minute rush I left him sitting home on my desk.

46:17 But this is not just some strange opinion of mine. Any of the careful commentators also seem to, read the same thing between the lines in this passage. Now I submit to you that this is how God brings sinners to himself right now to this present hour. Sovereignly brings a divine messenger.

46:41 Unlike Elijah who spoke the word of God as a direct mouthpiece, his messengers now speak this word. And they are divine messengers only to the extent that they open up Scripture. But to the extent that they do, a little six year old boy, is a divine messenger when he speaks the word of God.

47:03 But having a divine messenger is not enough. God graciously applies that word to the heart with power. And then when we are brought to the place where we heartily embrace that word, what is saving faith but just that? Isn't that saving faith?

47:21 A hearty embrace of the word of salvation. It says in Acts chapter 2 on the day of Pentecost, and those people were gathered together from every nation under heaven that Peter preached the message. Then it says they were pricked to the heart. God powerfully applied it.

47:39 Then it says they that gladly received his word. That's faith. Gladly receiving that word. What word?

47:46 The word that first of all comes announcing my condemnation. That word that comes announcing God's free mercy in Jesus Christ. That word that comes promising pardon. Through the merits of a redeemer.

48:02 That word which comes demanding that I stack arms, repent, and throw myself upon the mercy of God in Christ. When you can embrace that word in its entirety,

48:15 then you've believed upon the Lord Jesus. That's what it means to believe. To embrace that word. There was a great moving of God down in Samaria.

48:25 And when they wanted to describe it, it says, Now when the apostles heard that Samaria had received the word of God,

48:34 Now see, it's not faith when a person, as it were, reaches up through and says, Wait, there's the word about repent. Throw that aside. There's the word about submit to Christ. I'll throw that aside.

48:44 And there's the word that tells me I'm dead and undone. I'll throw that aside. Oh, but there's a nice little word I like. God so loved the world that who to believe.

48:50 I'll reach up and I'll get that little word. That's not saving faith. That's self-delusion. That's self-delusion.

48:59 Reach up and snatch a little word. Ah, this woman said, If you're a man of God and the word of the Lord, Anything you speak in His name, it's true. I embrace it all. I take it all.

49:13 Is that you?

49:16 Is that you?

49:18 Have you found God graciously disposing you to embrace that word? So that when it says you're a rebel, vile, hopeless, undone, You say, Oh God, that's the truth. And when it says, Behold my son, God and man, Suffered, bled, and died, rose, lives, To save, oh God, it's true. Repent, oh God, by your grace, I will.

49:44 Believe, oh God, I do. Embracing the word. That's faith. This woman was brought to faith and to all the blessed fruit of faith, Both in her own relationship to the Lord and in the outworking of her life.

Appeal to Unbelievers and Exhortation to Believers

50:01 And so, if you sit here tonight, a stranger to grace, I appeal to you in the name of my Savior, Repent, believe the gospel, embrace the word of salvation.

50:18 And as we close, I want to bring a special word of exhortation to you as God's people,

50:24 That you pray that God will make you an Elijah.

50:28 You mean, should I pray God give me the ability to raise up dead boys? No, I don't think you've got any grounds to pray that. Well, should I pray that God will put me in competition with Shoprite and Pathmark, And be able to turn out barrels and fuses, And be able to turn out bottles and fuses of oil that never fail? No, I mean, pray that God will make you an Elijah, In the way that Elijah was the instrument through which this woman was brought to life.

50:56 That you will be his messenger. That you will be the instrument through which conviction will come because of the life that you live. And I would just lay these simple principles before you that we see in the life of Elijah. He was involved in the impartation of life to this woman.

51:14 Because he was obedient to the revealed will of God. When God said, arise, go to Zarephath, he went.

51:21 A widow? What in the world is a widow going to do to take care of me? No questions asked. Arise, go. He did it.

51:27 How can you be an Elijah? Just mind the Lord, and mind your own business. Just mind the Lord, and mind your own business. We're going to see next Sunday morning, Lord, but that's what Paul told the people.

51:38 That you study to be quiet and do your own business. Mind your own business.

51:44 There's enough of the revealed will of God to keep you occupied for morning, till night, and then to face you right again when you wake up in the morning. So he said, mind your own business. Don't mind God's business, and don't mind somebody else's business. Mind your own business.

51:59 So Elijah didn't mind the Lord's business. He didn't say, God, this is silly, this is ridiculous. To go in a famine, no. The Lord said, go. He went.

52:08 He didn't say like John, and Lord, what shall this man do? The Lord told him, mind his own business. You remember?

52:14 Peter, the Lord said, now you do this, do this. And he turned around and said, Lord, what about John? And the Lord says, what? Is that to thee?

52:20 Follow thou me? Just a polite Elizabethan way of translating what would be much better in the 20th century of an acronym. Mind your business, Peter. If I told you what I want you to do, then do it.

52:30 Mind your business, Peter. Oh, may God help us to see that so often, as it were, waiting in the wings for some spectacular task, God would have some needy widow to whom we could minister. We don't mind our business. Obedient to the revealed will of God.

52:48 There's a housewife. There's whatever else we are. Secondly, he was consistent in the details of his own personal life.

52:58 How do you become, quote, a soul winner? Not by going to a class, ten easy rules on how to lead people to Christ. Take those rules and burn them.

53:08 At least the word easy.

53:11 It's not easy to be a soul winner like Elijah was, to live in a home for two years and have nothing that people can throw up in your face. I find it difficult to go through one day without having something that I have to confess to the Lord and often. I ask God to give me a chance to confess to my own wife and children if they're going to know that the message is true.

53:37 God wants that message in flesh and blood, and he wants your flesh and blood to be the attestation of its truth and its power, so that regardless of what people try to say about that message and throw it off, there you are, as a barb in their conscience, telling them it's true, because the effect of the message is seen in you.

53:57 He was obedient to the revealed will of God, consistent in the details of his personal life. Third thing, he was faithful to give the word of God. He wasn't sitting around pouting, saying, Lord, I'm the prophet of Israel. I stood before the king, and now here I am, a little two-bit widow.

54:12 Man, Lord, hurry up. Get me up to Carmel. I want to get before the crowds again. See?

54:18 None of that. Here he is, stuck, as it were, in absolute obscurity with one woman and her son.

54:27 But she says, Oh, that word you've given me. He was faithful to convey the word. Oh, how deceitful our hearts are. Oh, Lord, if you'd give me this opportunity and that opportunity and this, and I'd really witness.

54:39 No, you wouldn't. No, you wouldn't.

54:43 It's only the one who's faithful and little to whom the Lord entrusts much.

54:49 You see any connection between Mount Carmel and Zarephath?

54:53 God will vindicate his word and his truth before a multitude through a man who's been faithful to an individual.

55:02 So be faithful in giving out that word.

55:06 Those people you're with, the hospital, place of employment, your parents, with your own children.

55:15 And then the last thing.

55:19 Be prayerful that the God alone who can impart life will impart it. You know, I see something in the 18th chapter that convinces me that Elijah believed in the doctrines of free grace. That only God can turn people's hearts and give them faith. How do I know it?

55:34 Listen to what he says. 1 Kings 18, 37. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou, Lord, art God, and that thou hast turned their hearts back again.

55:51 Elijah believed the doctrines of grace. God had to turn people's hearts. And Elijah knows that only God can open the blinded eyes of this widow. He's there, obedient.

56:02 He's there, consistent in his life. He's there, giving the word. But I'm convinced that just as he responded to the need of that dead boy physically and pleaded with God, that that room was witness to his lonely pleadings with God day in and day out, that God would resurrect. That God would resurrect this dead sinner and give her spiritual life.

56:23 And he lived to see the answer to his prayers as God brought this Gentile dead sinner to spiritual life. And God then, in his grace and mercy, may be pleased to use us as he used him to impart spiritual life. How does he do it? Sovereignly brings a messenger, powerfully applies the message, graciously enables men.

56:55 To embrace that message from the heart. Oh, would that God would so own the word tonight that some of you would be enabled to embrace that word. This is what I live for as a servant of God.

57:09 May God grant it right now. He will embrace that message and say, Oh God, I do cast myself upon thy dear son for mercy and forgiveness, a time for eternity.