The next test of faith-Episode #3

I Kings 17:17-18

17        Now it came about after these things, that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became sick; and his sickness was so severe, that there was no breath left in him.

18        So she said to Elijah, "What do I have to do with you, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my iniquity to remembrance, and to put my son to death!" (NAS)

Remember, this woman of Zarepath was a Sidonian-which means she was a Phoenician and idol worship was what she grew up with.  Yet she knew that Elijah’s God existed also and saw how He provided for the three of them, and very possibly she figured that this was because God wanted to keep Elijah alive during this 3 year drought. She may never had considered that God, Elijah’s God, even cared about her and her son.  And here one day her son becomes ill, and becomes so ill that he dies.  Now look at this woman’s reaction to the whole situation.  She starts blaming Elijah for her son’s death - she is so grief stricken - and then on top of that has a guilty conscience about many things she had done in her past so tells him that he is just there to bring her sins back up into her face and kill her son as punishment.  She is bitter.  And in that bitterness she can’t see that God could have had any interest in her.  None of the gods she knew of as she grew up ever cared about mortals anyway.  Humans were just the playthings of the gods to her pagan way of thinking.  She knows Elijah’s God is a bit different, but she has yet to find out how different.  Look what happens next-

I Kings 17:19-24

19        And he said to her, "Give me your son." Then he took him from her bosom and carried him up to the upper room where he was living, and laid him on his own bed.

20        And he called to the LORD and said, "O LORD my God, hast Thou also brought calamity to the widow with whom I am staying, by causing her son to die?"

21        Then he stretched himself upon the child three times, and called to the LORD, and said, "O LORD my God, I pray Thee, let this child's life return to him."

22        And the LORD heard the voice of Elijah, and the life of the child returned to him and he revived.

23        And Elijah took the child, and brought him down from the upper room into the house and gave him to his mother; and Elijah said, "See, your son is alive."

24        Then 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." (NAS)

Look at Elijah’s response.  He doesn’t get angry at her.  He knows she is speaking out of her grief.  I believe he is grieving too for I am sure he had become attached to this young boy as well as to his mother.

He tells her, “Give me your son” and then takes him to an upstairs room in the house, puts him on the bed and prays.  He cries out to the Lord literally, asking God, “Did you really do this?”  And then-it had to be on God’s instructions- he laid out his body three times on the boy’s body, praying that God would restore his life.  Now we don’t know if Elijah tried any artificial respiration on the boy or not, but unless God answered the prayer, nothing Elijah could have tried would have worked.  Well, it was God’s will to answer Elijah’s prayer and He sent breath back into the boy’s body.   The boy became alive again.  Immediately -no doubt with joy and relief- he brought the revived boy back downstairs to his mom and said, “See, your son is alive.”  Well that changed everything for this woman.  She had believed Elijah in the past but the death of her son had dashed her faith.  You can see in her answer-, "Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in your mouth is truth."  Her faith in Elijah and God as Elijah has described Him is restored.

Not many of us have been in the kind of situation this woman found herself in, but you can see that Elijah had to have been teaching her about God, about His character, power, etc. and God’s character in her eyes was being contradicted by her son’s death.  So she lost faith.  We can praise God that Elijah didn’t lose his faith on seeing the boy die, but you can bet he wanted God’s favor to be on that boy and his mom.  He knew God had control over life and death, and he knew God could raise that boy from the dead, which was exactly what God did as a result of Elijah’s plea.  Would God have answered the mother’s prayer?  I have my doubts that He would have, but Elijah’s prayer was another thing.  Why?  Elijah was a man of God-a follower of God, a man who knew God was a God of love. He was obedient to God. He was  a man who loved God.  This widow was not all these things.  Not only was she outside the pale from the religious point of view, (God’s promises were to the people of Israel, not to the gentiles at this time) but she had never been an honest to goodness follower of God.  I certain that through Elijah’s influence and faithfulness to God, that she eventually became one.  She may have become a convert to Judaism, we don’t know.  What we do know is that Elijah’s faith held out in all this time and we know that he pleased God by his faith and was counted righteous because of his faith-just as is true of Abraham. 

Let’s all learn from Elijah’s persistent faith in a loving and powerful God.  God bless you and have a great weekend.  The Good News Lady