Trusting God When Everything Runs Out – 1 Kings 17

We are into week two of this new series and it was great to open God's Word with you last week. Like I said last week, this is a series I've been wanting to do for quite a long time. And we've fit it into our 2026 preaching schedule. And so we're working through the book of 1 Kings, so through the second part of it, through the story of Elijah and following him. And it's great to be into part two of that today as we prepare to come to God's Word together.

Why don't we pray? God, we thank you that now as we come to your word, Lord, that we can be confident you're going to speak to us. And so we ask that you might do that today, Lord, that as we come, Father, that we would have open hearts and open ears to hear from you, that we might receive what it is that you want to say through your word. So we ask you this in Jesus name, Amen. If you've been around Canberra for a little while, and by a little while I mean since kind of the late 90s, early 2000s, which I feel like in this church, there's not many of us, there's only a handful of us who have been in Canberra for that long.

But those who have been in Canberra for that long might remember that in the early 2000s, we had a really bad drought. In fact, even if you were in other cities of Australia, the drought was mostly across the east of the country. It was the worst drought on record since 1900. It was between 1997 and 2009 is the years that we, we were officially in drought. And during that period of drought, Canberra entered stage three water restrictions.

Now stage three water restrictions meant you couldn't water your lawn, so all the grass went very, very brown. You weren't allowed to wash your car at home at all. You could put water on your garden beds, but only from buckets. You were only allowed to do that on your day, like a specific assigned day, and only during a three hour window. And so if you missed your three hour window, you just had to like wait until two days later when your day came again.

It was a serious drought, as Canberra goes. In fact, it was so serious that we were getting damn level updates on social media and on the news every single day. They were telling us what percentage of capacity the dams were at. And we got down to 31% capacity. Now I had to look that up.

I'm not like a weirdo who remembers things like that. 31% capacity is the level that we got to now, for most of us in Canberra, the drought was just an inconvenience. It wasn't a catastrophe. It was an inconvenience because well looked after lawns and gardens started to die and go brown. We were encouraged to limit our showers.

So if you're a long showerer, maybe if the person next to you is, you can nudge them now. We were encouraged to limit our showers, but ultimately we were confident and all the way through, at least I was, that there was always going to be food on the table. We were confident that when we turned on the tap that water would come out. It was a. It was a hassle, it was an inconvenience, but it wasn't a catastrophe.

But as we come to 1 Kings 17, we see that their experience to drought in the Northern Kingdom of Israel in the days of King Ahab is very, very different to ours because they had none of the things that made drought survivable. There were no taps, there were no dams, there were no supermarkets. It was an agricultural, agrarian society. And what that meant was that no water meant no crops and no crops meant no food. And drought was absolutely devastating.

Last week we saw that Ahab, who was reigning in the Northern Kingdom, he turned God's own people away from God to the Canaanite God of baal. And BAAL was supposedly the storm God. BAAL was responsible for the rain and the dew. And Elijah goes to Ahab and says, there's going to be no rain. There'll be no water in the land until I say so.

We kind of expect that he will then go on a tour of all the towns and he'll start declaring this to everyone and calling the people back to God. But he doesn't. God hides him away there by the brook Kerith, where God miraculously provides for him. Then as we continue this morning, we're going to pick it up in 1 Kings chapter 17. If you have Bibles, you can turn there.

The words will come up on the screen in just a moment. But we see that even in a nation that has turned from God, that God has not stopped speaking. And we're going to watch him speak this morning into four hopeless places. Those four hopeless places will come up on the screen there. God speaks beside a dry brook where the water has gone.

He speaks at a foreign gate where the destitute widow. He speaks in an empty kitchen with only one meal left. And he speaks in a home where a boy has died. So let's pick it up from 1 Kings 17:7 but after a while, the brook dried up, for there was no rainfall anywhere in the land. Elijah's been obedient at every step.

He's only been on the scene for a little bit of time, but he's done exactly what God has asked him to do. He's confronted Ahab. He's declared God's judgment. He's gone east where God told him to go. And yet the brook runs dry.

Isn't it interesting that God commanded ravens to bring him food and the ravens bring him food? God could have commanded the brook to keep flowing, but he doesn't. Instead, Elijah now faces the same consequences that the people face the judgment of God that he has declared. He is now living under himself. There's a really quick point I want us to see here.

I want us to see this, that obedience to God and difficulty are not opposites. I think we can get this picture of God's will. We kind of talk about God's will a lot like living inside of God's will. I want to make decisions that are in line with God's will. And that's great.

But sometimes we think that if we're in God's will, that nothing wrong will happen to us, that we won't deal with the consequences of this earth, that everything will go well for us. But it's not what happens here. Elijah has done exactly as God asked him. He's living obedient to God, and yet the brook runs dry. And what I find remarkable is that nowhere does it say that God spoke to Elijah and said, hey, Elijah, in about six weeks, in about six weeks, the brook is going to run dry.

But it's okay. Like, I've got another plan. It's going to be great. Just stay there. And then when it runs dry, you can go.

God doesn't speak. And Elijah just watches the water level fall and fall and fall until suddenly there is no more water. And then God speaks. God's teaching Elijah. He's teaching to trust in his provision one day at a time.

We saw that last week, didn't we? How hard it is. We want, almost want God to provide us an abundance. God, give me everything I need for every day for the rest of my life so I don't have to worry anymore. And God says, trust the best abundance you can have is trust in me, that I will keep on providing for you.

And we see that when the brook finally runs dry, that God has not forgotten Elijah. Because God does not forsake his people. He has not forgotten Elijah. He's already prepared the next provision for him. But it's in a place and in a way that is going to require Elijah to trust even more.

And so in verse eight, we see that. We see that come in another hopeless place at a foreign gate with a destitute widow. Verse 8 says this. Then the Lord said to Elijah, go and live in the village of Zarephath near the city of Sidon. I have instructed a widow there to feed you.

So he went to Zarephath. As he arrived at the gates of the village, he saw a widow gathering sticks. And he asked her, would you please bring me a little water in a cup at the brook? Elijah had been learning to trust that God would protect him from Ahab, that God would provide for him. And he's going to need that.

He's going to need that lesson, that trust that he's learned in this next place. Because God's word comes to him and tells him two remarkable things. First, God says, go to Zarephath in Sidon. Now, that probably means very little to us. We're like, I don't know about you, but I'm not really fully across the geography off the top of my head.

But Zarephath in Sidon is a town that sits outside of Israel. It's out of the Promised land. It's on the Mediterranean coast. It's about 130 kilometer walk. For the prophet who is in hiding, he's got a walk across Israel.

The other important thing is it tells us that Zarephath is in Sidon. Now, if that name sounds familiar to you, that's because last week we heard that Sidon is the homeland of Jezebel. I wonder what Elijah thought when God said, go to Zarephath. Go to the homeland of Jezebel, the queen who is turning God's people to baal, who is killing God's prophets. Go there.

If I was Elijah, I'd be saying God, like, are you sure? I'm sure there is somewhere better that I can go, somewhere safer that I can go. But it's not an accident, because God has already shown the people that BAAL has no control over the rain. This idol that you are worshiping has no control over the rain. And now he's going to show them that he can even take his prophet into the land of BAAL and provide for him and protect him even there.

But just as remarkable as the location is the person through who God says he'll provide. Because God says, I'm going to provide through a widow of all the People you could go to in the ancient world for food. In a drought, the last person you'd go to is a widow. It's the last person you would go to. And he finds her there at the city gate, picking up sticks.

And we learn pretty quickly that her situation is even worse because not only is she a widow, she's a widow with a dependent son. There's no pension, there's no Centrelink payments, there's no community support programs. Her only hope is that her boy would grow, grow up and be able to work and be able to provide for her. But as of now, it's her having to provide for him.

I want you to draw your attention to verse nine. Because in verse nine, it doesn't say, I'm going to instruct a widow there. God says, I have instructed. I have instructed a widow there. Now, that's interesting, because in a minute, when Elijah goes there, the widow isn't waiting at the gate for him with a hot meal.

In fact, I think if you had got there first and said, hey, are you waiting for God's prophet who's going to come and you're going to feed him? I think she would have said, what are you talking about? Like, I know nothing about this. Isn't it remarkable, though, that before Elijah steps away from the brook, that God has already instructed provision for him? But God's at work in the widow's heart.

We saw it in the Book of Esther, our last series. You can go back there and rewatch it if you want. Listen to the sermons during the week. But we saw over and over again that God works in the heart, often of unsuspecting people. He softens hearts.

His sovereign plans and his will will happen regardless of whether the people know it or not. And so we see the widow respond in kindness to Elijah. And that's so often how God works in our lives, too. He softens people's hearts and they respond in kindness towards his people. So that's our second hopeless place.

A town gate in an enemy country. And even there, God is at work. God is speaking. In verse 11, it takes us to our third hopeless place. An empty kitchen with only one meal left.

Verse 11 says this. And as she was going to get it, he called to her, bring me a bite of bread, too. But she said, I swear by the Lord your God that I don't have a single piece of bread in the house. And I have only a handful of flour left in the jar and a little cooking oil in the bottom of the jug. I was gathering A few sticks to cook this last meal, and then my son and I will die.

I love it that Elijah calls out to her as she's going to get it. I wonder if you've got someone in your house that's a little bit prone to that. Like, wait for the person to get it. Oh, while you're up, can you get me. Our kids are great at it.

They'll sit there. I think it's like a standoff. None of them are getting up. Then one of them finally gets up, and one of the others will ask them to do, like, a really complicated, intricate thing. We're like, no, no, no, you can't ask that.

It's like, can you pass me that. That shoe or that, you know, book or whatever? That's okay. But saying, can you go into the kitchen and make me some toast while you're up? Doesn't count.

So Elijah says, oh, while you're up, can you also get me a bite of bread? Can you get me something to eat? Now, the cost of that becomes clear very quickly because the widow says, I'm here. I'm gathering sticks. I'm going to use them to cook one final meal, and then my son and I will eat it.

And then I expect that we'll die. This isn't hyperbole. It's not exaggeration. It's not poetic. It's the reality she faces.

Must have been a harrowing several months leading up to this as she counted down the days and watched the flour and the oil in her house run out. I suspect she's probably sold everything of value that she owns in the hope that she can use that to feed her and her son. And now she has got to the very end and then turns up this foreigner, this Israelite. It's not even someone from her town. And he's asking her to give away part of what little she has left.

And so she says this. She says, I swear by the Lord your God. You see, Yahweh is not her God. It's as if she's heard of him. She must have heard of him.

She obviously knows that Elijah is someone who follows Yahweh. She says, I swear by the Lord your God, she's saying, if I'm lying, may your God punish me. The widow has looked at her empty kitchen as she's looked, and she's seen it empty. She's seen the jars running out. Elijah looks, and he sees something else entirely.

You see, God had provided for him through ravens. God can provide for him through some empty Jars and a widow. He has confidence that God can do it. And so he says to her in verse 13, don't be afraid. Go ahead and do just what you've said, but make a little bread for me first.

Then use what's left to prepare a meal for yourself and your son. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says. There will always be flour and olive oil left in your containers until the time when the Lord sends rain and the crops grow again. Isn't it interesting that before Elijah says anything else, before he asks for anything else, he says to her, don't be afraid. I think that's important for us to see that this morning, because so many people in our community, in our neighbourhoods, have physical needs.

Isn't it awesome that our Community Engagement Team is partnering with organisations that are doing wonderful work in this community? But there's a bigger need. Elijah sees the bigger need because there's a spiritual need here, because the woman has lived with fear for months and months and months. She's been afraid. She's been afraid for her son, she's been afraid of death.

She's been afraid because the gods of her land have given her no hope.

Elijah meets that fear with a promise from God, from the God of Israel, and. And every promise from God can be trusted. Isn't it interesting that she can't verify it before she obeys? She has to use the flour first, the oil first, and then to discover if God is telling the truth. So the question here is not whether or not she has enough.

We know she doesn't have enough. The question is whether God's word is reliable to act on before she sees the outcome. It's the same lesson that Elijah has been learning. God's word is reliable enough to act on before they see the outcome. And so the widow does trust.

And in verse 15, we read, so she did as Elijah said. And she and Elijah and her family continued to eat for many days. There was enough. There was always enough flour and olive oil left in the containers. And just as the Lord had promised through Elijah, I love that it says there, just as the Lord had promised.

It's the third time in this chapter that we've seen this pattern, the pattern that God's word comes, His Word promises and His Word proves true. And that is a pattern you can rely on. God's word is spoken, it's promised. God's word comes, it promises and it is true. You know, so many of you in this church know that personally, you've lived in a season or Many seasons of faith where you've had to trust God, you've stood on God's promises and you've said, God, I know I can trust that you will keep your word.

And God has kept his word. And now you've got incredible testimonies of that. You know, I think back to the legacy that we have here of that at Horizon. God called Pastor Mario and Pastor Greg to Canberra in obedience long before a decade before they could see Horizon Planet here. Isn't it incredible that sometimes obedience comes years before we see the results?

And so whatever season you're in, the challenge is trust God, obey God, even when you can't see the outcome yet. Let's look at our fourth hopeless place, an upper room where a boy has died. Verse 17. Sometime later, the woman's son became sick. He grew worse and worse, and finally he died.

Then she said to Elijah, o man of God, what have you done to me? Have you come here to point out my sins and kill my son?

I kind of wish 1 Kings 17 finished at the end of verse 16. Because if it finished at the end of verse 16, it's like an amazing story of obedience and provision. But then we have verse 17 and verse 18, the woman's son gets sick. He doesn't get any better, and then he dies. It's a dreadful loss for the widow.

It's a loss of all of her dreams for his future and all of her dreams for her future. It's the worst thing that can happen to a parent. And she turns to Elijah and she says, what have you done to me, oh man of God? What have you done to me? You've come here to point out my sins, that your God would kill my son.

You know, instinctively, she reaches for a theology that I think a lot of people in this world still reach for that in moments of suffering. We think that that suffering must be payment for some specific sin I've committed. God is judging me. He is bringing about this suffering in my life to punish me for this sin. But here's what I want you to see this morning.

That when God's judgment comes for sin, even in the Old Testament, God doesn't leave us guessing. He doesn't creep up in secret. He doesn't bring about this suffering and then just sit back and watch and enjoy the pain that the widow is going through. The that is what they thought their gods did. Their gods were callous and they were cruel and they were vindictive and harsh.

But Elijah's God is not like that. You see, the death Here is not as the result of some specific sin of the widow or of her son. It doesn't say that in the passage. It is simply not there. The death is a consequence of living in a broken world.

A broken world that has been ruined by all of our sin. A broken world where there is suffering and sickness and death. Now, I love the fact that even though she's wrong in her assumption, Elijah doesn't rebuke her. Do you see that the prophet of God doesn't come to the grieving mother and condemn her for what she said. That is just wrong.

Instead, Scripture simply records it. And I think that's one of the greatest mercies of Scripture, is that it doesn't sanitize away grief. It doesn't sanitize away pain. It doesn't ever pretend that faithful people are spared the pain and the difficulties of this world. The woman has trusted a God she cannot see.

She's trusted a promise that he's given to her. She's fed a prophet out of nothing. She's watched God do miracles, and now her son is dead. Here's what I want us to see as we look at verse 19. This woman has got nowhere to look to see the compassion of God.

You know, we have got God's word. We can look at Jesus in the Gospels. We can see God's compassion in a human form. But she didn't have that. The only way she can see the compassion of God is to look at the prophet of God.

She's blamed him for her son's death, even though it wasn't his fault. And so Elijah doesn't respond in anger. He doesn't correct her theology. He responds with compassion. Verse 19.

But Elijah replied, give me your son. And he took the child's body from her arms, carried him up the stairs to the room where he was staying, and laid his body on the bed. Then Elijah cried out to the Lord, O Lord, my God, why have you brought this tragedy to this widow who has opened her home to me, causing her son to die? And he stretched himself out over the child three times and cried out to the Lord, oh, Lord, my God, please let this child's life return to him. The Lord heard Elijah's prayer, and the life of the child returned and he revived.

Then Elijah brought him down from the upper room and gave him to his mother. Look, he said, your son is alive. Then the woman told Elijah, now I know for sure that you are a man of God and that the Lord truly speaks through you. Elijah takes the body of the boy Carries him upstairs to his room. We don't know why he took him there.

All I would suggest to you this morning is that that is probably the place Elijah goes in prayer. It's probably there where he has built this pattern, this habit of crying out to God. I'd encourage you to have your own place. You can pray anywhere, but have a place where you go and you cry out to God. And that's what Elijah does.

He takes the despair of the widow to. To a loving God. He says, she's a widow. She's opened her home to me. Do not let her be worse off for her kindness.

See, Elijah doesn't claim anything for himself. He's not saying, God, this will look bad on me if she doesn't come back to life or God. You know, no one's going to let me stay at their house if this is what happens. None of it is about him. He's pleading God's character and God's mercy over the boy's life.

This scene is remarkable. Up to this point in time, no one in Scripture has been raised from the dead. Elijah has got no precedent for this. He's got no story he can go back to and say, I know God. You can do this.

Instead, he just trusts. He's seen God feed him through ravens. He's seen God feed him through empty kitchen jars. Now, he knows that his God can raise the dead. And so Elijah prays and God does.

He brings the boy back to life. Can you imagine the joy of that widow as Elijah brings him down the stairs? And then look at it at the start. Remember, in verse 12, she said, the Lord your God. Now, she doesn't say the Lord your God.

It is simply, I know the Lord truly speaks. The word truly here in the Hebrew means firm and reliable. It means something you can put your weight on. The widow says, I know God's word is firm and it's reliable. I can trust in it.

It is a firm foundation. You know, that's the whole point so far of this series, because Israel is not saying that they've turned from God. They've built an altar to baal. They have a king who's made idolatry the national religion. They have a queen who's executing God's prophets.

They, the people of God are silent. In Sidon, in Jezebel's home country, supposedly Baal's own territory, a poor widow holds her now living son. And she says, the Lord speaks and he tells the truth. It's incredible. I want to take you to a fifth place.

This morning, hundreds of years later, Jesus goes home to his home town of Nazareth, and he stands up in the synagogue. It's the place he grew up. These people know him. They've watched him. And he speaks to them about this widow.

He talks about the widow in Zarephath and the people in this. He says there were plenty of widows in Israel, but God did not send his prophet Elijah to any of them. He sent him to a widow in Zarephath. And the people there are so enraged that they actually drag him out and they try to throw him off a cliff.

They're offended by the idea that God would choose someone outside of the Jews, that he would do miracles and provide for Elijah through a widow in Zarephath. You see, Jesus held up this story that we've just looked at this morning and said, look at who listened to God and look at who didn't. And the people are enraged. Now, I want to challenge you with one of two things this morning. The first is for those of you who have been in church for a long time, maybe you've been a Christian for many years, I want to challenge you.

Because God's people did not miss out, because God stopped speaking. He'd spoken through Moses, he'd spoken through the covenant, he'd spoken through his prophets. His people just stopped listening. Plenty of people heard God speak. But what made the widow different was what she did next.

She didn't just hear God's word, she obeyed God's word. You know, if you went back there, there would have been people all over Israel who could have told you what God said, what God wanted, what God's the covenant was with his people. They knew all the warnings. They had heard it all before, and yet they were bowing to BAAL anyway. It's a very, very gradual progression.

It didn't creep up on them. In fact, the first king in the northern kingdom of Israel, he just turned the people slightly away from God. And now they find themselves worshipping BAAL with altars to Asherah in places where there should be worship of God. So I want to encourage you this morning. The Book of James says it much more clearly than I can.

Don't just listen to the word. If you do. If you just listen, you're fooling yourselves. Actually do what it says. Actually do what it says.

Don't just listen to God. Speak. Obey what he says. So that's my encouragement to you this morning. But maybe there's another group of people here and you feel a bit like an outsider.

You feel Maybe a bit like the widow. You're not really sure what it is you're doing here.

The great encouragement for us this morning is that this passage shows us that God is not restricted to who he will work in. He comes to this widow in this town of Zarephath, away from God's people, and he works in her heart. So my encouragement to you is, if that's you, just trust God is at work in your life today. Is at work in outsiders like us. He sent his son, Jesus, so that we might have life.

Let's pray. God, we thank youk for your word today. Lord. We pray that we would let it sink into our hearts, Lord, that it wouldn't just become an academic exercise. But, Father, it might transform us, Lord, for those here today who are struggling because they don't know that they fit, Lord.

They don't know that God could really use them, that God could really save them. Lord, I pray that through your Holy Spirit, that you would reassure them that once they put their hope and their trust in you, that they've been made right with God. And Lord, we pray for the rest of us, Lord, that you would encourage us to not just be hearers of your Word, but to be obedient to it, just like the widow was. So we ask you this in Jesus name, Amen.

Sa.