What Have You?
Notes
Transcript
1 Now a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord; and the creditor has come to take my two children to be his slaves.”
2 Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” And she said, “Your maidservant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.”
3 Then he said, “Go, borrow vessels at large for yourself from all your neighbors, even empty vessels; do not get a few.
4 “And you shall go in and shut the door behind you and your sons, and pour out into all these vessels, and you shall set aside what is full.”
5 So she went from him and shut the door behind her and her sons; they were bringing the vessels to her and she poured.
6 When the vessels were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.” And he said to her, “There is not one vessel more.” And the oil stopped.
7 Then she came and told the man of God. And he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debt, and you and your sons can live on the rest.”
Sometimes we read a text and we need to get into the nitty-gritty hermeneutics, the nuances of the vowels, the possessives and original languages…
Other times we need to look at the message of the passage.
We could look at the historical context of his passage, or treat it as simply a historical chronicling of an event. But we would miss the main picture of what is shown here.
1 Now a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord; and the creditor has come to take my two children to be his slaves.”
Here we have a problem, a major problem.
2 Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” And she said, “Your maidservant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.”
Here we have an evaluation of the situation at hand.
We all have a choice, we can sit and do nothing with what we do have, or we can evaluate what we do have and make a plan.
The Lord asks for what we do have, and uses it.
Too many times has fear prevented us from walking in the Lord and being blessed.
1 And He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury. 2 And He saw a poor widow putting in two small copper coins. 3 And He said, “Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all of them; 4 for they all out of their surplus put into the offering; but she out of her poverty put in all that she had to live on.”
Now the Bible does not say that this widow became a millionaire out of placing a seed offering and all was good.
But I am confident that she did not go without and had what she needed.
3 Then he said, “Go, borrow vessels at large for yourself from all your neighbors, even empty vessels; do not get a few. 4 “And you shall go in and shut the door behind you and your sons, and pour out into all these vessels, and you shall set aside what is full.”
I want us to take note here to what Elisha just called this woman too.
He has called her to both obedience and faith.
Our obedience proves our faith. Do we believe that God is who He says He is and will do what He says He will?
5 So she went from him and shut the door behind her and her sons; they were bringing the vessels to her and she poured. 6 When the vessels were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.” And he said to her, “There is not one vessel more.” And the oil stopped.
Take note here of the lack of excess, there was enough for the vessels and not a drop more.
If I have learned anything about the Lord in my walk, it is the precision He has on things.
Every thing He does has a precise calibration to it.
(Look at the Sun and the Earth, a small degree of movement one way or the other would either roast us or freeze us.)
(Underground church in prison camp with multivitamins)
7 Then she came and told the man of God. And he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debt, and you and your sons can live on the rest.”
Again this does not show a woman who got rich quick.
The Lord met her where she was, took what she had, and made the impossible possible.
But to do so it took something from her.
She had to give up the known, the comfort zone, control
She had to trust that God would be God and she gave it all to Him.
She had to be obedient.
Take Home?
What is it that God has been telling you to trust Him on?
He lost nothing by giving all to God.
Andrew Murray
It starts with ownership, we either belong to God or we don’t,
I know as American’s we hate to hear this,
but we own nothing, not even our very lives. We are all stewards of these lives and all that has been given to us.
All we are called to is obedience and that obedience proves how faithful we are as stewards.
Dawn offering
