God is for me—wondrous story!
Can such goodness really be?
God, the God of Light and Glory,
For a ruin'd thing like me.
Secret hid from earth-taught sages,
Yet to childlike faith now shown;
Secret kept through countless ages,
In the cross of Christ made known.
Blessed they who learn to say it!
In a risen Christ, who see
Him who could alone display it,
Spite of ruin—God for me.
Once against me, Satan's power,
Once against me, self and sins;
All o'ercome in that blest hour
Which at Calvary begins.
God is for me—words of glory,
Secret to my heart made known:
Blotting out its own sad story,
Filling it with Christ alone.
When shall dawn the day of glory,
"Face to face "I then shall see
Him who told in Death the story
Of God's perfect love to me.
All the church in heavenly glory
Ever one with Him shall be.
This alone the perfect story
Of His perfect love to me.
God for me—oh, wondrous story!
Secret which from heaven doth shine!
All the praise and all the glory,
Lamb of God! be ever Thine.
1 KINGS 17
1KI 17THE Little Maid gave us a few thoughts about Opportunities and Responsibilities, that is about all the good things God has put in your way, and the answer He looks for from you in return; but above and beyond all the opportunities, there is a precious lesson for my heart to learn, the very secret of all good, a wonderful secret, a secret which angels could never have guessed, yet which God is willing to make known to every listening heart, even the heart of a child, and it is this—God For Me. Three such simple words; the youngest of readers can read them for himself or for herself, yet three such precious, such wonderful words, that it will need the bright light of heaven itself and all the days of eternity to make us fully understand them. But they were made known in a dark day, that day when “there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. And the sun was darkened:” it needed all that long solemn story of Luke 23, the story of the cross of Christ, to make a way for these three little words—God for me.
If you had made a beautiful picture you would need the light of the sun to show it by, or if the sun was set you would need the light of a lamp or candle, but God does not show His best pictures by the light of men's lamps and candles; no, nor even by the light of His own sun; it is often in a dark day that His brightest things are seen.
The day of “The Widow's Son" was a dark, dark day in the land of Israel. Ahab was then King of Israel; scarcely twenty years had passed since the day when Jeroboam had reigned, and had led the people to sin, yet, in that time, five more kings had reigned before Ahab; all these five kings did evil in the sight of the Lord. Omri, the last of them, did worse than all that were before him, yet “Ahab, the son of Omri, did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him. And it came to pass, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, that he took to wife Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshipped him. And he reared up an altar for Baal, in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria. And Ahab made a grove; and Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him."
Jeroboam's name had a stamp put upon it: Ahab's name also has a dreadful mark; of him it is said, "There was none like unto Ahab which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up." What a dreadful household! Ahab, Jezebel, and the daughter Athaliah who was, you will remember, the wicked grandmother of the young king Joash. I said rightly that it was a dark day in Israel when such a king as Ahab, such a queen as Jezebel, and such a princess as Athaliah dwelt in the palace of Samaria.
Ahab, like Pharaoh, feared not God; he worshipped the idol of the Zidonians—Baal. But there was a man in Israel whom Ahab did fear and hate; for the one who, walking by sight only, does not fear God because he does not see Him, yet often fears the man of God whom he does see. The little maid could remember Elisha with love and trust, but Ahab the king feared Elijah, he called him his enemy, yet his hatred and his fear could not keep away the prophet, neither could his neglect of God keep away the message of God. Unasked and perhaps unexpected, but sent of God, Elijah appeared one day before Ahab, and he had a dreadful message to give him. Elijah was not afraid of Ahab, though Ahab was a king, and one who desired to put him to death, for “the righteous are bold as a lion." Elijah stood before God, that is he constantly remembered that he was in the presence of God, and therefore he could stand boldly before Ahab and give him a message which would sorely displease him.
“As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word." The punishment spoken of in Deut. 28:2323And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron. (Deuteronomy 28:23) had come upon Ahab: "The heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron." Ahab thought much of the good things of the land, although he thought so little of the God who gave those good things; but what would now become of his vineyards and oliveyards, his gardens of herbs, his fields of corn, his pastures, his palm trees, his pomegranate trees, his sycamore trees?
All his desires, all the cleverness of the wicked Jezebel could not give him now one shower of rain or one drop of dew. All the gardens, one by one, must wither; all the vines must droop; all the corn must be dry and useless; all the grass must be burnt up; the cattle must languish, the people themselves must suffer hunger and thirst; slowly yet surely, step by step, a dreadful famine stole upon the once pleasant land. The sad words in which, later on, Jeremiah described Jerusalem, did well to describe Samaria and the country round, in the wicked Ahab's day: “Judah mourneth, and the gates thereof languish; they are black unto the ground; and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up. And their nobles have sent their little ones to the waters: they came to the pits, and found no water; they returned with their vessels empty; they were ashamed and confounded, and covered their heads. Because the ground is chapt, for there was no rain in the earth, the plowmen were ashamed, they covered their heads. Yea, the hind also calved in the field, and forsook it, because there was no grass. And the wild asses did stand in the high places, they snuffed up the wind like dragons; their eyes did fail, because there was no grass."
On and on, for at least one hundred and ten miles, the desolation spread; a dreadful train of drought, barrenness, hunger, thirst, and death. Alas, how much sorrow one man's sin can cause!
The people of Israel did not share only in Ahab's punishment, they had shared also in his sin. So with all people: "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." By Adam sin entered into the world, now all are sinners, because they are descended from Adam the sinner; but besides this, all who have lived even a very few years have added their own sins to the number of those, which have called forth the wrath of God, and filled the once beautiful earth with sorrow and death.
In the midst of all the hunger and misery God kept His servant, the prophet Elijah, but it was a great disgrace to the people of Israel that to feed Elijah God first used ravens and afterward a woman of Zarephath, or, as the name of the town is called in the New Testament, Sarepta. God was angry with the wicked people who had turned from Him to idols. God hates sin; but no sin and no anger ever can turn grace and love out of God's heart. In the midst of this dark, day we see a wonderful and beautiful proof of this. It was a woman of Zidon who had brought in all the misery, and it was a woman of Zidon who was to find God her refuge from the misery.
We are told that it was Jezebel who “stirred up” Ahab to the excess of wickedness which he committed; it was Jezebel who taught Ahab the worship of the idol Baal. Jeroboam had sinned very greatly in making for the people two calves of gold, and the ten tribes had sinned very greatly in going to Dan and to Bethel to worship before these calves, but the people still worshipped Jehovah and no other God, though the wickedness and foolishness of Jeroboam led him to represent Jehovah under the image of a golden calf. The worship of Baal was another and even more dreadful sin: Baal was an idol, a real heathen idol, worshipped by the Zidonians; when Ahab and the people worshipped Baal, they set up this idol as equal with God, or as instead of God. No wonder that God was exceedingly angry, and that the whole land mourned.
But God was still love. Grace to sinners still was in His heart, wonderful grace, which, in the time of this misery and wickedness, was going to display itself in the very place from which it had all sprung up. “Many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias [which means Elijah], when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land: but unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow."
Elijah, though the faithful servant of God, had to feel something of the sorrow and trouble brought by the sin of the people; and now the children of God down here have to share the sorrows which sin brings into the world; but God takes care of them through it all, and God took care of Elijah. When the brook Cherith dried up, as, one by one, all the brooks were drying up, because there had been no rain in the land, "the word of the Lord came unto him." Then Elijah had to take a great journey; it must have been a journey of obedience and faith; it was needful for him to take this great journey to reach the woman of Zidon whom God, in His wonderful grace, was going to bless; it was also, no doubt, needful for him to practice this great lesson of obedience and faith, so that he might be fit to teach it to the poor woman. For you know we cannot teach to another what we have not learned ourselves. Even Elijah had to learn before he could teach.
Clad in his long, rough dress of camels' hair, girded with his leather girdle, his prophet's staff in his hand, he made that great journey of one hundred and ten miles. You know that Elijah made a greater and far more wonderful journey afterward, from earth to heaven, but that was a bright journey; this must hare been a very sad journey to the heart of the prophet, as, mile after mile, he walked all across the land, and saw the once fruitful country stamped with death. It must have been sad to him to leave one beloved spot after another, and to know that the message of grace he carried was to be for a stranger. Perhaps in his heart there was something of the sorrow which grieved the heart, of the blessed Savior, and of which, nearly a thousand years later, we get so wonderful a picture in His own words: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate." "And when he was come near he beheld the city and wept over it."
What caused Jesus to be down here a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief? It was sin. When we have learned this, can we love sin? Can we admire or indulge that self which is a sinner, a source of sin?
God gave Elijah strength for his long journey, and fed him as he passed through the famine-stricken land until at last he stood before the gate of the city of Zarephath. Zarephath was about fifteen miles north of Dan, which was one of the most northern cities belonging to the kings of Israel; it was also more than twenty miles west of Dan, for it was on the borders of the Great Sea, or as we now call it, the Mediterranean Sea.
Zarephath was a beautiful city, probably also a rich and busy city, for the works in brass and iron, for which the inhabitants of Tyre and Sidon were so famed, were carried on there also. The deep waters of the Great Sea which, on calm days, were blue with the reflection of an unclouded sky, and bright with the light of an unshadowed sun, and in rough days tossed upon the very stones of Zarephath, brought the city not only beauty but riches; for you know the sea is a great help to traders, and in days when land traveling was not so easy and swift as it is now, few cities rose to greatness if they were unhelped by seas and rivers. Still, in this day of famine, iron and brass works would not meet the need; all the furnaces and all the skill of those skilful Zidonians could not supply one drop of the rain for which man and beast languished. Even the richest of that rich city must have had something to endure, and what was to become of the poor widow? What a poor needy thing must the son of that widow have been! a helpless child, depending on a helpless widow, and famine all around. They must have suffered much before they came to the day when they had nothing left but a handful of flour and a little oil.
They knew of nothing, this widow and child at Zarephath, beyond what they could see, or even if they had heard of what the God of Israel had once been for His own people. The promises were not theirs; they were not Israelites, but Gentiles: “Strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world." They had no claim upon God, that is, they maid show no reason to why God should look upon them in pity, and deliver them from their distresses, the famine which was starving them, and the death that was approaching. But just because they saw nothing in themselves to give them any hope, just because they could find no reason why God should have mercy upon them, they were those to whom God would show this wonderful secret—God for me.
The widow left her barren house; she walked along with a heart as desolate as the desolate streets through which she passed; a sad, dreary plan was all that her heart had to look to. She was going to gather two sticks that she might make a fire, and then make two little cakes from the handful of flour and the oil, and bake them and eat them, with her son. All she expected then was to sit down beside the cold fireplace and the empty barrel, to watch her child die, and to die herself.
But this was not God's plan for the widow.
He cares for "the fatherless and the widow, and loveth the stranger in giving him food and raiment."
Yes, it is much better to be God's stranger, taken care of by Him here in this sin-stained earth, than at home in the world, taking care of myself in the place where Christ was a stranger, and could say, "Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head."
The poor widow was soon to find herself better off than those who had ten times as many handfuls of meal in their barrels, and a cruse full of oil, but just now she was outside the gate of the city, sadly picking up her sticks. We don't hear anything about the little son being there to help her, perhaps he was already too weak from famine fare to be able for such work; for those who have read stories of famine know that much weakness has been felt before the last handful of food has been reached; but the child was not forgotten, wherever he was.
In the midst of her sad work, and sad thoughts, some one called to the desolate woman. Oh who was this? Was it a rich neighbor of Zarephath, who knew her need and pitied her starving child? No, it was no inhabitant of Zarephath; the long, rough hair garment was no dress for those people of Zidon who loved their ease, and who gloried in their fine linen and purple dyed robes. This was a stranger; and alas! he spoke not of giving; like all the rest in that needy day he spoke of need; he began not to give, but to ask. “Fetch me, I pray thee," said the stranger, "a little water in a vessel, that I may drink."
The widow's heart, though so hopeless, seemed not hard, for she could supply what the stranger asked, and she left her own sad work at once to fetch the water. There were fountains within the city of Zarephath, and, though brooks were all dried up, fountains or springs from deep sources in hills yet flowed. Thus we see how, in the midst of judgment, God remembered mercy; for had there been no stores of water beyond those brooks which dried when rain failed, no man or beast could have survived through all the land.
The widow could go and get a little water for the stranger who, as you will have already guessed, was Elijah; she could bring it to him and then return to her own dreary task. Yes; she could do that much, and learn nothing, and get nothing. But God meant her to get something. He had not sent His servant all those hundred and ten miles just to ask for a drink of water. The widow was to get what she never hoped for, and what she could never have had but that God is love.
Just as she was going to get the water, the stranger called her again and said, “Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thy hand." What! a morsel of bread asked for as if it were such a light thing, asked as if the widow had many a morsel at home! Oh, she could not do this: the morsel he asked for was her very last, all that was left between her and death. She must tell out all her poverty to this asking stranger; she must describe herself just as she was, a poor widow without hope in the world. She said, "As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and behold I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die."
And what was Elijah's answer? "Fear not." Yes, just when you have found out that you have nothing at all and can do nothing at all; just when you have had to own that you cannot do what is required, this is the answer, “Fear not." But Elijah says more than that. God sends a message to this widow for her heart to rest upon. God knows our hearts and our ways far better than we do. “If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things." God knows that our hearts have a very sad story to tell us, plenty of reasons why God should be against us, so He does not only say "Fear not." He knows that would not be enough of light to outshine all the dark story of our evil hearts and evil ways. He shows us Jesus the Savior. “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved." Yes, God is for us: that is why He gave His only begotten Son.
God sends you a message to-day, just as He sent a message to the widow hundreds of years ago. Elijah's message to the widow was, "Fear not; go, and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son. For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, the barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth."
This was a wonderful message; a message from the God of Israel to her, the stranger widow, and while she heard it, a wonderful change took place in her heart; something quite new came in there: “Trust in the Lord God of Israel; Faith in the word of God." It was a difficult thing she had to do, without faith she could not have done it; unless she believed the message she could not go home and take of that one handful of flour, and make a cake for Elijah FIRST. But "she went and did according to the saying of Elijah." This was the obedience of faith. Faith made her able to give up that handful of flour, give up her only last little hope, and cast herself upon the word of God. She had nothing at all at that moment to encourage her heart but the word of God. We do not read that she went home and looked into her barrel to see whether it were likely to yield a supply. No, there would have been no comfort there, nothing to encourage her heart; she might have stood and looked at the handful of flour until she died, she never could have found in the bottom of that empty barrel one single ray of hope; and we shall never find in our own hearts one single thing that will encourage us to believe or enable us to say—God for me. We can only learn it, as the widow did, from the word of God.
She went and did according to the saying of Elijah (that means she did exactly what the message told her to do), she made the little cake for Elijah FIRST and brought it to him. Then she went home again and found there was enough flour and enough oil to make a cake for herself and her son, and it was not, as she had once feared, their last. "She and he [that is Elijah] and her house did eat many days. And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by Elijah."
What a wonderful sight that child of the widow must have seen, morning by morning, day after day, just enough to supply them with the food they needed then; quite enough, but no more; they took and they took, but still the barrel of meal was never quite empty. This, you know, was a miracle; a wonderful thing contrary to nature which only God could do: God could have done another miracle, God can do all things, “Our God is in the heavens; he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased." “Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did he in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places." God could have filled the widow's barrel quite up to the brim, but He chose rather to feed her in this manner, handful by handful; this was His great goodness. He did not find it a trouble to remember the widow and her child every day; every single day through all that year God remembered the widow and supplied her barrel with the handful of meal and her cruse with the little drop of oil; and you know a full year is three hundred and sixty-five days.
God is the same now; He is ready to think every day of you, and every day to supply your needs. Oh, how many more days than three hundred and sixty-five He must have kept you in His remembrance and on His heart, before you could be sitting down reading or hearing this book!
Perhaps, while Elijah sat with the widow and her son, eating of the food so wonderfully provided, he told many other things about that God who had remembered the stranger, the God not only of Israel, but the God of the widow and the fatherless. The widow's heart perhaps could, sing for joy as she looked at her child, no longer starving but fed by the liberal hand of God. Children and other people are often ready to sing when enjoying the good gifts of God, for “Every good gift is from above;" but "every perfect gift is" also "from above." The widow had a good gift, that unfailing supply of meal and oil, through all the days of famine; but it was not a perfect gift, it could not meet the whole want of her heart, neither could it preserve her child alive, for " Man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live."
I do not think the widow's heart was quite at rest, though she may have sung, and though she may have learned to trust in the word of God, and no longer dreaded that want which once had come so very near her. The widow's heart was not quite at rest, neither was the heart of God at rest. It is written—"He will rest in his love." But God had not shown the poor widow all the love that was in His heart towards her when He had promised and had given that daily supply of meal and oil. If God was for the widow, she must learn that God was more than a provider of supplies for her daily hunger.
In the midst of the plenty the child fell sick, and his sickness was so sore that there was no breath left in him. He died! Yes; after the last handful of flour had been reached he had yet been kept alive, day by day, for a full year, but now, though the meal wasted not, and the oil failed not, he fell sick; and nothing came in to hinder it, he died.
Ah! what would be the use of any plenty to the widow now? Her child was dead. And this was not all; the unrest of her heart came out; after eating so many days of the supply given by the goodness of God, she still could not be sure that God was for her. Her son had suddenly fallen sick and died: it was the hand of God; and now she began to fear that God was against her. This fear was even more terrible than the loss of her child. There is nothing so terrible to any of us as the fear that God is against us. “Fear hath torment." If you have ever felt fear of anything at all, you will know how true this is — "Fear hath torment." The widow looked into her own heart, she saw nothing there to comfort or encourage her; everything in her own heart said, God is against you. Her own heart was sinful; there were a number of sins hidden in her own heart, she had tried to hide them from herself, but now they rose to her remembrance, and something told her that they were not hidden from God.
You know what can alone blot out sins from God's sight and put them away from His remembrance; it is the precious blood of Christ; but Elijah could not tell the poor widow about this, for Christ had not yet died; still, God was for her; not against her, and God, in a gracious and wonderful manner, taught her this. Elijah took the dead child from his mother's arms and carried him up to the loft, which was his room in the little house. Then he laid the child's body upon his own bed and prayed. "And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived."
I wonder what was in the mind of the mother while she waited wonder whether Elijah had said a word, when he took the child, that gave her any hope. I think she must have had some hope, or she would not have given up all that was left her of her little son, though it was only his dead body, into the hands of Elijah. Perhaps the Lord Himself taught her heart something during that anxious hour; whatever she hoped, or however much she expected, it was not too much, for " Blessed are all they that put their trust in him," and this poor widow had put her trust in God, though she did not learn till that day all that God could or would do for her.
Presently, Elijah returned from his room; I am sure the mother heard him coming and was ready to meet him. What joyful words answered her expectations—"See, thy son liveth." "And the woman said to Elijah, Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth."
How precious was the little son thus given back to his mother's arms and his mother's heart; and how precious was the lesson she had learned! God, who had supplied her wants, had also given back her son from the dead; even her sins, which she so well remembered, and which were now no longer hidden like a great weary weight in her breast, did not cause God to be against her. God was for her; that means, God was on her side; God took her part. Poverty, want, sickness, sin, death, all might come against her, but God had shown Himself to be for her, spite of all, and “if God be for us who can be against us?"
God is not against you. Oh no; who could read those precious words, "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son," or "The Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world," and yet think God is against us? If such a thought is ever in the heart, it is a lie which Satan has put there. He was “a liar and a murderer from the beginning." God is for us. Looking into my heart will never teach me that God is for me. It will give no more comfort than the widow's empty barrel. But when I look by faith at the death and resurrection of Christ, I can say—God is for me. "If God be for us who can be against us?"
God for me shuts out Satan, though he goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.
God for me shuts out the world; for the more I know God for me, the more I shall love to be God's stranger here, like the widow of Zarephath.
This widow of Zarephath lived nearly three thousand years ago; many changes have taken place since then; the flourishing towns on that coast of Phenicia are deserted. Britain, which at that time was an unknown island, peopled by idolatrous barbarians, has become, in fame, something like the land of Zidon; but all this time God has not changed. Still, " Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father: of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." Earth too is unchanged in this, that plenty of needy, hungry people are still to be found; and God still pities the need of His creatures, and still sends good gifts in wonderful ways.
Not very many years ago there was a poor man who, through illness and hard times, had been unable to give his family their usual supply of food and other needful things. He lived in a lonely cottage, half a mile across a common; he had struggled on without asking relief, in the hope of work and better days, but, notwithstanding all his efforts and hopes, the sad day came at last when "the wolf was at the door;" that is starvation, which destroys people like a hungry wolf. The man had no money, there was nothing in the poor lonely cottage but bare need. How like it was to the widow's little house at Zarephath!
Night came, and all the family went hungry to bed, and very hungry they rose in the morning. But they could not eat, for there was nothing to eat. What could they do? They could cry to the God of the needy; and God heard their cry.
The people who arose to plentiful breakfasts on the other side of the common could not hear the cry of the desolate family, but God, who did hear, put a thought of them into the heart of a kind lady who did not hear: she was surprised at the thought that came into her heart, for, though she had perhaps visited this family in former times of sickness and need, she had had no idea that they were still so badly off, but the thought was in her heart, and knocking so very hard that she could not put it away. The thought was this-Go at once, and carry a loaf to the poor cottage on the common. So hard did the thought knock that, though it was early morning, and the lady had had no breakfast, she started at once on her errand with the loaf in her hand, and, on reaching the door, she heard the poor man praying and saying, “O Lord, help me. Lord, Thou wilt help me, Thy promise cannot fail; although my wife and my children, and myself have had no bread to eat, and it is now a whole day since we had any, I know Thou wilt supply me." Oh! how glad the lady was that she had made haste and gone; she pushed open the door, and gave the answer that the needy man was expecting. “Yes," she said, "God will supply you, He has sent you this."
Many, many of the poor could tell a tale like this, and though you may never be in need of bread, yet God is so good to you that He will take care to teach you, in some way, your need of Him and His great goodness: all the good gifts are to remind me that God is for me, and is ready to give perfect and eternal gifts. "The gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord."
Sometimes God teaches by giving. I am sure the little children who prayed with their father and who got that loaf in so unexpected a manner had an opportunity of learning a lesson about the goodness of God which might last them forever; but sometimes God sees it needful to teach by taking away or by allowing want; perhaps the widow and her child could never have learned the love of God towards them, if the famine had not reached even to Zarephath,
Many can praise God for His supplies, His good gifts, and many can also praise Him for the time of need which taught them how many things they needed more than bread, and how much more God could and would do than give food for a needy body; it taught them what God could do for their needy souls. Once, a poor man and his wife sat in their little room; they were in great need; they had a miserable room, nothing to sit upon but two stools; the weather was bitterly cold; worse than this, their fire was going out, and they had no more coal or wood to put on it; besides this, they had eaten their last crust of bread at mid-day; it was Sunday, and they did not expect to get any more money until Tuesday; saddest of all, this man and his wife had not that strong confidence in God which the man on the common had. Thompson, for that was this man's name, had partly to blame himself for his present misery, for when he had his money he often wasted it. He sat on his little stool thinking, and a very sad thought it was. How could he and his wife live from Sunday to Tuesday in the bitter cold, without any fire or food? Presently, another question came into his mind. “Why were he and his wife in such misery?" He began, like the widow when she saw her child die, to remember his sins; then some words came into his mind. “Wife," he said, "have we not heard somewhere, ‘The face of the Lord is against them that do evil'? I believe that God is against us, because of our evil ways."
God was not against this poor man, much as his ways may have deserved it; God was for him, and so He let hint feel cold and hunger that he might "consider" his ways before it was too late. God, in great goodness, was teaching this poor man and his wife. Soon he spoke again, he was learning his lesson, for who teacheth like God?
“I think," he said, “God has sent this misery to draw us to Himself. Let us kneel down and confess our sins, and ask God to have mercy upon us." This man wanted more than a little coal or a loaf of bread, and so does every one, for "Man doth not live by bread alone."
There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth," and that room, which a few minutes before seemed to contain nothing but sin and misery, soon showed the sight over which heaven rejoices—, the poor man and woman kneeling down before the little stools, confessing their sins, and praying that they might find mercy through Christ, and might know how to live so as to please God. They were not praying for food, for the dreadful misery of their sins seemed to have shut out the other misery from their remembrance, but God remembered all their need. They had only just risen from their knees when a neighbor came in; he had been sitting down to his own comfortable tea when the thought of poor Thompson came into his mind, and he wished to go and see how he was that cold afternoon. This neighbor kept a shop, and was well off; he soon saw the need, and brought food and fuel. But the man and his wife had found a supply in that hour of starvation which was to last them forever. While they praised God for the needed food, they could praise Him too, with tears of joy, for His mercy, and “His mercy endureth forever."
Well, dear children, the widow at Zarephath, or the starving Thompson and his wife may all seem to you very different people from yourselves; you may be full of life and spirits; you may have known little of sorrow, and nothing of want; instead of a life to look back upon, yours may seem all before you, but you could not begin it in a better place than that which Ruth, the Moabitess widow, once took, "under whose wings thou art come to trust." Then, you will never be left to know the torment of fear, for "Perfect love casteth out fear." God's perfect love; and, but for that perfect love, what torment of fear would be the portion of every man, woman and child "But we see Jesus," who by the grace of God tasted death for every man, "that, through death, he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage." All who by faith "see Jesus” can say, "O death where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" "If God be for us, who can be against us?"
“He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust; his truth shall be thy shield and buckler."
Dark was the cloud of Jehovah's wrath
That hung o'er the favor'd land.
No rain to refresh the thirsty earth,
No spring-time hope or harvest mirth:
Death walk'd on every hand.
River and brook, in silent gloom,
Proclaim'd the land's impending doom.
Sad was the heart of the widow—sad
The lot of the widow's son:
A handful of meal was all their store,
And a little oil—nothing more,
Their course was nearly run;
No hope had they of a fresh supply,
No thought but to eat and then to die.
But lo! there comes to the city's gate
A stranger; he asks of her-
Say, can she give of her tiny store?
Can she trust the message and fear no more?
Yes, faith makes no demur,
And obedience of faith shall surely see
God, who in grace is God for me.
Daily the hand of a faithful God
Shall the need of her house supply.
Though darker clouds beset the path,
Sin remember'd with fear of wrath,
Though e'en her son should die.
Famine and fear and death must flee
At the word of Him who is God for me.
Thus, though the cloud of Jehovah's wrath
Hung o'er the favor’d land,
The stranger widow shall learn to trace
Through famine and death the God of grace
With still unshorten'd hand.
And the widow's raised son shall be
A token to all of God for me.