Obedience Brings Blessings

Obedience Brings Blessings

Text: I Kings 17

Obedience is the key to the victorious Christian life. It is a mingling of faith and obedience that we find in the record of God’s dealing through Elijah with the widow woman at Zarephath, to whom God sent him during days of famine, after his long journey from the brook Cherith.

I.  THE NEEDY WOMAN GOD ASKED TO OBEY

            God chose this woman; in all her poverty, in all her need, in all her sense of emptiness and insufficiency.

            A.  She had a burden on her heart. She was a widow.

            B.  She had a boy on her hands.

            C.  She had barrenness in her home.

Her heart was full, her hands were tied, her house was empty, yet God chose her, and she obeyed.

II. THE MESSAGE HE ASKED HER TO OBEY

            A.  God asked for her poverty. God only asked for what she had. In v. 13, “But a little meal in a barrel and a little oil in a cruse.”

            B.  God added His promise. “For thus saith the Lord ... 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” (v. 14).

III. THE BLESSINGS OF OBEDIENCE

            A.  “She went and did as Elijah said.” V. 15

            B.  She, Elijah, and her boy were able to 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.”  Obedience always brings blessings. Disobedience always brings heartache.