God’s Blessing and Life’s Blasting

Dr. Michael Youssef: There are times in life when you find yourself almost feeling like you're hanging upside down. And the natural question at that time like this widow of Zarephath, God, why? I am not talking here about the pain that results from disobedience. I am talking about being in the very middle of the will of God, doing God's work the best way you know how. And suddenly life's blasting seem to be going to blow you away.
Guest (Male): You've joined Dr. Michael Youssef for an exciting and unique week of Leading the Way audio. Question, where are you today? Maybe you're in a place kind of asking why. Like there you are serving God, making a difference, feeling good about where God has you, and then boom, a phone call comes or a doctor's visit or a relationship goes awry. Something happens to make you feel like you've just been blasted from out of nowhere. Well, up next on Leading the Way, Dr. Youssef offers biblical truth about what to do when things in life seem to go sideways. And do remember, Leading the Way is a listener-supported gospel ministry using media to reach the lost. Dr. Youssef and the team rely on your prayers and on God's provision through your generosity to passionately proclaim uncompromising truth. Learn ways that you can stand with Dr. Youssef when you call us at 866-626-4356 or online at ltw.org. Do that a little later though because right now you're going to want to join Dr. Michael Youssef for a deeper look into the life of Elijah on Leading the Way.
Dr. Michael Youssef: Read the story of a cathedral in Europe that became famous worldwide because of a stained glass window that towered high above its altar. People came from all over the world to come and see that magnificent stained glass window that nothing like it in the world. But one day a violent storm shattered that beautiful window into a thousand pieces. And the church custodian was so reluctant to throw away the fragments so he gingerly picked them up and put them in a box and stored them in the basement of the church. A well-known artist came to that church and he petitioned the trustees to give him the fragments and they did not know what he wants to do with them. He took them and went back to his studio and 2 years later he invited the trustees to come because he was going to unveil some of his major works. And so when they came to their utter amazement, to their astonishment, he unveiled the restored stained glass window because it looked more magnificent and looked more beautiful than it ever was before. And I thought when I read this and I said isn't it incredible how that most of us at some point have experienced the blasting of a storm in our lives in the midst of God's blessing. And if you haven't been there already or if you are going through that right now, I want to tell you if you have not already experienced God's restoration act, God's restoration work, you will. And I'll tell you that on the authority of God's word. Because God specializes in restoring fragments of life into a magnificent and more beautiful way of living. God specializes in remaking beauty out of ashes. In life, the blasting and the blessing somehow seem to go hand in hand. In life, trial and triumph somehow work in very close succession. In fact, that is precisely what is happening at this very point in the life of the man of God, Elijah. And Elijah is only an exhibit A. He is just an object lesson. We're seeing how God works in the life of one of his servants. We saw in the last message how God led Elijah to the land of Baal worshiping, to Zarephath. Zarephath, the Phoenician city, a city just south of Lebanon. There God gave Elijah an opportunity to exercise risking faith. Not only that, but he got him to challenge a pagan woman, a Baal worshiping woman, a woman who does not know Yahweh. He challenged her too to risk in faith. At the promise of God's man, she also risked in life trusting in God alone. Zarephath, the city, this really means melting because there they melted metals. And the city used to stink. Their God is melting the flesh out of his man, taking away all the dross of the flesh and purifying him. And here today we're going to see Elijah, the man of God moving from being tested in a passive way to being tested actively. I know most of us don't like the active testing. I know that because I'm one of you. But here we're going to see how in the midst of God's blessings, where the flower keeps coming every day, where the oil just keeps pouring out every day, comes testing and calamity of death. In 1 Kings chapter 17 beginning at verse 17, the Phoenician woman and her son and the prophet of God were experiencing a daily miracle, daily blessing, daily provision. God were just giving him daily blessings. And right in the midst of it we read of how the son of this Phoenician woman, this pagan widow who risked faith according to the word of God from the mouth of the man of God, we see how her son became ill and then he dies. Now the Hebrew word leaves us in no doubt what it means. The Hebrew word means his soul left him. He was dead as a dodo. I mean there is no fainting. He was dead. Verse 18, the woman said to Elijah, what do you have against me, oh man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sins and kill my son? I want you to listen to me very carefully please because I know that some Christians have mixed up views on this. To ask God why is a very natural thing. And don't ever let anybody or allow yourself to deceive yourself of thinking that you are committing a sin against God when you ask the simple question why. Why is a natural question? Recall the words of the Lord Jesus when he hung on Calvary. And he asked his father, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And I want to tell you if God's own son asked why, so don't let people put you under guilt trip when you ask God why. It is a natural question. I know that there are times in life when the highest dreams get crushed. There are times in life when the best of hopes get dashed. There are times in life when you find yourself almost feeling like you you're hanging upside down. And the natural question at that time like this widow of Zarephath, God, why? You know I'm convinced in my own heart as I began to pray and put my notes together that this question must be pounding the doors of heaven from brokenhearted people everywhere. It rises from hospital wards, it rises from lonely bedrooms, and it rises from the gravesites, and it rises from each personal guest seminary when a troubled soul pleads in private agony. I want you to hear me right, please. I am not talking here about the pain that results from disobedience. I am not talking here about the grief that is the natural consequence of sin and rebellion. I am not talking about the fruit which are the natural fruit of departing from biblical principles and doing it yourself. That's not what I'm talking about here. I am talking about being in the very middle of the will of God, doing God's work the best way you know how. And suddenly life's blasting seem to be going to blow you away. Many of us I know understand the paradox of this woman while knowing God's blessings. In one area in her life she was experiencing life's blasting in another area in her life all at the same time. God's blessings and life's blasting. You know in verse 12 of 1 Kings 17 when there was a famine in the land this woman calmly was going to eat the last piece of bread for her and her son and both are going to die. Both were dying. And there were calmness in her heart about all this. There was a sense of resignation to that calamity. And then I looked and I began to compare it with verse 18, that intensity, that attack with anger and accusation upon Elijah, the man of God. And I realized one thing. Listen carefully. Our emotions are unpredictable. Our emotions cannot be trusted. Are you hearing me? Our emotions are like a barometric pressure that goes up and it goes down, are totally unreliable. You cannot trust your emotions. The only thing that you can trust when you are in the midst of calamity is the word of God and the promises of God. But this poor woman, her anger that was directed toward God lashed it out on Elijah. Elijah was bearing the brunt of her anger toward God. I want to tell you I have experienced it firsthand. Often when people are angry with God, when people are not getting their prayers answered the same way they want it be answered, they always take it out on the preacher. I have files to prove that. Oh man, but I want to tell you something else. Listen carefully because some of you have been there. When you have a family member or a friend who is angry with God, who's mad with God, who's not getting their way from God, they often take it upon those godly people who are nearest and dearest to them because you represent God to them. Like this woman, this type of anger is often accompanied with guilt. Watch it next time it happens to you. Look at verse 18. She said, did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son? Death somehow seem to help bring up to the surface a lot of guilt, a lot of guilt. I have seen people grieve in funerals. Half they're grieving for their loved ones, but they often the other half is that they are grieving with their own sense of guilt and failure in the face of the inevitability of death. I want to tell you something. Listen to me very carefully. This woman's son did not die because of her sin. Like the disciples in John chapter 9 who came to Jesus when they saw the man born blind and they said to him, they said, has he sinned or his parents sinned so that he was born blind? And Jesus very lovingly said to them, he said, neither he nor his parents, but that God might be glorified. Do you believe that God can be glorified in your calamity? Do you believe that God can be glorified in your desperation? I believe it with all my heart. But you know we often so quick to draw conclusions. We so quick to pass rash judgments. We so quick to connect between sin and calamity. Only God knows that. But instead watch and see how God can use all these things to bring glory to his name. Watch him. He wants you to watch him. But I want to get away from this woman and her anger and her guilt because to me she represents millions of Americans who live without God, who ignore God, who deny God. Only when they hit a stone in life, only when the life begins to blast and then they shake their fist at God they never comprehended I guess how they can be mad with somebody who they don't believe exists. But I want you to look what how this man of God reacted. I want you to see what did he do that caused God to perform the very first resurrection that is recorded in the Bible. This is vitally important and I have several principles I want to share with you very quickly. The first principle is this, verse 19. When she in anger accused Elijah he did not defend himself. He did not try to give her a theological lesson. He did not try to condemn her false view of God, no. He only said four words, give me your son. That's all he said. He had just been attacked. He had just been assaulted. He had just been reviled. And yet he knew that this is pain talking. He knew that this is hurt talking. He knew that this is guilt talking. And there are many times when you are in the pit of pain you lash out at those who are most innocent. Often those who are nearest and dearest to you. There is a second principle here I want you to watch and that's Elijah saved his questioning of God until he was with God alone. You know the Bible said that you must let your moderation be known to men and your desperation. That's not the word this Bible used, but I'm I'm using it just to to rhyme. Your desperation be known to God. And what we often do, we go and make our desperation known to man and our moderation known to God. You got it wrong. Reverse the formula. Look at verse 20. When Elijah carried that boy and went upstairs and he said to God, he said, oh Lord God, why? Here's that why again. But there's something here I think very significant that I don't want you to miss please. Elijah never said that downstairs where the unbelieving woman was struggling with those same questions. But I want to tell you at the outset also that verse 20 that prayer of Elijah it was a bad prayer. You say wait a minute, what do you mean bad prayer? That Elijah, the great prophet of God, the great man of God prayed it. I said yeah, nonetheless it's a wrong prayer. Elijah was just as wrong as this widow. But he was perplexed. He was agitated. He must have had fondness for that boy and and his prayers were wrong but because it accused God of bringing tragedy by causing the widow's son to die. And here's what I wanted to hear me say that God is an awesomely good God. And because God is an awesomely merciful good God, he allows us sometimes to say some very sorry prayers especially when we are confused and agitated. When you get frustrated and agitated and and desperate in your prayer, sometimes you pray the wrong way, but I want to tell you this, God is not going to get dizzy and fall off his throne because of your wrong prayer. And God is an infinitely merciful God. Then there's a third principle and it is this. Your intense persistence in praying according to the will of God makes a difference. Now I don't mean you're going to pull off a resurrection. I don't mean that. But when you have nothing left except God, when you have stripped yourself of everything except God, when you have taken hold of the horns of the altar and persisted in prayer, your prayers will make a difference. And there's a fourth principle here in the life of Elijah of how God works. Elijah went to the place where he met God on a daily basis. Elijah went to the prophet's chamber where he communed with God on a regular basis. Elijah went upstairs to the place where had already been sanctified by the hours and hours that he spent on his knees praying and communing with God. So when calamity struck, when calamity came, he took that calamity to that place. Let me ask you this, do you have a place where you meet God every day? Do you have a place that is set aside so that when calamity strikes, when life's blasting blow your way, you know where to go with it? Look at verse 21. And I want you to sense the intensity by which this man of God prayed. Just sense that intensity. The Bible said he stretched himself upon the boy three times. Do you know what that means? Do you know why he did this? Do you want to know why he did this? I haven't got the foggiest idea why he did this. Somebody tried to tell me it said Trinity. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit three times and I said Bible doesn't tell me. I want to try to tell you what the scripture says. This is the first resurrection ever recorded in the word of God. Elijah didn't have a manual that he can go to and turn to page 97 section C subsection D raising a Gentile boy from the dead. No. He didn't have a manual to go by. He didn't know what to do. I am convinced in my own heart as I lived with that passage that I think the old man was so brokenhearted that he was weeping. He did not know what to do. He would not did not know what else to do and he said I do whatever it takes. And as if he is trying to pass his own vitality upon the boy. Listen carefully please. This is a picture of the kind of prayer that does something with God in this humble home of a Phoenician Gentile Baal worshiping widow. God did the first recorded resurrection in the word of God. It wasn't in Jerusalem and it wasn't in Galilee. It was in Zarephath. God wants to answer the prayer of an obedient heart. You know when James said the prayer of the righteous availeth much as he's saying, the prayer of the obedient availeth with God. And this woman risked everything for God, a God that she did not know. And do you think God is not going to honor her risking in faith? As I conclude, I want you to notice a couple of things. I want you to notice how restrain the word of God is. The Bible said the Lord heard Elijah's cry and the boy's life restored to him. And he lived. Period. That's it. That's it. There were no television cameras. There were no fundraising gimmicks. The boy didn't write a book, a bestselling book about how what I saw on the other side of death. It's man's way. It's man's way. God's way is very simple. You don't have to try to convince anyone when it is the word of God. You don't have to explain it away. You don't have to defend it. Martin Luther I think is the one who said that defending the Bible is like trying to defend the lion. And this is the secret of the authority of the word of God. This is how you know that it is the word of God. It is unexplainable. It is unexplainable. It simply says God did it. What did the unbelieving woman's testimony was? God did it. She said, now I know that you are God's man. Why? Because she saw the reality, the intensity, and the integrity of faith on the fire. She testified to the word of God when she said, I know that the word of the Lord is from your mouth. Did you know that this woman was honored later on in the New Testament? Not only that Jesus used her as a first text of his first public sermon in the synagogue in Nazareth, it is also in the book of Hebrews chapter 11 where the lists of the saints in the Hall of Fame, the saints Hall of Fame, the the the big pros, Abraham and Isaac and Sarah, this woman gets included. In chapter 11 of Hebrews verse 35 he talks about women receiving back their dead raised to life again. This woman whose name we do not know made the role call of faith for all time. She came to know the living God.
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