Rut, Rot, or Revival

with God. That way, you can touch on a thing and get a good result as you petition God together.

The bible says that this widow woman called on Elisha and asks him to help her find a way out of this seemingly impossible situation. She is looking for a miracle.

Now Note: the first thing Elisha does is to ask her a rather strange question. Although she has already explained that she is destitute, he asks her what she has in her house. She responds by saying: "Well, nothing at all" but then she remembers, "Well actually we do have something... there is just a little bit of oil"

Of course this is one of those O.T. stories that is really so very rich in meaning. You’ve probably heard this passage preached many times before. You know that as the widow gathers up empty jars from her neighbors, God indeed does a wonderful miracle with that tiny bit of oil. He multiplies it somehow so that once she starts to pour, the oil doesn’t stop flowing until every vessel is filled. Then she takes the oil and sells it to pay off her debts.

Of course, the only thing that caused the oil to stop flowing was the fact that they ran out of jars to contain it. But God was able to fill every jar that she was able to produce.

Its a marvelous story about making room for God’s blessing! But as is often the case with these Old Testament passages, this story has a deeper layer of meaning too. I believe that there’s another message here just beneath the surface.

Its a message that is found as we analyze the symbols in the story. Students of typology would quickly recognize two standard types here: of course, Elisha typically always represents Christ and oil represents the Holy Spirit.

And I don’t think it would be stretching it to suggest that the house represents the modern Church and the widow represents this present generation of believers.

Notice, she is in danger of losing her children, the next generation, To the creditor, who I think represents the World. Again, she is in danger of losing her children because there is nothing left in her house.

Now let’s follow this line of application through for a moment. If there is a deeper message coming out of this passage, could it be that the world is indeed crouching at the door ready to snatch away the next generation into a life of sin and slavery?

Could it be that when one generation allows God’s house to become empty the next generation pays the price? Could it be that we are in danger of losing our children to the world because we have neglected to show them the power of God at work in and through the Church? These are heavy questions. And I don’t mean to come on too strong this evening, but let us take a good solid look at ourselves.

The thing is most of us are now into the third generation as Christians. Most of us, my age, can remember our great-grandparents, our grandparents, and our parents. If you are saved and in the church now, it is probably because you had some strong Christian roots that were handed down from your great-grandparents to your grand-parents, to your parents. In other words, you have a background of folk who knew the Lord as their savior!

They were people of sacrifice and prayer. They cherished the Touch of God. Many of them blazed the trails. They laid the groundwork for our modern movement. In that sense we owe a great debt