Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 817
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, June 21, 1868, BY C. H. SPURGEON, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington..
“And the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, Arise, get you to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there: behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain you.” 1 Kings 17:8,9.
THE Prophets taught as much by their doings as by their sayings—they were as truly prophesying to the people by the miracles which they worked, as by the messages which they delivered. There was oftentimes a symbolic meaning in their actions, in fact, they were constantly teaching the people by outward symbols, which, alas, those people were usually of too dull an understanding to interpret, but which, nevertheless, were a sign unto them. In the case of Elijah, a Prophet of laconic speech who said but little, but said that with a voice of thunder, I do not doubt that the narratives connected with his life are meant to be to us a kind of acted prophesying, full of richest meaning.
Let us see what we can gather, this morning, from the inexhaustible barrel and unfailing cruse of the widow of Sarepta. I know not how it is that I feel bound in spirit to preach upon this incident this morning, but this widow seems to have followed me for the last two or three days with all the importunity of the widow in the parable who would take no denial! And I trust that there may be some here for whom I bear, under sacred constraint, a message from the Lord. Grant it so, blessed Spirit, and we will praise Your name!
I. Our first observation will be, this morning, that the case of this woman of Sarepta is an instance of DIVINE ELECTION. We are not now inventing anything of our own. We have the warrant of the great Apostle and High Priest of our profession for this assertion, for when He went to Nazareth and opened the Book and preached, did He not Himself say, “Many widows were in Israel in the days of 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 Elijah sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow”?
Election passed over all the poor widows of Israel who might have been expected, as belonging to God’s Covenant people, to be first provided for in the day of scant, and it lighted in sovereignty upon a heathen, a woman living in a country which had been accursed of God and given over before to the sword of the seed of Jacob. Election, I say, passed over all the likeliest ones and pitched upon her who seemed to be beyond the verge of hope—ordaining in mercy that she, entertaining the Prophet, should be saved thereby. Surely, Brothers and Sisters, we have here an instance of the sovereignty of electing love!
If Divine Grace must go to Sidon for its object, why must it select a widow? She seemed to be the least likely person to answer the design of the decree, namely, the sustenance of the Prophet. Were there not princes in Sidon with secret stores of food? Were there not merchants who had passed over the salt sea and knew where grain was to be found? Were there not men of understanding who could, by their conversation, cheer the Prophet’s lonely hours? No, but though they be great or wise, or wealthy, God bids His chariot downward to roll away from the lofty towers of nobles to the humble cottage of the poorest in all Sidonia’s dominions—and a poor widow woman becomes the object of special Grace!
Here is an illustrious instance of distinguishing Grace, yet not such a striking one as mine, nor such a remarkable case as yours to you. I seem as if I can understand God’s having chosen you, but I shall never cease to wonder that He has elected me—
“How many hearts You might have had
More innocent than mine!
How many souls more worthy far
Of that pure touch of Yours!
Ah, Grace! Into unlikeliest hearts
It is Your choice to come;
The glory of Your light to find
In darkest spots a home.”
The choice is in every case made by the supreme will of Jehovah, and is not ordered according to the will of man nor the will of the flesh, nor blood, nor birth. It is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but He who rules all things according to His own good pleasure. He gives as He wills and withholds as He pleases, and who shall say unto Him, “What are You doing?”
But what if He chooses to give to some His special and abounding Grace? Men may quibble if they will, but the only answer God will give them is this, “No but, O man, who are you that replies against God? Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it, Why have you made me thus?” But, Beloved, although God condescends not to explain His modes of action, nor to prove His own justice—for who is He that He should stand at our bar, and should speak for Himself, and explain His actions?—yet is He always just. Who are we, the ephemera of an hour, that we should arraign the Infinite, the Eternal One, from whose hands we spring? He will do as He pleases.