The Widow's Oil

2 Kings 4:1-7


Now a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, "Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the LORD; and the creditor has come to take my two children to be his slaves." Elisha said to her, "What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?" And she said, "Your maidservant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil." Then he said, "Go, borrow vessels at large for yourself from all your neighbors, even empty vessels; do not get a few. "And you shall go in and shut the door behind you and your sons, and pour out into all these vessels, and you shall set aside what is full." So she went from him and shut the door behind her and her sons; they were bringing the vessels to her and she poured. When the vessels were full, she said to her son, "Bring me another vessel." And he said to her, "There is not one vessel more." And the oil stopped. Then she came and told the man of God. And he said, "Go, sell the oil and pay your debt, and you and your sons can live on the rest."

Last night at our church, we watched a video that had to do with this text, and it was mainly focused on God's provision, and how He truly is our provider. I am not trying to take away from that truth, because the Lord is truly the entire earths provider, even if the unsaved see it or not. I am focusing on the spiritual, cross side of it. When i was reading this, and watching the video, i could not stop thinking about the debt that we owed to God, and that is an amount no man can pay. With this women, in this event that we are priveleged to have in the scriptures, we see that she was in a debt that she couldnt pay, and if she didnt pay it she would spend her entire life trying to pay back her debtor to have her sons returned to her. But God, through the prophet elisha, provided a way for her to earn money and not only pay her husbands debt, but also live on the money she will continue to make off the oil. Again, i love how this points to the sacrifice of Christ, may i take some time to show ya'll? aight... thanks. ok, we all are in debt to God, all of us; and none of us can pay Him with anything our hands can provide. And if we do not give our lives to Christ then we will remain slaves, to sin. And our entire lives we will continue to serve our master, sin. But, God through His Son provides a way that sinners may be saved and have life, and not just life here on earth, but eternal life, in the sight of the Father. Through adams sin, we all became debtors to God, but through God's only begotten Son, dying on the cross, His sacrifice payed the debt that we owed to God, and now we live off the unceasing grace that God pours out to His kids, we dont need to go back into bondage to the sin we once served because that debt was paid in full. Now the women entered a debt because her husband, and God, through elisha, provided a way that she could pay the debtors and live off the rest, so she didnt need be a slave for those men she once owed, but live free off the oil that was provided to her by God. Now do you see what i see? aint that crazy how God does that in His text. Its crazy man, it just rocks me to the core! Another thing that we have in common with this women, is our hopelessness. When God opens our eyes to the truth of the Gospel, we are left hopeless, with no way to earn salvation; but as this women ran to a godly man, elisha, we run to the God Man, Jesus Christ, and fall at the feet of the cross and with a broken heart of stone, eyes full of tears, and we see God as wonderful, merciful Savior. well, i hope ya'll enjoyed my little insight. i pray that this is edifying to the church, and that most of all the glory of God is revealed and shown. Grace and peace fam. amen!