II Kings 4:1-7

Go ahead, please, look it up, because I’m not going to quote it all. These were Sunday’s verses for our pastor’s sermon. I know specifically of one individual’s belief the sermon was meant for her.

She was not a member of our church. Her attendance was by chance (or such a time as this?) and our pastor had no knowledge of her coming, or her financial situation.

… my husband is dead … and the creditor is come to take (from 2 Kings 4:1 KJV)

Her husband, who died earlier this year, was not a prophet and there are no sons to be lost in bondage, but she related to the similarities the widow shared.

After the services, the visitor’s determination was set to find the answer to tell me, what hast thou in the house? (2 Kings 4:2 KJV)

My own determination was found in verse 3: borrow not a few. (2 Kings 4:3b KJV)

The number of vessels is not given in the scripture. The sale of the oil resulted in enough to clear the debt her sons inherited and provide care for a time. Go, sell the oil, and pay thy debt, and live thou and thy children of the rest. (2 Kings 4:7b KJV)

What if she had borrowed fewer? What if her faith in God’s word was so weak that she only borrowed two? How many would I have borrowed?

That’s the real question – how many vessels will I now borrow to hold the blessings God has to give His children?

There was more to the message – how we must to be aware of those in our congregation who are in need. We who have been blessed are in a position to be of help. Why should a widow be in need when we’ve been given God’s message:

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. (James 1:27 KJV)

If we do not, James tells us:

For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. (James 1:23-24 KJV)