1Kings 17 is what I believe to be the most-preached-chapter in the Bible. Hardly a week goes by that someone is not preaching about Elijah and the widow! We don’t know her name, but we sure know her story. A few years ago, the Lord impressed me to read this chapter out loud to myself. My thought was I do not need to read this chapter, because I hear it preached at least once a week, and the focus is prosperity: If we give, we will get big blessings back, and our cruse of oil and meal barrel will receive a miracle. But the Lord kept pressing me to read it, and to read it out loud. I said, “Why do I have to read it out loud?” He said, “Because if you just read it, you’ll read what you think is there, and miss some things that I want to show you.” So I obediently read it out loud, and He was right!
Elijah literally exploded on the scene without preliminaries; all we are told is he was a son of a Tishbite from Gilead, and we quickly discern, a great prophet of God, who came right to the point, declaring to King Ahab: “As the lord God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.”
Ahab, one of Israel’s most wicked kings, had married a heathen wife, Jezebel, who brought Baal worship to the nation, provoking God’s judgment. Drought would bring famine and economic hardship. There would not be even a drop of dew on the ground until Elijah said so (over 3 years). The thing was, Elijah prophesied the judgment, and he would have to go through it too. When God sends judgment to America, it will affect us all. One thing I like about God: even when He is judging, He will keep His people. He’s able to supply our need and make a way for us.
God commanded Elijah to go to a place near a brook where He would command ravens to feed him. There he had it made in the shade. The drought and famine were getting worse, but Elijah was sitting pretty, at ease. He experienced the first emergency food air-lift. Every morning and evening the ravens came. Life was great until the brook dried up! But this was part of God’s plan. He had another miracle on the way, and this time He wanted to bless a desperate widow and her son. Elijah was told to go to Zarephath “where I have commanded a widow to sustain you.”
Elijah left for Zarephath. His immediate obedience was crucial. Had he waited and slept on it, he would have missed God’s timing, because when he came to the gates of the city, he saw the widow gathering sticks. This was not her backyard, but God works on both ends, bringing them together at the same time. Elijah called to her: “Fetch me, I pray you, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.” Surprisingly, the woman immediately complied and went to get the water. “And as she was going to fetch it, he called to her, Bring me, I pray you, a morsel of bread in your hand.” Now he was asking too much, and she quickly protested: “As the Lord your God lives, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it and die.”
He was asking her to take her last bit of food out of her son’s mouth. A mother will forgo food for herself to feed her child, but she was not going to give it to a stranger. But the prophet pressed her: “Fear not; go and do as you have said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after, make for you and for your son. For thus says the Lord God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth.”
Something in her spirit clicked, and she felt faith rise up within. He had said to make him a cake first and them make for her and her son. This implied there would be enough for three cakes. She acted on it. It wasn’t Elijah’s words, because if so, she would be duped, because Elijah would not have been able to bring the miracle. But if what he said was from the mouth of God, then she could trust it. She obeyed the word of the Lord spoken by the man of God: “And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah: and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days. And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke by Elijah.”
The woman overcame her fear, acted on the Word, and for three and a half years, they ate miracle meals. Every day she went to the barrel, and there was flour; when she went to the cruse, there was oil. Every breakfast, lunch, and dinner, she ate, her son ate, Elijah ate, and it actually says, “and her house.” Word probably got around to Auntie Betsy, Uncle Joe, and cousin Lulu that she had food. Word travels when people find out you got a miracle. She might have had cousins she never heard of show up at her door, and that was okay, because there was enough to go around for all! No matter how many times she went and no matter how many cakes she made—there was always enough. The miracle never failed!
Most preachers stop here, and this is the end of their message—the point being to give to the servant of God, and you will receive great financial miracles and supernatural supply. It is a valid message: If you give, you will receive. If you obey God and support the Gospel, you will be blessed. But God had said to read the whole chapter, so we will continue.
Tragedy Strikes
At some point while Elijah was staying with the woman, her son died. Now wouldn’t you think that if Rev. Elijah was living in your house, eating at your table, and your son got sick, he ought to be able to pray and get him healed? I believe Elijah must have prayed for God to heal him, but the child didn’t get healed: “His sickness was so sore that he died.”
His mother basically said, “Excuse me, Rev. Elijah, great prophet of the living God of Israel, my son is dead! Thank you for the miracle meal barrel. Thank you kindly for the cruse of oil. Thank you very kindly for all those financial blessings. Praise God, but they don’t mean anything right now, because my son is dead! What are you going to do?”
Elijah grabbed the child from her bosom, ran up the steps to where he slept, put him on his bed, and for a moment even Elijah wavered. He said, “Lord God, what are you doing? Why have you slain this woman’s son?” I’m sure he couldn’t understand why, when he was this great prophet of God, that this child died. He said as much. Then he decided in his mind that it was not the will of God for this boy to be dead. Why would God save his life from famine to let him die now? And break his mama’s heart when she had obeyed the Lord?
He stretched out on top of the child’s body and prayed. This was the prophet who stood in God’s presence—a man of power who called fire down from Heaven. I’m sure when he prayed, God heard. But do you know, not a blessed thing happened! That boy didn’t even twitch an eyebrow. He lay there just as dead. Elijah walked through the house pacing and praying. Then he stretched himself out on him the second time and prayed again. Nothing happened! The boy was still dead. But Elijah persisted in prayer. Sometimes when God wants to do a miracle in your life, you have to persevere in faith and persist in prayer. You cannot give up. That body was probably cold and clammy when Elijah laid down the third time and prayed. This time, “The Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and the soul of the child came back into him, and he was revived.” Elijah delivered him to his mother and said, “See, your son lives.”
Now I Know You Are A Man of God!
The mother, embracing her son, declared, “Now, by this I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.” What she actually meant:
“You know, Rev. Elijah, when you came to Zarephath, I was in a pitiful state. I was starving, my child was starving, and we were ready to die. You walked on the stage of my life with the miracle power of God and a message from God. You said, ‘Thus says the Lord, Give me a cake first, and God will bless you so much financially, you’ll have all the bread you can eat as long as the famine is going.’ I believed the Word of God and sowed into your ministry, and I have reaped financial blessings, and my house has reaped financial blessings. God has done exceeding and abundantly above all that I could even ask or think. He has opened up the windows of Heaven and poured out blessings upon me. All my bills are paid: My rent is paid, my car payment is paid—everything is paid! I have money in the bank and a 401K—The prosperity message works!”
“But…” she said, “That’s not what proved to me that you are a man of God. That’s not what proved to me that you are prophet of God—because you came preaching prosperity, and I did what you said, and I prospered—because I sowed into your ministry and got a miracle. But now I know you are a man of God, because you raised my son from death!”
Why not before? Because anyone who obeys the law of sowing and reaping will be blessed! It is a universal law that works for everyone—even sinners. It works for farmers when they harvest crops. Those who invest money in banks and stocks will get more money back. People who invest in real estate increase profits. If you sow, you reap. If you give, you receive: It’s a fixed universal law that was released in creation. God made everything with the seed within itself to reproduce. According to the law of the first mention, a divine principle given in Genesis holds true for the rest of the Bible, and God said, “Every seed after its own kind.” Whatever you sow, you will reap. It works, and that’s why big corporations send their top management people to seminars to hear motivational speakers tell them how to make money. Motivational speakers get paid enormous fees, so it works for them! It is clearly stated in the New Testament: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap…” (Galatians 6:7).
Therefore, when ministers preach the prosperity principle, Give, and you shall receive, and people do it, they will be blessed. Have you ever scratched your head, thinking, I know that person is a false prophet? (I am not saying everybody preaching prosperity is a false prophet.) There are some who make me cringe when I see them on TV, because I know they are phonies. Yet they cite testimonials that say, “I gave, and now I’ve got…” I don’t doubt it, because the law of sowing and reaping is in operation. I know sinners who pay tithes and get blessed financially. It’s a law of God, what you sow you shall reap.
I don’t believe you will reap eternal rewards when you give to false prophets. You might get a new car, a new house, money in the bank, but not eternal rewards, because you did not sow into the Kingdom of God. You sowed to get financially blessed, and you got it. But if you want eternal rewards, you must sow into ministries that are preaching the Gospel for souls. Have you noticed that most who always preach, “Send us money so we can preach the Gospel,” don’t actually preach anything but the message “Send money”?
Supposing Gain is Godliness
The Scripture is clear that there are people who think their prosperity is the seal of their godliness. Paul called them “men of corrupt minds, destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw yourself” (1Timothy 6:5). Think about it: They must be gaining; they must be prospering to think, I’m prospering, so I must be godly. To them it substantiates the claim, “Give, and you’ll get blessed, and you’ll be godly.” The fact they are gaining, the fact they are prospering, is proof to many gullible people that they are of God. It must be true—look—we’re gaining, we’re prosperous. They are saying, “Money cometh, money cometh,” so when it comes, they say: “See, it came! I said it. I did it. I gave it. I sowed it. I got it. It works! It must be the real thing!”
Paul said, “They are destitute of the truth. They supposed because they did it and it worked, it was proof of godliness.” It worked because of the divine law in Genesis. But when your child is sick and dying, you aren’t worrying about how much money you have in the bank. When something’s gone wrong in your home and your family needs a miracle, when someone you love is in trouble, when your marriage is falling apart, and it’s not because of finances—you have plenty of money, you don’t care about money then. You don’t care how big your house is or what kind of car you drive. All you want is victory. All you want is deliverance.
That mother said, “I know you’re a true man of God, because when I was in trouble, when my child was dying, when I needed a miracle that money could not buy, you hung in there. You believed. You persisted in prayer, and you had the resurrection power of God on your life to raise my child up. You were able to call those things that are not as though they were, and bring life out of death. Now I know that you are a man of God, because, I see that you’ve got the goods.” It was worth more to her than all the riches he could have given her to have her child restored.
We need less preaching “Show me the Money!” and more preaching “Show me the Glory!”
You can preach prosperity, but do you have the goods, that when they bring somebody to you who is demon possessed and on drugs, or someone who is full of the devil, or who is ready to commit suicide and go to Hell, are you able to set him free?
Preach all the prosperity you want—I’m not against prosperity. It takes money to preach the Gospel, and we need people with money to pay good tithes to pay for all the things it takes to preach the Gospel. But I want to know, do you have the power of God? Can you do what Peter and John did? When they were baptized in the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, they were full of power and anointing. They went to the Temple to pray at prayer time, and when they came to the Gate Beautiful, there sat a crippled man begging for money who had been that way a long time. They didn’t say to him, “Now, Brother, what you need to do is sow those few coins in your cup into our ministry. Then you’ll be blessed, and you won’t have to sit out here and beg.”
No! Peter said, “Look on us.” The Bible says that the man looked up at them with expectation. He expected to receive money. But Peter said, “Silver and gold I don’t have, but such as I have I give unto you.” He had the goods that man needed! He took him by the hand, and said, “In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” He restored the cripple who didn’t have to go back to begging. He could get a bona fide job and become gainfully employed, and I bet he was so glad to do so. He was the happiest employee to show up for work on Monday morning.
The next time you hear 1 Kings 17 being preached, and the story of widow who gave her last meal to the prophet, you know the real scoop! You know the end of the story that true servants of God walk in the power of God with the signs following that Jesus declared in Mark 16:17-18. If not, at best, their teaching is out of balance, or they have erred from the faith, being corrupted by gain and greed.
Notable Renouncements
In August 2018, Charisma Magazine did an article on how Benny Hinn has changed his view of biblical prosperity. It referred to a Facebook Live session in which he stated that “some prosperity gospel teaching, including his own, had gone beyond the Bible…. Some had gone to the extreme with it….Today the idea is abundance and palatial homes and cars and bank accounts. They’ve gone beyond. The focus is wrong… Prosperity means no lack or having all one’s needs met in every area of life…. However, no lack does not mean no problems…. Prosperity is above all, the abundant, abiding presence of the Lord Jesus in our lives.”
Last month (January 2019), Charisma reported that in a recent sermon, Joyce Meyer renounced prosperity gospel teachings. She stated that “her ideas of biblical prosperity had grown out of balance with Scripture.”
In 2007, Senator Charles Grassley, ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, led a senate investigation of six televangelists known for their lavish lifestyles and prosperity teaching. Only two fully cooperated in giving full information to the committee: Benny Hinn and Joyce Meyer. They also told Sen. Grassley that they had made changes in how they govern their ministries and set compensation.
If you need a financial blessing, I preach prosperity too—also—as part of the whole counsel of God. Don’t get the idea that I’m slamming prosperity, but I am warning of the pitfalls that are snaring many today as Paul warned: “But godliness with contentment is great gain…. But they that would be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows” (1Tim.6:5-10). Paul said: “From such withdraw yourself.”
Please Note: Adapted from Beyond Prosperity available on CD & MP3s: www.soundoffaitth.org
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