“Desperate times call for desperate measures.” – Hippocrates
Isaiah 12:2 CSB –
God is my salvation;
I will trust him and not be afraid,
for the Lord, the Lord himself,
is my strength and my song.
He has become my salvation.”
2 Kings 4:1-2 CSB – One of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, “Your servant, my husband, has died. You know that your servant feared the Lord. Now the creditor is coming to take my two children as his slaves.”
2 Elisha asked her, “What can I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?”
She said, “Your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.”
The Case of the Desperate Widow
Job 14:1 CSB – says what we already know: Anyone born of woman is short of days and full of trouble.
When you don’t have what you need, you MAY discover that God is all you ever really needed!
2 Kings 4:2a CSB – Elisha asked her, “What can I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?”
2 Kings 4:2b CSB – She said, “Your servant has nothing in the house, except a jar of oil.”
When feeling desperate, will you fixate on what you lack or look for what you have?
2 Kings 4:2 CSB – Elisha asked her…Tell me, what do you have in the house?”
She said, “Your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.”
Gideon & the Midianites
John 6:9 CSB – There’s a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish—but what are they for so many?”
If Jesus is your Good Shepherd, He can do a lot with your little!
Matthew 17:20 CSB – “For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will tell this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.
2 Peter 1:3 CSB – His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
God Specializes in Doing A LOT with A LITTLE
Offer God what you have. Trust Him for what you need.
2 Kings 4:3-4 CSB – Then he said, “Go out and borrow empty containers from all your neighbors.
Do not get just a few. 4 Then go in and shut the door behind you and your sons, and pour oil into all these containers. Set the full ones to one side.”
2 Kings 4:5-7 CSB – So she left. After she had shut the door behind her and her sons, they kept bringing her containers, and she kept pouring.
6 When they were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another container.”
But he replied, “There aren’t any more.” Then the oil stopped.
7 She went and told the man of God, and he said, “Go sell the oil and pay your debt; you and your sons can live on the rest.”
When we offer what we had, God gives us what we need.
Offer God What You Have. He will give you want you need
2 Corinthians 4:7-9 CSB – Now we have this treasure in clay jars so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us. 8 We are afflicted in every way but not crushed; we are perplexed but not in despair; 9 we are persecuted but not abandoned; we are struck down but not destroyed.
Jeremiah 18:6 CSB – God says, …can I not treat you as this potter treats his clay?”—this is the Lord’s declaration. “Just like clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand,
