Luke 4:25-26 NKJV
“But I tell you truly, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a great famine throughout all the land; but to none of them was Elijah sent except to Zarephath, in the region of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow.”
As a result of God’s spectacular miracles through his life, the Prophet Elijah stands out in the Old Testament biblical account. He is one man God that also ministered to in some special ways, especially during a period when there was a severe drought in Israel. In God’s divine coordination to care for His servant Elijah, He brought a widow into the picture. The widow lived in present-day Lebanon, far away from Israel. God had Elijah in focus, and He also had the widow in mind. Both Elijah and the widow were graced to experience the supernatural and abundant provision of God during a deadly famine.
‘Were there no widows in Israel to whom God could send Elijah?’ ‘Why pick one from very far in Lebanon yet the ones in Israel were equally suffering from the famine?’, one may wonder. Thankfully, what Jesus said in our reference text gives us much light into the answer. In the following verse, Jesus added, saying, “There were also many people with skin diseases in Israel in the prophet Elisha’s time. But God cured no one except Naaman from Syria” (Luk 4:27 GW). Notice, in both examples, the Prophets Elijah and Elisha were Jewish, but those they ministered to were from far away (Lebanon and Syria), and Gentiles (non Jews). Simply put, God decided to extend His grace and mercy even to the Gentiles. Hallelujah!
As can be seen in many places in the Scriptures, God has the Jews in focus, and the Gentiles—blessedly—in mind (Mat 15:24; Rom 1:16; 11:17-18). Spiritually, the widow and Naaman represent us, who “…once were [so very] FAR AWAY [from God] [but] have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Eph 2:13 AMP). Hallelujah! In Christ Jesus, God reached out to us, that “…by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Eph 2:8-9 NKJV). In that light of blessing, we can’t help but be so grateful to God because, as Peter puts it, “Once you were not a people, but NOW you are the people of God [in Christ]; once you had not received mercy, but NOW you have received mercy” (1 Pet 2:10 NIV). Hallelujah!
Pst. Emmanuel
