“And Elijah took the child, and brought him down out of the chamber into the house, and delivered him unto his mother: and Elijah said, See, thy son liveth.

And the woman said to Elijah, Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in thy mouth is truth.”

I Kings 17:23-24 (KJV)

 

They say, “Seeing is believing” and just think of all the wondrous things the widow had seen up to this point! She had seen Elijah, the prophet of God she had been commanded to take care of, enter her city on what she thought would be the last day of life she and her son would ever see. And now she saw a miracle every day when she went to prepare a meal, for the once meager supply of oil and flour she possessed never ran out. Yet, when she saw her young son die, it was made painfully obvious that as much as she had seen, she still did not truly believe.

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Sadly, this is an area of the Christian life where there is too often a disconnect. Christ promised us in Mark 9:23 that all things are possible, if we only believe. But how do we really know we believe the things we say we believe? We have heard the Scripture, we’ve read the Scripture, and we can quote the Scripture, but do we really believe it? After everything the widow had been through, it took witnessing the very first resurrection of the dead to finally convince her of the truth of God’s Word.

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Our faith, too, is built on the resurrection of the dead. But, unlike the widow, it is a resurrection we did not personally witness. Jesus told Thomas in John 20:29 ““You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who believe without seeing me.” We must accept Christ’s death and resurrection by faith and it is this faith on which we bet our eternal souls.

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What does it take to convince you? Is your faith still easily shaken? Or can you look back on a time or an event that cemented your faith into a firm foundation for your life?

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When it comes to the Word of God, there are three types of people. The first type hears the Word, but does not truly comprehend or let it take root in their lives. James Chapter 1 compares this to looking in a mirror and then walking away and forgetting what you look like. The second type looks for some rational or scientific answer to explain away the miracles recorded in God’s Word. In fact, some so-called Biblical scholars argue that the widow’s son had not truly died and that Elijah only gave him CPR to revive him again. As if this widowed mother would mistakenly think her child was dead! However, the third type accepts God’s Word by faith just as the widow did.

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Romans 10:17 tells us “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Wouldn’t it be so much easier if we could just hear the audible voice of God? But, if God audibly spoke, would we actually hear it and believe? In his book, The Pursuit of God, A.W. Tozer describes this scenario from Christ’s baptism:

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“When God spoke out of heaven to our Lord, self-centered men who heard it explained it by natural causes, saying, ‘It thundered.’  This habit of explaining the Voice by appeals to natural law is at the very root of modern science.  In the living, breathing cosmos there is a mysterious Something, too wonderful, too awful for any mind to understand.  The believing man does not claim to understand.  He falls to his knees and whispers, ‘God.’  The man of earth kneels also, but not to worship.  He kneels to examine, to search, to find the cause and the how of things.  Just now we happen to be living in a secular age.  Our thought habits are those of the scientist, not those of the worshiper.  We are more likely to explain than to adore.  ‘It thundered,’ we exclaim, and go our earthly way.  But still the Voice sounds and searches.  The order and life of the world depend upon that Voice, but men are mostly too busy or too stubborn to give attention” 

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Have you heard that Voice? Have you arrived at your “By this I know” point? We all need an instance, a moment, an example on which to rest our faith – a place we can point to, just like the Widow of Zarephath, and say “NOW I believe.”