The Suffering of Uncertainty Pt.2
I KINGS 17:7-16
7 And it came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land.
8 ¶ And the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, (This is Elijah the prophet)
9 Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there: behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee. (Notice how that Elijah went from being sustained by a brook and ravens, to now being sustained by a gentile widow woman living in Zarephath, a city located in the heart of Phoenicia which was the primary stronghold for Baal worship and the home region of Queen Jezebel.
Interestingly, Zarephath was a town known for its industrial metalworking and the manufacturing of Baal idols, and so we can be almost certain that Elijah being a man of the wilderness would not have felt comfortable or at home in such a city – but God has a purpose for putting his prophets in places that they don’t always like to be)
10 So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering of sticks (It was a divine appointment of meeting between her and the prophet of that hour, and look how she is already in the act of gathering sticks of which she was to prepare her last meal with – and so we need to understand the seriousness of how she is feeling at this time): and he called to her, and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.
11 And as she was going to fetch it (Notice her willingness to still serve under such extreme conditions – We saw how that Rebekah was willing to serve under strained conditions, and how that Ruth was also willing to serve under the conditions of her struggling circumstances. And this is why we must be a people who are willing to continue to serve the Lord in the face of the extreme conditions of this evil age – because when you continue to serve, then good things will happen, because this story is a prophecy of a gentile people in this hour that have heard the voice of Elijah.), he called to her, and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand.
12 And she said, As the LORD thy God liveth, 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. (This is about as low as a human being can get – because this was a woman who was suffering with the uncertainty of life itself, of what the future held for her and her son’s very life)
13 And Elijah said unto her, Fear not; go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son.
14 For thus saith 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 sendeth rain upon the earth.
15 And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah (For her suffering to cease and for life to come, it required her obedience to the voice of the message of the prophet for that hour): and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days.
16 And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the LORD, which he spake by Elijah.
Notice, as she sustained the prophet, then her life was also sustained.
And so this is showing us a mystery for our day, in that we are also a gentile widow woman (church) called to sustain a prophetic ministry in this hour.
And so like this gentile woman of Zarephath, we have also been commissioned by God to kept a prophet alive during this time of famine, and it’s not just a famine for water and food, but also for the hearing of truth.
The Suffering of Uncertainty Pt.2
Firstly - Happy Mother’s Day to all of our mothers…
There is one thing for sure that a woman can do that a man cannot – and that is to bare and bring human life into the world. And this is one of the greatest privileges – and God gave that privilege to women and to mothers.
We salute all of our mothers…
__________
Last week we began this little subject of “The Suffering of Uncertainty” to see where the Lord would lead us with this – and of course we are taking these thoughts from different messages such as “Be Certain of God” and “The Uncertain Sound”.
And we have been looking at this for the reason that we are living in such a great time of uncertainty of where everyone is so uncertain.
*Wars and the high cost of living, and businesses struggling, and nobody really knows what’s going to happen with AI - is AI going to take all of our jobs away as some predict?
Then there is global warming and all these environmental problems – animals are losing their natural habitats, and many species have even become extinct.
Weather patterns are becoming more and more unpredictable and destructive.
*And so this is such an uncertain time, and that uncertainty causes a great amount of unsettling and suffering because it robs people of their peace and their hope for a better future - but to us as believers, we have received a message of a promise of certainty in this hour, of a great hope that lays just before us.
We read these scriptures from last week…
PSALM 46:1-2
1 ¶ To the chief Musician for the sons of Korah, A Song upon Alamoth. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
2 Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;
PSALM 46:10-11
10 Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.
11 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.
**As believers of this end time message, we have had a promise of God spoken over us for these last days by the voice of an Elijah ministry – and so this is the difference, because that was what made the difference to this widow of Zarephath.
I CORINTHIANS 14:8
8 For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?
I asked the question online as to how important communication was in a battle.
Answer:
Clear communication is absolutely vital in battle, often serving as the primary factor that determines the difference between victory and defeat or life and death.
In other words, a battle can be completely lost if the channel of information has been confused in some way by uncertain sounds.
If you can somehow scramble your enemy’s communication system, then that in itself becomes a very powerful weapon.
**Winston Churchill spoke of how that "In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies".
*And so this is the world that we find ourselves in today - of Satan’s Eden.
And so Satan being the god of this evil age, he is at total war with humanity because he is wanting to take the place of where the true God was meant to dwell in the heart of man, and so Satan wants to take that position himself so that he can be the one who is at the centre of a man’s heart and of what controls a man’s motives and desires.
The god of this evil age has created his own Eden of a world that is full of lies and confusion - of were everything is uncertain and humanities hope for a better future of peace and life is being slowly but surely taken from them – and he has achieved this by the voices of uncertain sounds.
*There are so many “influences” in the world today – and each one of them is sounding out with a different sound of a different voice and a different message.
And when people become confused by uncertain messages, then it becomes so hard to know what is really the truth about anything, and so people don’t really know what to do or how to prepare for anything, because they are uncertain.
**And so all this uncertainty is what had breed confusion among the people, and this is why we have ended up with ten thousand different interpretations of what every other person thinks is truth.
**When you see a picture or a video of a news clip or something – we are all very quickly developing an attitude of becoming very sceptical to everything we see, because we know that it might not be true anymore because of the fact that we now know that AI can so easily make up all this fake stuff that can look so real and yet isn’t real.
**But we have heard a voice of a prophet in this generation that is of a certain sound – just as this gentile woman of the city of Zarephath had also heard at the time of her greatest suffering of uncertainty.
**In the message “Be Certain of God”, Brother Branham had just read these verses of scripture about Elijah’s first meeting with this widow woman of Zarephath. And then he goes directly into his short opening prayer..
BE.CERTAIN.OF.GOD_ JEFF.IN V-5 N-12 SUNDAY_ 59-0125
2 For this morning's talk just before going overseas, I have chosen a text of this: "Be Certain of God."
And now (this is when he goes into this short prayer), Lord, bless Thy Word as It goes forth, and may the Holy Spirit capture our minds and our thoughts and prepare us for His visitation (Notice his thought here – how God had prepared this widow woman for the visitation of Elijah, because we know that it was the Holy Spirit of God within Elijah, and then he connects us into that same place “may the Holy Spirit capture our minds and thoughts and prepare us for that same visitation”.
*And so we have to sometimes stop and notice these things, because this widow woman was in a terrible place of suffering of mental anguish at a time of great uncertainty because of the famine and the condition of the nation and the situation that it had caused her and her son to find themselves in this dire condition – and remember that she had a mothers love for her son, and that is a love that is one of the most powerful loves of all loves.
…Let’s continue with the quote) …Lord, bless Thy Word as It goes forth, and may the Holy Spirit capture our minds and our thoughts and prepare us for His visitation, as we have asked Him to come. For we do not come to the house of the Lord to be seen or to see, but to learn of Thee, and to know of Thy nature, and Thy way, and Thy causes, that we might be able to face the problems of life with a real assurance, being certain of God. Grant it, Lord. In Jesus' Name we ask it. Amen. (Notice here – that we might be able to face life with a real assurance of being certain of God)
3 It must have been a dreadful morning. It was so hot and dusty, and people was in the street starving, and the earth was so hot it was ready to burn. All this was the reflection of their sins and their moral decay.
You see, Ahab was reigning in--in Israel at the time--or over Israel, and he was the wickedest of all the kings of Israel. There had been no king as wicked as Ahab. For he, being taught and knowed better, he failed not to continue to displease God in everything that he did. Although he had a great military system, and the people had become very prosperous under his reign. But yet, you cannot displease God and expect to get by very long.
*This story of the time of Elijah and this widow woman is certainly a parallel of the condition that we find ourselves in in the world today.
We are living in a world of where there is famine in the land, and multitudes of millions of people are uncertain about their future. And we know that all of this is the result because of people who have displeased God by their rejection of His truth.
THE.UNCERTAIN.SOUND_ JEFF.IN V-16 N-3 SUNDAY_ 60-1218 (This message was preached by Brother Branham just one week after he had taking the series on the seven church ages of which was transcribed into the church age book of what we have today)
92 Now, this is a day of uncertainty. It said here, "If the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself for battle?" Paul speaking here, 'course he was speaking to these Corinthians. And many of them were soldiers in those days in the Roman army. "Now, now if the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself?" You got to have the certainty of anything. We got to know whether it's right or not.
And now, we're living in a day of great uncertainty. We all know that; the day of uncertainty, and the time of uncertainty. I don't believe there ever was a time... Since time first began back in the garden of Eden, when sin come in and broke eternity into time, I do not believe there's ever been a space of time with so much uncertainty as today. Because there's not even one hope left in the natural world today.
Human beings were never designed by God to be uncertain about anything.
And so this subject of the suffering of uncertainty is very relevant to this time that we are living in, because this is the greatest times of human history (according to a prophet of God) of where there exists such an unprecedented amount of uncertainty amongst the people of the world.
THE.UNCERTAIN.SOUND_ JEFF.IN V-16 N-3 SUNDAY_ 60-1218
101 … let's just look over a few uncertain things now in this uncertain time. There is uncertainty about... Being that we spoke of war, there's uncertainty in the voice of the war lords. "We can't understand." They don't know. You go, and they'll have big meetings, and so forth, and they just can't get together. There's uncertainty. They don't know. They--they don't know what's going to take place. All the great strategists, and so forth, that study war, and the possibilities and how this would come out, they don't have the answer this morning. There's nobody does. They just can't tell you.
THE.UNCERTAIN.SOUND_ JEFF.IN V-16 N-3 SUNDAY_ 60-1218
117 Now, let's just take something else that's uncertain, just so many things. Jobs is uncertain. You don't know what time. You're working today, and tomorrow you don't know. It's just uncertainty. You'll be--have a good job, you think; and the next day, the boss comes around and gets somebody else, and kicks you out and puts somebody else in. So it's uncertainty of job.
THE.UNCERTAIN.SOUND_ JEFF.IN V-16 N-3 SUNDAY_ 60-1218
130 Now, the uncertainty of home life, the uncertainty of job, the uncertainty of war, the uncertainty of churches.
Brother Branham here is identifying four major areas of uncertainty that affects the people of the world today. Home life (social relationships). In many countries now, many young people aren’t even getting married anymore. Many of the young men would rather have AI girlfriends instead of real ones.
*Then there is Job security, of all these white collared jobs. Is AI going to take all those jobs away - and so that is also a great uncertainty.
*Then there is the constant threat of War – and we don’t have to look very far for that one.
Fuel prices are soaring to record levels. The cost of living had gone through the roof. House prices 7 to 14 times an annual person’s gross yearly wage while the historically ratio of 3:1 has mostly always been considered as the gold standard for "affordable" housing.
*And then there is Church life also.
Every church is calming to have the truth while at the same time trying to prove the other churches wrong. And this has an on flowing effect of causing families and lifelong friends being forced to take sides in church spits.
All so all this church politics and confusion and uncertainty among the people has caused unprecedented levels of metal strain and suffering – and so there are millions of people that are suffering under these conditions.
***And so God has prophesied and condensed all of these conditions into the story of our opening scripture of Elijah and the widow woman, and in this story He has also given us the answer for us to come out of this condition of suffering of being under all of these burdens of uncertainties.
*We first notice that in our story, that it was at the time of when a prophet of God was on the scene with the spirit of Elijah, and we see that under these great conditions that there was a woman of whom was suffering under these great conditions of uncertainty. And so God had sent this prophet with the spirit and power of Elijah to this woman with a message of a word of promise personally to her.
****And it was her faith in that message of Elijah that brought her out of the miry clay of the condition of her being uncertain about her future.
***It was the message of the hour that she had received by the voice of this prophet that had taken her out of uncertainty and into a certainty of which no one else outside of the voice of that message could do.