So here's this guy, claims to have the word of the Lord, goes preaching in a stranger village, where no one knows him, and hits on a widow, not for her last pennies, but for her last grain of bread! Can you imagine what would happen to him, if CARM forums' best critics found out?

1 Kings 17:7 Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land. 8 Then the word of the LORD came to him: 9 "Go at once to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food." 10 So he went to Zarephath. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, "Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?" 11 As she was going to get it, he called, "And bring me, please, a piece of bread."

12 "As surely as the LORD your God lives," she replied, "I don't have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die."



13 Elijah said to her, "Don't be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. 14 For this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the LORD gives rain on the land.' "



15 She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. 16 For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the LORD spoken by Elijah.



17 Some time later the son of the woman who owned the house became ill. He grew worse and worse, and finally stopped breathing. 18 She said to Elijah, "What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?"



19 "Give me your son," Elijah replied. He took him from her arms, carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his bed. 20 Then he cried out to the LORD, "O LORD my God, have you brought tragedy also upon this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?" 21 Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried to the LORD, "O LORD my God, let this boy's life return to him!"



22 The LORD heard Elijah's cry, and the boy's life returned to him, and he lived. 23 Elijah picked up the child and carried him down from the room into the house. He gave him to his mother and said, "Look, your son is alive!"



24 Then the woman said to Elijah, "Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the LORD from your mouth is the truth."

I know. I know. You would never criticize if we were Elijah.



Let me see if I can underline what this passage does not teach, if one is WoF not charlatan wolf: This passage is encouragement for the WoFer who has truly given everything he has unto obedience to the Word of the Lord. Elijah had eaten nothing but bird's food since obeying God and making his pronouncement. He had been minutes in the halls of the king, and weeks, maybe months, maybe years...Sometimes we forget about the passage of time, and the tedious test it is....in the desert.



Then he's told by God to go eat off a widow's generosity. And that widow is not in the family of God! A gentile! He goes and demands a glass of water...oh...and a crust of bread. She announces that she only has enough for her and her son. He demands that she bring to him first.



Let's see if we can get this. God says, "I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food." Does it sound like this woman has been commanded anything? What does the man of faith do, when the circumstances not only contradict the "word" he thinks he received, but they also reveal that, in the natural, the word he received puts a widow and her son's lives in danger? Everything in his situation is militating against him taking the next step.



Which one of you here would have the courage to say what Elijah said next?