God Will Provide (How He Looks After You)

Will God provide for you even when you cannot see how?

God looks after His children — manna from heaven, water from the rock, and, in this study of 1 Kings 17, ravens carrying bread to a hidden prophet. Dr. Toby Holt traces how God cared for Elijah by the Brook Cherith during a famine, then sent him to a widow in Zarephath who was down to her last handful of flour and preparing a final meal for herself and her son. At God's word, her bin of flour was not used up and her jar of oil did not run dry.

For the discouraged and depleted, the point is pastoral: the God who provided through unlikely means, in the middle of famine, is the same God who looks after you. Provision may not come the way you expect, but the Father who fed Elijah and sustained the widow has not stopped caring for His own.

Questions this study answers:

1. What is the setting of 1 Kings 17? A severe drought and famine in Israel. God hides Elijah by the Brook Cherith and feeds him by ravens, then provides for him through a destitute widow in Zarephath.

2. What do we learn from the widow of Zarephath? That God provides even at the point of our last resources. She gave from her final handful of flour, and God kept the flour and oil from running out through the famine.

3. How does this comfort someone who feels depleted? Because God's care does not depend on visible means. The One who used ravens and a widow's jar to sustain His servants still looks after His children in their need.

"The bin of flour shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run dry." — 1 Kings 17:14 (NKJV)

Speaker: Dr. Toby Holt is the President of New Geneva Theological Seminary, a Reformed seminary in Colorado Springs. He is known for clear, down-to-earth Bible teaching, and his sermons have been downloaded more than 1.9 million times on SermonAudio.

Listen and go deeper: This study is part of New Geneva Theological Seminary's teaching on depression and hope. Find more verse-by-verse teaching across the Bible at newgeneva.org. To support this teaching ministry, visit newgeneva.org/give.