Elisha & the Widow's Oil

1. HOOK: Fill the cups

• Prepare 2 large identical jars/bottles, 2 small cups (e.g. communion cup), 2 buckets of water, and cloths to wipe up spills. Arrange the jars/bottles at one end of hall, and the small cups and buckets on the other.
• Divide kids into 2 groups and relay race to scoop water from the bucket and run to fill the jars/bottles. Or for smaller classes, prepare multiple small cups, get kids to surround the jar and try to scoop the water into the jar as fast as possible.
• Tie-in: We all had a small cup. Not much to look at. But with the small cup, we could fill the large jars/bottles full of water!
• Today we’re going to look at one of Elisha’s miracle — where the small jar of oil never ran dry!

2. STORY: Elisha & the Widow’s Oil (2 Kings 4:1-7)

• One day something very sad happened in Israel. One of the sons of the prophets died. He left behind a wife and two sons. They were very saddened by his death. After this man died there was a knock at the widow’s door. It was a man who was looking for money that her husband owed him. Her husband had an unpaid bill with this man. The man wanted his money now. “I am sorry sir, I have no money to pay you the money my husband owed” the widow may have said. “Well, ma’am since you don’t have the money to pay your husband’s debts, the law says I can take your two sons as full payment for his debt. I will make them my slaves for the debt your husband didn’t pay.”
• How do you think this widow felt at this news? Her husband had just died and now she was going to lose her only 2 sons. What could she do? She had no money and nothing to offer this man to pay the debt that was owed.
• She knew that Elisha was God’s prophet. He could help her. When we have a need we should go to someone who believes and trusts in God for help. The widow went to Elisha and said, “Your servant, my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord. Now that he is dead the man he owed money to is going to take my sons away to be his slaves!”
• “How can I help you?” Elisha asked this sad widow. “What do you have in your home that you could sell to make money?”
• “I have nothing at all,” she said, “except a small jar of olive oil.”<prop idea: small jar of olive oil>“Oil in Palestine, during Elisha’s time, was both a luxury and a necessity. The most common type of oil was olive oil. The olives were sometimes beaten (Leviticus 24:2), sometimes trodden (Micah 6:15), but generally crushed in a mill designed for that purpose. Olive oil was used almost every day by everyone. It was expensive because it was time-consuming to make. One olive tree will yield about ten gallons of oil a year. There were many purposes for the oil. It was used for lighting, medicinal purposes, cooking, and even for cosmetics and soaps. In the tabernacle, pure olive oil was used in the golden lampstand. Cuts and scrapes on animals and humans would be rubbed with olive oil to help the healing process. Priests, prophets, and the kings of Judah and Israel were anointed with the finest of olive oils. Queens would put it on their body.”
• Elisha told the woman and her sons to go around to their neighbors and ask for as many empty jars as they could get. “Don’t ask for just a few.”
• “When you get as many jars as you can, go into your house with your sons and close the door. Take the jar of oil that you have and begin to pour that oil into the empty jars that you have collected.”
• The widow went home and did exactly what Elisha had instructed. She and her sons went knocking on their neighbors’ doors and asked them if they could borrow any empty jars that they had. When they had borrowed all the jars that they could find, the widow and her sons went inside and shut the door.
• The widow picked up the small jar of oil that she had and began to carefully pour it into an empty jar that she had borrowed. Amazingly the jar filled with oil to the top. There was still oil left in the widow’s original jar. She went to the next empty jar and began filling it with oil. Again she was able to fill that jar with oil and still have oil in her original jar. Imagine how her sons felt as they were watching this miracle happen before their very own eyes! Their mother kept filling each and every empty pot that was in their house and she still had oil in her jar! She filled and filled until there were no more empty jars left. Then the oil stopped.
• The widow and her sons looked around at all the jars filled with oil that came from her one jar of oil. This was a miracle! God had provided in an amazing way! The widow ran to tell Elisha what had happened. He told her to go and sell her jars of oil and pay the debt her husband owed. With the money that would be left over she and her sons would be able to live on for a very long time.
• It was a great day for the widow and her sons. They were faced with a very difficult situation and they had no way of getting out of their problem without God’s help.

3. LESSON

A. A Debt We Couldn’t Pay

• This also reminds us that we have something in common with the widow in our story. She had a debt she had no money to pay. She was helpless and could do nothing to change her circumstances on her own.
• We have a debt that we can never pay on our own. We all have sinned against God and the payment for our sins is death. We cannot do anything to buy our way to heaven. We can’t be nice enough, honest enough, obedient enough or go to church enough to buy our way to heaven.
• The only way we can pay for our sins is by believing in Jesus. He died and paid for all of our sins with His sinless sacrifice on the cross. God raised Him from the dead and by faith in Jesus we can have the debt of our sin cancelled. Jesus Christ paid a debt that we owed with His own life.
• But more than just paying our debt, Jesus also gives us His abundant life! Just like God didn’t just pay off the woman’s debt but also blessed her with more than enough so that her sons and her could live off it. We had our sins completely paid off and forgiven — that is mercy. We have His abundant life living in us and through us — that is grace! Thank you Jesus!
• Have you trusted Him as your Savior? If not today you can by accepting Jesus as your Savior.

B. Overflowing Supply

• Sometimes we may also feel like this widow — that everything is hopeless, everything is against us, that we have nothing left to cling to, and that even God has abandoned us.
• But God never leaves nor forsakes us. This widow thought she had nothing left, but she forgot she had a small jar of oil. This oil — made from beaten, trodden and crushed olives — represent Jesus, who was beaten, trodden and crushed on the cross for us!
• Just as the oil filled every empty jar, Jesus comes to fill every empty heart and life, meeting all our needs and beyond.
• Elisha reminded the widow not to ask for only a few jars because the more jars the widow had, the more oil she had. If she didn’t trust Elisha’s words and only borrowed 2-3 jars, she would only have enough oil for those 2-3 jars, and maybe barely enough to pay her debt and nothing to live on. But she stepped out in faith and asked for as many jars as she and her sons could find, and she had more than enough — overflowing supply.
• The more we open up our lives for Jesus to fill, the more overflowing the blessings in our lives. No problem is too small, no challenge is too great for Jesus. Don’t be afraid to ask God for too much! Just make sure we don’t ask God for too little! Don’t miss out because Jesus wants to help us in every area of our lives if we allow Him to!
• Memory Verse: Philippians 4:19 And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus.
• Lead children to pray to accept Jesus; and to open up their hearts and every aspect of their lives to allow Him to fill them up and meet their needs.

Resource: Ministry to Children