This sermon by Joshua Daniel focuses on the story of a widow in 2 Kings 4 who faced the threat of losing her sons to slavery due to debt, highlighting the power of faith and prayer in times of desperation. The message emphasizes the importance of seeking God's provision and guidance, trusting in His miraculous intervention, and holding onto the Holy Spirit for freedom and deliverance from bondage and fear.

Welcome to the Lord's Challenge with Joshua Daniel. The Layman's Evangelical Fellowship International is a ministry reaching people from all walks of life since 1935. After a life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ at the age of 16, Joshua Daniel has been declaring a marvelous deliverance from sin which is freely given to all those who turn to the loving Savior. Wherever this message has gone out, broken relationships have been restored, sickness healed, ill-gotten money returned, and thieves turned into givers. We now invite you to watch and receive the invaluable blessing that God has for you. Now, dear friends, in that portion of Scripture which we read this morning in 2 Kings 4, the first verse, Now there cried a certain woman who was a widow of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elijah. Elijah was the prophet who came after the prophet Elijah. And Elijah was the man who prayed, Give me a double portion of the Spirit which is upon you. A prayer of faith, double portion. You know, if you approach somebody who has got $2,000 in his pocket and you say, What I need and what you must give me is $4,000. Well, you see, that talks of not just an exaggerated kind of wish but the value that is put upon the blessing of God. Give me a double portion. And of course, God did use Elijah after the prophet Elijah had been caught up. You know, here was an awful situation. Her husband having died and she had gotten into debt and the creditors were at the door. And this woman is crying to Elijah the prophet, Is there any way by which I can be delivered? Thou knowest that your servant, my husband, did fear the Lord. And the creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be slaves. The creditor is at the door. You know, I hardly know the kind of feelings that would be in the heart of anybody who sees or hears the creditor knocking, the knock of the creditor. You know, my father used to speak of a time when he just did not have the rent to pay. And I remember the rent collector of the landlord who was a very rotten type of personality with a huge stomach and a short brain. And this gentleman used to come in and of course collect the rent. And my dad did not have the rent. And so said to the Lord, Lord, I can't see this man. Don't let him come till you give me the money to pay him. And of course, my dad would not ask anybody for a penny. When he said that he lived by faith, it was by faith, not by faith and hints. And appeals, no. However, miraculously, the rent collector just would not come. And you know, I don't know what relief my dad would have felt because I was just a boy at that time. But I recall him saying how God answered his prayer and kept away the rent collector until he had sent the money that was needed for that payment. You know, folks, in little things, we don't ask God and exercise faith. And when we don't do that, we are not getting ready to face the bigger problems of life. There are bigger problems which call for great faith. And how are you going to have such faith? You see, I feel very sad for boys who are brought up in affluent homes. When there's too much money in the house, oh, the children don't feel obliged to even do hard work. And laziness has become such a prevalent disease in the nation. It is amazing. Oh, I must have this. I must drink only this particular brand of beverage. What rubbish is that? Now, you know, my dear friends, and you just increase your needs, so you have cause to grumble about this and grumble about that, and we become perpetual grumblers. How will there be faith in such a heart? There will never be faith. There will be a sense of being deprived of this or looking over at the neighbor, which I have never done by the grace of God. Oh, God bless my neighbors. Let him do it. Why do I feel hurt about it? I should rejoice when my neighbor is happy. That's the heart which Jesus gives. But, you know, when I had to pray for a medical student who came to me and said, I had a heathen boy. And he said, Oh, my head. I'm not able to study. There's an awful headache. And I know how it is caused. One of my uncles apparently certainly would have played black magic against me. You know, how many people are afraid of black arts? And they say that while in some areas, there is a 30% growth in witches and witchcraft and 20% declension in church attendance. This was reported to me about some churches. How tragic. So dependence on the devil has become more potent and more reasonable than dependence upon the almighty and loving father. So we are passing through such a time. Now, what is this that is happening here? The creditor is come to take on to him to my two sons to be bondmen. Now, we hardly know what it is to be bondmen, isn't it? Well, I was not under any obligation to anybody except this one obligation that Jesus commanded me to take the good news to every creature. And that is my grief that I have not fulfilled. You know, apart from that, you know, I never put myself under any obligation. My father taught me, if you happen to take a friend with you or accompany a friend to just have a drink, a coffee or something, be sure to pay the bill. Don't you be under obligation to that boy. So when I was an unconverted boy, my father taught me that. So I never placed myself under anybody's heel or thumb. So I've never felt obliged to say, yes, yes, yes, I'll do this, I'll do that. When people wanted to lead me into wrongdoing. Now, however, when you become a bondman, that is a slave. I do not know how many people who say, my dad was a slave in the southern states. My granddad picked peanuts. And those that recall that ever stop to praise God for the loving labors of William Wilberforce. Do they ever say, hey, there were men who labored, fasted, prayed, and fought year after year. As a matter of fact, the death of Abraham Lincoln was also a prize that had to be paid for my freedom. No, I don't see such gratitude around. Not even a recognition of that kind of gratitude. You know, it's all, I cry, I don't have this, I don't have that. And let me get more entitlements from the government and so on and so forth. You know, when they say that 47% of American households did not pay any income tax. How does a country run? Anyway, here is a situation of slavery. The slave master is knocking at the door. You know, the deprivation of freedom, we don't know that, but still. How hard this country and those that wrote the constitution of this country treasured and wanted the preservation of these freedoms. And today, what? Are we going to have the slave master knocking at the church door at the pulpit by misconceived laws? Are we going to be in terror that we are going to lose our freedoms? My dear friends, here is this woman showing us the way. Prayer. Going to the prophet. You know, the spirit of prophecy appears to die out. We don't seem to forestall any of these situations. We only react to them. You see, the Bible tells us that the Holy Ghost is given, the Holy Spirit. I'll give you a comforter. He shall lead you into all truth. He shall show you things to come. Hey, this is ahead. You're going to meet this on the road. Get ready. Be prepared. You know, last night at our fasting prayer meeting, we... It was a message of my father's. Or a prayer of my father's was mentioned. And it was this. Lord, make me like Joseph. Give me that purity. Joseph ran away from sin. And Joseph foresaw what was ahead of the nation. The terrible famine that was coming. How to save the nation. And the nations around. We don't seem to have a prophetic spirit. Why? We don't even know how to go alone and pray. Elijah said to her, What shall I do for you? Tell me. What hast thou in the house? Strange, isn't it? Now, have you got something which you can sell off? What hast thou in your house? You know, so many people hold fast to so much junk. I have learnt in my life to just keep those things handy which I very much need. In other words, I have learnt to live out of a suitcase. And I don't miss this and miss that. You know. And that has helped me a great deal in my mobility. To move quickly and fast from one place of need to another place of need. I did not have to clutter myself with so many things. I need this, I need that. I must pack this, I must pack that. You know. So when a suitcase was lost in transit or lost by the airline, that did not seem like a great tragedy to me. Of course, it's an inconvenience. You need your undergarments at least to keep clean. But normally in most hotel rooms you have got a faucet and you have got running water and you can wash overnight and wear it next morning. So that was no great problem either. However, when this cry came to the Prophet, he said, what have you got? I have only a pot of oil. I don't understand. She didn't have flour. She did not have anything which needed to be cooked with that oil. She just had one pot of oil. So the Prophet said to her, go collect all the vessels that you can, utensils, vessels that you can possibly collect. And after she had collected them, the Prophet said, hey, now all these vessels around are filling my house. What shall I do? Pour that oil. You mean a few drops here, a few drops in the other? And the oil multiplied. You know the oil stands for the Holy Spirit. She held on to her faith. She held on to that indwelling Spirit of God. Let us pray. Oh, loving Father, we humble ourselves before you. How we almost seem to be debtors, slaves, in a manner which cripples us, fills us with fear. Although around us we see America being sold down the river and finding itself in trillions of debt, about which the leaders of the nation appear not to care very much. But Lord, we know that when we become captives to the flesh, our liberties are taken away, our freedoms destroyed. So what is happening in a wider world is just a reflection of what has happened in the heart, the heart of the nation. Oh, Lord our God, you want us to be free by your Spirit, free from the works of the flesh, the emotions that drag us down, the fears which tear us apart. By your Spirit, you want us to be free. Let us be free, Lord. Let there be oil, the Holy Spirit, that sets us free. So help us, we pray. In Jesus' holy name, Amen. This program is brought to you by the Layman's Evangelical Fellowship International, a non-denominational missionary and prayer group working for revival around the globe. We invite every layperson to become God's ally in changing his or her corner of the world. Please write, and if you have a problem or prayer request, please do let us know. You can email us at post at lefi.org or visit our website at lefi.org. Our mailing address is The Lord's Challenge, PO Box 14, South Lyon, Michigan, 48178. Until we meet again next week, may God bless you.