Elijah: The Conclusion

There you go. Yep.

That's awesome. Oh, thank you so much. Hello, everyone. Let's start with a word of prayer. Dear God, thank you so much for being with us here in this place tonight. Thank you for giving us this amazing freedom to gather in your name and to fellowship with each other and to be able to focus wholly on you, especially in the middle of the week, as we've all had stuff going on in our lives.

It's amazing to just get a refresh and to refocus our minds on where it should be. We praise you for the amazing God that you are and how well that you care for us and how much you love us. And I just pray that everyone in this room is able to turn off whatever happened this week and to refocus on you and how amazing you are. In your name I pray. Amen. All right.

Do you guys want to stand with me for this first one? New one for me. So. Don't judge me if I mess it up a little bit.

Dear God, thank you once again for the other tonight and to just praise you with no distractions. I pray that Pastor Ryan will have the words in his heart that you want him to speak. And I pray that you'll go with us throughout the rest of our week and keep our minds focused on you.

Good evening. If you would open up in your Bibles to the book of Second Kings, chapter one. Second Kings. Chapter one. Not much introduction to give to the book of Second Kings. Imagine the introduction from First Kings and it's the exact same thing. Okay. It's just a continuation of the book. As a matter of fact, in the Hebrew Bible, it's just one book. But for brevity's sake, they broke it up in our English Bible.

And we pick up exactly where we left off. Ahab has died. We kind of saw the conclusion of Ahab in the last time that we were together. And tonight we'll look at the conclusion of Elijah. And of course, after Ahab died, his son Ahaziah took over. And Ahaziah was an evil king. And so we pick up in chapter one of Second Kings, verse one. And it says this. Now Moab rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab.

And Ahaziah fell through the lattice in his upper chamber, which was in Samaria, and became ill. So he sent messengers and said to them, Go, inquire of Baal-Zabub, the god of Ekron, whether I will recover from this sickness. So this first section that we cover is really just the death of Ahaziah. But there's kind of a story that goes into it, kind of an interesting story that does involve Elijah.

It starts off by giving us a little bit of a time stamp on it. It says that the people of Moab began to rebel against the nation of Israel. Now, if we were to go all the way back into 2 Samuel, we would find that in David's conquests, one of the groups of people that he took over was the Moabites. And he put them under tribute. They, if you will, became under the taxation of the Israelites.

And had remained underneath the taxation of the Israelites up until this point in time. It's interesting because even though Ahab was such an evil king, he was really a pretty good political ruler. And was actually a pretty powerful king. Both he and his father Omri were very good kings. And it kind of brings up an interesting point. And that's that sin does not always immediately bring about downfall.

But the erosion always begins, right? Like, have you ever noticed that sometimes you'll see someone or a nation begin to walk in sin and begin to really be opposed to the things of God? And you're going, why hasn't God brought judgment yet? I thought sin automatically brought judgment. But in the case of Israel, while God's judgment was on its way and the erosion was taking place underneath of the surface,

outwardly, they remain pretty strong underneath Omri, who is a very evil king, and underneath Ahab, who is an evil king. And sometimes within nations, you will see that while sin is ruling and reigning, it appears as though they're absolutely maintaining all of their political power. But what you don't see is the erosion of sin underneath. And the erosion of sin underneath will eventually take its toll on the kingdom.

And that's exactly what happened when Ahaziah took over. Remember, he's only going to have reigned for two years. And during this time, he lost some political power. But you know what's true of kingdoms and what's true of nations and what's true of governments is true of people. You don't always see the effects of sin immediately in the life of an individual.

You may not always immediately see the effect of sin in your own life. As a matter of fact, for a time, it may seem as though you're able to get away with it and have no issue whatsoever. But the erosion is taking place. And that erosion slowly but surely begins to take away the foundation that you stand upon until at some point in time, it collapses your life.

And this is exactly what happens in the life of Ahaziah and in the life of the Northern Kingdom. And so, politically speaking, the kingdom is kind of falling apart. And literally, Ahaziah is falling apart, or in this case, falling through the latticework. I don't know if Ahaziah was a particularly clumsy individual. I don't know if there was just some sort of an accident that took place.

But somehow, he fell through the latticework and was injured severely. Now, you would think in this moment in time, when all of his political power is eroding, and he's just had an accident that nearly probably took his life, and he wants to find out, is this going to officially take his life? You would think at some point in time, especially given the things that he had seen with Elijah and around the kingdom, you would think at some point in time, he would just cry out to the Lord. But that's not what he does.

Because unfortunately, people still will refuse to cry out to the Lord, no matter what's going on in their life. And Ahaziah finds himself in this place where everything's falling apart around him. And he says, go inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, whether I will recover from this sickness. It's interesting because from what I understand, Baal-zebub, which means the Lord of the Flies, was not actually the name of the god of Ekron.

That's a name that the Jewish people had chosen. They had given to the god of Ekron in somewhat of spite against him. And some of the more religious, more devout Jews had given him this name. But he says, go inquire of the Lord of the Flies whether I will recover from this sickness. It says in verse 3, But the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite, Arise and go up to the messengers of the king of Samaria and say to them,

Is it because there is no god in Israel that you are going to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron? Now therefore, thus says the Lord, You shall not come down from the bed where you have gone up, but you shall surely die. And then Elijah departed. I love this because Ahaziah has sent to really a god from a faraway country, which is kind of interesting because while quite some time back, Elijah had killed a good number of the prophets of Baal, undoubtedly there were still prophets of Baal around there.

And he could have reached out to any one of the prophets of Baal that he wanted to that were close by. But he didn't. He reached out to the prophets of Baal-zebub and a faraway country. Why did he do that? Well, because while his political power was eroding, he also knew that some sort of an injury would make him look weak as a king. And so he didn't send to the people that would be the closest to him and who would know him.

He sort of tried to hide this from the rest of the kingdom by going to a faraway god, by going to faraway prophets. But you can't hide anything from the Lord. As a matter of fact, I love that while he's doing this in secret, you can just imagine God sort of whispering to Elijah, this is what's going on and you need to go meet the messengers. And this is what you need to say.

Is it because there's no God in Israel? Of course, this is tongue-in-cheek on God's part. He wants to bring up the fact that there's absolutely a God in Israel, but he refuses to turn to the God of Israel. He absolutely knows that there's a God in Israel because he is the God of Israel. And he knows that he's the all-powerful God of Israel. And yet he says, is it because there's no God in Israel?

Or maybe better yet, because you refuse to acknowledge the true God of Israel? That you have decided to send to Baal-zebub to find out what's going to happen? And this is the message that you need to give to the messengers. You will, in fact, not survive this. You will die and send them with that message. Boy, Elijah was a man, wasn't he? Like here, the king of the northern kingdom,

of course, this isn't his first rodeo in dealing with royalty, right? It's not his first rodeo in dealing with the king. He's dealt with this before, he's dealt with his dad. So he sends him with his message, sends him with this message. Verse 5, it says, When the messengers returned to him, meaning Ahaziah, he said to them, Why have you returned? And they said, A man came to meet us, and he said to us,

Go, return to the king who sent you, and say to him, Thus says the Lord, Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are sending to inquire of Baal-zebub? Therefore you shall not come down from the bed where you have gone up, but shall surely die. And he said to them, What kind of a man was it who came up to you and spoke these words to you? And they said, He was a hairy man wearing a leather belt about his waist.

And he said, It's Elijah the Tishbite. Man, I can't help it. This is one of the funniest sections you'll ever read in the Bible. Next, we're going to read about a bald guy, and all I'm saying is there's something spiritual about a hairy man that's bald, right? I didn't make it up, the Bible says it. So these messengers come back, and he knew it should have taken them longer than that

because he sent them to a faraway land, right? And he says, Why did you come back so quickly, Elijah? Well, this guy came up and told us. This is the message that you need to give. You're going to die. That's a bad message, right? He said, Who gave you the message? What kind of a man was he? They were like, He was a hairy dude wearing a leather belt, right?

So really what it means is he was wearing a hairy cloth. It actually speaks of his clothing. Picture John the Baptist, right? Campbell's hair. That's what it means by a hairy man, although I do like to play with that joke just a little bit because it is kind of fun. But they explain him to Ahaziah. And as soon as they explain him, I love it because his outward appearance even gave him away.

His outward appearance even said, That is Elijah the Tishbite, which is kind of interesting because the clothes that Elijah wore were the most common clothes that anyone could wear. You see, they described a common man with a message from God. And isn't it great that that's how he knew it's Elijah the Tishbite? I think that there should be something about us, not necessarily the look that we have on our face or something like that, but there should be something about us that when people describe us, they know, Well, they belong to God.

That's a messenger from God. Whether it be the love that you have in your life, whether it be the peace that you have in your life, whether it be the servant heart that you have in your life, whether it be the holiness that you have in your life, whatever it is, wouldn't it be wonderful if somebody simply described you and somebody said, I know who that is. That's a servant of the living God. And that's how he describes Elijah.

And so he says, I know who that is. That's Elijah the Tishbite. The king sent to him a captain of 50, verse 9, with his 50. And he went up to him, and behold, he was sitting on top of the hill. And he said to him, O man of God, the king says, come down. And Elijah replied to the captain of the 50, If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your 50.

And fire came down from heaven, and he consumed him and his 50 men. Now this is a pretty aggressive moment on the part. It's not the first time he's killed a bunch of prophets, right? It's not the first time he's killed a bunch of bad guys. But this seems pretty intense. So Ahaziah says, you need to go get Elijah. And when the guy shows up, he says, Elijah, you're supposed to come with me to go see the king.

You man of God. He says, if I'm a man of God, then let fire come down and consume you. Right? And just gone. Tragic and funny at the same time, right? Tragic that 51 men just lost their lives. A little bit funny because it's like, man, fire absolutely just consumed those 51 dudes out of nowhere. I wonder if Elijah was as shocked as anyone else was. Here's the second thing I want to know.

How did news get back that that's what happened to these guys? Because we're going to find that that's what happens. News returns that these 51 men had been consumed by fire. Now, the question you should be asking yourself right now is, why? Why would God have done that? Why would God have consumed these 51 men with fire? And I'll tell you why by asking you a second question.

Why did they want to take Elijah back? So according to ancient custom at that point in time, when a curse was put upon an individual, and essentially this message was like a curse, the only way that curse could be broken was in two ways. Either by the individual that gave the curse, the prophet that gave the curse, renouncing it, or by putting that prophet to death. Which one do you think Ahaziah wanted to do?

He sent those 50 men after Elijah because he wanted to bring him back and put him to death. And that brings me to a very interesting point that we should pay attention to. The safest place that you can be is in the will of God. The safest place that you can be is in the will of God obeying him. Because Elijah had to deliver a difficult message to a powerful man.

And as he delivered a difficult message to a powerful man, it would have been easy for Elijah to be a little bit nervous. Because at this point in time in his life, he'd seen enough that he wasn't fearful any longer. He was actually just sitting by himself on top of a hill. But isn't it beautiful to know that while you are obeying God, you're as safe as you can possibly be?

And I don't know about you, but I can sometimes ask myself, well then why do some people lose their lives in the service of the Lord? Because it's still the safest place that you can be. After all, what did Paul tell us? For me to live is Christ. And for me to die is gain. Right? And so at some point in time, you realize that when your life is in the hands of God,

then your life is precious to God. And he's always going to do what's best for you. And so this is what happens with Elijah. So, verse 11. So he again sent to him another captain of fifty with his fifty. And he said to him, O man of God, thus says the king, come down quickly. Elijah replied to them, If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty.

And the fire came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty men. And this dude is on a roll. Right? Like, same thing happens again, only there's going to be one more shot at it. So again, verse 13. So he again sent the captain of a third fifty with his fifty. When the third captain of the fifty went up, he came, he bowed down on his knees before Elijah,

and he begged him. He said, O man of God, please let my life and the lives of these fifty servants of yours be precious in your sight. Behold, fire came down from heaven and consumed the first two captains of fifty. See? Who told him? That's what I want to know. Question's not answered. We'll never find out. Not until we get to heaven. I won't care at that point in time.

Fire came down from heaven and consumed the first two captains of fifty with their fifties. But now let my life be precious in your sight. And the angel of the Lord said to Elijah, Go down with him. Don't be afraid of him. So he arose and went down with him to the king. I love it because at this point in time, Ahaziah knows who's in charge. And not only does Ahaziah know who's really in charge,

but his army knows who's really in charge. And they show up and they're like, Listen, we don't want to do anything to you. Could you just not kill us this time? We would really like to not be fried up in the fire again. Would you mind just going with us? And as they, as he humbly presents himself before Elijah, God says, Now they're ready. You can go talk to him.

And so they take Elijah with them. It says, They said to him, Thus says the Lord, Verse 16, Because you have sent messengers to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, is it because there is no god in Israel to inquire of his word? Therefore you shall not come down from the bed where you have gone up, but you shall surely die. So Ahaziah died according to the word of the Lord, and Elijah had spoken.

Because he had no son, Jehoram became king in his place. In the second year of Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah. That's going to get a little confusing, just so you know. Now the rest of the acts of Ahaziah which he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? You know what I find interesting about the end of this story?

So finally he goes with them. And when he goes with them, he gives him no new message. Did you notice that? He says, You didn't inquire of God. Is it because there's no god in Israel? You're required of Baal-zebub, you're going to die. Same message. You know why? Because when you won't obey God, he won't give you new revelation. When you won't do what he's told you the first time,

he won't reveal something to you new a second time. Until you follow the directions the first time, you're going to be stagnant until you begin to obey. And then he can take you deeper. And then he can show you more. But until then, the word of God stands. And I love that God's always faithful to his word. Listen, even when we don't like that he's faithful to his word.

And that's what happens. And so sure enough, he died just like God said, according to the word of the Lord. And he passed away and he had no son, which brings to an end the line of Ahab. And so Jehoram takes his place. Well, now as we come to chapter two, we really come to the end of the message. We come to the ministry of Elijah. As a matter of fact, I've entitled this first part,

Elijah's Chariot of Fire. One of my favorite stories, even from back when I was a kid. It says, It came about when the Lord was about to take up Elijah by a whirlwind to heaven, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal. And Elijah said to Elisha, Stay here, please, for the Lord has sent me as far as Bethel. Elisha said, As the Lord lives, let yourself live.

I will not leave you. So they went down to Bethel. So we're going to find that Elisha is going to follow Elijah everywhere he goes. I love the way this chapter starts. It was when God was about to take Elijah up in a whirlwind. Can you imagine anything else for Elijah than this? Can you imagine any other ending for Elijah than him being taken up in a whirlwind?

And we're going to find that Elisha is going to be faithful to him through this whole time. Remember, when Elijah was in his hardest time, the hardest place in life, when he was in his most depressed moment of his life, questioning if anyone else even loved God, if anybody else even followed the Lord. What is he even doing? Because all of his work seems worthless.

God said, Your work is not worthless. You will eventually anoint a guy by the name of Jehu, which, by the way, Elijah never did. Elisha will go on to do. You're going to anoint a guy named Jehu to be king. He's going to deal with the rest of the line of Ahab and Jezebel. And then you're going to go and you're going to anoint Elisha as the one who will take over for you.

And when he comes to Elisha, he's just simply faithfully serving God, faithfully serving his family, plowing in the field. Then he tells Elisha, You need to come with me. He throws his mantle on him. And Elisha joins him as a faithful servant. We really don't read too much else about Elisha after that point until we get into this section. But Elisha, for about the past,

most scholars say 10 years, has just been working alongside of Elijah. He worked alongside him and he learned. He assisted. He was there. He probably did the menial tasks, right? But the whole time he was watching, the whole time he was learning, the whole time he was seeing what it really meant to be a faithful man of God. He was learning what boldness looks like.

He was learning what strength looks like. He was learning what spirituality looks like. He was learning what walking with God looks like for that decade of time while he waited. Because remember, as we pointed out before, the waiting times are not wasted times. The waiting times are the preparation times. And that's what God was doing with Elisha. And so Elisha was sensing what was going on here.

And Elijah is going to keep telling him, You stay here. Because Elijah wants to go home to the Lord by himself. But I also think he's testing Elisha's faithfulness. And I'll tell you why in just a minute. So verse 2, Elijah said to Elisha, Stay here, please. For the Lord has sent me as far as Bethel. And Elisha said, As the Lord lives and as you yourself live,

I will not leave you. So they went down to Bethel. And then the sons of the prophets who were at Bethel came out to meet Elisha and said to him, Do you not know that the Lord will take away your master from over you today? And he said, Yes, I know. Be still. Elijah said to him, Please stay here. For the Lord has sent me to Jericho. But he said, As the Lord lives

and as you yourself live, I will not leave you. So they came to Jericho. The sons of the prophets who were at Jericho approached Elisha and said to him, Do you know that the Lord will take away your master from over you today? And he answered, Yes, I know. Be still. Elijah said to him, Please stay here. And he said, As the Lord lives and as you yourself live,

I will not leave you. So the two of them went on. And fifty men of the sons of the prophets went and stood opposite them at a distance while the two of them stood by the Jordan. Elijah took his mantle, he folded it together, and he struck the waters, and they were divided there, so that the two of them crossed on dry ground. I just love this entire scene. They're going to push Elisha away.

And Elisha's like, No. I'm going with you. I've been with you the last ten years. I've been with you through all of the things that you've gone through. I'm not going to leave you now. I'm going to faithfully follow you no matter what. And I love that even the sons of the prophets, all these other prophets are like, Don't you understand what's going on? You're going to lose him today.

He's going to be gone. And he says, I know. Just be still. He follows them to Bethel, and then to Jericho, and then to Gilgal, finally across the Jordan River. And how do they get to cross the Jordan River? He takes his mantle, and he snaps the Jordan River, and it parts, and they walk across. Even miracles in this moment that we see from Elijah. And he follows them across the Jordan River.

And the entire time, Elijah's going, He's doing exactly what I want. He's showing me that he's faithful. You know why I think that? Because he's faithful. He's not just a fool. He's a man of faith. He's a man of faith. And Elijah, he says in verse 9, When they had crossed over, Elijah said to Elisha, Ask what I shall do for you before I am taken from you. And Elisha said,

Please let a double portion of your spirit be upon me. He said, You've asked a hard thing. Nevertheless, if you see me See, this is why I think he was testing his faithfulness. Is he going to stay with me? And finally, after he tested his faithfulness, all these different places, following him no matter what everybody else was saying, no matter how much everybody else said, this is ridiculous, this is foolish,

you just need to leave him alone. And Elijah's going, just leave me alone. And he says, no, I'm going to stay with you because I've been with you all these years. I'm not going to leave you behind now. You're my person. You're the person I'm following. You're my mentor. I'm going to be with you. And finally he says, what do you want me to do for you? And Elisha asks him a bold request.

He said, I want a double portion of the spirit that's upon you. Now, I think that there's two ways for us to look at this. And I read both of them. So I do think it's kind of interesting to look at both of them. On one hand, I think what he's saying is, I want to be able to do what you've done and even more. Because I don't want to be content to live off of what you've done.

I want new things in my own life. He says, He says, I want a double portion of the spirit that's upon you. You know why? Because if Elisha had learned one thing throughout the life of Elijah, is that no matter how great of a man Elijah was, he was only great because of the working of the Holy Spirit in him. And brothers and sisters, I think we need to know something.

You can look at the greatest servant of God out there that's doing the most amazing things, and you need to understand something. The things that they do are not because of how great they are. The things that they do are because of the Holy Spirit and working. And the same Holy Spirit that's at work in them is the same Holy Spirit that's at work in you. It's just that your job looks different than theirs.

It's just that what you're going to do looks different than theirs. And I think we need to remember that. I think we need to pay attention to that. We do not give the Holy Spirit enough credence in today's church. Either that or we give them so much credence that we've lost complete track of what the Holy Spirit was ever intended to do and it's turned into a sideshow.

But the fact of the matter is, we do not rely enough upon the power of the Holy Spirit because I believe that the Holy Spirit is the same Holy Spirit that the Holy Spirit wants to do powerful things in the lives of people. And he wants to do powerful things through you. He doesn't want you just to be a pew sitter, or in this case, a comfy chair sitter. He doesn't just want you to occupy a space in a church.

He wants you to be a force for the kingdom of God. And that's what Elisha says. I've watched you be a force for the kingdom of God. I've watched you stand strong for the kingdom of God. I've watched you do amazing things for the kingdom of God and in the name of God. And I want to do even more than you did. But I know that's going to require a double portion of the Holy Spirit.

Brothers and sisters, I have a question for you. Do you ever just ask for a double portion of the Holy Spirit in your life? Do you ever just ask for a fresh filling of the Holy Spirit in your life that he would baptize you afresh with the power of the Holy Spirit to do miraculous things, to do powerful things, to reach the people that are around you? Sometimes our prayers are weak.

Therefore, our influence is weak. Sometimes our dependence on the Spirit is weak. Therefore, our power is weak. Because we just think, well, I can do pretty good on my own. I'll just sprinkle a little Holy Spirit dust in every now and then. No, you don't need a little Holy Spirit dust. You need as much of it as you can take. You need a Holy Spirit overflowing in your life.

That's what we need right now. And so he says, I want a double portion of the Holy Spirit in your life. But you see, I think there's a second reason why he says this. You see, this borrows from the language of Deuteronomy when it talks about, what the oldest will receive, a double portion of the inheritance. And the idea behind that is that, that the oldest would be the leader of the family

after the patriarch passes on. And remember, there's three different times we saw the sons of the prophets saying, hey, your leader's about to leave. What he's saying is, let me take over your place of being the leader of the prophets. I want to be the one who continues on the work of God in this way. And so, Elijah says something interesting. He says, what you've asked is a hard thing.

Nevertheless, if you are here when I'm gone, if you stay with me until I go, you'll have exactly what you've asked. What does he tell him? You keep being faithful and you'll receive everything that you've asked for. You see, it's been a test of faithfulness up to this point in time, and it will be a completion of the faithfulness in order to have this take place.

So I want you to notice what happens. I love this. I love this scene. I have it underlined in my Bible. If you're an underliner, it might be an interesting one to underline. Verse 11, it says, as they were going along and talking. It says other things after that, but that little line kind of got me. Because what were they doing? They were just walking and they were talking together.

They had been going to all these different cities, walking everywhere that they went. But after this moment, it's almost like the tension was broken. And after the tension was broken, it was now just time to talk about what it would look like if that was to be what Elijah, was to become. If he was to be the one that was going to take over for Elijah and have that double portion of the spirit, it's time to talk about what that looked like.

And you can only imagine what the conversation would have been like. I bet Elijah spent a little bit of time talking about how hard it was to proclaim a drought in the land. And I remember, I remember when, when I felt like the Lord told me to, to say that there's not going to be rain in the land for three years. It was a bold step of faith. Powerful man I had to go up against.

I was scared to death. I was shaking in my hairy boots, right? Like I was scared to death to do it. And then I got to tell you what was even harder than that is when I started praying that it would rain. And there wasn't a cloud in the sky. There hadn't been a cloud in the sky for three and a half years. And I prayed that it would rain. And all there was a little fist-sized cloud in the sky.

And I was like, that's it. Let's go. That was hard. What about the prophet thing? Not as hard as you would think. The rain thing. That was what was hard. You know, and stories like that that were going on, that he's telling him, stories of God's faithfulness, stories of God's power, stories of what God was able to do if someone would be surrendered. And their heart to him.

See, they went along and they talked. And as they went along and they talked, notice what happens. There appeared a chariot of fire and horses of fire, which separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it and he cried out, my father, my father, the chariots of Israel and its horsemen. And he saw Elijah no more. He took hold of his own clothes and tore them.

In two pieces. I've heard this story since I was a tiny kid, but I read it just a little bit differently this time. Usually I think of Elijah going up in a chariot of fire, but that's not actually what it says. A chariot of fire was there, but what actually took him up? It was a whirlwind that took him up. I don't think I've ever paid attention to that before, right?

I always think about him going up in a chariot of fire. I actually always had this picture of him jumping into a chariot and like whipping the horses, getting ready to go, right? That's it. That's the picture I had in my mind this entire time. Now I have a little bit of a picture of Dorothy getting caught up in the twister, right? That's a little bit more what's in my mind now.

It was a whirlwind that caught him up. Whatever it was, what a fantastic experience this had to have been. The second time in the Old Testament that someone was translated into heaven without death. Second time that they were, if you will, caught up or raptured, which gives for us a really, really cool picture of what we're waiting for, which is the rapture of the church.

But definitely in Old Testament, picture of it. He's taken up into that whirlwind of fire and Elisha just looks up and he just cries out, my father, my father, the chariots of Israel and the horses tore his clothes. You know why? Because as excited as he was to see what had taken place in the life of the man that he had followed for so long, as excited as he was to know that God was gonna use him in a powerful way and as cool as the scene was, he still just lost his mentor.

He still just lost the person. That meant a lot to him. And even though he knew how good that was, it was still hard. He tore his clothes and notice what happens next. It says, he also took up the mantle of Elijah that fell from him and he returned and he stood by the bank of the Jordan. Now, I think this is a cool scene too because he had to take up the mantle of Elijah.

He'd made the big request. He'd been faithful. He'd been faithful to do what he was supposed to do. But now there lay the mantle of Elijah, basically the outer cloak of Elijah. There it was. And now he's got a decision to make. Do I take up the mantle or pretend none of that ever happened? Do I take up the mantle and know exactly what that means or do I leave it there

and go on and lead a normal life? Because I'm here to tell you right now, once you pick up the mantle, your life is never the same again. It's never normal again. Because even though Elijah lived a powerful life, he also lived a life of great pressure and great responsibility. And he had to make a choice. Are you going to pick up the mantle? And of course he did.

And I'm here to tell you right now, we have a choice every day to make in our lives, right? Every day you can either decide to live a normal life and pretend like God has no control over you, no calling on your life and pretend like God doesn't want to use you in a powerful way and God doesn't want to do cool things through you or anything like that. You can choose that. You can choose a normal life, probably still go to heaven or you can choose to take up the mantle.

There's pressure and responsibility. I will not lie to you about that. But man, it's the greatest thing you can imagine. It hurts my heart. And I'm just going to be honest. It hurts my heart when I see people that attend a church and won't serve in the church. Sure, you're living, you're living a probably pretty peaceful life. No pressure, no responsibility.

But man, what you're missing out on, you can't replace that. You can't replace what you're missing out on just by being a pew warmer, comfy seat warmer. Because once you take up the mantle, there's a lot that goes along with it. But man, it's pretty amazing. And so he picks up the mantle and he stood by the bank of the Jordan. Did you notice that he led him

on this path that brought Elisha to a point where the only way for him to get back was for something miraculous to happen? The only way he could get back was for God to do something because how'd they get across the Jordan River? He struck it with his mantle, right? And now he is in a place where the only way he can get back is to completely depend on God. And so what does he do?

He takes up the mantle of Elijah, verse 13, that fell from him and he returned and he stood by the bank of the Jordan River and he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him and he struck the waters and he says, where is the Lord? The God of Elijah. And when he struck the waters, they were divided here and there and he crossed over. Isn't that great? He picks up the mantle

and the first thing that happens is something so powerful that reminded him. He says, where's the God of Elijah? And God said, I'm right here. I'm right here. And so he goes across the river and it says, when the sons of the prophets who were at Jericho opposite him saw him, they said, the spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha. And they came to meet him and they bowed themselves

to the ground before him. And they said, behold, now there are with your servants 50 strong men. Let us, let them go and search for your master. Perhaps the spirit of the Lord has taken him and cast him on some mountain somewhere. The image of that is just hilarious. Can we all be honest? Like Elijah's in this whirlwind. It's like, right? Just threw him on a mountain.

They're like, maybe he threw him on a mountain somewhere. And he said, no. And then they finally urged him until he was ashamed. And he said, fine, send. And they sent there for 50 men and they searched three days, but did not find him. And they returned to him while he was staying at Jericho. And he said to them, did I not say, don't go? Now, I want to point out one thing to you.

These are godly men. These are learned men. These are men that knew a lot about God, but they're kind of like us. Even though they believed in the miraculous, they didn't necessarily trust in the miraculous. You see, they, like us, sometimes want to build bridges when God wants to part the waters. They're like, maybe God threw him on a mountain somewhere. He's going, no, that's not what happened at all.

God took him up. I watched the whole thing take place. But just like us, they were like, no, we're just going to go search him. We're going to rule everything out. Is that how you are? Are you always wanting to build a bridge when God wants? Well, that's how they were. And finally, he goes, fine, go, but you're not going to find him. And of course, they didn't find him.

He's like, told you. So, verse 18. So they returned to him while he was staying at Jericho. And he said to them, did I not say, do not go? Then the men of Elijah said, behold, now the situation of this city is pleasant as my Lord sees, but the water is bad and the land is unfruitful. He said, bring me a new jar and put salt in it. He said, bring me a new jar and put salt in it.

He said, bring me a new jar and put salt in it. He said, bring me a new jar and put salt in it. So they brought it to him. He went out to the spring of water and he threw salt in it and said, thus says the Lord, I have purified these waters. There shall not be from them death or unfruitfulness any longer. So the waters have been purified to this day, according to the word of Elisha, which he spoke.

So the first city that he finds himself in after the crossing of the Jordan is Jericho, which is kind of interesting because what was the first city that the children of Israel came to in the book of Joshua after they crossed? The Jordan, they came to Jericho and there was a battle that they had to fight there, right? A battle that would sort of indicate how they were going to win all of the rest of the battles, which is by faith. It's kind of interesting because Elisha, who had just crossed the Jordan River miraculously, finds himself at Jericho where he will learn exactly how he's going to fight the rest of his battles and that's by faith.

And so as he's there, the waters have been cursed, probably going all the way back to Joshua because he had cursed the city. And they're like, look, it's a beautiful place. The water's terrible. We can't go there. We can't go there. He can't grow anything. He can't drink the water. We've got a real situation here. And Elisha says something interesting. He says, bring me a new jar

and put some salt in it. So they bring him a jar with salt and he throws it into the water and he says, thus says the Lord, I have purified the water. And of course, from that point on, the water's been purified. Now, I've never been on a tour of Israel, but all of the commentators that I read have and they all said that when you show up in Jericho, there's a spring of water that is supposed to be the exact one that he threw that into and it's great water.

It's better than anybody can drink. So kind of cool that according to tradition, still exactly the same today. But there's a couple of lessons for us to learn here. The first lesson is this. God uses common things to do the miraculous. It was a jar with some salt in it. There's nothing about that that's miraculous. There's nothing about that that's uncommon at all.

It's the most common thing you could ever find in a house. And he threw it into the water and God used something very common to do something very miraculous. And he brought purity to the water. Well, in the same way, God uses common people to do miraculous things. Because if we fast forward all the way to the New Testament, do you remember what Jesus said? He said, you are the salt of the earth, right?

You are the purifying substance in the earth. And it's not that you do the purifying, God does the purifying. Because the salt in the jar didn't purify the water. The Lord brought the purity to the water. The salt was just... The salt was just the instrument that he used. Kind of like you. You're the salt of the earth. You bring purity where you go. Not because of who you are,

but because of the God that you serve. And so, so this next miracle is sort of by faith and it's going to set the tone for everything else that he does. Then in verse 23, it says, so then he went up from there to Bethel and as he was going up by the way, young lads came out from the city and they mocked him. And they said, go up, you bald head. Go up, you bald head.

And when he looked behind him and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. And two female bears came out of the woods and tore up 42 lads of their number. And he went from there to Mount Carmel. And from there, he returned to Samaria.

All I'm saying is don't make fun of a bald guy. That's all I'm saying.

Now, first of all, this is actually a pretty controversial story because first of all, these are kids, right? And everybody's like, why would God... All kids with bears, that's just so mean. Well, first of all, we have to understand that that phrase young lads could either mean a young kid or it could mean someone up to the age of 40, right? Like Timothy was called a kid.

Like he was told not to despise his youth and he was 40, right? Isaac was considered a youth when he got married and he was 40. So we have to understand this is a little bit of an all encompassing term. So probably not kids yelling this at some point in time. These are probably grown men and they're grown men from the area of Bethel. And if you don't know very much about Bethel,

Bethel is one of the places where Jeroboam originally set up a golden calf for worship. And there was a school of prophets to the golden calf that were there. So there's a very good indication that these young men were of the school of the prophets of the false gods. And what they were actually telling Elisha to do was to go up and get out just like Elijah did.

And they were actually mocking him and being very disrespectful, not only to him, to Elijah, but also to God. And so he called down, everybody says he called down bears. No, he called down a curse. God sent the bears because God defends bald people. That's just all that there is to it, right? Like we can all rest in that. You know, I really, I don't mind bald jokes.

I think you know that about me by now. You can't work with youth as long as I have and be this short and this bald and this hairy and not develop some pretty thick skin when it comes to dealing with those things. I used to tell kids, I remember when I first moved down here, of course to everybody up there, they teased me all the time because they were around me all the time. And when I came down here and started teaching at Ark City Christian Academy, one of the kids cracked a bald joke at me and everybody kind of went because they didn't know how I was going to respond.

And I said, look, show up with something original or don't show up at all, okay? Because I'm tired of the same old bald jokes. But this was not a situation where everybody knew they were kidding. This was disrespect. This was mockery on the part of these young men. And God will always defend his servants. And that's exactly what happened. We're not even told that these men were killed.

We're told that they, they were mauled, hard to say which would be worse. But God defended, God defended Elisha in this. And so from this point over the next several chapters will encompass the ministry of Elisha. And it is going to be fascinating to see just how powerfully God is going to use this man because of his faithfulness and because of the power of the Holy Spirit in his life.

Amen. Father, we come to you now and I just thank you for your word. And I thank you for how good it is to our souls. And Lord, I pray that as we go out from this place that you would keep our hearts and minds focused on you. And Lord, that we would seek that power, that filling, that fresh anointing of your Holy Spirit to do all the things that you've called for us to do, Lord.

May we not be content to sit on the sidelines. May we not be content to see the mantle lying next to us and say, I just want to live the normal life. But Lord, may we pick up the mantle that you've placed before us. And in the power of your Holy Spirit, do what you've called for us to do. And we just praise you, Father, in Jesus' name. Amen. Be blessed.