Well, good morning. It is a pleasure once again to be with you and to share what the Lord has put on my heart for this weekend.
I am going to ask you, if you would, to turn to Matthew 11, just to get the indispensable principle before our hearts as we come to the study of God’s Word.
There is a principle of Bible study that is absolutely indispensable. Many principles are helpful. Many principles will aid you as you study God’s Word. But after it is all said and done, and all of the academics are finished, you must come aside and cry out as a little child for God to disclose Himself.
Now, before I look at the passage in Matthew 11, I want to quote one passage from Isaiah 45. Isaiah 45:15:
Truly, Thou art a God that hidest Thyself.
That is Isaiah 45:15: “Truly, Thou art a God that hidest Thyself.” If that is a fact—and it is—then you see the need for the indispensable principle. Because without self-disclosure, we gather in vain. If He does not show Himself, there is no way on earth that any man—and there is no way on earth that I, who have been privileged to share with you this weekend—can ever force God to disclose Himself. He hides Himself.
Now, if you go to Matthew 11, I want to read these verses. I do not know of a Bible passage more taken out of context than this. And it is taken out of context in a way that is good. What I mean by that is, it is not twisting it, because it also applies to the way it is taken out of context.
It applies to someone coming to Jesus for the first time:
Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
And so the sinner is invited to trust the Lord. That applies. But that is not what it is talking about. It is talking about Bible study. It is talking about understanding God’s Word. It is talking about self-disclosure—God showing Himself.
Glance at Matthew 11:25, if you would:
At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
that Thou didst hide these things from the wise and understanding,
and didst reveal them unto babes:
yea, Father, for so it was well-pleasing in Thy sight.
All things have been delivered unto Me of My Father:
and no one knoweth the Son, save the Father;
neither doth any know the Father, save the Son,
and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him.
Now note this, please: “And he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him.” God hides Himself. No one knows the Father but the Son. No one knows the Son but the Father, and anyone to whom He wills to reveal Himself.
Now comes the invitation:
Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me.
He is the Teacher. That is the point. He is the disclosure. He is the Revealer. He is the One who illumines, who shows Himself.
And so, though our God is a God who hides Himself, who hides His things from the wise and prudent, He has hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge in our Lord Jesus Christ. And He said that if we would come to Him as little babes, He would disclose Himself.
So I am going to ask you to bow with me as we call on the Lord for that glorious self-disclosure, where God wills to reveal Himself to babes.
Father, thank You so much for this great promise that we who come will find rest, and will find light and revelation, and You will disclose Yourself to us.
We ask You, Lord, to take us this weekend into Your hidden treasures. Take us, we pray, into Your presence and show us, in a transforming way, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Deliver us, we pray, from a cold academic approach. Completely set us free from sophistication in all its subtle forms. Create in us that childlike heart that receives from You.
Thank You for the many times You have met us in this place. Now, once again, we ask that You would shine forth. Let Thy face shine upon us. May we see You, and then grace us to appropriate that revelation.
Thank You in advance that You are going to over-answer this prayer, because it is in the all-prevailing name of our Lord Jesus that we ask. Amen.
I will ask you to turn your Bibles, please, to 1 Kings 19.
As many of you know, and as has been announced, we are going to look this weekend at the life and ministry of Elisha the prophet. That begins in 1 Kings 19 and goes all the way through 2 Kings 13.
Now, there are many advantages to having announced it in advance. One of the things that thrills me about Joshua and about family ministry is that we have agreed together to know in advance what we are going to look at, and that you have come before the Lord and prepared your heart.
But I am going to ask you, for a moment, to pretend. I speak as a fool: you do not know the topic this weekend. You do not know that I am going to speak on Elisha and 2 Kings. You have never heard that. It is a surprise. You are sitting there saying, “I wonder what he will speak on this weekend.”
All right, are you all with me? If you did not know, and we came into this room and I said, “I am not going to tell you right away where we are going to look in God’s Word, but we will play a little game. I will give you some Bible clues. We will play Bible trivia. Who am I?”
Let me give you some Bible clues, and you will guess what I am going to speak on, because you do not know yet.
I am going to speak about a man whose name means “God is salvation.” Who am I?
I am going to speak about a man whose character is described as “the holy man of God.” Who am I?
I am going to speak about a man who, according to the record, lived in constant communication with his holy Father, God. Who am I?
I am going to speak about a man who wept over Jerusalem. Who am I?
I am going to speak about a man who came unto His own, and His own received Him not. Who am I?
I am going to speak about a man who, in the midst of His ministry, began to minister unto Gentiles. You know who it is yet?
Well, if you did not know by then, I would give you these clues. It is a man who is known for his miracles. Who is this?
Here are his miracles: he read into the hearts of men; he cleansed the leper; he multiplied loaves; he raised the dead; through his death, he brought life to others. Who is it?
If you did not know, what would you say? Exactly right. And that is why we are studying Elisha. Everything I mentioned is true about the prophet Elisha.
That is the reason we are studying him: he is the man who looks like Jesus. And I want to be the man who looks like Jesus. You want to be the man who looks like Jesus, and the woman and the young person who looks like the Lord Jesus.
God has given us, in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, one person who looks like Jesus in an all-inclusive way. In the New Testament, that person is the apostle Paul.
Paul is the man who looks like Jesus. He is God’s illustration of the new covenant. He is God’s choice as the example of a Christian life. You want to know what a Christian looks like? You study the life of the apostle Paul.
But the New Testament is heavy. You have it in doctrine. You have it in theology. He spells it out in the epistles. You want to look like Jesus in predestination, election, justification, sanctification, glorification, and in the truth that your life is hid with Christ in God?
You are identified with Christ in His circumcision, in His burial, in His resurrection, in His ascension, in His session. You are seated with Him in heavenly places. You have the whole thing in the apostle Paul. But when you are done, you go, “Whoa, my head hurts.” It is so much to understand what it means to be like Jesus—a Christian—because he explains it in terms of theology.
And you need that, and I need that. But how refreshing it is to see the same thing in the Old Testament—in stories, in pictures.
It is exactly the same thing. Elisha pictures the same thing Paul pictured. Elisha is God’s illustration of the Christian life in seed form. The apostle Paul is God’s illustration of the Christian life in fully developed form.
Elisha’s message is the gospel, the new covenant in seed form. The apostle Paul’s message is the new covenant in fully developed form. Praise God for the pictures. Praise God for the full development of the truth. We need both, and God knows we need both. We cannot neglect either.
But for our purposes this weekend, I am inviting you to look at the pictures, at the redemptive history of a man who looked like Jesus, and of a man who had a message in story form that was exactly the representation of the full gospel.
So may God help us as we look at this precious servant of the Lord.
Now, at this point, because this is an introductory study, we have five sessions together. By the very nature of the material, I had to keep fighting myself when I studied this to remember that I am studying Elisha and not 2 Kings. It would be a whole different study if we were doing 2 Kings, but we are not.
I am trying to pick up the heart of God in the story of Elisha, the flow of it all. What that means very practically is that we have had to leave out a whole lot of stuff. You can understand why. There are only five sessions, and it is not 2 Kings; it is the story of Elisha.
Now, those of you who have been studying for months and months, I may jump over many things that you have found precious and thought important. Bear with me on that, because we are going to look just at the simplest truths, the most basic things that God illustrates in this story.
As you go through the record, you probably noticed there are many, many puzzling passages in connection with some of the stories of Elisha. I have read the commentaries and their explanations on some of those. I was satisfied with some of their explanations. I was totally dissatisfied with some of their explanations.
There are dark, dark, dark portions of 2 Kings still in my heart and in my mind. Certainly, we will jump over those and pretend we just do not have time to deal with them.
Joshua is not the place, I do not think, to deal with difficult passages. It is just not the place to do that. We have not come here to become Bible scholars.
If we carry on the tradition of its roots, we have come here to see Jesus. We have come here to know the Lord.
And so, once again, I made a deliberate effort to come before the Lord and ask Him to guide me in that direction, and to set aside some of these very puzzling things.
With God’s faithful presence and assistance, we will just home in on the great realities of the Christian life and the Christian message: what it means to be someone like Jesus, and what it means to embrace a message like the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God’s call to Elisha is God’s call to every Christian.
He is not just calling a handful of people or special people. You do not have to be a spiritual hotshot to have a life that looks like this. I do not have to be a spiritual hotshot to have a life that looks like that.
Everyone who looks like this came as Elisha came, and hungered as Elisha hungered, and ministered as Elisha ministered. And so God will help us, I know, as we look at this wonderful record.
Now, I handed out some sheets, and I do not think I printed enough, so you might want to share those. Here is the purpose of that: for some people, it is helpful to know where you are and where you are going. If that helps you, well, there you have it.
You have five points. There are five messages we are going to meet. Those are the texts we are going to use each of the times we gather together, Lord willing. If that gets in your way, scrap it. Turn it over. Use the other side. Doodle. It does not matter. But do not let those notes get in the way. That is just helpful for some people, and so if that helps you, then use it.
Basically, what I would like to do is this: since we have five lessons, I would like to take the first two lessons and look at the man who looks like Jesus. I would like to focus on the person.
Then I would like to take the next two messages and look at the message of the man who looks like Jesus. Let us look at his message. Then, in the last message, in summary, I would like to look, in a clinching way, once at the end, at the man and at the message.
For those of you who have studied the record—and if you have not, I pray that you will not be lost—I try to make every study stand on its own two feet in case you have to miss some. I try to study and teach in such a way that if you never even read the record, if you know nothing, if you have no background, if you have never heard of it, you will not be lost in the record.
So, those of you who are hermeneutists and theologians, bear with me. If we go back to the simplest of things, ask God to quicken your heart to those old truths. We need to hear them again, and in a living way.
But if you have gone through the record, you will notice in the story of Elisha that there are categories of people to whom Elisha relates.
For example, in some of the chapters there is the enemy. Usually, in the Elisha story, it is Syria. Syria is the great enemy of God’s people in many of these stories. So you have a group of people who are the enemy. I hope they are not here this weekend.
You have another group of people. They are not the enemy, but they could be called the enemy because they are the people to whom Elisha was called to minister: Israel.
They had nineteen different kings over a period of three hundred years, and not one of them turned to the Lord. When I read this, I almost said to the Lord, “What a waste of a good prophet.”
Sending a man like Elisha to this hard people, who continually said no and resisted the Lord. Sometimes you see Elisha as he is out with the enemy, and sometimes you see Elisha as he dealt with the people to whom he was sent—Israel: a hard, cold, callous, rebellious people.
But there was another group of God’s people. First Kings 19:18 talks about seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal. So there were seven thousand—we can, just for our discussion, call them Christians. They were believers, seven thousand who did not bow the knee to Baal. But we do not know how far they came along in the ways of God.
Then there is another group called the sons of the prophets. That is a group out of the group; that is a few of the few. So you have Israel, then out of them you have seven thousand, and out of them you have the sons of the prophets.
These were the students. This was the seminary. This was the Bible school. They had more of a heart for the Lord.
They fell sadly short, the sons of the prophets. They will represent for us this weekend those who incline to the legal side of the Christian experience. Some of these sons of the prophets had all eyes seeing the grace of God.
There were the enemies of God. There were the cold people to whom God had sent His servant. There were the seven thousand. There were the sons of the prophets, a smaller group. And then there was this man, Gehazi.
I used to pronounce it “Gehazi,” but I was corrected: “Gehazi.” I will try to remember that. If I forget it, so what?
He was one who tried to be like Elisha. He had all the words, all the privileges, and all the opportunities. He went through all the forms, and he pulled out of the sons of the prophets and came further than that. But it was only words, and he had a leper’s heart.
Here is Gehazi. And then there was Elisha.
I do not know if there is the enemy here. I do not know if there are hard people of God. I do not know if there are those who are just content to be the seven thousand. I do not know if there is a group that would go beyond that and become sons of the prophets. I do not know if someone is embracing all the great principles only in form and unreality.
But I know that in each case, as Elisha, the man who looked like Jesus, went on in his life—and as I go on in mine—we will probably meet these groups.
How am I to respond to the enemy, and to those who say no, and to those who are untrained in the ways of God, and to those who hold the truth in unreality? We are going to watch Elisha as he touches these groups.
First Kings 19. I am going to ask you to follow along. We are going to begin.
Elijah—not Elisha—was commanded by God to anoint Elisha as prophet in his place. So we begin in verse 19:
So he departed thence, and found Elisha the son of Shaphat,
who was plowing, with twelve yoke of oxen before him,
and he with the twelfth:
and Elijah passed over unto him, and cast his mantle upon him.And he left the oxen, and ran after Elijah, and said,
Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother,
and then I will follow thee.
And he said unto him, Go back again; for what have I done to thee?And he returned from following him, and took the yoke of oxen,
and slew them, and boiled their flesh with the instruments of the oxen,
and gave unto the people, and they did eat.
Then he arose, and went after Elijah, and ministered unto him.
It is always good to start at the starting point. I want to be a man like Elisha, who was a man like Jesus. I trust that is a little bit in your heart when you come to Joshua: “I want to be like Jesus.”
Where does it start? How does it begin? What are his secrets? How does God create a person like that, a servant like Elisha—so unique, so different, so desirable?
If I want to be like that, then I have to start as he started. That is why we have gone back to this chapter.
What I would like to do is give, for those who like logical connection, three simple principles—three secrets of how it all begins. These are the great principles that God must begin with in order to bring us to the place where we can be like this man and have a message like he has.
This morning, if you were at prayer meeting, you heard Brent sharing. One of the things he shared was some of the differences: God made you you, and He made me me. He has not called you to be me, and He has not called me to be you.
And so, in some things in the Christian experience, it depends on how God made you. What is your personality? What is your temperament?
But the principles I am going to share this morning do not depend on your disposition, your temperament, or your personality. These belong to every Christian.
If you are going to be like Elisha, God is not saying, “All right, here are a few that can do it, and here are some that cannot.” God has called us all to be like Jesus—every one of us.
The three principles I am going to share from Elisha’s life are not optional. If you are serious about being like Jesus, you go this way or you do not go. All right? That is what we are looking at.
It does not depend on your makeup, your taste, or your Christian disposition. This is God’s heart for every person.
The starting point in all the work of God on Elisha is this: it began with the grace of God, and then Elisha responded to that grace. That is how it always begins. God pours out His grace, and we respond. It has to be.
Elisha went out to the field in the story we just read. Do you know why he went out in the field that day? He went out in the field to plow the field. Is that too deep? That is why he went out there.
He did not go out in the field to be called by God. He did not say in the morning, “Well, today the mantle is going to fall on me. I think I had better get ready for that.”
He went to work. He got up, got washed, brushed his teeth, had his breakfast, and went out to work. He was not seeking the Lord. He was not expecting the Lord. He was not preparing for mission. He was not thinking, “Well, today is the day God is going to call me.” There was none of that in his mind.
He was doing what he did faithfully every day. In that sense, it begins with God. Because one day, on an ordinary day, an everyday day, when you get up just to do your daily things, God is going to show up.
When He shows up, you have got to respond. That is what happened to Elisha. God began it. God initiated. God was the first cause. God showed up. God interrupted his life.
When he encountered that, he had to respond. He could only respond—this is the only reasonable response when God shows up—with an absolute and total surrender to that call of God.
First Kings 19:19-21 gives us this great record of that response. No doubt, Elisha had known about Elijah. I think if some stranger walked in the field and threw a jacket over him, or a mantle—I do not know how you picture that mantle. I cannot get away from Superman’s cape. I know that is not right. I just picture it with a big “E” on it, you know?
But Elijah had a reputation. Elijah was a prophet of God. Elisha knew about that reputation. He knew about that man.
When Elijah put that mantle on his shoulders, Elisha felt so privileged, so honored, that this man of God would come and select him, choose him, come to him, and put that mantle on him. He felt so privileged that there was no other possible response than the one we read of here.
Now, to break it down, let me show you three simple things from this total surrender that illustrate that great principle. I must respond to the grace of God, and the more I know it is God who is calling, the more I will see the privilege and the easier this will be. I need to see the Lord.
Elisha’s surrender, according to this text, was absolutely voluntary. It was of his own free will. Look, if you would, at verse 20.
When Elisha asked permission to go back and kiss his father and mother, in one sense it looks like he is hesitating a little bit, as though there is a little reservation. He looks a little bit like that man in Luke 9 who wanted to go back and kiss his parents. But in that case it is clear that there was an unhealthy attachment to home and so on. I am not sure that is true here with Elisha.
But when Elijah said, “Go back again”—I get these mixed up—I am not dead sure that when he said, “Go back again,” he was saying, “Go kiss your parents,” because he followed it up with, “For what have I done to thee?”
I have an idea that what he was saying was this: “I am putting my mantle on you, but do not misunderstand. I am not calling you anywhere.” Elijah is saying, “What have I done to thee?” It is not me. This is the Lord. This is God.
Do not respond because of something I am doing to you, says Elijah. “This is not me. What have I done to thee?” It is not what I am doing to you. It is not me calling you.
When he said, “Go back again,” in verse 20, I think it was very much like Naomi when she told her daughters-in-law, “Go back unto your gods.” She did not really want them to go back. She was just saying, “Count the cost. Are you sure that you really want to come?”
I think it was something like that: “Do not make a hasty decision. Do not decide because some man has told you to do it, or because there is some emotional response and you are caught up in some big emotion. What have I done to you?”
I am going to be calling you to trust the Lord this weekend, to put your faith in Him and look to Jesus. When I am done, I will say, “What have I done?” That is not me. That is the Lord calling you to those things.
And so it was a free-will thing. Of course, the question comes: did Elisha actually go back and say goodbye to his parents? It is not clear. Some people say he did go back; some people say he did not go back. Whether he went back or not is not the point.
Did he say goodbye? The answer to that is, yes. He said goodbye by saying, “Yes, I will follow.” That was his goodbye.
When you start identifying with the Lord, people say, “You know, if I really lay hold of the Lord, will I have to give up my friends?” The answer is no; they will give you up.
They will know. You do not have to say goodbye. Your identification with the Lord is your goodbye.
For the next eight or ten years in Elisha’s life, he followed, served, and ministered unto Elijah. All of his friends knew he had said goodbye. All of his neighbors knew, and all of his relatives knew, because of his identification. But it was his own free will.
It was not only his own choice—not because of Elijah, and not because of some emotional experience. “I choose to do this with my own free will.” But did you notice how complete his surrender was? How total, how absolutely full it was?
Now, this is magnified when you understand that, from all outward appearances, Elisha, on the level of earth, was quite a wealthy man. He had a lot of this world’s goods.
We are told by those who are supposed to know that those twelve yoke of oxen represented a very well-to-do family. He had servants. They had great fields. Evidently, Elisha was the heir apparent to this great estate. He was a wealthy man.
It is almost comical if you consider the call of Elijah just on the level of earth. Let us say Elijah came with words like these:
“Elisha, God has called me to appoint you a prophet in my place.”
And Elisha says, “Oh, that is exciting. Where do you live?”
“I live in the wilderness. I just came out of a cave.”
“Oh, that is great. What do you eat?”
“Locusts, wild honey, whatever the ravens drop out of the sky. That is what I eat.”
Hard to turn down.
“How do you spend your time?”
“Well, lately, running. See, there is a death sentence on my head. Old Jezebel, she is trying to kill me.”
“Do you have a wife?”
“No. No wife.”
“No family?”
“No, no family.”
“How is your ministry received?”
“Oh, they hate it.”
There you go. On the level of earth, what is he offering him? “Man, give me a double portion of that.”
On the level of earth, he was not offered anything except to give up his fortune, his house, his family, his job, his future, and his inheritance. You have got to see what was happening here.
There is a way to surrender something to the Lord—because God looks at the heart—where you can surrender something and still have it. Peter did that.
Remember, he surrendered his nets and his boats unto the Lord. The next thing you know, he is in his boat fishing. You say, “Hey, I thought you surrendered that to the Lord.”
He surrendered his family to the Lord, but in such a way that he kept his family. He traveled with his wife. He lived with his mother-in-law. He still had his nets and his boats after he gave them to Jesus, because surrender is a matter of heart.
But this surrender is magnified in that it was so overt. He not only surrendered with his heart, but he did it outwardly.
He took everything that represented his old life. He took the pair of oxen that he was plowing with, and he killed the oxen as a sacrifice. Then he took all the implements of the oxen. He took the plow, the harness, the yoke, and the tools, and that became the firewood for the altar.
It all went up in smoke. Everything, in a moment of time. What a complete surrender this was. His old occupation had become the offering. Everything that was, was reduced to ashes.
Now, you have got to remember, the record we have of Elisha is that he was a nice guy. It is not like some sinners come to the Lord and say, “I am going to give up my whole life. I am going to give up all the drinking, all the drugs, all the women, and all the running around.”
That is not what he was giving up. That is not what he set on fire. We have no record that he lived that way.
He set on fire that which was legitimate, good, wholesome, and right, and which represented his own faithfulness, on the level of earth, to his own human father.
But in his mind, because God had called—not Elijah, God had called—and because it was such a great privilege, that which was legitimate would not stand in the way of full and complete obedience. And so he surrendered it all. It had to go up in smoke.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, there is no other legitimate response when God comes and interrupts your day and interrupts your life. God puts His mantle on you. He is not going to force you. He is not going to strong-arm you. He is just going to invite you.
When you realize who it is that has called you, then you will follow. See?
Because it was not only a free-will surrender, and it was not only a total and absolute surrender, but it was happy. It was a joyful surrender.
Did you notice that? Saying goodbye to the parents he loved, saying goodbye to his wealth, saying goodbye to his future and his own ambitions—that was not a chore for him. That was not a struggle. He did not have to agonize over that.
He did not have to work at that and say, “Oh, God is calling me. Let me think about it. Oh, I do not know what to do. Oh, my goodness.”
You would not hear Elisha get up in the testimony meeting and say something like this: “I want to give a testimony. I want to praise God. The other day He threw His mantle on me, and I gave up my job, gave up the oxen, gave up my future, gave up the inheritance. I could have had a soft life, but I decided to identify with Elijah and take his place.”
You would not hear a testimony like that. He gave up nothing.
First Kings 19:21: when he burned the oxen, he was not burning it; he was cooking it. He had a party. It was a celebration.
He did not say, “Oh, what a terrible thing. I have got to give all this up.” He threw a party.
Now, there is a question as to whether that party took place right there in the field and all the workers gathered around and ate what he was cooking up, or whether he went home actually to kiss his parents and gathered everybody around. But either way, it was a celebration. It was a party.
You say, “Oh, I am so nervous about surrendering to the Lord, to give everything up for the Lord. I do not know if I can do that.”
Brothers and sisters in the Lord, it is not a burden. I love what Paul said in Philippians 3:8:
I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I may gain Christ.
I never heard anybody struggle giving up rubbish. That is easy to give up. The only reason it is a struggle to give something up is that you do not have the right value on it.
Once you see the Lord, once you see the privilege, well, that is how it begins. We come here and say, “Here is a man that looked like Jesus. Do you want to look like Jesus?” That is where it starts.
That is where it starts: where you respond to the grace of God, where you come willingly, totally, unreservedly, joyfully, and lay it all down. If you do not start there, you are just playing a game talking about being like Jesus. That is where it begins.
For the next eight or ten years of Elisha’s life, we have only one sentence about him. It is in 2 Kings 3:11:
Elisha the son of Shaphat, who poured water on the hands of Elijah.
For the next eight or ten years, he just became a servant. He might have wondered from time to time, “I thought five years ago, seven years ago, ten years ago, I was called to be a prophet. I thought I was called to take Elijah’s place. How come I do not do prophet things? How come I do not call down fire from heaven and burn up some idolater? How come I do not do miracles?”
He just poured water. That is one of the great evidences that you have really surrendered: you just pour yourself out in loving service to your brothers and sisters.
No doubt, before Elisha’s surrender, after a day’s work, he would go home. Some servant would greet him and pour water on his hands and his feet. He had become a servant.
“God called me. Nothing else matters. I choose it. Everything can go, and I am happy about it.” And he goes into this evidence of serving the Lord.
Well, I told you there were three initial preparation principles that are not optional, that belong to everyone who is serious about being like Jesus.
Not only must I respond to His grace in a free-will, total, joyful offering of everything to Him; the second principle can be summarized in any of these words—or you choose your own words:
I have got to want it.
Verse 9 of 2 Kings 2:
And it came to pass, when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elisha,
Ask what I shall do for thee, before I be taken from thee.
And Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Elisha said, “Please, let a double portion of your spirit be upon me.” He did not just come up with that. He had been thinking about that for ten years.
Double portion.
Elijah, the prophet of God, who had worked so many miracles, comes in and stands before him and says, “I am about to be taken. Before I am taken, fill in the blank. What can I do?”
He knew about his miracles. He could have asked for anything: riches, honor, position, success—anything he wanted. He did not even think about it. “I want a double portion of your spirit.” No hesitation.
Everything depends on understanding this double portion. What is this glorious double portion that he had a longing, desire, and passion for, that he did not even have to think about?
“You give me a blank check, Elijah. I will tell you what to write on it: a double portion of your spirit. Write that on it.”
Many think—and they try to prove it—that this refers to the number of miracles. They count the miracles: Elijah did this miracle, this miracle, and this miracle. Now let us see how many Elisha did. Did Elisha do twice as many?
It depends on how you break up the miracles and how you count them. If you are going to reason that way, you have to consider the extent of the miracle as well as the number of the miracles.
Elijah’s first miracle was withholding rain and dew from the earth for a period of three years. How many miracles are included in that one? When you think about it that way, how do you double that, unless you have seven years of famine or something like that?
Elisha was not asking for the ability to do twice as much as Elijah did. He was talking about what the Bible describes as the law of the firstborn—the privileges of the firstborn.
The double portion is an idiom in the Bible. It has to do with the firstborn. The firstborn was set aside by God as unique, sanctified.
God said, “I want you to take the firstborn, and I want you to put on the firstborn the most, the best, the highest.” They had all the privileges, the firstborn.
Why? Because Dad loved the firstborn more than the second-born? No. It was God’s picture. It was an illustration.
God said, “I love all My children. I want somebody to represent the group. I want a firstborn, somebody I can put the most, the best, the highest on, so that people can look at him and say, ‘Wow, God loves me that much. He would like to do that for me.’”
After God laid down the principle of the firstborn, He said to Israel, the nation, “You are My firstborn.” That is what He said to Pharaoh: “Do not touch My firstborn, or I am coming after your firstborn.”
Because I am going to pour on Israel the most, the best, the highest. Not because I love Israel more than anybody in the world, but because I need an object lesson. I need somebody to represent My heart to the world so that the whole world can look at Israel and say, “Wow, does God in heaven love us that much? Does He want to honor us that much? Does He want to bless us that much?”
Exodus 4:22:
Thus saith the Lord, Israel is My son, even My first-born.
But you know the Bible record. Israel was not a faithful firstborn.
So God said—this is how I read Numbers 3:41:
Thou shalt take the Levites for Me (I am the Lord) instead of all the first-born among the children of Israel.
And Numbers 8:18:
I have taken the Levites instead of all the first-born among the children of Israel.
Israel, you have failed to be My representative. I wanted to pour My most, My best, My highest on you. You failed.
So God took Israel, set them aside, and said, “From now on, the priests, the Levites, they will be My firstborn.” God began to pour on the priests, on Levi, His most, His best, His highest.
Why? Because He loved the priests more? No. Because He wanted a representative people to show the world how much He loves everybody.
Then the Levites failed.
We come to the New Testament. Matthew 1:25 says that Mary “brought forth her first-born son.” Romans 8:29 says He is “the firstborn among many brethren.” Colossians 1:15 says He is “the firstborn of all creation.” Colossians 1:18 says He is “the firstborn from the dead.”
God said, “Finally, I have My representative Man—the Lord Jesus, My firstborn. Look at Him, and you will see Me. You will see My heart. The most, the best, the highest—that is My plan for you.”
Then Jesus went up to heaven and sent back His Holy Spirit. Listen to this, brothers and sisters: Hebrews 12:23 refers to “the general assembly and church of the firstborn.”
Who is His firstborn now? Say it. Say it again. We are now His firstborn.
He has carried that all the way through the Bible. He said, “I need a people. I need a people on whom I can pour the most, the best, the highest. I need a representative people who only care that they have My life poured into them, so the world can know My heart toward them.”
Luke 1:17 describes the spirit of Elijah. Luke 1:17 says that the spirit and power of Elijah is the spirit that makes a people prepared for the Lord. That is what it says. That is the New Testament explanation of that.
That was Elisha’s thirst. That is why he did not have to think about it. “Here is a blank check, Elijah. What do you want?” He said, “I only want one thing. I want to be God’s representative. I want everything God has to give me.”
That is the firstborn. That is what he cried out for. “I want to have the power of God to pour out His life, so that my life can cause a people to be prepared for the Lord.” That is what Elisha prayed for. That is what he desired.
I say, that is not optional.
If you are serious about being like Jesus, do not play around with surrender. It has got to be done. You have got to do it. It is a joy if you understand the privilege, but at the beginning, you have got to do it.
You have got to want everything the Lord has for you. It is a heart. You have got to want it. Elisha wanted it enough to pray for it.
Have you ever prayed that you would be the firstborn, that God would pour out on you His everything so the world could know? That is what He wants.
One more thing, and then we will wrap up the introduction lesson. I cannot miss this. You cannot miss this, or you miss it all.
Second Kings 2:10:
And he said, Thou hast asked a hard thing:
nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee;
but if not, it shall not be so.
When Elijah said, “Thou hast asked a hard thing,” it was not hard for Elijah. It was impossible for him to give what Elisha asked anyway. But he was talking about Elisha: “You have asked a hard thing for you. To desire such a life, to be like Jesus, that is costly. It is going to mean death to self.”
The principle is contained in the words, “If thou see me when I am taken.” It shall be so for you; if not, it shall not be.
The third principle has to do with focus. It has to do with vision. “If you see me when I am taken” has to do with focus—not with these eyes, of course, but with these eyes.
Elisha was told that he had to keep focused on a spiritual world. He had to become aware of two worlds at the same time. He had to ignore and not be distracted in this world, and he had to keep focused.
On the level of earth, I do not think that sounded too hard for Elisha: “Keep your eye on me. If you see me when I am taken, then everything you have asked is going to happen.”
So he said, “All right.” He was not going to lose it. Of course, I am sure at that point Elisha expected Elijah to die, not to be raptured. He thought they would be walking along and Elijah would grab his heart, fall down, and die. He was watching. I guess he was.
Try to picture it from Elisha’s point of view. “If you see me when I am taken.” Then you know the test that is in 2 Kings 2: “Stay here.” And he said, “I am not staying. I am walking.” Then he says, “Stay over here.”
Some people think the names of those places are instructive, and probably they are: Gilgal, Bethel, Jericho, and so on. He is watching, and watching, and watching.
The Bible says there were fifty sons of the prophets standing at a distance. They were watching too, but they were not walking with Elijah. There is a difference. We will not get into that difference now, but they were watching.
Anybody here ever see a tornado? I mean in person, not on television. You saw one? I never have, but I have an idea: if a black funnel started coming out of some sky under which I was watching, I would look away and say, “Whoa. Look at that. Hey, Elijah, look. Where are you going?”
Do not miss the point here. If you stay focused and suddenly there is a tornado coming out of the sky, he cannot look at it. He has to look at Elijah. He keeps looking at Elijah, and this thing sounds like a train, they say.
He cannot look at that, and that thing is coming. The sons of the prophets are watching it. That would be bad enough, but then the Bible says that between Elijah and Elisha, he saw fiery chariots and fiery horses.
Now, if you cannot look at something throwing furniture around, and you have a spiritual vision of fiery horses and chariots, are you going to look at those? This is all distraction. All distraction.
He is focused, and he is focused, and all of a sudden he sees Elijah caught up. He says, “I see it! My father, my father!”
Last week I had a funeral up in Williamstown, Massachusetts. A dear lady—she is with the Lord.
Some folks just saw the tornado. They just saw the storm that comes in, turns the house upside down, and takes their loved one away. They did not see the reality inside the tornado.
Some of those saints saw the reality. What a difference for those who saw the reality. Focus.
I felt so bad for those sons of the prophets, because later they asked Elisha if they could go hunt for the body, remember?
You know how frustrating it is to try to find on earth what is only found in heaven. I have been there, looking on the earth for what is only found in heaven. They came back so defeated, so broken.
You have got to be surrendered. You have got to want it. And you have got to be determined: no matter what comes, I am going to keep my eye on the Lord.
You might be satisfied to be one of the seven thousand that never bowed the knee to Baal. Praise God that one day He put His mantle on you.
You might be satisfied to be the sons of the prophets who stand at a distance, and all they see is the physical and the tornado. But if you want to be Elisha, you see, when the story began, the mantle was on his shoulder.
When the story ended, the mantle was in his hand. I will tell you, brothers and sisters in Christ, there is a difference between the mantle on the shoulder and the mantle in the hand.
In 1958, by God’s grace, He put the mantle on my shoulder. But I did not know anything about surrender. I did not know anything about just wanting God’s everything. I did not know anything about focus.
But in those years of pouring out water, God taught me and began to teach me. In 1965, He enabled me to pick up that mantle.
You know, we talk about these things. We are not playing games. As I get older and older and my ticker gets weaker and weaker, I am not going to mince words with you. I am going to say things as they are.
You might think that these things—total surrender, a desire for everything God wants to give me as a representative of His grace to the world, looking to Jesus alone—you might think, “What a great goal.”
“Someday, I pray, God, I will be totally surrendered. Someday, I pray, God, I will want everything that He wants to give me. Someday, praise God, I will be focused. I will look to the Lord, and I will not be distracted by physical or spiritual things.”
It is not a goal. It is a starting point.
Elisha’s life began here. This is not where we are heading. This is the beginning. This is the starting point.
I am convinced in my heart that God wants this. I do not have any doubt. I do not know your heart. I am not trying to read your heart. But I have every assurance that God has put His mantle on probably everybody here, or almost everybody here.
You have been called. You have been saved. Your sins have been washed away. You have not bowed the knee to Baal. Some of you have perhaps come even further.
But I believe God wants us to pick up the mantle this weekend.
That is the starting point. Now we are going to go from there and look at his life. That is why I call these preliminary. That is why I call this preparation. This is the beginning.
Let us start, Joshua, with that willful, total, joyful surrender unto Him.
Let us begin, Joshua, with that desire in our heart: “I want the double portion. Lord, I want to be Your representative. Whatever You want to put in my life to show them Your heart, do it. I want everything You have.”
And I will not be distracted. By Your grace, I will focus, no matter what comes down the pike; no matter how loud it is, no matter how destructive it is, no matter how spiritual it seems. I will focus.
That is the beginning. That is the starting point. From there, God begins to make the man of God.
So let us all begin on the same page. Let us begin so God can teach us what it means to be a man like this, with a message like this.
Father, thank You so much for Your Word—not the little bit we think we know it means, but everything You inspired it to mean. Will You work it in our hearts?
We pray this year at Joshua that we would respond to Your grace, that we would pick up the mantle and become men and women like Jesus.
We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.