Well, good morning.
It is wonderful to be able to come up and share with you when the last words you hear are, “Worthy is the Lamb.” Bless God.
When the King was on the earth in His humiliation, He was the Lamb. Now, in His glory, the Lamb is the King. How glorious this is.
As we come to the study of God’s Word, there is a principle of Bible study that is absolutely indispensable: total reliance upon God’s Holy Spirit. We need to trust Him as we come to the Word, as we need to trust Him for everything.
Isn’t it wonderful how the Lord guided in that children’s program? Every year, He just seems to pull it all together, and the parts were so perfectly cast. But that is the Lord. He does that.
We were praying that the Lord would be able to work that for the children, and the wisdom He gave to present all those stories was just so wonderful. How we praise the Lord.
And so we come to the study of His Word. It is the same thing. The same Lord needs to guide us.
Before we look into the Word, I want to share a burden that I think is on His heart, and just a little Scripture to illustrate that indispensable principle again.
Remember the story of Joseph in the Old Testament, the son of Jacob. He wanted so much to unveil his heart to his brothers. As you come closer and closer to Genesis 45, you get closer and closer to that time when he says, “I am Joseph,” as Jesus wants to say, “I am Jesus,” just to reveal Himself and then fall on each other’s neck. What a glorious picture that was.
There is a very sad scene in Genesis 43. It is sad because Joseph and his brothers are still strangers, though they are so close. They are sitting down eating in the same room.
The thing that makes it so sad is that they are in the same room, but they are at different tables. Joseph is at one table, and they are at another table; they are still strangers. But they are being fed.
Joseph keeps getting up and coming to their table, feeding them, going back to his own table, going behind the curtain, and crying. He is weeping. Then he goes back out, serves them more food, and goes to cry again.
Brothers and sisters in the Lord, the whole purpose of our gathering is that God would disclose Himself to us, reveal Himself to us. It would be a shame at the end of a Joshua to be that close and not at the same table—to be in the same room, eating the same food from the same hand. He is feeding us, and then to walk out as strangers.
If any man open the door,
I will come in,
And sup with him.
He wants you in the same room. He wants you at the same table. So let us pray that God will clinch our time together and bring together all the loose ends, as only He can do, that we might behold Him again. Worthy is the Lamb.
Our Father, we thank You again for every part of this weekend, how You minister day after day and way after way. We just glorify Your name. Thank You.
And now we ask You, Lord, in this closing session, that You would take Your precious Word by Your precious Holy Spirit and enable us to be fed in our spirits from above.
We pray, Lord, that You would reveal Yourself so that we could sit down with You at Your table and be fed by You and with You. We want to see You. We want to know You. We want You to show Yourself to us.
We do not trust ourselves for this; we trust You. We now wait. We ask You to minister Christ unto us in a living way. Give us living life. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
I know there are some here who have not been here all weekend. We are glad to have you, and we are thankful for you. So just be patient. I am going to give the broadest view of all in review, but it will be enough, I pray, to get back into the spirit of what we are looking at.
Elisha in the Old Testament is like the Apostle Paul in the New Testament. He is God’s illustration of the Christian life. Elisha is God’s illustration in seed form; the Apostle Paul is God’s illustration in fully developed form.
Elisha is a man who looks like Jesus. He is the man who went unto His own, and His own received Him not. He is the man who wept over Jerusalem. His name means, “God is salvation.” He is the one who healed the leper, multiplied loaves, raised the dead, and who by his death gave life to others.
We have been studying Elisha as the man who looks like Jesus because we want to be people who look like Jesus. By studying these stories, we can see God’s heart. He has fossilized everlasting principles in redemptive history. He has written these great truths in these stories so that, by studying them, we can glean these great realities of God’s heart.
We have been looking at the man who looks like Jesus and the message that he has: the gospel, the message in the hand of the man who looks like Jesus.
In our first two lessons, we focused on the man. In our last two lessons, we focused on the message.
The man who looks like Jesus is the man who has been called by God. God has put His mantle on his shoulder, and he has responded to that call in an unquestioning, deliberate, willful submission—and with joy.
He is a man in whose heart God has planted a desire to be God’s representative on the earth and to be open for whatever the Lord wants to pour on him, so that he can show Him, radiate Him, and manifest Him to the world.
He is a man to whom God has given vision and focus: to see spiritual reality and not to be distracted, no matter what comes into his life.
That is the man who can pick up the mantle—the one who has that desire, that response to grace, that surrender, and that focus. He picks up the mantle.
From the moment he picks up the mantle, he has a supernatural life. God has guaranteed to open the way before him. He crosses through the Jordan, and God opens up the way.
What does his message look like? Sometimes it brings blessing. Sometimes it brings a curse. He is always available to bring restoration to those who are seeking the Lord.
Then we spent two lessons looking at the message of the man of God. What is the heart? What is the essence of the message of that man? It is a Person. It is the Lord Himself.
The message that he has, that we have, that all who look like Christ have, is Christ, who is life and who is life abundant. That is the message that he preaches.
Last night we broke that down a little. What does the message look like? It is a message of pure grace, illustrated by forgiveness with Naaman.
It is a message of the mighty power of God. He does it all, illustrated by Christian service.
It is a message of revelation, where God opens our eyes, illustrated by victory over the enemy.
It is a message that proclaims that God ever accomplishes His everlasting purposes. He is faithful—faithful to the end, watching over His own. It was illustrated by the restoration of the woman, her son, and all that was theirs.
That brings us to our last look at this wonderful servant of the Lord and his message.
This is not only the end of his history; it is the end of God’s revelation of his history. God is not only telling us the story of a man who used to live and die. He is also writing a Bible.
In these final events, we not only have the close of Elisha’s life, but we have the close of the message. God has written a spiritual truth here. In a climactic, consummating way, God takes everything He has said about Elisha and wraps it up in these final events.
For those who like to follow logical connection, here is a simple outline for our final look:
Is that too tough an outline for you? It is what we have been looking at all weekend.
The first time we look at the man and the message, we will be able to separate them: here is the man, and here is the message. It is our last look at the man of God and our last look at the message of God. It is going to be a summary look.
But in the final event, the man and the message are put so close together that I cannot say, “All right, let us rip it apart. Here is the man, and here is the message.”
Our final look will be at the man and the message together. United. They are one. They are inseparable. You cannot take them apart.
Strangely enough, in this last illustration God gives, the man and the message are so one that you cannot separate them. Yet it is also the illustration that separates the man and the message by the greatest possible distance. It is an almost unbelievable paradox. May God give us eyes to see it.
To get this before your heart, I would like to do just a little bit of the donkey work. I try to do that on my own by myself and not burden you with it, but sometimes we need a little bit just to get into the flow.
Let me give you a general perspective of Elisha’s life and ministry—a sort of timeline. Harry Alexander asked me last night if all of the events in Elisha’s life are in chronological order.
That question was raised because, last night, we had the leper in the presence of the king. Some say, “Well, that cannot be, so that must have happened before.” Others say that the kingdom was so far away from the Lord that the king did not care about God’s law. There are different arguments.
There are four different events in Elisha’s life that are clearly not in chronological order. God has given us the story of Elisha in logical order because He is telling the story of redemption.
In 2 Kings 13:13, Joash dies; in 2 Kings 13:14, he visits Elisha the prophet. You know that is not in chronological order. God is arranging the record to teach spiritual truth.
Most of the record we have been seeing—the stories represented in the play and the stories we have been discussing—took place in about the first four or five years after Elisha picked up the mantle.
But when we come to 2 Kings 13 and this final scene of Elisha, a lot of time has gone by. The least estimate I have read is that Elisha was about eighty years old. The highest estimate is that he was ninety years old.
How do they get those ages? We know the kings and how long they reigned. So they figure out, from the kings who were alive while he was ministering, how long he ministered. Elisha was between eighty and ninety years old at this point.
Elisha was a full-grown man when Ahab died, way back in 1 Kings. In the chapter we are going to examine, Joash comes to visit Elisha on his deathbed. Sometimes he is called Jehoash, and sometimes Joash; it is the same man.
You can really have trouble going through these things—who is wearing the white hat, who is from Judah, and who is from Israel—because the names are the same, and sometimes they are the same names reigning at the same time.
That is why I praise the Lord for Lillian. She loves to do that kind of stuff. When I come to something like this, I just say, “Iron it out.” She does, and then I meet with her, and she straightens me out. A couple of times she was wrong, but not very often. She is pretty much right on it.
But the point I am trying to make is that Joash did not come to power until fifty-three or fifty-four years after Ahab died. Practically, that means we have not heard from Elisha for at least forty-five years.
He has gone off into obscurity. I have no doubt he was still ministering somewhere, knowing this man and knowing his heart—still bringing life to the needy, still available, still responding, and probably still working miracles. But the Bible does not tell us about that.
For forty-five years, almost half a century, we do not know if he is alive or dead. That is part of the last picture we get of the man who looks like Jesus.
Usually, he will make quite a splash in his entrance into ministry. He will launch out, God will greatly use him, he will have notable miracles, and God will call attention to those.
But if he is really a man like Jesus, like the old lamplighter, he is going to fade away, and the only thing left behind will be the lights that he lit along the way.
There were physical miracles: healing the water, cleansing the leper, floating axe heads, and raising the dead. But as you move on, that sort of gives way to spiritual miracles.
We see Elisha predicting the future. We see him warning about the tactics of the enemy. We see him praying for the servants of God that their eyes would be opened. We see a story of Elisha when he is not even there, and someone else is telling his testimony to somebody, and God is using that in a mighty way.
Even in the first five years, he has been fading away and fading away and fading away. Only at the end of the story does he appear again, in order that we might have this climactic look at the man who looks like Jesus and this summary look at the message that God has entrusted to him and to us as servants of the Lord.
Even in this final symbolic act, he does not work a miracle. He just discovers the heart of God.
I think some Christians believe that, if they are really conformed to Christ, they are going to become more and more public, more and more visible, and their ministry is going to become more and more dramatic as they go on in the Lord.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, understand the heart and ways of God. We are followers of the Lamb, and the Lamb always goes to the cross. Finally, there is glory, but He always goes to glory through the way of the cross.
The further you go on in the Lord, the more you will see that to be a follower of the Lamb is not to become more and more public, more and more famous, or more and more accepted. It is the other direction, as you identify with Christ in His suffering, His rejection, and His death.
All across the Bible, God has written that the path of the King is the path of the King’s servant. We cannot expect more than our Master. Elisha is going to illustrate this.
Before we look at the final scene, let us go right back to the beginning. Turn to 1 Kings 19.
These are God’s words to Elijah, not Elisha:
Go, return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus: and when thou comest, thou shalt anoint Hazael to be king over Syria:
And Jehu the son of Nimshi shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel:
And Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room.
Elijah was commanded by God to anoint Hazael over Syria, Jehu over Israel, and Elisha as a prophet in his place. There is no record in the Bible that Elijah ever did that.
Some think that when he threw his mantle over Elisha, that was the anointing. If so, it would be the first time a mantle was used for anointing rather than oil. I do not know if that was when he was anointed or not.
Some people think Elijah just disobeyed God and died out of fellowship with God. They say he did not do those three things, he did not anoint those men, and that is why he had to go to heaven from the wilderness side of Jordan. I think we ought to give this man the benefit of the doubt.
Just because it is not recorded does not mean it did not happen. The fact that his ministry began by calling down fire from heaven, and that it ended in the same way, indicates that if he was troubled through his discouragement, he was certainly fully restored at the end.
The point I am making is that Hazael and Jehu come up again in Elisha’s ministry. I assume Elijah anointed them, but in 2 Kings 8 Elisha tells Hazael, “The Lord has shown me that you will be king over Syria.”
Then, clearly, in 2 Kings 9:1, Elisha instructs one of the sons of the prophets to take a flask of oil and anoint Jehu. In verse 6, you see that it actually happened.
What is that all about? How does it lead up to the final event?
Elijah was called to be a prophet to Israel—to the ten tribes in the north, to the idolatrous tribes, to those who did not want to hear, to those who said no to the Lord. He was faithful to go and give the message.
But it seemed that nobody was listening, or few were listening. They were resisting and rejecting. When God’s people keep saying no to the Lord, God is going to chasten them.
To chasten them, He is going to deal with them from the outside and from the inside. From the outside, He decided to use Syria and anointed Hazael king over Syria. He was going to use that foreign land as a whip, as a switch, to spank His people.
Part of God’s dealings have to do with chastening from within. So He said, “Anoint Jehu over Israel.” Jehu was one wicked man—a terrible, terrible person. He was anointed to wipe out the idolatrous house of Ahab.
You can read the record, and it will make your blood curdle when you see how cruel, heartless, and bloodthirsty this man was. He got this anointing from the Lord and went through and cleaned house in Israel.
I do not want to take time to show you all the brutality that the foreign enemy brought upon Israel, nor all the brutality from within. I want to call attention to the man who looks like Jesus.
Look at 2 Kings 8:11:
And he settled his countenance stedfastly upon him, until he was ashamed: and the man of God wept.
The man of God wept.
God had called him to minister to Israel. Now God said, “You, whom I want to minister to My people, I want you to anoint Hazael, and I want you to anoint Jehu. I have to deal with My people roughly, harshly.”
This man is a man of love. This is a man of compassion. But he has to obey the Lord. As he anoints Hazael, like our Lord Jesus wept over Jerusalem, he sees in advance what is coming.
Jesus knew there would not be one stone left upon another. Elisha knew, as he anointed this man, what Hazael and his army would do to God’s people. It broke his heart.
For forty-five years we do not see the man of God. The next time we see him, he is weeping over Jerusalem—he is weeping because of something he has to do, and he hates it. He does not want to do this, but he has to do it. The man of God wept.
Then he sends his servant and says, “Go out and anoint Jehu. As soon as you put the oil on him, run.” The servant did not even stay. He poured the oil on him and ran.
One reason he ran was that Jehu was so anxious to start his dirty work. As soon as the oil was dripping from his head, he felt assurance from God that he had the right to do it. He went through, and God’s people suffered.
In our psychological age, this has been called “tough love.” That is sort of what it was here.
Elisha did not have the attitude, “I have been preaching for almost half a century and you are not listening to me. Let God judge. No skin off my nose. You reject my message; you deserve what you get.” That was not his attitude at all.
He was not hard. He was filled with the love of the Lord. The love of God was abounding in his heart, and with a broken heart he anointed Hazael and Jehu.
This is one of the great evidences of a man who looks like Jesus, or a woman who looks like Jesus: he begins to identify with Christ in His suffering, with Christ in His cross.
Not only by being rejected, but by being rejecting.
Those who go on with the Lord, those who are followers of the Lamb, are not only rejected; in the name of the Lord, they are also rejecting. Sometimes they have to be severe, but with a broken heart they have to be severe.
Sometimes the rod of the Lord has to fall, and we try to protect God’s people. We do not want them to be severely dealt with. But if you are like Jesus, you want whatever it takes to bring repentance, whatever it takes to bring them around.
I think some Christian parents need to learn from God how to anoint Hazael and Jehu with a broken heart. I think some elders need to understand what it means to anoint Jehu and Hazael with a broken heart.
Sometimes you have to be tough. Sometimes you have to be God’s instrument of chastening. We must be willing to let God use us.
This weeping prophet, after forty-five years, God brings him back on the scene. He says, “You want to know what the man who looks like Jesus looks like? Look at him.” He stands there and just cries. He just weeps because his heart is so burdened for the people of God.
That is our first last look at the man. He is fading away, fading away, fading away. He comes on the scene, and we see him with a broken heart.
What does the message look like? Turn, if you would, to 2 Kings 13.
Now Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he died. And Joash the king of Israel came down unto him, and wept over his face, and said, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof.
And Elisha said unto him, Take bow and arrows. And he took unto him bow and arrows.
And he said to the king of Israel, Put thine hand upon the bow. And he put his hand upon it: and Elisha put his hands upon the king’s hands.
And he said, Open the window eastward. And he opened it. Then Elisha said, Shoot. And he shot.
And he said, The arrow of the Lord’s deliverance, and the arrow of deliverance from Syria: for thou shalt smite the Syrians in Aphek, till thou have consumed them.
And he said, Take the arrows. And he took them. And he said unto the king of Israel, Smite upon the ground. And he smote thrice, and stayed.
And the man of God was wroth with him, and said, Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times; then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it: whereas now thou shalt smite Syria but thrice.
A little more donkey work, and we will get to the heart of the Lord. This is a symbolic act in two parts:
What is that all about? Let me give you the political background.
After the anointing of Hazael and Jehu, quite a bit of time had passed. Israel was bleeding. Syria had done terrible work upon Israel, and on the inside Jehu had done terrible work as well.
More than twenty years had passed, and Israel had been beaten badly. This was the chastening of the Lord.
The king who came to visit Elisha here, Joash or Jehoash, was the grandson of Jehu. Jehu’s son Jehoahaz had taken over, and then came his grandson. Joash was now king in Israel.
Hazael of Syria, whom the Lord had used to chasten Israel from the outside, was also gone. At this time, Syria was the number-one political enemy of Israel.
They had enacted a series of invasions. They had gone from the north all the way to the south. Victory after victory, Syria moved on, taking the Philistines in the south, then turning toward Judah.
To stay alive, Judah paid a great tribute. They took all the sacred things and the gold out of the temple of the Lord and paid Syria off just to stay alive.
Then Syria made its move toward Jerusalem. Over and over again, God kept giving Syria victory after victory.
Until the army of Israel was reduced to this:
Neither did he leave of the people to Jehoahaz but fifty horsemen, and ten chariots, and ten thousand footmen; for the king of Syria had destroyed them, and had made them like the dust by threshing.
Brothers and sisters, do not read this history, “La, la, la, la.” Enter into it. Picture the United States. What if our armed forces had been reduced to ten chariots, fifty horsemen, and ten thousand foot soldiers? That was their whole army.
I tell you, the situation was bad when Joash became king.
Do not get the idea that Joash was seeking the Lord because he went to the prophet’s house. He was not seeking the Lord. This was an ungodly man. He could care less about the Lord.
Look at 2 Kings 13:11:
And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord; he departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin: but he walked therein.
This man was an idolater. This man was a wicked man. His purpose for coming to Elisha was entirely selfish.
He was a king, and he looked at his army. He had ten chariots left. That was his whole army. Syria was closing in, and Israel was still wounded from the civil war that had taken place on the inside. This was a mess in Israel.
He did not know what to do. He was devastated. His idea was this: he was up there in the Oval Office, looking out at his army, seeing all the bad news as Syria kept coming and coming and coming. Then he thought about the prophet.
You know how people turn to religion when they are in trouble—foxhole Christians. “We are in trouble now. Maybe the Lord will help us.” That is where he was. This was his last hope.
There is not one drop of evidence that Joash knew Elisha was sick. The first time I read it, I thought, “Oh, he is going to visit the sick prophet. He heard he was sick, and maybe he is going to pay him a little call.” No way.
That was his last hope. Maybe Elisha could call on God or something, because they were in trouble. They had no army. They were going to be wiped out.
So he goes there because that is his last hope. What happens when a man knocks at the door and finds out that his last hope is dying? That was the situation. Not only was his last hope dying, but even that was dying.
There are two parts to this object lesson: shoot the arrow, in verse 17; strike the ground, in verse 18.
Each part of that symbolic lesson told a story, and that story summarizes the entire message of the man who looks like Jesus.
What is the truth behind the expression, “Shoot the arrow”? It is explained: “The Lord’s arrow of victory.”
The first part of the object lesson is this: victory belongs to the Lord. It is the Lord’s arrow of victory. Trust the Lord. Look to the Lord. It is His victory.
When he shot out toward the east, I thought, “Why does he not shoot north? That is where Syria is. What is he doing shooting out the east window?” He shot east because that was the scene of Syria’s last victory. He was shooting in the direction of Syria.
It is the Lord’s victory. God was saying, “That has always been My message. Look to Jesus. Look to the Lord. It is His victory. It is Him. It is the Lord.”
All right, hold that a moment. What is the message behind “Strike the ground”?
Those who study this are not one hundred percent certain how this happened. Some think Joash had a handful of arrows from his quiver and struck the ground with them. Others say the Hebrew indicates shooting arrows into the ground.
Whether striking the ground means hitting the ground with arrows or shooting arrows into the ground, the principle does not change. It is the same principle whichever position you take.
What is represented by that? I think the earth. Strike the earth. I think the earth represents the earth. I cannot get too deep on these things. I think it is the world—this world.
We have New Testament words; we talk about the flesh and the world. I think what he was saying is, “Trust the Lord. Do not trust yourself.” Smite this world that needs to be smitten. Trust the Lord, and stop trusting man.
Put your trust in the Lord and have no confidence in man.
Are you familiar with the very center verses of the Bible? Psalm 118:8-9. I know verses came later, and I am not saying this is inspired, but listen:
It is better to take refuge in the Lord
Than to put confidence in man.
It is better to take refuge in the Lord
Than to put confidence in princes.
That happens to be the center verse of the Bible. I know it is the central message of the Bible, and I think it is the object lesson Elisha is giving here: trust in the Lord. Do not put any confidence in man.
In verse 16, when Elisha told Joash to shoot the arrow out the window, this sick old prophet got up out of his bed and went over. As the king pulled the string, the prophet put his hand on the king’s hand.
I remember trying to teach Lillian to play golf. Of course, I was courting her at the time, so I had to teach her how to hold the club.
The first time I ever took her golfing, I had a brand-new driver—brand-spanking-new Spalding driver. I had never used it. She threw it in the reservoir. She took a swing, and it was gone. There went my driver.
Some say the prophet put his hand on the king’s hand to illustrate that the king had to put himself under the authority of the prophet. The prophet was calling the shots; the king could not shoot until the prophet said, “Shoot,” and could not let go until the prophet said, “Let go.”
It is amazing how many commentaries hold that view, but I think it goes against the character of this man. It implies that Joash was putting himself under submission to the man of God, and there is nothing in the record to indicate that.
This was a wicked man. There is no repentance that I can see in his heart or life. I cannot believe he was submitting unto this man of God at all.
I do not doubt that when he said, “My father, my father, the chariots of Israel, and the horsemen thereof,” he recognized that the strength of a nation lies in its spiritual leadership.
When he saw his last hope dying, he said, “Oh, no. Now what am I going to do? Now even the prophet is dying.” He recognized that, but I do not think for a moment that this wicked king was submitting himself to the prophet.
What was intended by Elisha putting his hand on the king’s hand? I cannot be one hundred percent certain, but here is what I think.
Elisha was saying, “Listen, for fifty years I have been ministering in this nation. For fifty years I have had only one message: trust the Lord and smite the earth. That has been my whole message. Trust the Lord; do not trust man. Trust the Lord; do not trust yourself.”
“Now here we go again at the end. You want to hear the message again? All right: trust the Lord and smite the earth.”
As he held the king’s hand, I think he was saying, though he did not use these words, “You are not always going to have the man of God around to hold your hand.”
“I have told you a thousand times to trust the Lord and not trust man, and I am not going to be around to hold your hand much longer. I do not know how many times you have to hear that before you heed it.”
For fifty years, to those who were willing, to those who were unwilling, to those who were hungry, Elisha had one message: “Look to the Lord. Do not look to man. Look to the Lord. Do not look to man.”
Shoot the arrow toward the Lord—the Lord’s arrow of victory. Smite the earth. You have to learn to do it for yourself.
Do not answer this: how many times have you heard some man of God stand before you and say, “Trust the Lord. Stop trusting your wisdom. Stop trusting your strength. Stop trusting your own resources. Look to Jesus. Smite the earth.”
We are not going to be around forever. We are going to pass away.
Men of God will stand up, and a thousand times they will tell you the same thing: look to Jesus. Do not trust yourself. But the man of God will not always be there to hold your hand.
When he is not there, what are you going to do? Has your last hope died?
By having two parts to the symbolic act, God was able to illustrate that it is possible to fall short of full victory.
It is easy to say, “Look to Jesus.” We love to say that: “Just look to Christ.” But how many times have you smitten the earth?
It is possible to fall short of a complete victory.
The king struck the ground three times and stopped. The man of God was furious.
The last scene we have is this old prophet jumping out of bed, his face turning red. He is angry. That is the last scene we have, and then he is gone.
This great man, who bleeds and weeps over the people, dies angry. He is angry and furious because he knows that it is one thing to trust the Lord and another thing to smite the earth.
God’s people have a knack somehow for not wanting to smite the earth enough. We want to trust Jesus, but we want to trust ourselves too. We want to trust our own wisdom. We want to trust our own strength. We want to help the Lord out.
Smite the earth all the way. It is a terrible victory that only pushes the enemy to the borders, where he can attack again another day.
We want nothing of that kind of victory. We want the kind of victory where the enemy is gone—vanquished, finished, with no more power in our life.
We need to shoot the arrow. It is the Lord’s victory. Then may God grace us not to stop smiting the earth, because we cannot trust ourselves.
That is a summary of this wonderful message, and we need to heed it.
Our final look, and we will wrap up with this: I want to show you the man and the message together one more time. I want to show you how entwined the man and the message are—the man who looks like Jesus, the message of Christ, and the grace of God—and yet how separate they are.
This marvelous story is found in 2 Kings 13:20-21:
And Elisha died, and they buried him. And the bands of the Moabites invaded the land at the coming in of the year.
And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band of men; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha: and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet.
Picture this in your mind. They are in the middle of a funeral service. As they were burying a man, they saw a marauding band, and they cast the man into the grave of Elisha. When the man touched the bones of Elisha, he revived and stood on his feet.
In the middle of a funeral service they said, “Ah, they are coming! What are we going to do with this guy? Boom!” Then he is alive. That really happened. It is an awesome scene.
This is the scene where I said it is difficult to separate the man from the message, and yet they are probably more separated here than anywhere else in the history.
As we come to the close of our time together, looking at the man who looked like Jesus and the message that man embraced, I want to call attention to this climactic ending because it teaches us the unconscious, life-giving influence in the man of God.
I call it a life-giving influence because Elisha died, and after he died God was still using him. Those who came in contact with him were still receiving life.
It is quite a dramatic scene. I wish I had been there to see when that corpse touched those bones, jumped up, and ran out of the grave just in time to be attacked by the marauding band.
All through the story of Elisha, he never went out seeking ministry. He was just available. He just lived, and they came to him.
The widow came to him. The needy came to him. The leper came to him. The hungry came to him. The destitute came to him. He just lived. He was just available.
This time he is completely out of the picture.
If you were tempted to give Elisha credit for some kind of ministry before, that temptation is gone now. You cannot give him any credit for this one. He is dead.
Do not read that, “La, la, la,” because it is the key to everything. It is the clincher to the whole message.
He did not say anything this time. He did not do anything this time. He did not touch anybody this time. Ceremonially, he was in the worst condition of all: he was ceremonially unclean.
Yet when the corpse came in contact—now think spiritually as I say these words—when that corpse came in contact with the dead prophet, he lived.
You say, “He is dead.” Yes, but what does that mean?
One thing it means is nothing spiritually. He is free from the flesh. There are just bones left. He is free from the flesh.
In his death, he discovered probably what he had longed for all his life. As a Christian, he probably prayed, “Oh, Lord, I want to be free from the flesh.” That is what I pray. That is what you pray. That is what it means to be dead: he is free from the flesh.
What else does it mean? It means he is living in the Spirit. If ever there was a time he lived in the Spirit, it is now. He is free from the flesh; he is living in the Spirit.
He has finally entered into what it means. Probably during his life he said, “Oh, Lord, teach me, what does it mean to live in the Spirit?” He knows now.
You say, “The man is dead.” Yes, he is free from the flesh and living in the Spirit.
What is he doing? What occupies his days and his hours now? Where is he?
You say, “He is in the cave.” No, it is not the cave. Where is he? He is in the presence of the Bridegroom, Lover of his soul.
He is in union.
Before, he used to say over and over again:
The Lord of hosts, before whom I stand.
He can say it now in a new way: “The Lord of hosts, before whom I stand.” He is in the presence of the living Lord. Now it is literal.
The prophet is in the presence of the Lord, occupied day and night with Jesus, beholding His beauty, worshiping at His feet, enjoying the bliss of His unending company.
This man is wrapped up in Jesus. Do you remember what his message was? Jesus. That was his message.
The messenger is now fully enjoying the message. He died. He is free from the flesh. He is living in the Spirit. He is enjoying the presence of the Lord.
That is the one God uses in order to bring life to someone else.
When that corpse came in contact with a man who looked like Jesus, do you know what happens when a dead person touches somebody who is free from the flesh, living in the Spirit, and enjoying the presence of the Lord?
The ministry and life are so connected, but they are so separate. Elisha has no clue about ministry. He is not trying to minister. He is free from the flesh, living in the Spirit, and enjoying the Lord.
Someone comes in contact with him—boom, he is alive. Elisha does not know anything about that. It is unconscious from his point of view.
Let me ask you this question. You open your Bible and read Psalm 23. Something in Psalm 23 blesses you. Maybe you hear Jeff’s tapes on Psalm 23, and something blesses you. Does David know that?
I mean, he wrote that. Does he know when you are blessed by reading his psalm? Probably not. He is probably occupied with other things.
You read the epistles, and something Paul said grips your heart. Does Paul know that?
You come into a situation in life, there is a storm, and you remember Peter walking on the water and how he got his eyes off the Lord. You say, “Oh, thank You, Lord, for that story. I am going to keep my eyes on Christ.” Does Peter know that happened to you? Probably not.
We know that one day they threw a corpse on Elisha, and he rose from the dead. Elisha still does not know that. We know it; he does not even know it yet.
He may know it someday when Christ has His coronation and rewards are given, but I do not think he knows it now.
That is the essence. That is the summary. The man and the message: the Christian who looks like Jesus never looks more like Jesus than when he is conformed to His death.
That is when the Christian looks like Jesus: when he is dead.
Then the last thing in his mind is ministry. He is not thinking about ministry. He is not thinking about Christian service. He is not thinking about anything except Jesus.
He is wrapped up in the Lord. The man and the message are one. He lives in the Spirit, lives in the presence of the Lord, and lives free from the flesh.
God keeps throwing people into his life, making contact with him, and everybody who touches him lives—and he does not even know it.
That is the man who looks like Jesus. That is the climax of the whole thing.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, we come to another [unclear]. We come to the end of another Joshua. But we come to the same place where we always end and where we always start: it is the Lord.
May I encourage you in the name of the Lord to shoot the arrow and strike the earth. Trust the Lord, and do not trust yourselves.
Die. Die. Learn what it means to die.
You will not believe someday how God will use your life—unconsciously. You do not have to know it.
You are just wrapped up in Jesus. You are just in His presence. You are just walking in the Spirit. You are just being delivered, and you are free from the flesh. That is where you live—in that world.
Then others, and I think by the thousands, will touch your life and live. Someday, maybe you will know. It is not important.
The important thing is that you be like Jesus, that you have the message of Christ, and that they be one.
Do not wait for heaven—for heaven’s sake—to live heaven on earth.
May God help us to know what it means to die. That is where the life is.
Father, thank You so much for Your precious Word.
Now we ask You, Lord, as we have heard from this dying prophet this great truth, teach us that it is Your victory.
Grace us to smite the earth so we will not fall short of Your victory. Teach us to die, that we might live in the presence of the Lord, and that others who touch our lives might live.
We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Thank you.