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2 Kings chapter 2 and from verse 7 as we continue this story of Elijah and Elisha and this passing on of that great ministry.
! Elijah took his cloak, rolled it up and struck the water with it. The water divided to the right and to the left and the two of them crossed over on dry ground.
When they had crossed Elijah said to Elisha, tell me what can I do for you before I am taken from you? Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit, Elisha replied.
You have asked a difficult thing, Elijah said. Yet if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours. Otherwise it will not.
As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them. And Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind.
Elijah saw this and cried out, My father, my father, the chariots and horsemen of Israel. And Elijah saw him no more.
Then he took hold of his garment and tore it in two. Elijah then picked up Elijah's cloak that had fallen from him and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan.
He took the cloak that had fallen from Elijah and struck the water with it. Where now is the Lord, the God of Elijah, he asked. When he struck the water, it divided to the right and to the left and he crossed over.
The company of the prophets from Jericho who were watching said, The spirit of Elijah is resting on Elisha. And they went to meet him and bowed to the ground before him.
Look, they said, we, your servants, have fifty able men. Let them go and look for your master. Perhaps the spirit of the Lord has picked him up and set him down in some mountain or in some valley.
No, Elijah replied, do not send them. But they persisted and he was too embarrassed to refuse. So he said, send them. And they sent fifty men who searched for three days but did not find him.
When they returned to Elijah, who was staying in Jericho, he said to them, Didn't I tell you not to go? The people of the city said to Elisha, Look, our Lord, this town is well situated as you can see, but the water is bad and the land is unproductive.
Bring me a new bowl, he said, and put salt in it. So they brought it to him. Then he went out to the spring, threw this all into it, saying, This is what the Lord says.
I have healed this water. Never again will it cause death or make the land unproductive. And the water has remained pure to this day, according to the word Elisha had spoken.
From there, Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. Get out of here, Baldy, they said.
Get out of here, Baldy. He turned round, looked at them, and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.
And he went on to Mount Carmel and from there returned to Samaria. Thanks, Derek, for reading that for us.
And if you could keep your Bibles open at 2 Kings 2, that would be great. You can find an outline inside the notice sheet. Let's pray and ask for God's help. Know that the Lord is God.
It is he who made us. Almighty God, who's made us and who has become our shepherd and our loving Heavenly Father, we ask that you will speak to us now by your Spirit and you will give us ears to hear and turn our hearts back to you.
For Jesus' name's sake. Amen. Well, great. A key theme in this chapter of the Bible is the idea of succession.
And succession is a big issue in life today. This is the smash hit American drama, Succession, about the chaos when a media magnate, Logan Roy, announced he was retiring from the family business.
Succession is a problem in football when a successful manager leaves. We talk about the Alec Ferguson effect. Of how hard it is to follow a successful manager. It's an issue right now for Apple where Steve Jobs handed over to Tim Cook.
He got the job no one in the world wanted of succeeding Steve Jobs at Apple. But actually, Apple has grown under him. And now, people are asking, will the next boss of Apple also have the Midas touch?
And of course, our big succession story in the UK was the Queen's death four years ago. And her 70-year reign with 15 prime ministers had come to an end.
And there was this sense of, how will things change under a king when we've not seen someone else be our monarch? Now, that idea is bang on point today for the people of God in this chapter.
So much so that in these situations, when we come across them in the world today, we sometimes use the phrase, don't we, who's going to take up the mantle now?
And if you've ever heard that phrase, that phrase comes from our chapter today, the idea of taking up the mantle. So Elijah was this magnificent, faithful man of God.
And we've seen his story is at the heart of this book, 1 and 2 Kings. It's a center point. As he magnificently brought God's word to a people who God had rescued, but have drifted from him under faithless kings.
And he calls them back to God. And it's this great fight for the souls of the people of God. And that's why we see such extraordinary miracles happening around this season in 1 and 2 Kings.
As I read the Bible and look at the world today, and I believe God works miraculously in the world today, but I think we can see four periods of human history where God's signs and wonders were especially intense.
One is around the Exodus, when God first showed up and rescued his people and brought them out of slavery. And then the second season is in this time of Elijah and then Elisha, as he fights to turn their hearts back to him.
And then the third would be in the life of Jesus. And then the fourth season would be in the work of his apostles in Acts, as God vindicated their message with signs and wonders.
So it's epic stuff. And we're going to see in our first point today, as Elijah leaves this, that God's power is still enduring, so live for him.
Our chapter has geography running right through it very significantly, so let me just show you that. If you look at verse 1 of chapter 2, we get, the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind.
Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. Okay, so in the chapter, they go from this place, Gilgal, which is in Samaria. They go from Samaria to Bethel, from Bethel to Jericho, and then they go from Jericho to the Jordan River, which was the way God's people first came in to the Promised Land.
That's at the center, and Elijah is then taken away, and then Elisha, who's been following him, takes the same route back in the second half of the chapter, from the Jordan River.
He goes to Jericho, from Jericho to Bethel, from Bethel to Samaria, significantly. And if we, we're going to think about that. And if we look down at verses 2 and 4 and 6, you can see that as Elijah and Elisha go, three times Elijah urges Elisha not to come with him.
So verse 2 and verse 4 and verse 6, he says the same thing three times. Stay here, the Lord has sent me. I'm not sure why. I think it's partly to demonstrate Elisha's commitment to the Word of God.
Elisha will not leave the prophet Elijah behind. He's cleaving to him. He's saying yes to the commission to him. It might also be that Elijah is uneasy about Elisha's ministry that's coming, because he's known, as we've known if we're reading Kings, since 1 Kings 19, that Elisha is going to be a minister of God's judgment on the people.
We're not sure fully why, but it does build the suspense of how big a deal it is that Elijah is leaving, that he keeps saying stay here, and Elisha says I won't leave you, and he follows him.
And he seems to be following the route in reverse that Joshua followed to bring the people in, in the conquest, as though what we're seeing is the Word of God being pulled out through the prophet of God leaving, and being left thinking, is this the end for God's people?
His gracious word is going. So in verse 7, they arrive at the Jordan River, and they stop. Verse 7, 50 men from the company of the prophets went and stood at a distance, facing the place where Elijah and Elisha had stopped at the Jordan.
Elijah took his cloak, rolled it up, and struck the water with it. The water divided to the right and to the left, and the two of them crossed over on dry ground.
Then he says to Elisha, what can I do for you? In verse 9, Elisha says let me inherit a double portion of your spirit. Not that he'll be twice as powerful as Elijah has been, but the double portion was what was rightly allotted to the firstborn in a family.
So it's saying let me be your heir, and let God finish the work he started through you through me. So then we get the center point of the whole chapter, verse 11.
As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind.
What a moment. I take it this is the moment that inspired the Negro spiritual song. Swing low, sweet chariot, coming forth to carry me home.
stolen ruthlessly by the English rugby supporters. So I don't get to sing it very often here. But you can see the original idea is such a wonderful thing, isn't it?
The idea that Elijah is one of two people we know of in human history, given the privilege that the Lord took him home to be with him without even having to pass through death.
And so the song is evoking that kind of prayer that we'd be brought home to God. Wonderful for Elijah, but for the people, again, deeply troubling, that now he's gone.
What next? So look at Elisha's cry in verse 12. My father, my father, the chariots and horsemen of Israel. And I take it there, what Elisha means by the chariots and horsemen is not the chariot of fire that's come from heaven, but rather he means Elijah is the chariots and horsemen of Israel.
He's the cavalry. He's the strength. Without the word of God, the people of God have no strength. And now he's gone. What now? And then, verse 13, Elijah picks up the cloak.
That's the mantle. He takes up the mantle that's fallen and he goes back and he stands on the bank of the Jordan. Verse 14, he took the cloak that had fallen from Elijah and struck the water with it.
Where now is the Lord, the God of Elijah, he asked. Now, why has he done that? I think partly because there's no bridge, right?
So he's stuck on the other side of the river. And if nothing miraculous happens now, Elisha's going to have to spend days walking upstream to go around. He's stuck.
And the company of the prophets are all watching him. But then, when he struck the water, it divided to the right and to the left and he crossed over. So it answers his question, doesn't it?
His question is, where is the Lord, the God of Elijah? Elijah, and verse 15, the company of the prophets watching realized because of the miracle, the spirit of Elijah is resting on Elisha.
They've worked it out and they go to meet him and they bow to the ground. In other words, the key point is, God's servant has gone, but God's power will still reach his people.
For his power is not confined. It's not confined to one particular era. And you see that in this parting of the Jordan because if you are an Israelite thinking, I wish God's power was with us now.
We need God's power. What you'd think back to was God's power at the Exodus. And dramatically, that power was displayed when through Moses, God parted the Red Sea to save his people and deliver them.
And then through Joshua, on the plains of Moab, as they stood on the edge of the promised land, God parted the River Jordan. So looking back for Israel, when they want to think of God's power as God showed up to fight for them, they think of the rivers parting.
And now, there they are. And Elijah parts the Jordan. And Elisha parts the Jordan. And it communicates to them, God's power is not confined to the past. He is for you today.
And we need to hear that today as well, don't we? In our times, it's easy to look back at times in history with rose-tinted spectacles and think, oh, God was at work then, but we won't see times like that now.
Everything's changed now. So we might look back at Scotland and the great histories of spiritual renewal that have happened in Scotland.
And there was, you can go in Canbertslang to the park and you can stand where there's a plaque to commemorate where George Whitefield came and he preached the gospel.
And hundreds of people on the same day gave their lives to Jesus. And it lit this flame across Scotland of spiritual awakening in the 18th century. Or we could think more recently of the times on the Isle of Lewis more than once, but particularly in the early 50s, early 1950s, when there was this revival and young people suddenly struck by great fear and wanting to be made right with God and receiving Jesus and transforming the island.
And we can think to ourselves, but could that really happen where we live now? The culture's changed. People have moved on. And this chapter reassures us we're not to think like that, that God's power is confined to a particular era.
He is powerful today to work by His Spirit, to turn people's hearts back to Him. And this chapter also identifies that the power of God is not confined to a particular leader.
And we can be guilty of thinking that when we think of particular men or women who've been greatly used by God and then they die or they retire or even they sadly fall and we feel let down or we think, is there any hope now after them?
And I speak to people now who, in Scotland, who can remember going to see Billy Graham and him filling stadiums in Scotland and filling Kelvin Hall night after night and just the extraordinary impact that his ministry had and people whose family members were saved by him, by God speaking the gospel through him.
Or for me, I think of Tim Keller who died four years ago and he was the man I wanted all my mates to hear and all my mates to read his books. But then we're not to think without them, God is not powerful to act in extraordinary ways in our time.
He's not confined to a particular leader. He wasn't confined to Elijah. His spirit can work wherever he pleases, through whomever he pleases. And so, for us, the encouragement is attempt great things for God and expect great things from God.
Pray audacious prayers in our times and live bravely for him. That's our first point. Something else here in this chapter can really build our confidence to live for God today.
And it's our second point. God's saviour judge has come trustfully in him. We've known since 1 Kings 19 that Elisha's going to have this ministry.
God explained to Elijah on a mountain that Elisha would have this dramatic ministry of judging and saving. But the end of Kings is a disaster.
The end of this book. And the people of God are left thinking we need another saviour and judge. We need God to send an ultimate saviour and judge. Well, what are they to look out for to recognise him?
What God does is weaves through history patterns, paradigms that foreshadow what his ultimate saviour judge will be like so that we can have every confidence in him when he comes.
As Charles Wesley says in one of his hymns about Jesus, the ancient shadows are fulfilled when we come to Jesus. Now, in 2 Kings 2 we have one of these exciting shadows, a pattern being laid out for us.
And the first way we can explore it is in the lines you can draw between Elijah who's just been taken away and the ministry of John the Baptist that we had in our first reading. Both of them have a message calling people to turn back to God, to repent.
It's a call to repent. And last week we heard that the king who knew Elijah recognized him by his clothes, that he wore a garment made of camel's hair.
So Grace, if we just go to the next slide, we can keep track of these. So there's the call to repent and then there's the Elijah clothing, this garment of camel's hair.
And Matthew tells us about John the Baptist that his clothing, his clothes were made of camel's hair and he had a leather belt around his waist. So it's as though he went down to Slater's menswear and he said, I've got a particular request for you.
I need an Elijah costume. And he went out to the wilderness to preach repent, dressed as Elijah. And if we still hadn't made the connections, the prophet Malachi ends our Old Testament with the Lord saying that the Lord's going to come and before he comes he says, behold I'll send Elijah to turn the heart of the people back to me.
And then Jesus tells his disciples Elijah has come, meaning John the Baptist. That was his ministry. So there are these crossovers for us in the forerunner.
And then we can think about the handover from Elijah to Elisha. God foreshadows what John the Baptist will do as he passes on the baton to Jesus.
So the handover happens at the Jordan River. And in Matthew chapter 3 Jesus heads out from Galilee to meet with John at the Jordan River to be baptized by him.
And the watching witnesses say of Elisha, now the spirit of Elijah is resting on Elisha. And as Jesus comes out of the water at his baptism, heaven is opened and the spirit descends on him like a dove and rests to anoint him.
And then we see how Jesus is the true and greater Elisha, the successor. You see it from the name. So Elisha's name is literally, it just means God saves, which of course is Jesus' name.
The angel says you'll call him Jesus because it means God saves and he will save his people from their sins. And as well as their name meaning the same thing, they go around doing the same thing.
So in the next couple of weeks what we'll see is Elisha does a series of miracles that if you're coming at this backwards because you know more about Jesus in the gospels you go, well hang on, Jesus did these miracles.
But Jesus is going around self-consciously doing the miracles that Elisha had foreshadowed. So we'll see that a woman's son dies and she runs to Elisha and Elisha raises the son to life.
And then we see Jesus arriving at the town of Nain and a funeral coming out for a widow's only son and he raises the boy to life. And then we'll see Elisha do a feeding miracle where there is a large crowd, there are a hundred men and there's just a few loaves and Elisha feeds them and then there's leftovers.
Miracles that demonstrate not just that Jesus has extraordinary power but that he is exactly the deliverer judge that God has promised and he's woven into history a pattern so that when we see him we go, oh, this is exactly what we needed.
God's saviour judge has come. So the handover in this chapter whispers Jesus' name, points us to the great saviour who was coming. And this is great news for any of you.
If you're someone here today who thinks, when I come to church I look at other people and think they seem to have such confidence about their faith. I wish I had that confidence but I struggle to believe.
believe and it's as if the Lord is saying through this chapter, don't spend your best years sitting on the fence worrying about whether or not this is true because it is true.
And the Bible just unfolds like that to give us this great confidence that right through history Jesus was coming and now has come.
So that you can take a big step forward this week in living for God and have the confidence to speak to a friend about Jesus. So what should we then expect from God's ultimate deliverer judge who has come?
Well that's our third point. Our response is decisive so welcome him. Elisha in the rest of the chapter retraces that journey back through the promised land. He goes to Jericho and then he goes to Bethel and God brings abundant blessing and grave curse to people depending how they respond to God's man because the man represents God's word to them and how you respond to God's word shows God how you're responding to him.
It's crucial background to remember that Israel had a particular relationship with God. It was governed by stipulations. It was a covenant and there were blessings promised if they kept trusting God and curses if they turned from God to worship false gods and those blessings and curses were tied to their prosperity or famine in the land.
So let's take the journey to Bethel first because this actually is more the kind of work that we're ominously expecting Elisha would do what he does in Bethel. We were expecting him to be an instrument of God's judgment and from verse 23 just have a look.
Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. Get out of here baldy they said. Get out of here baldy.
And then Elisha calls down a curse on them in the name of the Lord and two bears come out of the woods and they maul 42 of them. So if you're anything like me with my life experience what I'm picturing here is a little gang of youths hanging out not much else to do.
They're outside bargain booze by a row of shops drinking cider and Elisha is just a funny looking bloke who happens to walk past and they shout abuse baldy baldy.
Hopefully this isn't sounding too familiar an experience for any of you who like me has a receding hairline. But the next thing you know some bears appear and kill them. But when we think about it more closely this is Bethel that he's gone to and Bethel is the place where King Jeroboam had built a golden calf for the people.
So it is the epitome of false worship. For the people God rescued they built a golden calf. They thought that was a good idea and said not having forgotten that this happened before and said let's worship this.
This is the God that brought us out of Egypt. And God is of course offended by that spiritual adultery. Now Elisha isn't even in the town.
He's passing by the town and they come out to make sure he doesn't go in. And there are lots of boys here right. Because at least 42 well there are more than 42 because 42 get mauled.
So when this group shout get out of here baldy. It's not random mockery. This is a town that knows exactly who Elisha represents.
And what they're doing is resolving we don't want the living God anywhere near us. This is their mob to drive God's word away. And thinking back to the covenant relationship that Israel has with God.
God had one of the curses, one of the marks of judgment if they rejected God was that he would withdraw his protection from them in the promised land and wild animals would rob them of their children.
So where we bristle at the idea that God would bring a judgment like this, we might need to make room for this in our view of God and heed this warning that there is a healthy way to be afraid of the living God.
In terms of what it would mean to stand before his appointed saviour judge on judgment day, which we will all do, having rejected him, having pushed him away in our lives.
It will be a dreadful day if we've done that. So that's Bethel. But then let's go to Jericho. Now this is amazing because in Leviticus 26, one of the blessings promised if the people are faithful is fertile land.
But Elisha arrives at Jericho and look at verse 19. The people of the city say to Elisha, look, our Lord, this town is well situated as you can see, but the water is bad and the land is unproductive.
Literally the land suffers miscarriages, which probably is that the livestock can't reproduce because of the poison in the water, this pollution.
But they've called Elisha their Lord. They've received him and they ask him for help so that he goes out to the spring and he throws salt in it and he makes a declaration. Verse 21, I've healed this water.
Never again will it cause death or make the land unproductive. And the water has remained pure to this day according to the word Elisha had spoken.
So this is the Lord's life-giving healing and blessing. And it's remarkable this happens at Jericho because Jericho was a city under the curse of God. It had been rebuilt even though God had said rebuilding the walls would bring a curse.
And even here where they did that disobediently, God's grace overcomes the curse. In other words, the message of this encounter is when you come to God's Savior and ask him for mercy and help, his grace overwhelmingly wipes away your past.
Christ. Precious news for Jericho but also wonderful news for any of us here today who are struggling in life with the effects of a past sin.
Something we've done that we feel still reaps carnage in our lives. That thing we did wrong that has been so costly for our marriage or for our livelihood or gives us ongoing feelings of shame.
And we wonder, could ever that be wiped away? Well, God's grace is powerful to overcome that and overwhelm it, to heal you and restore you and give you new life.
And this is what God does to anyone who just comes to his Savior. There's no greater thing. So the chapter leaves us to reflect, how am I responding to God's Savior judge today?
Our response to him is what is so decisive. It might not look it today as we look around at the people around us, but ultimately it is decisive. Think of Bethel that night.
The tears of anguish and grief that God's judgment had come. Think of Jericho that day. The tears of joy and relief and wonder that God would be so gracious to that town.
And think of Jesus centuries later, standing up, not in Jericho, but in Jerusalem and saying, let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water, welling up to eternal life.
Elisha could heal the water. Jesus offers us living water. Elisha could bring life back to a city. Jesus offers us eternal life.
Elisha dealt with a poison spring outside the people, but Jesus offers to put a spring of living water within us, his people, so that he can then send us out to be his faithful witnesses.
Jesus, let's pray together. Gracious heavenly father, we praise you that you are powerful to work today in our times.
Thank you for the sign post you've given us that we can recognize Jesus as your appointed savior and judge with such great confidence.
And so may we welcome him gladly in our lives, experience the wonder at his grace, giving us healing and life.
And may we go out from here able to attempt great things for you and expect great things from you in our times.
We pray for Jesus' name's sake. Amen.