Sermon notes from Sunday morning 4 September 2016
2 Kings 2 verses 1 - 15
As you well know the ministry of Elijah
ends in a very dramatic way. Here he is
walking with his friend Elisha when the heavens opened up, a whirlwind came
down, picked him up and took him to heaven.
Here was a man whose life ended as he was - out and out for God. It ended as it began. We are not told much about his birth, his
upbringing but one day however God moved on that man, and he walked into Ahab`s
palace knowing he had a message from the God of heaven. As he walked through the courts of the palace
not one tried to turn him away. There he
is on the scene of this time and right away standing before Ahab. There will be men standing behind the sacred desks
today afraid to bring the word of God.
Let us take encouragement today from his story and let us never be
ashamed of the gospel of Christ "for it is the power of God unto
salvation." (Romans 1 verse 16)
Elijah marches in before King Ahab with a message from God. Ahab was a man who hated the word of God and
the prophets of God. Now take a look at
another ministry that begins when Elijah`s comes to an end. To the man who will fill Elijah`s shoes -
Elisha. First thing we see about his
coming to the ministry is - he was not a man that is easily put off. He is going to go through with God whatever
the cost. If you ever want to do a work
for God you need that resilience, the determination and perseverance, to be out
and out for God today.
Elisha was heralding a walk with God. Think first of all the places Elijah and
Elisha visited. The first place Elijah
found Elisha was a place of decision. Elisha was out in the field, ploughing the
field. Elijah came out to him with an
instruction from God. When we go out for
God we spend time in prayer, seek him as to where we go to. God will give you a word specifically for one
person. Elijah`s ministry was coming to
an end. He knew that God placed the
message in his heart to find Elisha. We
need the Elisha`s today, to fill the shoes of those who have now left this
scene of time. People who have once
taught in the Sunday School, who sat in the prayer meeting. Elijah cast his cloak over Elisha. That was a sign of service he was being
required to do. Elisha was not very
forthcoming. He was in the middle of
doing his job ploughing the field when he met Elijah coming to him. He wanted to go back to his father and mother
to tell them about his decision. Elijah
left him there. He had to make his own
decision. He sacrificed the cows and
broke up the plough, then placed all on the altar. He gave it all to the Lord in sacrifice. We have got to lay our all on the altar
today. We will never be confronted by
the power of God or challenged to step out for God until that day. God came and challenged him to make a
decision. Isaiah went into the temple
one day and experienced the awesomeness and wonderfulness of God. It is only when we come to the place of
awesomeness of God that things will happen.
Isaiah heard the voice that day "who will go for us." He made a decision "will you send me I
am ready to do your task." Is there
one person who is able to say "I am ready, you know this heart of mine, I
will leave whatever I have, I will set it aside today and go through with God." Not be halfhearted but ready to say
"take me, use me as you will."
Isaiah came to the place where he realised he was a man of unclean lips
and was standing in the presence of his God, living in the midst of a people who
were unholy and sinful. Isaiah was
looking at himself. He knew God`s
searchlight was on him. Gideon in Judges
6 was sitting with a bag of meal and had been threshing. There was no picture of greatness of himself. The Lord came to him. Gideon said to him "you want me to go
out for you, I am the poorest of all the families, the weakest of all, you
don`t know what you are asking of me.”
God said go. We have got to come
to that place of decision. Maybe today
someone is coming to that place of decision, have heard the voice of God. God is not listening for excuses today.
A place of disappointment. Elijah told Elisha to “tarry ye here for the
Lord hath sent me to Bethel.” Many of us
can vouch so much for that same instruction.
No sooner have we started and there is something or someone ready to
disappoint us, to knock us back. He had
encouraged him to leave his plough and now he is trying to discourage him. Maybe this was a test or Elisha. It was the first trial to come his way. There will be tests to knock us back in our
spiritual lives. We need perseverance to
go on with God. Elisha wanted to go with
Elijah, to see everything he was doing but he was now being told to wait. Gilgal speaks of a place of memories, distant
ones. Whenever Joshua led the children
of Israel through the Jordan river it was to Gilgal they came. It was there they lifted the stones out of
the Jordan river and set them up as a monument, a place where the children of
Israel could remember that God had helped them go through that river into a
place of blessing. At Gilgal they
circumcised their children, celebrated the Passover and celebrated the first
victory over their enemies. All these
memories would come back. That is why we
need to be careful – you and I can live in a bygone age, it is easy to say “I
remember the time God did …” We need to
keep on moving. Elisha didn`t want to
stop there, he wanted to keep going. We
need to move on, to let go, to stop holding on to the past.
As they moved on from Gilgal to Bethel
there was a place of devotion. Elisha had no intention of stopping in Gilgal,
he wanted to go on to Bethel. Bethel was
a place where we might say he gave his all, surrendered everything. In Genesis 8 verse 20 Noah came out of the
ark and built an altar. When Abraham was
called to leave his land he surrendered all to the Lord and came into the land
of promise, there he built an altar. We
should not be living in a distant memory.
We should be totally devoted to the Lord. Remember when Abraham went to Egypt, told
lies and got into a wrong relationship?
When he came out of Egypt he found the land was too small for Lot and
him. What was he led to do? To go back to the altar. There was something not pleasing to the
Lord. Jacob travelled to meet his family
and on the night before he met up with Esau he had a dream of a ladder with
angels ascending and descending on it.
The next morning he said “surely God was in this place and I didn`t know
it.” He built an altar there to
God. A place of devotion – are we still
at Gilgal, haven’t moved on? Bethel was
a place of destruction and direction.
Are we stopping short of our devotion to the Lord? Sometimes our ways may seem old fashioned,
outdated but as we take on new methods and ways God will direct and lead us.
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