[0:00] Go to 2 Kings 2. 2 Kings 2.
[0:25] Last week we began talking about 2 Kings 2, talking about the fact that Elijah was waiting on a whirlwind, waiting on the whirlwind.
[0:37] And we talked about the fact that he completed his ministry that God had for him. He's waiting to go home.
[0:48] But while he's waiting to go home, he is still busy. He did not just sit back and relax. He is still doing things for the Lord. And we talked about the fact that he was taking it as a time of watching.
[1:05] That was the first point I gave you, a time of watching. He knew the world when it was coming, and so did a bunch of other people. But he used it as a time to watch.
[1:20] He was watching because it was going to be a precious event. I gave you these Ps. It was going to be a precious event. You think about, I mentioned last week, Genesis 5, Enoch.
[1:32] And Enoch went to be with the Lord without dying. Elijah's about to do this. I still go back to Enoch. I mentioned this last week. But can you imagine he's walking along, just doing his daily thing, and he's talking with the Lord and stuff while he's walking.
[1:51] And he's just walking along, and you can hear the gravel underneath your feet. And then all of a sudden, I don't hear gravel anymore. And I look down, and I'm like, that's a gold street.
[2:05] Enoch? Enoch, no. He did not. Elijah did. So Enoch, like I said, he's just walking along, and all of a sudden, that street changed.
[2:17] It's not what I thought it was. And we talked about the fact that the Lord's coming for us. But 1 Thessalonians 4, we talked about, you know, the rapture. Jesus is coming again.
[2:27] 1 Corinthians 15, verses 51 and 52, we talked about the fact that we're going to be changed, and things are going to happen suddenly. We talked about John writing the book of Revelation.
[2:40] It gets to the end of the book, and he says, even come, Lord Jesus. It's just the anticipation. It's a precious event. And then it's a promised event, we said.
[2:52] A promised event. He talks about, in fact, here, look at verse 3, chapter 2, verse 3. It says, And the sons of the prophets were at Bethel, came forth to Elisha, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head today?
[3:12] And he said, Yea, I know it. Hold your peace. And you look at verse 5 and verse 7. It says the same things. It talks about the fact that they were watching. They were anticipating.
[3:22] They knew it was going to happen because it had been promised. God has promised us. John 14, verse 3, he says, I've gone to prepare a place for you. And when I've got it prepared, I'm going to come again and take you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be also.
[3:39] So he's promised us that these things are going to happen. And it's just amazing to think of what God has in store for us. And it was a private event, a private event.
[3:51] They all knew it was going to happen, but they didn't know when. They all knew it was going to happen that day. They get better than we did, than we do. They knew it was going to happen that day.
[4:04] Because remember the sons of prophets, they said he's going to be taken today. But they didn't know when. It was just, you know, we keep going. And Elijah took it that way. I just keep going until it happens.
[4:16] I keep on working until it happens. God told us in Matthew 24, 36, he says, But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
[4:28] And then chapter 24, verse 44, he says, Therefore be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not. The Son of Man cometh. He says, be ready at any time.
[4:40] Jesus is coming. At some point, be ready for it. Do we walk around all day, every day, anticipating? We should. We probably don't.
[4:51] We get caught up in this life. We get caught up in the things that are going on around us. We get caught up in the elections taking place. We get caught up in our daily routine and all these different things. But we should be walking every day in anticipation.
[5:04] Could the day be the day? You ever be walking along or driving along and you look up and you see the clouds and you see the sun kind of peeking through the clouds and stuff?
[5:16] You know, is he on his way? Is he coming through? Just to be reminded that he's coming at any time. So it's a time of watching. We also started to talk about the fact it was a time of walking.
[5:30] A time of walking. Walking with purpose. Because we talked about in verse 2. Notice. Look at verse 4.
[5:48] Elijah said unto Elisha, Terry here, I pray thee, for the Lord hath sent me to Jericho. Verse 6. Elijah said unto him, Terry, I pray thee here, for the Lord hath sent me to Jordan.
[6:02] God was sending him different places. He was walking, waiting in anticipation of going home. But in the meantime, he had purpose in his life. He had things that were going to be done.
[6:13] Every one of these places, he talked to the sons of the prophets. They had schools there for those who were going to be prophets. And he said, he went. He talked to them. Shared the things that God had been doing for him and had done in his life.
[6:27] So, you know, I was thinking, this is the day he's going home to be with the Lord. Do you have maps in your Bible? If you do, go to the maps.
[6:39] I was looking at this. I have one. Mine says conquest of Canaan. That's the best one for me to look at. What numbers?
[6:51] Huh? What number is the map? Do you have numbers on there? Oh, no I don't. No. Nope. So if it says conquest of Canaan or Canaan in the Old Testament or something like that.
[7:03] The big sea. The Dead Sea. The Dead Sea. If you find the Dead Sea. Yep. That would be good. Yep. Can you find the Dead Sea? Look just above the Dead Sea and you'll see Gilgal.
[7:20] Verse 1 tells us, It came to pass when the Lord would take Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal. So start with Gilgal, just north of the Dead Sea there.
[7:34] And then he says, I want you to go to Bethel. Look to the left. You'll see Bethel. Then I want you to go to Jericho.
[7:44] Look back to the right just under Gilgal. There's Jericho. And then he went to Jordan. If you look just a little more to the right from Jericho, you see the blue lines going into the Dead Sea.
[7:56] That's Jordan. He put in smiles that day. I mean, he's getting ready to go home. He's getting ready to be done on this earth and he's ready to go to heaven.
[8:06] But he's putting in smiles that day. God sent him to these different places with a purpose in mind. You know, we often think we'll be done someday.
[8:23] Steve told me tonight he can't really picture himself getting done working. He said that. He just, he likes working. We talked about the fact that there are some who in the past have gone up on mountaintops, sold all their stuff, did everything, got rid of it all and went on mountaintops waiting for the rapture to happen because it was going to happen at a certain time and it didn't.
[8:47] And we talked about last time 2 Thessalonians talks about the fact that you know, people were going to do that even at that time. They were giving up and just sitting back and waiting.
[8:58] I've gone up and thought in a glorious day and prayer would somebody be receiving prayer since the time. Yep. Wouldn't that be cool? Yep. And you know that person Yep.
[9:12] So that was the last person that had to be saved. Yep. We talked about the fact that you keep going. Nehemiah, remember we talked about the fact that they trowel in one hand and sword in the other hand to make sure they were ready in case the enemy attacked but they kept on doing the work.
[9:30] They didn't just sit back and wait. Next thing, this is where we left off. Walking with progress. You not only walked with purpose but he walked with progress.
[9:42] He was going to these places. God intended to remove him but he was going to these places and like I mentioned he's visiting these schools of the prophets.
[9:57] He's being permitted to speak to these young men. He's being able to help train them, get them ready to encourage them for the work that they're going to take over and they're going to do. you know he also has a chance to kind of reminisce about what his life had been like and to think about all those different things and what God is doing is he's taking him to these different places.
[10:19] Gilgal, Jericho, Abethel, Jericho, Jordan. He's taking him to these different places to remind him of some things. Gilgal, what's so important about Gilgal?
[10:31] when the children of Israel went into the promised land they crossed the Jordan River they went to Gilgal first.
[10:42] That was where they stopped when they first came across the Jordan River into the promised land. They set up altars there. Gilgal was a place of new beginnings.
[10:55] They were done with 40 years of wandering in the wilderness there now got a new beginning. And you think about Elijah's life.
[11:07] Go back to where he began. Remember when we first hear about him? Ahab, not going to rain until I say so. And you can think back to the beginning that God gave him when God started to take over his life, when God became the most important thing in his life, that beginning that he had there.
[11:27] they went there as a nation, renewed their covenants, renewed their relationship with God, made sure that they were ready to go about what he had for them.
[11:41] No wars or anything had taken place yet. They were just there ready to start out. Then he went to Bethel. Bethel is a holy place to the children of Israel.
[11:53] Bethel is a place of revelation. Gilgal is a place of new beginnings. Bethel is a place of revelation. What happened to Bethel? Anybody remember? Yeah.
[12:09] Go to, go to Genesis chapter 28. Genesis 28. Genesis 28. And if you're writing down, you can put in verses 11 to 22.
[12:29] I may not read them all, but verse 11 says, And he lighted upon a certain place and tarried there all night, because the sun was set. And he took the stones of that place and put them for his pillows and laid down in that place to sleep.
[12:48] I always read that verse and I'm like, stones for pillows. Okay. He must have had one hard head because, huh?
[12:59] It could have been, I don't know. I don't think so. I'll tell you why in a minute. Verse 12. And he dreamed, and behold, a ladder set up on the earth and the top of it reached to heaven.
[13:10] And behold, the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord, God of Abraham, thy father, and the God of Isaac, the land wherein thou liest, to thee will I give it and to thy seed.
[13:28] He's reiterating the promise that was given to Abraham. They were going to have a land. They were going to be a nation. They were going to have this promised land that they were going to be able to grow as a nation. They were going to be as many as the sands of the sea and the stars in the sky.
[13:41] And he's reminding Jacob this is where it's going to happen. And so he goes on and verse 15, And behold, I am with thee and will keep thee in all thy places whither thou goest and will bring thee again to this land and I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.
[14:02] Jacob awaked out of the sleep and said, Surely the Lord is in this place and I knew it not. And he goes on and he talks about the fact that he gets up, verse 19, And he called the name of the place Bethel.
[14:19] What does Bethel mean? House of God. It is the house of God. And he goes on and he talks about the vow that he's going to make in verses 20 to 22.
[14:32] So here's Bethel, a place of revelation. There's money getting her phone. And so he's had a place, been at the place of new beginnings.
[14:45] He's been at the place of God's revelation. Then he sends him to Jericho. He goes to Jericho and talks to the school of prophets there. What's so special about Jericho?
[14:55] Jericho. Hey! You know, Joshua fit the battle of Jericho and the walls came tumbling down.
[15:08] Jericho is a place of victory and power. You think of the victory and the power that they had at Jericho. You think of the victory and the power that Elijah has had in his life and the things that have taken place in his life.
[15:22] He's at Jericho where it all began for Israel. After they were at Gilgal and stuff, the first battle they face is Jericho. And how did they win Jericho? By doing what God said, which was basically take a walk and watch what I do.
[15:41] You don't have to do anything. Just watch what I do. And they, you know, go around once a day for seven days and on the seventh day they go around seven times and all of a sudden the walls start falling in.
[15:52] It's a place of victory and a place of power. And as Elijah reflects back on that, think about it. The thing with Ahab and the rain. The cruise of oil and the barrel of meal.
[16:07] The sun being raised from the dead. The victory on top of Mount Carmel. He has seen God work over and over and over and over again and seen what God can do.
[16:19] And so here he is being reminded of that. And then he goes to Jordan. And I think, I kind of had to think about this when people say Jordan was the place of death.
[16:32] He's going to go over Jordan and that's where he's going to get caught up in the whirlwind and stuff. And I'm like, Jordan's the place of death? But again, I thought about it and when they came across Jordan, they left the old life behind.
[16:48] When they came across Jordan, all of the wanderings in the wilderness and everything were done away with. When they crossed Jordan, all of that was put behind them, put to death. We have a new purpose now.
[16:59] We have a new life. We have new things. So it goes along with that new beginning. But they had to put all that stuff behind them before they could have the new beginnings that they had.
[17:11] So what does all that mean for us? We have to have a new beginning. Jesus Christ died on the cross.
[17:22] When we come to him, we get new beginnings. What does the Bible tell us in John 3, 7? He must be born again. New life, new beginning. Bethel, we have to have a walk with the Lord.
[17:37] When we have that new beginning of new life in Christ, we have to have a walk with the Lord. We have to have, when we have that walk with the Lord, we will see God doing things in our life.
[17:49] We will have victories. We will have things taking place in our life. It shows us that God is at work. And how does it all start? We crossed Jordan. We put all that stuff behind us. All the old things are done away.
[18:02] Behold, all things become new, the Bible tells us. So Elijah has all of that in his life. You know, what's the, what's the New Testament version of all of this?
[18:17] Romans 12, 1 and 2. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, death. Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
[18:33] And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. See, when we become a Christian, all things are passed away.
[18:47] All things have become new. We dedicate ourselves to him. Then the third thing, walking with people. I want you to notice something else here. And this is one I have trouble with.
[18:57] So I will, I'll mention that off before people in my family do. Elijah traveled, the last part of this life with people.
[19:10] He had people with him. You look at verse 2 again. Elijah said unto Elisha, Tarry here, I pray thee.
[19:21] What was Elisha's response? As the Lord liveth, as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. In verse 4, Elijah said unto him, Elisha, tarry here, as the Lord liveth, and thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee.
[19:36] Verse 6, same thing. He says, nope, I'm going to be with you. I'm going to stick with you. Now, there was going to be something for Elisha if he stayed with him.
[19:50] Remember, he's going to get a chance to ask for anything he wants. For anything he wants. But also the fact that Elijah, remember for like five or six years, has been teaching Elisha, training him, helping him.
[20:05] And Elisha is going to be with him and help him. And then as every place he goes, notice there's a school of the prophets. There are other people there. Remember one of Elijah's things back a ways.
[20:21] I'm the only one. God says, no, there's 7,000 others. There's other people out there. And God says, look, friendship, fellowship with other Christians is important.
[20:39] Fellowship with other believers is important. Sometimes we try to do things all by ourselves and do things alone.
[20:50] Yes, now I get the smiles from people in my family. they tell me I need to call people and talk to people that I know.
[21:01] But anyway, I'm, but anyway, so, the idea though is we cannot do it alone. We have to have those around.
[21:13] See, I don't need to call others because I have these people who tell me everything I need to do and know. They're not the right ones. the idea is there's something about being around the saints of God.
[21:28] There's something about being around those people who understand and know God and love God. And if you're going through something, they understand the things that you're going through.
[21:39] And they know how to pray for you and they know how to help you. Yeah, I just had a thought and went straight through. Anyway, remember Jesus just before he went to Calvary?
[21:57] He went to Gethsemane. And he went to Gethsemane and he took his disciples with him. And when they got there, he had them all sit down and then he was going to go further in and he brought Peter, James, and John with him.
[22:11] His closest friends of that group. They were going to go with him. Remember what they did? Fell asleep. But he took them with him anyway.
[22:21] He had them there. Yes, they fell asleep. Yes, could you not have watched with me one hour? Sometimes our friends will not always come through.
[22:31] But knowing that they're there can be a help. Why is it so important then? When you come back, we'll get here in a few weeks in our Sunday school time.
[22:44] We have Hebrews 1025. Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together. Because we need other people in our life. We need other people who will be there with us.
[22:56] We need other people who will help us, pray for us, and be with us. You know, you ever try going through things all by yourself? We all have at times, haven't we?
[23:10] Lonely, isn't it? It gets discouraging. But if you have others there with you, like I said, who will pray for you and encourage you and be there just to listen sometimes?
[23:24] It can be so much of a help. Elijah had Elisha and the sons of the prophets on that day. He could have been going along all by himself.
[23:35] Well, I'm going home today. Nobody cares. They're not going to miss me at all. No, that's not the way Elijah felt that day. Walking.
[23:50] Elijah. Right. Elijah and Elisha. But you notice everywhere they went? Every stop they made?
[24:01] There was a school of the prophets. But there was a school of the prophets, too, that he went to and talked to. As a matter of fact, look at verse 7. verse 7 says, and 50 men of the sons of the prophets went and stood to view afar off, and they too stood by Jordan.
[24:19] So, Elisha was the closest one to him. He was his closest friend. But there were others not too far away. Others in the background. All right, I'm going to stop there for tonight.
[24:32] And... so, you and Elisha is still and will the end of and she was like, are you okay?