Well, we have our sermon from 2 Kings chapter two. It's two parts really, although it is two separate sermons as well in terms of topic, but all from the same passage. Remember, we're gonna be looking at the double portion bit of the passage. That's the title today, a double portion. Children, has everyone got a sheet? Who wants one? All the children got sheets, yeah? That's the title, a double portion. Now, a different sort of double, not the same sort of double, but do you know what a double is? If you say, he's my double, or she's my double, a slightly, a word with slightly less acceptable antecedents, doppelganger. Know what those words mean? In colloquial terms, they mean that there is someone who looks just like you, Who is just like you? Sometimes, Olman Smiths are accused of being each other's double. Sometimes they look very similar, sometimes not. You get this with brothers and sisters, don't you? Not brothers and sisters, brothers together and sisters together. Especially with twins, if they're identical twins. They are doubles of each other. Well, who is Elijah's double? You read about it earlier? John the Baptist, that's right. John the Baptist is Elijah's double. Elijah foreshadowed John the Baptist. He's a bit like the shadow that you see coming round the corner before you actually see the person. Yes, he's real, but in the grand scheme of the scriptures, his real existence foreshadowed that of John the Baptist. We've discussed a bit of this already, but they were similar in clothing. Elijah, he probably wore a hairy garment. He definitely wore a leather belt. That's exactly how John the Baptist is described. You see, they look just the same if you were to see them. Personality, they had the same sort of personality. Elijah waltzes in in front of Ahab and tells him, Ahab, there isn't gonna be any rain until you repent. John the Baptist waltzes in, you might say. I mean, waltzes in is a bit strong, but walks before Herod, the king of the time, who at the flick of his fingers could have his head chopped off and told him, you, Herod, you're living in sin. You need to repent. You should not have taken your brother's wife. Similar in personality. Similar in geographical placing. pinpoint, but in generality, they're both really often found in the wilderness, and they're both loners. Who's John the Baptist's companion? Who are his friends? Well, we don't hear of any. He proclaims Jesus Christ, But he's a loner in the wilderness, isn't he? And Elijah, near the end of his life, he has Elisha, that's true, but he's very much a loner, isn't he? He seems to shun company and seek to be on his own in the wilderness. If you would see Elijah and John the Baptist, you might double take. Do you get that sometimes? You're on the street and you see someone and you see them and they look just like someone I know. I had this with someone who looked just like my brother in Landudno. I said, look, that looks just like Jeremy. But it wasn't. But I actually had to check, because he looked so similar. Elijah, Elijah, sorry, and John the Baptist. If I make mistakes with Elijah and Elisha, please fill in the gaps and forgive me. They have very similar names. But Elisha, I'm not talking about Elijah, now I'm talking about Elisha. He's not like John the Baptist. He's like someone else. He is the shadow of someone else. Who's that someone else? Jesus. Jesus. In our passage, this is the emphasis. Elisha is more like Jesus. Elisha foreshadows Jesus. We're gonna look more at that later and flesh that out more. But here's just a few bits to get you started to show that this is true before I then delve into searching out these matters. His personality is similar. Elisha is very much a people person. Not that Jesus was a social butterfly, he was an incredibly serious person. But he's almost always to be found with people unless he's praying on his own, isn't he? He has his disciples whom he's teaching. Elisha is almost always to be found among, or often among the sons of the prophets, training them, teaching them. His miracles are similar to Jesus' miracles. What comes to mind when you think of Elijah's miracles? Fire. Yes, he does other miracles, but Mount Carmel, fire comes down and burns up the sacrifices, and then he chops off the head of all of our prophets of Baal. When he's on the hill again, and the people come to arrest him, fire comes down from heaven, twice, on companies of 50. Elisha, his miracles are generally miracles of, here's a big word coming, beneficence. Bene, just meaning good, think of my name, Benedict. Bene is good, hopefully by nature as well as by name, but nevertheless, beneficence, they are, Miracles that do, if you like, nice things for people. He gets the axe head to float to the surface, doesn't he? He heals the people who've eaten the poisoned food. He raises the dead twice. Elijah does it once, he does it twice. These are the similar sort of miracles we see Jesus doing, miracles of beneficence. So we have this parallel comparison. Elijah, John the Baptist. Elijah, Jesus. Elijah, like John the Baptist, was one who made the path straight. He cleared the path, making sure everything is ready for the person to come along. You probably don't know what a crossing sweeper is, especially the children. I've never seen a crossing sweeper, but in the past, Children usually would get paid tuppence or something to go around and brush the sweep brush the streets For the carriages and for the horses and for the people that would come along it Now that phrase isn't used but we might think of it that way Elijah and John the Baptist they make sure the path is ready for the other one to come through especially John the Baptist Elijah preaches the judgment of God, and he does miracles bringing judgment, churning up the soil like the field. You plow it, and then you plant the seed. Elijah plowed up the fields of the people of Israel. With the preaching of judgment, Elijah comes, and it's not all peace he preaches, but he does primarily seem to bring peace. This is actually what we saw God showing Elijah on Mount Sinai, didn't we? Remember that sermon? God brings an earthquake, he brings great wind, he brings fire, and then he brings the still, small voice. These great miracles precede the Word of God, which is where God is most present. So it is the same with John the Baptist and Jesus. John the Baptist stirs up the people. He speaks about judgment, brings conviction and anticipation. Jesus speaks of judgment too, a lot. But he also preaches peace. John the Baptist, we don't have all his preachings, but he seems to get to the point of you must repent, you wretched sinners. And then he stops. Jesus doesn't stop there. He says, repent and believe because the kingdom of heaven is at hand. He preaches the way into the kingdom of heaven. John the Baptist preaches the need for repentance. So we have this parallel. Jesus' still small voice resounds throughout the whole world. And you know, when I started to prepare this sermon in this vein, I thought we would spend most of our time looking at how Elisha is greater than Elijah, and so how Jesus is greater than John the Baptist. And we are gonna look at that. But you know, it's interesting. The evidence dictates that we go one further. Jesus is so much greater even than Elisha. It's like the Bible gets carried away with itself. I mean this with all due respect, of course it doesn't, but this is a perspective that it just strikes me as. It's meant to be focusing on the parallel between Elijah and Elisha, and then between John the Baptist and Jesus, but before we've even focused on that very much, it's like, but don't you dare think that Elijah is greater than Jesus. No, no, no, no, no. Jesus is the greatest. Elisha was greater than Elijah, but Jesus, he is peerless. Peerless. So, let's come to the passage. They crossed the Jordan. You see in chapter two, and verse eight, Elijah took his mantle, rolled it up and struck the water and it was divided this way and that. Now, rack your brains. When's that happened before? That's happened once In the Exodus, when they exited Egypt with the Red Sea, Moses held his staff over the Red Sea and it separated and they went through, then the Egyptians went through, their chariot wheels got stuck and washed away. But it also happened at this same river, the Jordan, when they entered the promised land. So just remember that, that'll be important later. But then Elijah asks Elisha after they've crossed the Jordan, what do you want me to do for you? Elisha says, let a double portion of your spirit be upon me. The people of Israel, amongst whom Elisha was to be a prophet, were a stubborn and stiff-necked people. Stiff necked, one of those great biblical expressions. Can you imagine a stiff neck? That'd be, that's a stiff, it's not moving. No, not happy about that, not moving for anyone. Very stiff necked, very stubborn. Stuck in their path, they're not gonna move this way or that, they're just gonna walk in one direction. A loose neck's like this, isn't it? It's all right, okay, there's that over there and this. No, no, no, stiff necked. Elisha knew this. He knew he needed the spirit of Elijah to fulfill his calling of being a prophet to these people. In fact, he asked for more. He says, give me double. Give me double. And just to note quickly on this, do not be afraid of asking bold things from God. We've gotta be careful not to expect that which he hasn't promised, but we can ask bold things. God loves to give good gifts to his children. So, we've got two points. Children, two main points. The first is, Elisha gets, you don't have to put this first bit in, I'll tell you when to start writing. Elisha gets a double portion of Elijah's spirit in, firstly, miraculous powers. miraculous powers, and secondly, faithfulness and boldness. Faithfulness and boldness. So firstly, miraculous powers. Elijah had the power of Elijah, but even greater. Elijah's greatest miracle, we've studied it, is 1 Kings 17. In my opinion, in terms of what the most remarkable is, it was the raising of the widow's son from the dead. resurrection or resuscitation of the dead. It's a pretty remarkable miracle. Elisha does the same. He also raises a woman's son. I wonder if it's the Shunammite woman's son. But on top of that, when Elisha's bones are dropped into a grave, once he was dead, another man is dropped into his grave. You can read it, 2 Kings 13. And the man who's dropped into Elijah's grave comes back to life. Elijah's miraculous deeds, not just in this, but in many areas, seem to exceed those of Elijah. Now, we don't want to overdo this parallel. You don't just want to count things in the Bible and go, well, this means this and this means this. Nevertheless, I think it's present. We have these two people who are very similar. They even have similar names, so it's hard to get them right. and they're being set up with each other. One has a double portion of the other's spirit, and then we see one does almost exactly double the miracles of the other. I think the Bible is making a point. But what does this show? You say, okay, he has more miraculous powers than the other. The power's from God anyway. It's not in the men. Isn't that right? Of course that's right. Of course that's right. God channels his power through these men. But this is what it means. Miracles are a sign from God that an individual is bringing new revelation from God. So people should listen. I'll read you a passage, Hebrews 2, just one to four. Sorry, from verse two. For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, this is the part, so greater salvation began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to us by those who heard him, God also bearing witness, both with signs and wonders, with various miracles and gifts of the Spirit according to his own will. He's saying, you have this revelation which is proved true, and it was attested to by God, who bore witness, how? What is it to bear witness? We spoke about this before. A legal court, someone saying something, a witness comes up into the stand and says, that's true, I saw them do it, right? God does that in the witness box. How does he do it? He breaks through reality, and he does miracles. It makes perfect sense, nobody but God can do miracles. So if miracles are happening, God says, what, that person is staying there? That's true. What is it that God says to Moses at the burning bush when Moses expresses doubts that Pharaoh will listen to him? He says, throw your staff on the ground, and it becomes a snake, and he does a couple of other miracles. And God says, show these miracles to Pharaoh, and he should know that I have sent you. Miracles are witnesses from God. Just one miracle should be sufficient, but sometimes God does lots. God blessed Elisha with his own miraculous proclamation. What God is saying every time Elisha does a miracle is, Earth, listen to this one. He has something worth saying. Every miracle is another time that God wraps on the table and says, listen to him. Children and adults, children think of school, adults remember back to when you were at school. in an assembly, and someone's come to give an assembly presentation who isn't from the school. Perhaps he's from the local parish, perhaps he's some other person who's done some great exploit, and everyone's being noisy and chatting to each other and gossiping and all this kind of thing, and he stands up, but his mouth-like voice, small voice, doesn't make any impact. Nobody stops speaking, nobody's listening to him, nobody hears. but then the headmaster gets up. He's a commanding presence, probably at least six foot, big guy, smart suit, and boldly says, be quiet. Listen to this man. And everyone goes, shh. That's what miracles are like with God. God is saying, everyone else, shut up. Listen to what this man has to say, because he speaks for me. This is the privilege Elijah is given again and again and again. He is given a double portion, a greater privilege than Elijah. His message is accompanied by more miracles. He is the channel, even more so than Elijah, of the power of God. This doesn't mean he's a better prophet, just shows a greater privilege from God. So it is, remember what we're doing? Elijah, Elisha, John the Baptist, and Jesus. So it is the same with John the Baptist and Jesus. John the Baptist was a great man. In fact, Jesus says, none greater of woman born than John the Baptist. Of course, he accepts himself. Jesus was the greater. In fact, John was not privileged with any recorded miracles. Perhaps he did them, but they're not recorded. Jesus has more recorded miracles than anyone else in the whole Bible by a long way. Elisha and Jesus did similar miracles. miracles of beneficence. And these are the comparisons between Elisha and Jesus, but Jesus was greater. Elijah raised a widow's son, 1 Kings 17. Elisha married a woman's, Elisha raised a married woman's son, 2 Kings 4. Jesus raised a woman's son in Luke 7. So far, in that privileged sense, they're all not apart, Elisha's bones raised a dead man who was thrown into his tomb. So Elisha's risen higher in privilege than Elijah. What about Jesus? When Jesus dies, many of the saints in the tombs were raised and their tombs are broken open for them to arise from their deathly slumbers. Not just one, but many. And on top of that, Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. A man who has been dead four days, more than ever, God is saying about Jesus, listen to this one, listen to this one, listen to this one. He has things you need to hear. He has things to say to you. If Elijah was blessed with the announcing of God in miraculous powers more than Elijah, Jesus was so much more in a relation to Elijah, John the Baptist, Elisha, anyone. He was given the greatest privileges because he had the most important things to say. So that's our first point. Secondly, and lastly, faithfulness and boldness. Faithfulness and boldness. Another very significant way that God blesses Elisha is with a double portion of Elijah's faithfulness and boldness. We've seen of Elijah's faithfulness and boldness in the last few months. Strolling before Ahab and telling him that he needs to repent and that there will be droughts and judgements because of him. He has faith that God will provide in the wilderness. He goes to the widow's house, doesn't he? And God provides for him. He pits his God against Baal on Mount Carmel and mocks the worshippers of Baal. He trusts God in bringing rain. Many are the examples of Elijah's faithfulness and boldness. But he does fall. He does fall into cowardice and unfaithfulness. He becomes afraid of Jezebel, doesn't he? Afraid of this woman who is chasing after him, and he runs away. In Elijah's life, however, We never have any recorded act of unfaithfulness or cowardice. He always appears faithful and bold. You may object, just because this isn't recorded in the Bible doesn't mean it didn't happen. Of course, that is true. But when we have two characters so compared and parallel to each other, When we hear one is given a double portion of the other's spirit, we can confidently draw these sorts of comparisons. Elijah fell, Elisha didn't. He had a double portion of Elijah's spirit in faithfulness and boldness. Elisha was incredibly faithful and bold, even more so than Elijah. We have not time, unfortunately, to look over Elisha's faithful and bold acts in this sermon. We shall do, I believe, in the coming months. But we shall draw this comparison between John the Baptist and Jesus. I hope you're getting the pattern by now. Elijah, Elisha, John the Baptist, and Jesus. John the Baptist was, to use an American phrase, a mighty bold individual. He was very well equipped by the Spirit of God, even from his birth, we're told that, aren't we, from his birth, for the work of preparing the way for the Messiah. He proclaimed to the Pharisees and Sadducees, he said this, we read it earlier, brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? And he told the current, wicked, powerful king, that this king was living in sin and needed to repent. And you know, eventually that cost him his head, severed from his body. Would you do that? Ask yourself that question, honestly. Would you do that? Would you tell the man who has the power to imprison you, mistreat you, torture you, kill you, all on his own whim, he has that power, would you tell him Look, man, you're a sinner, and you need to repent. Sometimes we won't even tell people at school or in the workplace, people who have almost no power over us whatsoever, because our hearts are not like that of Jesus. Although if they're Christians, they're growingly like his, which we praise the Lord for. But this is to demonstrate the boldness of John the Baptist. He had faithfulness and boldness. Jesus says sarcastically in Matthew 11, what did you go out into the wilderness to see? Did you go out to see a reed shaken by the wind? A man who dresses in soft garments? That's not what John the Baptist was, is it? Was he a sensitive plant? Did he have to be handled carefully because he was a bit delicate? No. He was bold and faithful to God. His heart and spirit of fortitude was of the same brand of heart and spirit of David's mighty man, who was in a field, this is one of David's mighty men, he was in a field with some of his fellow soldiers and a great Philistine army starts running towards them. Do you know what? Everyone else ran away. He stood there and fought them all. That takes a lion's heart, doesn't it? That's the kind of spirit that John the Baptist had, bold and faithful. But Jesus, can he top that? Yes, he can. He is more faithful and more bold. We see his boldness in similar ways, pronouncing woes on the Pharisees and scribes, but I think his boldness is more clearly seen, more amazingly manifested. in his silence and quiet responses once he had been arrested. Before the Sanhedrin, who were falsely accusing him of blasphemy, he, the Son of God. Before Pilate, who had the power to set him free, but what does it say? He opened not his mouth, and when he did, it was to quietly say what he knew would put him on the cross. John the Baptist was handed over to Herod and would lose his head. Jesus was handed over to the devil himself, who would seek not to chop off his head, that would be an easy death, but to crush his soul. To seek to defeat Jesus with all his abominable weapons of misery, and loneliness and hate and despair. Jesus knew that was coming, but he did it anyway. Soldiers who go into a battle they are unlikely to win are very brave. Or spies who go into enemy territory who will be killed as traitors are very brave. or Christians who hid Jews in Nazi Germany were very brave. But these people all had hope to escape capture, and many of them did. They all had hope. Jesus, in terms of escaping capture, of escaping the devil, of escaping the wrath of God, had zero hope. Not 0.01%. Zero. And yet he was faithful and bold to the end. He was well equipped with boldness and faithfulness to carry out his mammoth task. The heavier the burden, the stronger the one has to be to take that burden. I don't know if you've ever seen these. Strongest men of the world competitions. These guys are incredible. They pull lorries, sometimes planes, they carry the most ridiculous weights upon their back. Any of our shoulders would literally be crushed by the weight that they carry, but they're massive. They have enormous shoulders and bodies to take that weight over years of training and amazing genetics. The heavier the weight, the stronger the one has to be who carries it. Atlas was the Greek titan in mythology, that's fake, it's fiction, but Atlas was the Greek titan who was supposedly cursed to carry the whole world upon his shoulders. Well, this is not too extreme an illustration to think of what our Lord Jesus took on his own shoulders. It was not merely the weight of the cross that he carried up the hill, it was the weight of our sins on the cross. It was the weight of the devil's attacks, the weight of God's wrath against him. We may see his shoulders as faithfulness and boldness, and he carried that weight, a weight no one else could carry, and he did it if you're a Christian for you. Jesus Christ is peerless. As we come to our conclusion, I'm just gonna tell you this story. I was at the Cary Conference this week. At the Cary Conference, which the theme was, To the Ends of the Earth. It was a missions theme. The main speaker, the keynote speaker, was a man called Brooks Beuser, and he came with his wife, and about, 20 years ago or 25 years ago, they went to a tribe in Papua New Guinea, proper tribe, never seen the white man before, called the Yembe Yembe tribe. And he was talking and they spent many years learning the language and learning the culture. And they didn't give the gospel while they were learning that because they wanted to be able to give the gospel in the Yembe Yembe's own language. So eventually they started teaching them. And so they started in Genesis 1-1, and they talked about how God made the heavens and the earth. And then they went through this, and they came eventually to Genesis chapter three, and the fall of Adam and Eve. And they described it as what happened when they took the fruit and ate it, was that God and man had been separated, a rift had come in between them, so that joy of man, peace of man, communion with God is gone. This is now misery, sin and death. And from then on, because they taught them, that God had promised that a child of the woman would be the bridge man, the man who made a bridge between God and man so that this can be restored and communion with God and peace and joy and fulfilment can be restored. And from that moment, almost every son of that line that came up when they were teaching it, so for instance, when Eve had Cain, One of them would stand up, because they don't stay silent like you, they stand up and they make noises in the teaching classes, and say, is he the one? Is he going to be the bridge man who would make good between God and man? And they talked through and through and said, no, not yet, you have to wait, you have to wait. And so they were teaching about John the Baptist, and then they taught about the birth of Jesus. And one of them stood up and he says, is this the one? Is he the one who's going to bridge between God and man? And they said, yes, he's the one. And then all of them started saying, well, stop telling us about John the Dunker. So that's how they described John the Dunker. Stop telling us about John the Dunker. And of course, we know that the whole Bible speaks of Jesus. And when we study John the Baptist, there are lessons for us, and truth about Jesus too. But the spirit is right, isn't it? There's no one like Jesus. People get obsessed with characters, with Elijah, or with angels, or with this or that. Yes, we learn about those people, there's truth there. But we only learn about them because they speak to us about Jesus. He is the peerless one. If you do not know him, why do you not know him? If you do not follow Jesus, who do you follow? Who can you follow? Who can you know? Who is worth your time like Jesus? There are none. Which hero will you seek over him? This man, Jesus, has followers who would and have gone to the stake and been burned for him, who have had their heads chopped off for him, who have gone through all manner of sufferings because they consider him worth it, and he is. Unbeliever, if you're not a Christian, seek Jesus now. Know him. Start your relationship today with this peerless one. And you know, he's ready to give his spirit to you. And Christian, raise your eyes to heaven in admiration and humility and love. There is none greater. Amen.