First Kings chapter 19 tonight. And again, I'm sorry for my voice being a little rough, but hopefully we'll get started and it'll come back where it needs to be. First Kings chapter 19. Church family, we're getting ready to come in on missions conference. And here in another week from Wednesday, we start conference, goes Wednesday to Sunday. Looking forward to, again, having the ones that are going to be with us. Brother Bob DeWitt, I know you've never met before. Met him in Texas. I was preaching down there. And he was a missionary in the conference. And when he spoke, I could just tell he'd give me a blessing. And so he'd be preaching our conference for us. And then, of course, we've got other missionaries that are going to be with us as well. There's sign-up sheets, again, to be able to take them out for a meal and things of that that were announced earlier. I hope that you'll do that as far as spending time with the missionaries. Church family, it's amazing that there are fewer missionaries, seemingly fewer missionaries that are going to the foreign field than ever before. It used to be that you would have a conference and you would not have a problem getting missionaries to come to a conference because there were so many missionaries. In fact, there was a time that I would get two or three calls a week from a missionary that was wanting to get to the field as far as a need for support. In the early days of heritage, there was not enough missions money to send out for missions because there were so many missionaries going to the field. We don't have that anymore. I'm doing good to get maybe a couple a month that might call and say, hey, listen, we're looking to have a meeting. You almost have to hunt missionaries down to get them to come to your conference. This year, we've got four missionaries. And praise the Lord for them and, of course, our main speaker. But the problem is not trying to find missionaries. The problem is we don't have local churches that have people that are willing to go. And I want to deal with Elisha tonight, I think it's three or four verses here, as far as how God called him and how God wanted him to serve him in this capacity. Now listen, tonight you might say to yourself, Pastor, I'm not going to go to the foreign field, but that should not be your attitude. Your attitude ought to be, God, if you want me to go to the foreign field, I will. You might say, well, Pastor, I didn't come from that kind of background or maybe because I've had past baggage or whatever it might be. Can I just tell you something? God does the impossible. And God is known for using people that did not seem to be the right candidate for the job, but God chose them because they were willing. And I think all of us need to have that kind of attitude. I was at a conference here not too long ago in Indiana, I was preaching at, and I told the church family, I said, listen, every, and I've told you this many a time, but every time you watch a DVD or a video of a missionary, you should be asking God, do you want me to go there? And by the way, if God said yes every time, everybody would be gone. But our attitude ought to be, God, I want to go if it's your will for me to go. And so tonight I want to talk for just a little bit on this idea of a candidate to be called. Are you the proper candidate? That's where it starts. It's not a matter of, did God call you? Are you a candidate to be called? Elisha was one of those people that God could call. I want to just look at that just briefly with you tonight. Let's pray, Father in heaven, would you again give us the words to say in the power of the Holy Spirit, Lord, bless your people tonight. Thank you for them. I ask you to please again, if it's your will, would you call out of this congregation, people, Father, that would again have a surrendered will to you and be able to be used of thee. And Lord, I'm thankful for the ones that are used on a regular basis here. that have a burden for the lost and have a burden to edify other believers by teaching and working and helping. Lord, may we all have that same attitude, may we be that Elisha that you could again say with that still small voice, I want you and I want you to do this. And Lord, may we be willing to do so. And Lord, from the youngest to the oldest, to the man to the woman, Lord, may we not think this message is for somebody else tonight. Lord, I know that you have something in every message for us. Help us not to miss it tonight because of being thinking or thinking about something else or not, really desiring for you to speak to us. Help that not to happen tonight. Help us, Father, to listen and again, speak to us. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Look at your Bible now, 1 Kings 19, look at verse number 19. Church family, we understand according to the passage here, that Elijah came to a place in his life that he kind of got discouraged after running from Jezebel. And God said, okay, that's fine. If you think you're the only one, I just want you to know there are others. We understand that in verse number 16, God says, I want you, Elijah, to go to a man called Elisha, and he's gonna take your place. And by the way, church family, we need people to take the next generation as far as people's places, and not that people are just gonna step off the scene, but let's face it, God has different purposes of time periods of our life that he uses people during that time period. You think of our church as far as its age of our church and the people who are on the field right now, they were at our church at a zenith of time where missions was very impressionable on their life. I don't want to lose that. I don't know that that time is over with, that the young people of our church should not be asking God do you want me to go and God be able to pick them and choose them to go and let me say quickly you don't have to be young to go to the mission field we have this mentality that boys just wish the young people get on fire for God I wish adults would get on fire for God look what he says next year now let's pick it up in verse number 19 the Bible says this So he departed thence, and found Elisha, he being Elijah. So he departed thence, and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before him. And he was the twelfth. And Elijah passed by him, and cast his mantle upon him. And he left the oxen, and ran after Elijah, and said, Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow thee. And he said unto him, Go back again, for what have I done to thee? Verse 21, and he returned back from him and took a yoke of oxen and slew them, and boiled their flesh with their instruments of the oxen and gave unto the people, and they did eat. Then he arose and went after Elijah and ministered unto him. Church family, in verse number 16, I do want to read the verse. It says, and Jehu the son of Nimshi, shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel, and Elisha, God's telling Elijah this, and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel Meholah, shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room. Now, church family, what I want you to think about tonight It's simply this. God's the one that chose Elisha for this particular service. When you look through the scripture, you're going to find out that there are three different calls in the Bible. The first one's a call for salvation. By the way, you didn't get saved because you found God. You got saved because of the drawing of the Holy Spirit. If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me. You were drawn by the Holy Spirit of God. I still believe that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is when a person rejects that drawing of God for salvation, when they understand that they're a sinner bound for hell, and they say no. When you do that, that's the sin unto death. And I believe that, that God drew me, and drew me as an 11-year-old boy, He drew you, that's the call for salvation. By the way, I talked about just this morning, I think morning service or Sunday service, I can't remember which now, but this idea of a person I was talking to the other day about this idea of free will and that we don't have a free will and God knows who's gonna get to heaven. I've said for years, God's not all the ones are going to heaven, all the twos are going to hell. God doesn't do that, alrighty? And so God's given us a free will and we choose on whether or not we're gonna believe and if you're saved tonight, you answered the call. And praise the Lord for God seeing fit that He would save us and He would call us unto Himself. The second call in Scripture comes from 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 7. For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness. Now church, I want to tell you something. That's the call of God for your life. And if you want to say it's God's will for your life, God wants us to live a holy life unto Him. Be ye holy, for I am holy. And I'll tell you, we're living in our society today. It's getting farther and farther away from God, and a Christian who is holy stands out like a sore thumb. Listen, girls, I want to tell you something. I know it's tough on you, and you think to yourself, well, I wish these fellas had to wear a dress into a store. I know when you walk into a store and everybody turns their head to find out who just walked in. I want to tell you who just walked in, a Christian who's holy. We have this tendency to say to ourself, I don't want to be holy because I stand out in the crowd. You ought to be holy because that's what God called you unto. There's a third call that's mentioned in the Bible. Apostle Paul mentioned it several times. In Galatians 1.15, he said, but when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace. 1 Corinthians 1.1, Paul called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ to the will of God. 1 Timothy 1.12, and I thank Christ Jesus, listen now, I thank Christ Jesus, our Lord, who has enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry. Church member John R. Rice, great preacher of the past, said, hey, listen, it's just a volunteer. Dr. Larry Brown who comes to preach here. He still believes a person can volunteer when he gets to heaven He'll find out he was called. He didn't know it I'm just telling you Apostle Paul said very clearly that if you're gonna be a pastor of a church or a missionary Then where you're gonna minister to people in the church setting God said that that person is a called person I want to tell you when I graduated from high school I didn't want to go into secular work So I surrendered my will to do whatever God wanted and when I did that I went into school to be a schoolteacher because God did not call me into ministry in the sense of being a pastor and It was years later after graduating and went back to work for my father. But that calling was one of those things that happened that you don't hear an audible voice, but you cannot get off of your mind as if God's on the inside saying, this is what I want you to do. I don't think you have to second guess if you're called to pastor. Are you listening tonight? You don't have to second guess whether or not you're supposed to be a pastor. I don't believe that. You know you're supposed to be a pastor. Because that's the calling of God upon a person's life. And you don't just let go of it. I've met people before who volunteered to pastor or volunteered to be a missionary. And the truth of the matter is sometimes that doesn't, most of the time, doesn't last very long. Because you can only serve out a duty for so long. It's like the person who goes to the mission field and says, I went to the mission field because I have a burden. You don't go to a mission field because you have a burden. You go to a mission field because you've been called of God to go there. Elisha was called. And I'm just trying to tell you tonight, we should have people at the Heritage Baptist Church that are a good candidate for being called. Listen, I can't tell you tonight that during the missions conference God's going to lay upon your heart to be a missionary, but I want to tell you as a pastor, there's two, three, four of you that I wish God would call. It's not because I want to get rid of you. It's because I look at our church, and to be honest with you, there's several of you in our church God uses you, and by the way, I'm not trying to kick anybody out or trying to get anybody to leave, because you should never go unless God tells you to. But God's using you in a great way, and I think to myself, okay, God, is this the person that's supposed to go, or is this the person that's supposed to go? Church, I mean, what makes a candidate worth calling is exactly what Elisha was in these four verses. Now, there's three things we're gonna look at, but I want you to notice here that when God said to Elijah, Elijah, Elisha's gonna take your place. He's gonna be the prophet in your room. I want you to understand it wasn't based upon Elisha's age. It wasn't based upon Elisha's family of where he came from. When you look at the scripture here, I really believe that what made Elisha the candidate, the one that God could call readily, was because there's three things that are mentioned here. Would you look now at your Bible, and I want you to notice them with me as well. Verse 19 is the first one. Verse 19 says, So he departed thence and found Elisha playing video games. I'm sorry, that's the NIV version. Forgive me. Let me try to read this again, okay? So he departed thence and found Elisha the son of Shaphat sleeping. No, he found him who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he was the twelfth. Now, I want to tell you something, I've read commentaries on that, and I don't know, to be honest, exactly what the Bible's trying to say here, but there's a lot of ways this could be taken when you think about Elijah, I'm sorry, Elisha, and the Bible says he was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he with the twelfth. I'm sure some people would say that he had 12 yoke of oxen, that'd be a pretty strong guy to keep 12 yoke of oxen in front of him. It could be that the servants that were with his father, that there were 12 sets or 12 yokes of oxen and there were 11 of the servants that had yoke of oxen and he was with the 12th as he served with the servants. I don't know, but the one thing I do know, he was working. He was working. What does the Bible say about the pastor? He says, if a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work. He desireth a good work. First Timothy, I think three verse number one. Can I just tell you the ministry is not for lazy people. It's work. It's work any way you look at it, and I want to tell you something. It doesn't matter if you're a staff member or if you're the pastor of the church, and I want to tell you something. Thank God for the people of our Heritage Baptist Church that go out and work the secular job 40 to 60 hours a week, and you come back, and you'll still teach a Sunday school class, or you'll still work a bus route, or you'll still go out sewing on Saturday after you've worked all day long and you work like a dog. And I want to just tell you something. The Christian life is work. Christian life is not about being lazy. I got up at 5 o'clock this morning, and I'm not the standard, but I want to just tell you something. This idea that you think that the ministry is, well, pastor, he only works, you know, Sunday morning and Sunday night and Wednesday night. Come with me for a week. The ministry is work, and I'm trying to say that if you're gonna be a candidate, and I'm not, by the way, I know tonight, unfortunate, I know that tonight there's probably not the vast majority, God call me, this attitude, God call me in the ministry. Here I am, I want to serve you. That should be the attitude. But I can guarantee you one thing for sure, God's not calling lazy people. He's not gonna call somebody that you have to have your day off. Listen, church, I wanna tell you something. I love you, but I wanna tell you what's happened is this, is because of our church, as far as our setup, always having so many on Thursday nights, and of course, now we've switched to Tuesday nights. What has happened is, is that our church, and I can't say it's a fault, but if it is a fault, it's my fault. We have made Saturday your day off. And church, I'm not asking you to change anything. But I want to tell you something, you should change something if you're not going soul winning. Well, pastor, I work Monday through Friday and Saturday's my day off. That's fine. Keep Saturday day off, but find some evening to go soul winning. If you're going to be a candidate for what God wants to do in your life, and He might not call you to the mission field, but you can still be a candidate for service, for what God wants in your life. It takes work. God's made it very clear in the scripture, this is not our rest. The 70 years, plus 10, the 70 or 80 years that we live upon this earth is a speck of time compared to our time with God forever. We're supposed to be working. A candidate for being called, Elisha, was that candidate that God called and told Elijah, this is the man I want you to do. And the reason for it is because he found him working. Just mean when you think about Apostle Paul who wrote most of the new month much of the New Testament and Apostle Paul was used it again We think to start 214 different churches and how God used him It's because in Acts chapter 13 verse number 2 We find that Apostle Paul was in the work of the ministry before he was ever called He's in Antioch working to me all of us must be about our father's business. What is our father's business? telling people about Jesus Church family, listen to me tonight. Yes, take care of your family. Yes, spend time with your family. Yes, provide for your family. But remember the bigger family. You are a child of God. When Jesus was ministering to the multitudes and one of the disciples came to him and he says, hey, your mother and your brethren are here. He says, let me tell you who my mother and my brethren are. It's they that do the will of God. God wants us to work. and he wants to work for him. I wonder sometimes if Elijah was coming to look for you, what would you be doing? Young people tonight, the message is to everyone, but you're at the prime of your life, as we would say. You're not to that place where you're even married yet. You don't have children. The responsibilities that you have right now is go to school and take tests. And you think those are hard. Wait till you get married. You haven't had to deal with a sick child that you thought was going to die that was one of your own. You haven't had to deal with things in your life that as far as coming up with money that you don't have to be able to pay bills that you can't afford. You haven't had to go through all the things of adulthood yet, and God is working in your life right now with a test in school, and a teenager that says something that you don't like about you, and on and on. But all of these are just small tests in preparation for God preparing you to be called, and God wants to call you. And it might not, again, be the foreign field, but God wants to use you, and it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman. And God created the woman to be a helpmate to a man. I know that we, for a while there, for many, many years, the idea of a woman being called to missions, I just wanted to tell you my opinion of that. A woman is created to be a help me. She doesn't marry somebody to tell him where he's going, she marries him to find out where she's going. All right, three of us agree? Work. Another thing I see here, verse number 20 and 21, look at your Bible, again, here's what he says. And he, that's Elisha, and he left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said, let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother and then I will follow thee. And he said unto him, go back again for what have I done to thee? Verse 21, and he returned back from him and took a yoke of oxen and slew them and boiled their flesh with the instruments of the oxen and gave unto the people and they did eat. I want you to, I don't look at Sometimes we confuse this, let me back up, we confuse this story with Elisha, with what Jesus was talking about the disciples that wanted to follow him. In the New Testament, the disciple came to Jesus and say, listen, I'll follow you, but let me go back and say goodbye, let me take care of my father. And that's when Jesus said, let the dead bury the dead. And what Jesus was talking about those who are dead spiritually can take care of those who are dead spiritually, you that are alive, go do what God's called you to do. This story is not the same of what Jesus was dealing with. When Elisha went back to his family, it was not for them to throw a party, it was for him to say goodbye. It's not like us today, you got a cell phone. Samuel, since he's left, he's done very well in communicating, but he loves to FaceTime. I like technology, but I'm not super into FaceTiming, to be honest with you. David Deal for some reason, he doesn't do it to me anymore, but he used to FaceTime me to call me, and I wouldn't answer his phone call. I don't want to be looking at somebody, I'm driving or I'm doing something, so when his FaceTime call got over, I'd call him back on the audio. But our society today, a person can jump in a plane and be across the ocean in hours, it's not like Bible days. Mom and Dad, I don't know when I'm going to see you again. I'm going with Elijah, and I don't know where he's going." This was surrender. In fact, do you know how much surrender it was? In the previous verse, Elisha is with the twelfth yoke of oxen, and the Bible says he's just going to kill them all. You know what Elisha was doing? He was making sure there was no way to come back. You want to be a candidate? Ladies, I know to a degree you're waiting on God's will for your life, you're waiting on who God wants you to marry, but can I just tell you, whoever you're going to marry, you still have to be just as surrendered as that fella has to be. Do you know how many guys come home from the missions field because their wives don't want to stay there? There has to be a surrender, a surrender of your will. your desires. Just remember, I love America, but what if God wanted you in Africa or Australia? I mean, I can butcher the English language. I can't imagine what I'd do to African's language. Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum. Hey, can I just tell you that if you're not careful, you'll miss what God wants because you're just not willing. Candidates for being called are not called because they came from a Christian home where their parents were, their dad was a pastor. And that does happen, but can I just tell you, God uses, I was just with Brother Sherrod in Panama when I preached the Missions Conference for David here not too long ago, I guess, and maybe it was February. I lose track of time, but whenever it was, I was over there. Brother Sherrod was in the church there, and boy, the first time, and we support him. He was finished learning the language, and just a few weeks from when I saw him, he was about to go to where he was gonna start his own church, and it was really actually out of the way of everything. But when I first came there the first day I met Brother Sherrod, he's just very quiet, he didn't say much of anything. I went home with David, David was dropping off that night or something, we were together after the service and I said, Brother Sherrod doesn't say much. He said, no he doesn't. But later on the week, Brother Sherrod had to pick me up to take me somewhere and to be honest with you, I was more sold on him being a missionary than I had ever been before because of the conversation him and I had just together because he was real. And he was wanting. But I want to tell you what, when you first notice Brother Sherrod, he's just dry. But do you know what? He really loves those people in Panama. And I think the reason God chose him and chooses people like them is because they're proper candidates. You know, they were talking about, we were talking to somebody else about Brother Sherrod. I don't remember who it was, but it was somebody that graduated from the same college he did. And they were talking to my wife. If I can just relay the story, hopefully I'm relaying it properly, because I don't remember who it was. But the person that went to Providence, where Brother Sherrod graduated from, was talking to my wife and she said, yeah, I would be in, he was talking about, I was the one that was in charge of Taking people out soul winning and bringing them back. He says you're not gonna believe this one day I came back without somebody and I thought for sure ma'am I was gonna be really in bad trouble and when I when I finally got back there a couple hours That fellow was still out there passing out tracks and my wife of all things said was it brother Sharon? And he said yes, it was brother Sharon You know, I won't tell you something brother share is not super exciting and not super outgoing He knows how to work and He can be willing. You know, we have a tendency to size people up on whether they can make it in ministry. The only one that knows if a person's going to make it in ministry is God. And that's why He does the calling and we don't. All right? So again, if you're going to be a proper candidate for being called, and again, there's different types of calling. Maybe it is missions, but you should be willing. Yes, call for salvation, sanctification, service, but can I just tell you what happens? It needs to be because you work. It needs to be because you're surrendered or willing. Look at the last thing with me now in verse, the last phrase of verse 21. Then he, Elisha, arose and went after Elijah. And what did he do? Ministered unto him. I don't know if you remember or not, but in 2 Kings chapter 3 and verse number 11, do you remember the story about the three kings that came together and they got out in the middle of the wilderness and they thought they were going to die because there was no water? And Jehoshaphat was one of the kings and one of the servants, Jehoshaphat says, we need to talk to a man of God. And a servant, unnamed servant says, there's a man called Elisha over here who used to pour water upon the hands of Elijah. You know what he was known for? Simply serving. Serving. I can't call you. Your parents can't call you. If it were me, there's several of you tonight and say, God, you know, I feel for some of you because some of you, you don't want to be called. I mean, you just don't want to. You know the greatest place in all the world is being the center of God's will? Do you know the center of God's will could be on the other side of the globe? Okay, so let's not talk about missions then. Let's just talk about being in God's will for your life. You know how you be in God's will for your life? Work, surrender, serve. Hey Elijah, I know you're running from Jezebel, so I've got somebody to take your place. He's out in this field over here plowing. Go just take your mantle, hit him on the back. I'll wake him up and tell him. Church family, it's because God already saw that he knew how to work. He already saw that he'd be surrendered and he already saw he was willing to serve. And you know what he does? Hey, church, I mean, Elisha had no idea he would perform 14 miracles because he hadn't performed one. Elisha had no idea that he'd be in the eternal pages of the scripture. Elisha had no idea that he'd be the one that would be there to see Elijah perform miracles. But God knew that he was a good candidate for what he wanted him to do. What does God want you to do? I know missions conference, maybe it's not missions, but what does God want you to do? Hey, do you believe like I believe that every member is necessary? That is in the Bible, right? I believe that. So watch me now. It's not a matter of getting out because every member is necessary. And if you're not here, then you're not doing what's necessary for this particular church. Are you all with me tonight? So it's not a matter of you all need to go to the mission field. It's a matter of what does God want me to do? I want to tell you how you're going to find it out. You're going to find it out because you work, and you surrender, and you're willing to serve. I guarantee if you do those three things, God's spiritual mantle is going to hit you right over the back. You're going to figure it out. You're going to figure it out. You know why? Because you're the candidate God's looking for. I was having lunch yesterday with a fellow. not a member of our church, and he said, he said, pastor, I'm doing this interview for another job. And he says, this job that I'm getting, he says, I think I've got all the qualifications for it. He was explaining to me the job and he was really happy about it. He was hoping to get it. He had already gone through the first interview and it looked really, really promising for his life. But when he said, I've got all the qualifications for the job, Church family, can I tell you something? You should be able to say, I'm willing to go, and I've got the qualifications for the job, because I know how to work. I'm already surrendered, and I'm willing to serve you no matter where. Mission's Conference is going to be here before you know it. I think it'd be good for us to get a head start on saying, God, what would you have me to do? Most of our Missions Conferences are about, what am I going to give? But I want to tell you something. Every Missions Conference should also be about, I'm willing to go. Would you bow your head and close your eyes tonight?