All right, so I think that's it. So let's open up our Bibles tonight through the book of 2 Kings. 2 Kings, and we're going to be in Chapter 2. We're going to do a portion of Chapter 2 this evening. Just so that we get our setting. Our setting is in the midst of a time of great darkness and turmoil in the nation of Israel's history. A time when many had turned away from serving God sadly, even though God warned them over and over not to do it again. They had turned to following their own lusts, their own desires. They had turned to following the idols and the false gods of the nations around them. Yet God's voice was still being heard through his prophets. God was still speaking to the nation of Israel. It was a voice speaking through the prophets, calling them to repent and calling them to change their ways. And one of those real strong voices is a character that we're gonna look at this evening. We've seen him already many times. And this is the voice of Elijah. Now, as we come to Elijah, the story of Elijah tonight, we come to the end of his earthly existence. Now, normally when we say we come to the end of someone's earthly existence, we say they died, right? But that's not gonna happen with Elijah. Elijah is considered one of the great men of faith of the Bible. His name appears in scripture 107 different times, including 29 times in the New Testament. He lived from 900 to 849 B.C. is when he lived. Jesus spoke of him often. In fact, Elijah appears with Moses on the Mount of Transfiguration alive conversing with Jesus as Jesus was transfigured into a glorified state on the Mount of Transfiguration. So at that point Elijah would have been like 849 years old. there with Jesus, somewhere in that vicinity, maybe a little bit older than that as far as human years go. Can you imagine? Man, you look good for 849, Elijah. So he's old. Now James uses Elijah in the New Testament as an illustration of a man who prayed in faith and God heard and honored his prayer. So he was a man of great faith. He was definitely one of the Old Testament heroes of the faith. In fact, the Old Testament prophesies, prophesy, excuse me, that before the Lord comes again, Elijah will appear. Malachi chapter four, verse five. Even today, the Jews leave an empty seat at their Passover meals, believing with expectation that Elijah is going to appear once more. So there are, Many believe that Elijah still has a future role even in the coming prophecies. For example, in the book of Revelation we see the two witnesses who come on the scene in the book of Revelation chapter 11. Many believe that Moses and Elijah are those two witnesses. Moses representing the law, Elijah representing the prophets. And they were two Old Testament, both of them were considered prophets. Now the reason that many believe that these are the two is because of the types of miracles that these two prophets are going to bring forth during the tribulation. Turning water to blood. bringing plagues. Moses did all of that. Moses did that in his ministry. And then calling fire down from heaven or controlling the rain, which Eliza did during his ministry. And now there are two characters in scripture that we know of that are recorded that never tasted death. I have a Catholic friend of mine who always tells me that Mary never died and she was assumed up into heaven. And I always say to him, I said, Mary lived during the time of the New Testament's writing. The book of Acts covers around 30, 31 years. Never is Mary mentioned in there except at the very beginning when Pentecost happened and the Holy Spirit was poured out on the early church. All through the epistles, all the way up to like 90 AD, she's never mentioned again in the epistles. So he always tells me, well Mary never died, she was assumed or taken up into heaven. But I always tell him, well if that was true, then why didn't the Lord put it in the Bible? These other people that were taken up into heaven, we have the recordings of those. We have, as we're gonna see tonight, Elijah was taken up into heaven. There's another Old Testament character that never died. Genesis chapter five, who knows what his name was? All right, good jobs class. And so as we'll see this evening, Elijah was one of those Old Testament saints that never had to experience or taste death. And what a blessing. Especially since most of us, when we think about our lives, we don't often think, well, today's going to be my last day, and I'm going to die, and I'm going to go to be with the Lord. But that's going to happen someday to every single one of us if the Lord tarries. But most of us, you know, we don't want to taste death. We wish that we didn't have to die. What's exciting, though, is that there's quite a few scriptural evidence that believers, there's going to be believers that are going to be alive at some point in history, in 1 Thessalonians 4, 1 Corinthians 15, Philippians chapter 3, who, like Elijah, will never ever have to taste death. Jesus will translate them from life to eternal life instantaneously in the flash and the twinkling of an eye and that we're told that they will be changed and that mortality will be clothed with immortality, the perishable will be clothed with imperishable and their bodies will be that were sown in weakness and dishonor will be raised in glory. And so, you know, that'd be great, wouldn't it, if we were part of that number? And maybe we will be, like Elijah will never have to taste death, and the sting of death will never touch a group of believers, and I hope it's us, and I hope it's soon. Right, we talk about the rapture of the church. We don't know when it's gonna happen, but it would be a blessing if we were that group. Now let's go ahead and jump into this great story tonight, and we'll see what happens. Look at verses one through three as we start off in 2 Kings chapter two. And it came to pass when the Lord was about to take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal. Then Elijah said to Elisha, stay here, please, for the Lord has sent me on to Bethel. But Elisha said, as the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you. So they went down to Bethel. Now the sons of the prophets who were at Bethel came out to Elisha and said to him, Do you know that the Lord will take away your master from you today? And he said, Yes, I know. Keep silent. Let's stop there just for a little bit. We have here before us two great and well-known names, like I said earlier, Elijah and Elisha. Elijah and Elisha. Elijah the master, Elisha the student. Elijah the mentor, Elisha the disciple or the servant. Now, an important truth that we shouldn't miss is the fact that Elijah, what I love about this, is Elijah seems to have taken the time to pour his life into a younger believer. And all of you who are older in the Lord, if you're a believer, you've been a Christian for a while, that's a neat thing to do. If you're older in the Lord to pour out your life into a younger believer, a faithful person, to help them grow spiritually, to leave, if you will, a spiritual legacy behind. And so discipling others or duplicating or training up is a part of a principle that we see Old and New Testament. Now these guys had great names. Elijah, his name means my God is Jehovah or the Lord. Elisha means God is salvation. Now they really did represent their names well. Last time we were in our study together, we looked at a king named Ahaziah. And we talked about Ahaziah, he has a great name. His name meant whom Jehovah possesses. The problem was, is that he did not live up to his name, he was possessed, it looks like, by not the Lord, but by evil. And we look at the story here and we see the difference between Elisha and Elisha and his name. Now remember in our study in 1 Kings, Elisha first appears. Let's turn back over there to 1 Kings chapter 19. So if you wanna go back to 1 Kings and look at chapter 19 verses 15 through 21. This is when we first meet him. 1 Kings chapter 19, verse 15 through 21. It says, then the Lord said to him, go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus, and when you arrive, anoint Hazael as king over Syria. Also you shall anoint Jehu, son of Nimshi, as king over Israel, and Elisha, son of Shaphat of Abel, Mechola, you shall anoint as prophet, notice, in your place. And it shall be that whoever escapes the sword of Hazael, Jehu will kill, and whoever escapes the sword of Jehu, Elisha will kill. And then we go on, it says, yet I have reserved 7,000 in Israel, whose knees have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him. And so we look at verse 19, it says, So he departed from there and found Elisha, the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he was with the twelfth. Then Elisha passed by him and threw his mantle on him. And he left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said, please let me kill, kill sorry, let me kiss my father. I don't know what I was thinking. Let me kiss my father and my mother and then I will follow you. And he said to him, go back again for what have I done to you? So Elisha turned back from him and took a yoke of oxen and slaughtered them and boiled their flesh using the oxen's equipment and gave it to the people and they ate. Then he arose and followed Elijah and became his servant. This is kind of neat. It reminds me a little bit about the apostles leaving their fishing boats and everything behind and following Jesus. This is what happens with Elisha when he meets Elijah. So that's when we were first introduced to him. So Elisha was handpicked by God to take over when Elijah was taken. He was to be the prophet in his place. Now look at verse one back in our text again, and it says, and it came to pass when the Lord was about to take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal. Now, Something that becomes very apparent very quickly in this story, and lots of people apparently already knew that Elijah, because God had told them, Elijah was going to be taken up to heaven. Now what's neat about this story is Elijah's calm demeanor, knowing that he was about to leave. And I'm thinking to myself, why was he like that? Why was he so calm? Well, I believe he was calm because he was already living his life daily in the will of God. He was already doing what God commanded him and assigned him to do. He didn't have to change anything. He didn't have to change directions or change his lifestyle or anything like that because he was already doing what God wanted him to do. I like to put myself or maybe us in that same position. How would you react if you knew that tomorrow the Lord was going to send a chariot of fire and remove you off of the earth? What would you change? What plans would you change? Would you have to have a drastic lifestyle change between tonight and tomorrow? And if you answered yes, perhaps you're not really living your life sold out for the Lord like you should be, right? Now what's up with this is when we look at Elijah, Why did Elijah know this? Well, and not only did he know this, but at least a hundred other prophets knew it too, including Elisha. And I think the reason that this happens in this story is because there's this kind of cool principle in the Old Testament. Psalm 25, 14 says, the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him. So the Lord had been revealing that Elijah was going to be taken up to these sons of the prophets, these different groups of prophets in different places, including Elijah and Elisha. Amos 3-7 says, In Genesis chapter 18 God said these words. He said, shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I am about to do? In reference to destroying Sodom and Gomorrah. And so God reveals his secrets to his servants, the prophets. And so it's neat when you think about this, these guys were living so in tune with the Lord. They were walking so close to the Lord that the Lord spoke to them and confided in them like a friend. And that should be what we should aspire to as believers, that we're walking so close with the Lord that we are so in tune with the Lord that when the Lord's gonna do something, we're close to him and guess who he's gonna talk to? Those that are close to him, those that are like his friends. Look at verse 2. And it says, So they went down to Bethel. Now Elijah tries to urge Elisha to stay back here. Now I believe this is probably a test of Elisha's faith, his steadfastness, his resolve, his sincerity, his faithfulness. So Elisha answers, as the Lord lives, I will not leave you. Now notice Elijah says, the Lord has sent me. That's what Elijah says. And what I love about Elijah is when you follow along in his life, he was spirit-led. As the Lord has sent me, he was a spirit-led man. And what is the spirit-filled, spirit-led life all about? What does it mean when the Bible tells us that we should be walking in the spirit daily? Well, it's a New Testament concept very strongly put forth. that we need to be living our lives in such a way that we're walking so close to the Lord, so in tune with the Lord, so seeking God in everything, that we too can say, I'm doing what I do, I'm going where I go, I'm saying what I say, I'm living like I live because the Lord has sent me. and I'm obeying the voice of the Lord. In other words, our decisions as believers ought to be based upon, our directions ought to be based upon, what God has sent us to do or told us to be doing. Not on what we want to do, but on His will for our lives. And I do believe that too many Christians, professing Christians, don't do that. They can't say, I'm doing what God told me to do. I'm doing this, or God sent me here. They can't say that, because they've never really sought the Lord, and it's their desires that are being put above the desires of the Lord in their life, and so they're on the throne, not Jesus, and I think that's sad, but true, and it's a common thing today. And so, I would ask you this evening, have you sought the Lord and waited for the Lord to answer you before you move on any kind of decision? And so that what you're doing is because the Lord sent you to do it or he told you to do it. Now look at verse 3. So Elijah could say that, right? That's what Elijah said. He said, as the Lord lives, well, excuse me, back up. Verse 2, he says, stay here, please, for the Lord has sent me to Bethel. He was going to Bethel because the Lord sent him there. That's why he was going. Now look at verse three. Now the sons of the prophets who were at Bethel came out to Elisha and said to him, do you know that the Lord will take away your master from over you today? And he said, yes, I know. Keep silent. Now, remember in 1 Kings 19 when Elisha allowed, Elijah I mean, allowed fear to overcome him and then he ran from Jezebel. Do you guys remember that part of the story? It was one of the times that Elijah faltered. And at that point, remember, he ran out into the desert and he prayed for the Lord to take his life. And he said, I want to die, Lord. And he was pouting. And he said, God, I'm the only one that's serving you. I don't know if you remember that. And God said to him, no, no, Elijah, that's not true. I have 7,000 faithful in Israel who have not bowed to Baal. Well here in this story we have at least 50 of them from the school of the prophets, the sons of the prophets at Bethel. Which by the way, Bethel in our story was a wicked place because of the calf worship that was instituted by Jeroboam in 1 Kings chapter 12. But God still had a remnant of the righteous even in the midst of a wicked city or a wicked town. You know, I look at America, and it's just sad to see what's going on in America. America is more and more and more becoming a wicked place, and yet, you know what's a blessing? God still has his remnant. He still has a remnant of believers who love him. He has a remnant of believers that are serving him, even in the midst of our country becoming wicked. You know, look at Silver City itself. Over the years I've watched our town and it's been a blessing because we've seen God save lots of people in our fellowship, some of the other churches. We've seen lots of people come to the Lord, a lot of people getting baptized, but not enough. There's still way, way, lots and lots of lost people still to reach. But one of the things that's been sad about Silver City is that Silver City, more and more over the years, seems to have become a bastion for the new age, a bastion for cults, for the occult. I remember Bill Richardson, our beloved governor a few governors back, pronounced Silver City a gay-friendly community. And so our downtown area is still full of pagan symbols and paraphernalia. A while back, our hospital at one point, check this out, our hospital at one point had a group of leaders in there that would start their board meetings every time was some guy chanting and burning incense, chanting occult stuff and burning incense to start their meeting. Someone just wrote to me this week, and maybe you guys can confirm this, Mike maybe, and Mike's wife, but she said that there's a statue outside of the emergency room that is a totally pagan statue. And there it is outside. This is the kind of stuff that still goes on in our community. There's a lot of crazy stuff that goes on. But here's what's a blessing. There's still a remnant of the righteous. There's still those who are living for and following the Lord, who haven't bowed to their knees to bail. At the hospital, there's a lot of Christian nurses and doctors that work there, and praise God for them. It's the same thing in our school system. The school systems become more and more infiltrated by corrupt and evil ideologies, yet at the same time, there are still believers there, and praise God for that. And so, even though idolatry and there's idols in our culture, there's still those that are standing firm, there's still those that are being salt and light. The girl that pointed out to me about the statue says she has a Christian friend that works at the hospital, and he's been very vocal about that pagan statue that they have that, by the way, comes from Egypt. It's one of their gods from Egypt. And it's got a snake head or something, I don't know, I haven't seen it, but he's been speaking out against it there as a Christian. And he says, no wonder our hospital feels like it's cursed. We're invoking demonic stuff onto the hospital. It's just crazy. So people don't realize the stuff that's going on, but we need to be salt, we need to be light, we need to speak out, speak up without fear. And so it's just the way it is. Now look at verse 3 again, it says, Now the sons of the prophets who were at Bethel came out to Elisha, Right, evil city, but they came out to Elisha and said to him, do you know that the Lord will take away your master from you today? And he said, yes, I know, keep silent. Now, he says, I know, he says, but you know what? I don't wanna talk about it, he says. And I'm thinking to myself, maybe Elisha is sad that his master Elisha's leaving and he just doesn't wanna discuss it. Now look at verse four and it says, then Elijah said to Elisha, stay here, please, for the Lord has sent me on to Jericho. But he said, as the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you. So they came to Jericho. Elisha is sticking to Elijah like glue. And if Elijah had a weakness, Not Elisha, but if Elisha had a weakness, one of his weaknesses, I'd say, is that he was a real loner. Remember in 1 Kings 19, he went on into the desert, he left his servant there, and he went out all alone and left his support back in Beersheba. And being alone can often make us vulnerable to temptation, It can make us vulnerable to depression, to discouragement. That's why the Bible says that we should not give up meeting together. That's why the Bible says that we should encourage one another all the more daily as we see the day of the Lord approaching. Because you know what? When you're all isolated by yourself, the enemy can really get to you sometimes. And so Elijah seems to have a weakness in just wanting to be by himself, wanting to be alone. But Elijah says, no way, I'm not going to let you stay by yourself. Now, on the flip side, you've got to still be careful because you can have ungodly friends, ungodly counsel, people that you surround yourself with that are a bad influence, and that can be just as bad. right? The Bible says that bad company corrupts good character and sometimes the people we surround ourselves with if they're not godly people or they're giving us ungodly counsel that's a bad thing. Now God has made us though the church, and it's good to understand this. God has made us the church like a body, like a human body. And it's neat how Paul describes the church or likens the church to a human body. The human body has all different kinds of parts, all different kinds of functions that the body does, right? But even though they have different parts in the body, they have different duties or they have different, skills, if you want to say that. For example, my feet and my hands need each other. And what I mean by that is my feet are dependent daily on my hands because my feet can't put on shoes and tie the laces by themselves. And so they need my hands to do that and vice versa, my hands depend upon my feet to transport them from one place to another. We need our eyes. Our eyes have specific duties, our ears, our noses, all of that. And so it's like that in the body of Christ, the body we as believers need each other. And so Elisha says, no, I'm not staying behind. Where you go, I go. What you do, I'll do. And now we'll see Elisha wants the blessing before Elisha leaves. And he's so diligent in sticking at his side, because this blessing's gonna come. And notice what it says in verse five. It says, now the sons of the prophets who were at Jericho, another group now, another group of prophets, another group of the faithful remnant now the sons of the prophets who were at jericho came to elijah elisha and said to him do you know that the lord will take away your master from you today so he said yes i know keep silent I don't know why he keeps saying that, but he didn't want to talk about it. And so, you know, there's the prophets that came out from Bethel, now there's the prophets that come out from Jericho, and they all have the same message. And what this is, it's a big confirmation, right? And God often does that. He will give us confirmations and assurances that we're on the right track. And it's okay to look for those kinds of confirmations in your life. Because it's one way that God often will speak to us by giving us a confirmation. The same thing happens here in this conversation. Elisha says, I know he's going to be taken. Keep silent. And he says, let's not talk about it. And then look at verse six. And then verse six says, then Elisha said to him, stay here please, for the Lord has sent me onto the Jordan. But he said, as the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you. So the two of them went on. So Elijah keeps trying to get rid of him. Elisha says, you're not getting rid of me. I'm staying with you no matter what. And Elijah says, the Lord has sent me. And Elisha says, yeah, I know he sent you, but I'm going with you. And so the two of them went on. And I love the persistence of Elisha here. Now look at verse seven. and 50 men of the sons of the prophets went and stood facing them at a distance." So now you've got the two prophets walking together by themselves, but then you've got this group, the sons of the prophets went and stood facing them at a distance while the two of them stood by the Jordan. So now they have the company of these prophets, 50 I guess, and they follow them at a distance, and they want to see what happens. And it seems like I don't know if they felt like, okay, this is the time, Elisha's gonna be taken from us, and I don't know if they're there because the Lord led them to go, and there was gonna be eyewitnesses, more than just Elisha, for the sake of the scripture, for the sake of truth, or I don't know if they went just out of curiosity. I'm not sure. But one of the things I can say about humans is humans are pretty curious, aren't we? And I've noticed that over the years. People will flock to and go out and see what are the latest happenings, right? They'll hear about something. I remember in high school, junior high school, this used to happen all the time because the school I went to was kind of rowdy. But you always knew when there was a fight in the school. because they would yell and then all of a sudden you see a stampede of people running and there'd be a big circle around the people that were fighting and nowadays they film everything. Well, we didn't have film back then so we just had to tell it how it happened, you know, our eyewitness account or whatever. But it's funny that people will do that. How many of you guys ever ran to see a fight in school? Anybody? All right, come on. How many were in the fight? No, just kidding. How many of you were causing the fight? Right? But anyway, that usually happened. Another thing that you see happen sometimes is, I remember one time here in Silver City, there was a big fire in Arenas Valley a few years ago, and Dee and I, we saw the smoke and we heard the sirens, and we're like, let's go see what happened, you know? And here we go, we go out there, and I don't know how many people we saw from the church there, and there was so many people from the town out there looking at the fire that even the cops were directing traffic. Right? Because all the people that were out there were curious. Well, this sort of maybe is why these guys are out there. They're curious. They want to see what's going to happen. Now, what happens here has never happened in human vision, as far as we know. Because it says when Enoch was taken, there's no report of a whirlwind or any kind of, you know, whatever this is that takes him. But look at verse 8. It says, now Elijah took his mantle rolled it up and struck the water, and it was divided this way and that, so that the two of them crossed over on dry ground. You know, Elijah's life and ministry was marked by miracles. And here's the second to the last one that he's involved in. He parts the water as they cross the Jordan on dry ground. Moses did that, remember, when they crossed the Red Sea. Joshua did it when they crossed into the Promised Land. And now Elijah, he touches the water with his mantle, his cloak, and the water parts and they both cross the Jordan River on dry ground. And I'm thinking to myself, you know, with Elijah around, who needs a bridge? Or who needs a boat, right? Just part the river and cross on dry ground. How awesome would that be? Great friends to hang around with. Now, most of us will admit, and I've thought about this, every time I see these amazing miracles like this, I always think to myself, wouldn't that be cool to have that kind of power? I mean, have any of you ever thought that? Or is it just me, the crazy person, right? Yeah, I'm like, this would be cool, right? But I'm thinking to myself, if we had the power to perform acts of miracles, amazing miracles like this, it's probably good that we can't because it would probably go to our heads and we'd get a big head and our heads would swell and it'd probably explode, right? But these were all for the glory and the purposes of God. They were not for the glory and the purposes of men. It was not for show. And I want to say this, gifts are not given for show or for self-promotion. That's one of the sad things you see in the church today when these people are claiming to have gifts of healing and all this crazy stuff and they have their names in lights and they're making tons of money and come and see the healer and you know all that. That's not ever why God gave people power or why he gave them gifts. But You know, Elijah, he performed many miracles. He called fire down from heaven a couple of different times. I mean, just all kinds of cool stuff. And now he parts the water. Now look at verse nine, and it says, in verse nine it says, so it was when they had crossed over that Elijah said to Elisha, ask what may, ask what, excuse me, ask, what may I do for you before I am taken away from you? Elisha said, please let a double portion of your spirit be upon me. Now, here's why Elisha maybe was sticking to him like glue, because he wanted to ask him perhaps that question, or he was hoping that he would get that question asked to him. And I believe that Elisha, he did love Elisha. He loved him, he was his teacher, he was his mentor. And he wanted to be with him all the way as a friend is, all the way to the end. That's probably one of the main reasons. But at this point, Elisha says to Elisha something amazing. He says, ask what I may do for you before I am taken away from you. Now talk about an amazing question or a loaded question. What would you do? If you were Elisha, what would you ask, right? Talk about a blank check. Whatever you want, ask me and I'll do it for you. Remember God said something similar to Solomon, King Solomon when King Solomon in 1 Kings chapter three was about to become king and God says, ask whatever you want me to give to you and Solomon's request from God was one that pleased the Lord because Solomon could have asked for anything. but he didn't ask for riches, he didn't ask for fame, he didn't ask for power, he didn't even ask for the death of his enemies, he didn't ask for long life, he didn't ask for success, but he asked for a discerning heart to govern and to know right from wrong. So Solomon says, God, I need your divine help, that you would give me wisdom in order to lead your people. Now think about it, what would you ask for if this question was posed to you? What would be your request? I mean, think about it, right? What would you ask God for if you were really honest? And you know, your answer will tell a lot about where your heart is at because what you'd ask for is sort of a real test or a gauge to where you may be at tonight spiritually. Would you ask for something fleshly or would you ask for something spiritual? Would you say, Lord, give me lots of money, or Lord, give me power or success or popularity, give me fame, Lord, give me looks so I can get the babes, or what would you say? Or would you desire to have more of the Lord in your life? Lord, I want more of you. You know Psalm 37 verse four says, delight yourself in the Lord. I love that verse. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. So Elisha's heart was for the Lord. And that's what Elisha basically asks where he says, you know what, Elisha, give me a double dose of the spirit of God that's living in you. I want more of the Lord in my life. Please, can I have a double portion of your spirit that it might be upon me? And so his motivation was awesome. His motivation was like, man, Lord, I just want more of the Lord. And so Elijah's mindset was, Elijah, look, I've seen you serve God faithfully. You've been used by God powerfully, Elijah. I want that in my life. I want that for my life too. Even a double portion. I want to be even more used of God. than you were. What a great desire. Now interestingly, people who are into numbers, and I didn't do this myself, but just reading it, preparing this study, people that are into numbers calculate that Elisha did twice as many miracles as Elijah did. So I think that's kind of an interesting bit of trivia. Look at verse 10 down to verse 12. So he said, you have asked a hard thing. Nevertheless, if you see me when I am taken up from you, it shall be so for you. But if not, it shall not be so. Then it happened, as they continued on and talked, that suddenly a chariot of fire appeared with horses of fire and separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven, and Elisha saw it. And he cried out, my father, my father, the chariot of Israel and its horsemen. So he saw him no more. And he took hold of his own clothes and tore them into two pieces. Stop there for a little bit. So Elisha said, you know what? Your request will be granted as long as you see me when I'm taken from you. And we're told here as they're walking along and they're talking suddenly, the final most glorious miracle of Elijah's life happens, right? It takes place here, the Lord sends for him with a heavenly, I just call it a heavenly limo. Like the Lord says, go pick him up. Send my limo for him. I don't know what this was, right? What kind of vessel or what kind of, you know, was this? But it says, there appeared a chariot of fire with horses of fire. Now there's been a lot of speculation as to what this was. Was it really exactly like that? Or was it some kind of spaceship? We don't know. Was this the language of the time? Him trying to describe what was undescribable to them? They didn't know what flying vessels were or vessels with fire coming out of them or anything like that. They didn't know any of that, right? And so the way it's described to us here is maybe in a way that he could describe it the closest way possible to what he could see, chariots and horses and all that. But the language of the time I think is used to describe it here. So we don't know exactly what this was, but all we know is Elijah was taken and went up, we're told, in a whirlwind to heaven. How many Star Trek fans in here? Any Star Trek fans? Oh, you guys, you guys are weird, I know. Okay, anyway, just curious. I never really was into, I watched Star Trek when I was a kid, but remember the saying, beam me up Scotty, right? Remember that? Wasn't that in Star Trek? Yeah, I thought so. Well, anyway, he gets beamed up. And so, you know, must have been awesome for Elijah to experience that, never taste death, just being taken up into heaven. How cool was that, right? And not only that, but scary for Elisha. Now notice Elisha's response. What he says here is a little bit like, what? Look at what he says in verse 12. And Elisha saw it and cried out. I mean, I can hear him in my mind. This is not like, he's not quietly saying this. He's screaming, he's yelling. He cried out, my father, my father, the chariot of Israel and its horsemen. And so he saw him no more. And it says, and he took hold of his own clothes and tore them into two pieces. I think this is just one of those cries in response in a moment maybe of shock, a moment of fear. He saw him no more. And you know, when we are at the height of emotion, sometimes we'll say just crazy stuff, right? And he just screams and yells this. And now Elisha, then he tears his clothes, which is a symbol of grief. And Elisha was like, remember, like a father to Elisha. And now he's gone. And I think there's that element maybe of human loss or sorrow when someone you love is taken away. Even when someone that we love is taken away and into heaven, they die and they're no more, right? There's this tremendous natural grief. like our heart feels like it's been rented to, right? And so he tears his clothes as a symbol of his grief that Elijah is gone. Look at verse 13 and verse 14. He also took up the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him. This is interesting. So this mantle, this coat, whatever it was that was on Elijah doesn't go up into heaven with him. So he also took up the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him and went back and stood by the bank of the Jordan. Then he took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him and struck the water and said, where is the Lord God of Elijah? And when he also had struck the water, it was divided this way and that, and Elisha crossed over immediately. God gives a confirmation to him of the miraculous power that was at work in Elijah. How many of you guys ever saw any of those old movies? They used to make them a lot in the early 80s, I believe, is when they were coming out, late 70s, early 80s, early 90s. Remember those old movies? Remember, did any of you ever see A Thief in the Night? Have you ever seen those? They were rapture movies. A Thief in the Night. There was one I remember called The Image of the Beast. Another one called The Prodigal Planet. Then there was the whole Left Behind series. You remember that? The Left Behind series. All of them were about the rapture. There was one called A Distant Thunder. I think I went to go see that one. I was a brand new Christian. I invited my friend Jeff well he invited me because his girlfriend invited him but I went with him to go see the movie A Distant Thunder and I was praying so hard for my friend Jeff to get saved and we watched the movie and it was pretty dramatic you know and I think it had a rapture scene in it and everybody's clothes are just left behind and the whole church is full of clothes and there's a few people like you guys sitting there left that didn't get taken, not that it would be any of you, but just sort of illustration-wise. And there was a bunch of piles of clothes, and I remember when I was a brand new Christian, I was always thinking that rapture could happen any day, any day, any day, right? That Jesus is gonna come back, and he's gonna take us, and we're gonna be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord, and I was just really excited about that, and I was always thinking about it. And one time, me and one of my good friends, who was a believer, we went out to the Jemez Mountains, and we were fishing. And we were out in the middle of this big, huge, open meadow. And the stream went through the meadow and it was just grass on both sides for like 100 yards that way and 100 yards that way. And then there was a tree line, you know. And the last thing I saw is Art, my friend, was right next to me fishing. And, you know, we're just into it and we're fishing and trying to catch trout and stuff. And all of a sudden, I look up and Art's gone. And I'm like, I start looking around, I'm like, Art, Art! Art! I thought the rapture happened and I got left behind. And all of a sudden he's like, I'm over here taking a leak, you know, or whatever he said. Whatever he said, I was like, thank you, Lord. You know, I thought I got left behind. It was so horrible. But anyway, I remember I was so scared thinking I got left because I was doing something I shouldn't have been doing or something. But anyways, so he's there and he sees this happen and he just cries out, right, and tears his clothes. So then he takes the mantle and parts the river. And then we go on, let's see, where did we leave off? Yeah, verse 15. Now when the sons of the prophets who were from Jericho saw him, they said, the spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha. And they came to meet him and bowed to the ground before him. Now, I don't recommend this kind of stuff. I remember in the New Testament where Peter went to Cornelius' house and they bowed down and Peter says, stand up, I'm only a man. That kind of stuff's probably not a good thing. But they bowed down before him because they realized that the spirit of Elijah is upon him and they saw him part the Jordan. And so let's continue on. Let's see, where am I at here? Yeah, so it says verse 16, then they said to him, look now, there are 50 strong men with your servants. Please let them go and search for your master, lest perhaps the spirit of the Lord has taken him up and cast him upon a mountain or into some valley. And he said, you shall not send anyone. So they said, you know, they're just thinking once more, people say dumb stuff sometimes, and this is kind of a dumb thing. They're like, hey, maybe the Lord just took him and took him to a mountaintop and dropped him off. Or maybe the Lord took him to a valley and dropped him. Let us go search all over Israel and see if we can find Elijah. And Elijah's like, no, you don't need to do that. and he said you shall not send anyone verse 17 but when they urged him till he was ashamed he guilted him into it but come on come on they're hounding him or whatever until he was ashamed or worn out he said send them therefore they sent 50 men and they searched for three days but did not find Elijah And when they came back to him, for he had stayed in Jericho, he said to them, did I not say to you, do not go? I love that. I told you guys. It's always fun to say that, isn't it? When you're right. I told you. I love when I can tell my wife that. Hardly ever happens. Usually she's telling me that. I'm at the wrong end of the stick, but anyway, this is a great story, powerful stuff, amazing stuff, stuff that really happened, right? You know, it's kind of interesting to think about or wonder what this chariot was, what was really going on here. I do have this really one weird thing to tell you guys about. I'm not trying to support or say that there was some kind of flying vehicle that came and, well, there was some kind of flying vehicle that came and got him, and he went up in a whirlwind, right? Who knows what it was, right? But here's really crazy, this is a crazy story. I was watching one of the history channels one time, and I'll close with this crazy story. I'm watching the history channels, and I'm watching this whole, they're talking it from a secular perspective about the crucifixion of Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus, and they're trying to figure out what went on and all that kind of stuff. Well, anyways, there is a picture that was painted in the second or the third century Right near, not long after the crucifixion of Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus they found in a cave and there's three crosses and apparently it's Jesus and above there is a flying saucer kind of thing flying over the crosses and I'm like Who would have thought of that? It's just so weird. And I wonder, what is it that happens here where he's taken up in this whatever it is? And you know what? Here's my explanation. It's a mystery, let's pray. Father, we thank you. Thank you for this time in your word and these cool things, these neat stories, and just seeing you powerfully work, Lord, and the miracles that you did through these guys that walk close to you. And I pray, Father, that we could just experience you however you want, Lord, working in our lives, working in us and through us as we walk close to you and stick close to you daily. Lord, we wanna be vessels of noble purpose. Vessels, Lord, whereby you can do what you want to do whenever you want to do it in us and through us, and that we could be available to you. Help us to be those kinds of believers who love you and just want to be close to you and want to receive any blessing you want to give us. Even like Elijah, Lord, just wanted to stick close to Elijah, and he ended up getting an amazing blessing from it. And I pray, Father, that we would want to stay close to Jesus, and that we too, Lord, could receive blessings from you. We thank you, we praise you, and thank you for loving us, and thank you for continually working in us and not giving up on us. In Jesus' name, amen. God bless you guys, love you.