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Hello my ‘Walking with Jesus” friends,
As we begin a new week together, I wonder what the most significant events of this next week will be, all around the world? One of the consistent front page headlines for the past 10 months has been the Coronavirus. If you’re like me, you’ve grown tired of hearing that word. If my calculations are correct, by today the global number of reported cases thus far in 2020 will be very near 50 Million people with more than 1,252,000 global deaths!
As we all know while many vaccine trials are underway, no vaccine has yet been approved for global distribution, and in many parts of the world there is a significant resurgence of the disease. There is even some evidence the COVID-19 strain of Coronavirus may be mutating in some parts of the world into a different strain. The horrific Coronavirus reality has challenged almost every person in the world to consider their readiness to face death.
Yesterday we looked at the story of king Jehoram in Jerusalem who had turned his back on the God honoring heritage he had inherited from his father king Jehoshaphat and his grandfather king Asa. 2 Chronicles 21:20 says “He passed away, to no one’s regret…”. I just can’t get that phrase out of my mind! Remarkably king Jehoram had received a challenging letter of warning from God’s old Prophet Elijah, which detailed, from God’s perspective, Jerhoram’s great failings as a leader of God’s people, and predicted the horrible manner in which he would soon die. There is no evidence that Jehoram was remorseful nor repentant, and his death is almost indescribable.
Not long after, the time came for old Elijah to die. It’s one of the most remarkable events in the Old Testament and stands in stark contrast to how Jehoram died. In view of this persistent Coronavirus which has so many people in the world panicked, let’s look today at 2 Kings 2 and find great hope in the contrast of these two men’s ‘departure’ from their earthly journey. I use that word “departure” rather than ‘death’ intentionally. As you may remember, Paul the Apostle used this word “departure” in Phil. 1:23 & 2 Timothy 4:7,8. He used it to express his great joy in anticipating the moment his earthly life would end, and his certainty that because of his complete trust in Jesus Christ for his salvation from his sin condemnation, at the moment of his death he would be immediately transported into God’s presence. I’ve often wondered if Paul had 2 Kings 2 in mind as he used that word ‘departure’? Old Elijah’s ‘death’ experience gives “departure” a glorious reality which you and I can celebrate today!
2 Kings 2 begins “When the LORD was about to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal.” I’m fascinated by this chapter for many reasons but one is this… it seems clear God had a plan for the conclusion of Elijah’s earthly journey, and God could see the time approaching and was preparing the final, specific details of that plan. We are invited to walk along with Elijah and Elisha, and experience it first hand… and learn some important lessons very relevant to November 2020, no matter where you live in the world.
Does the place “Gilgal” stir something up inside you? About 560 years before this, in that very place “Gilgal”, Joshua led the Hebrew people from 40 years of wandering in the desert, across the DRY Jordan riverbed, into the land we know today as Israel… the land God had promised to Abraham about 500 years before that! At the place where the people set up their tents and spent that first night in the new land, Joshua had told the people to haul up 12 rocks, as big as they could carry, out of the riverbed, and pile them up as a memorial, a reminder of this miracle of God stopping the raging flow of the flooded Jordan river, so more than 1 million people and all their belongings and animals could cross over from the desert into their ‘promised land’. That great story is found in Joshua 4.
Now, 560 years later, old Elijah and his disciple Elisha were there in that very same place, Gilgal. We don’t know why, but I suspect Elijah and Elisha were reminiscing about what had happened to their ancient ancestors in that very place, so many generations before. May I ask, do you have some places like that my friends, where you can go and reminisce with your family or friends, or all by yourself, about historical things God has done in the past, which are very important to your personal life story? Places where God has done things that have shaped your life?
Look at what happened next… “Elijah said to Elisha, ‘Stay here, the LORD has sent me to Bethel.’ But Elisha responded ‘As surely as the LORD lives and as you live, I will not leave you today.’ So they went down together to Bethel.” Now that might sound to you like two old friends who simply want to spend the day together on a long hike, but it’s much more than that. Not only was God working the details of His plan for calling Elijah home to heaven, evidently somehow both Elijah and Elisha knew God was at work here, and Elisha didn’t want to miss even a moment of this unique ‘departure’ experience.
You’ll notice there was evidently a type of Bible school there at Bethel, for some of those studying God’s Word came out and said to Elisha “Do you know that the LORD is going to take your master from you today?” Now just stand there a moment in this group and look at Elijah and Elisha’s faces as the question hangs in the air! And what if God somehow told you WHEN your last day on earth would be? What if He told you when your closest friend or family member’s day of “departure” would be…what would you do with that information?
Elisha’s response is very significant: “Yes I know, but do not speak of it.” How had God let Elijah, Elisha and 50 prophets in the town of Bethel all know of this miracle which was SOON to happen?? I can’t answer that, I just don’t know, but I love to see how they handled the information!
My friends, as you continue to read 2 Kings 2, you’ll see this very same experience happens three times in three different places that day. From Gilgal Elijah and Elisha walked to Bethel, and of course you remember that’s the place God had encountered Jacob, not once but twice, (Gen. 28 & Gen. 35) and where God reaffirmed His covenant promise to Abraham and his descendants, and where God also changed Jacob’s name to Israel.
Sadly, you may also remember Bethel was a place desecrated by king Jeroboam as he built an altar and large gold calf idol for the people of Israel to worship there! I suspect as Elijah and Elisha went there to Bethel it was for the purpose of discussing the dramatic contrast between those two events in the history of God’s people. And I imagine old Elijah reminded younger Elisha that the rest of his life was to be spent calling God’s wayward people back to God, away from their idols, and live in disregard for the wicked leadership of their kings.
Finally, do you see Elijah and Elisha continued on to the Jordan river, and miraculously God stopped the flow of the river and they walked across on dry ground! Then Elisha asked Elijah to pass to him a great inheritance blessing of a double portion of his spiritual anointing from God. “Oh, you have asked a difficult thing,’ Elijah said, ‘yet if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours…” (2 Kings 2:9,10) May I ask friends, is there anyone in your life who has such a wonderful relationship with Jesus, such an anointing of the Holy Spirit upon their lives, that it would be your desire, if it were possible, that they’d leave as an inheritance to you, that great anointing of God on their life? You don’t need to wish it from someone else, my friends, all of us can pursue it for ourselves as we continue to grow in our relationship with Jesus, immerse ourselves deeply in God’s Word the Bible, and yield our hearts, minds and lives to the ever increasing work of the Holy Spirit of God
deep within us.
“As Elijah and Elisha were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind. Elisha saw this and cried out, ‘My father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!’ And Elisha saw him no more!” (2 Kings 2:11,12)
Whoosh. . . and Elijah departed for heaven, in full view of Elisha! Now I can’t fully explain exactly what happened here, but I claim it as a wonderful example of what the Apostle Paul is talking about when he writes “I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain… Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ which is better by far, but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body…so that I may continue with all of you for your progress and your joy in the faith…” (Phil. 1:20-26)
Oh my! May I ask, really now, is that your struggle this Monday? Do you wish to ‘depart’ and be with Jesus, but at the same time you long to be here, making a big difference in our world living as an ‘ambassador of Jesus Christ’ (2 Corinthians 5:20) here on earth, wherever God has placed you today?
Now in closing, I invite you to read the next few verses. As an old radio man named “Paul Harvey” used to say, you just have to see ‘the rest of the story‘ as it happened next for Elisha in 2 Kings 2 from vs. 13-22. It’s remarkable!! As you read it, again remember how the people responded to king Jehoram’s terribly painful but hard hearted death… “He passed away to no one’s regret”. For Elisha, he picked up Elijah’s coat which had fallen from his shoulders as the chariot of fire had swept him up, and Elisha stood at the Jordan river asking a huge question: “Where now is the LORD, the God of Elijah?”
I invite you my friends all over the world to stop right now and ask that same question, from right where you are, both geographically and in this moment of your personal, spiritual life journey. And then I invite you to pray. Talk with God right now, about the rest of your life, from this moment till the time God already knows you will breathe your last breath here on earth. What would God like to accomplish through you in the days, weeks, months and maybe years you will yet be among us here on earth? Do you have your journal and are you ready to write what God says to you as you read 2 Kings 2?!
Click to read today’s chapter: 2 Kings 2:13-22. (At the top you can choose a different translation.)
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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