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2 Kings 2:1-8 Elijah Enters Heaven, Elisha Enters Ministry

By Mary Fairchild

Clovermap

1581 Bunting Clover Leaf Map; Israel in the center.

Elijah was God’s voice of judgment both in Israel and in Judah. In the midst of royal wickedness, he stood for righteousness when it was very unpopular. He established schools where devout young men emerged from the seven thousand faithful in Israel and learned the Scriptures, living as the “salt of the earth” in the midst of an unbelieving generation. Elisha learned well from Elijah and was well equipped to serve God faithfully.

On the day of Elijah’s departure for Heaven, Elijah, Elisha, and the sons of the prophets (young ministerial students), met at the Jordan River in Jericho. At the bank of the Jordan River, Elijah folded his mantle and struck the water. The water parted and together they walked across the river. As they walked, a heavenly chariot and horses of fire appeared before them and separated them. Then a circular wind, like a tornado, swept Elijah into the sky and out of sight as Elisha looked on in amazement. Elijah was the second man to experience a bodily rapture (translation). Enoch was the first. THOSE WHO ARE SAVED WILL EXPERIENCE A BODLIY RAPTURE WHEN JESUS CHRIST RETURNS IN THE AIR BEFOR THE TRIBULATION PERIOD—and their bodies will not be found(1 Thes. 4:13-18). Though the sons of the prophets knew that Elijah was to depart that day and though they witnessed Elijah’s power upon Elisha, the absence of a body was incomprehensible to them. Against Elisha’s better wisdom, 50 young prophets organized as search for Elijah’s dead body. Enoch’s body had also been searched for, but to no avail (Gen. 5:21-24, heb. 11:5).

GOD IS ALWAYS AT WORK IN THE LIVES OF MEN AND THE AFFAIRS OF NATIONS. In three periods of history, God exhibited an array of spectacular miracles. These miraculous happenings were not the usual periods of Bible history, for God usually does His work in quiet and unspectacular ways. We need to be sensitive and have spiritual eyes to be able to see the Lord’s working in our daily personal lives—then we won’t crave the spectacular.

1500 B. C.—Moses and Joshua
800 B. C.—Elijah and Elisha
A. D. 33-100—Christ and the Apostles

God’s miracles moved toward a people hardened with sin. EGYPT WAS FULL OF IDOLATRY WHEN MOSES PERFORMED HIS MIRACLES, AND JOSHUA WAS SURROUNDED BY THE WICKED CANAANITES. ISRAEL WAS BACKSLIDDEN AND RULED BY WICKED KINGS DURING ELIJAH AND ELISHA’S DAY, AND CHRIST CALLED THE PEOPLE OF HIS TIME AN ADULTEROUS AND WICKED NATION THAT SOUGHT AFTER SIGNS.

2 Kings 2: 19-25: GOD CALLS PEOPLE FOR SPECIFIC MINISTRIES just as He called Elisha to be a prophet to follow Elijah. Stay active while you are waiting for God’s call to you. Work hard at what ever occupation is yours. While you are in school, study diligently so you will be prepared for whatever vocation the Lord has for you. Be willing to serve other people. Elisha ministered to Elijah. Develop loyalty to those whom God has put over you:

1. Respect their position.
2. Learn to see and admire their good qualities.
3. Do not focus on their weaknesses.
4. Remember that they probably know more than you do.
5. Learn to see God working through them.
6. If you have been showing disrespect for authority, confess your sin to the Lord and ask Him to build loyalty and respect for authority into your life.

Take your training seriously. Your success depends on believing God and claiming His promises. As you HUMBLE YOURSELF BEFORE HIM AND CRUCIFY YOUR SELF-WILL, God will fill you with the Holy Spirit. Claim the promise that He will work in you. “For it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13).

Elisha blessed the city of Jericho by healing their bad water. He poured salt at the fountain head of the waters. Visitors today can still visit Elisha’s fountain at Jericho where the water is pure and safe for everyone to drink. God always cares about the physical needs of His people. When Elisha is mocked by young people on the way to Beth-el, he asks God to withhold His blessing (or protection) upon the teen-agers because of their disrespect for God’s servant. Two mother bears came out of the woods and killed 42 of the teen-agers. When God’s servants are mistreated, God in His own time and way will take vengeance. God teaches us to respect and obey those who are over us.

“Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you” (Hebrews 13:17).

The Hebrew word translated “little children” is yeled (The same word is used of Daniel, Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego.) Evidently young people who scorned and ridiculed Elisha, the prophet of God, had heard their parents doing the same. The parents and young people had probably joined the sons of the prophets in search of Elijah’s dead body and come to the conclusion that it was all a hoax. The chant, “Go up, thou bald head” referred to Elijah’s rapture; it was a chant of ridicule. (Elisha must have been baldheaded.)

Elisha’s curse was merely asking God to remove His protection from them. The earth is already under a curse from God, ever since Adam ate the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. So when we ask for God’s blessing, we are really asking for God’s protection from the evil of the curse that is already on the earth; and the curse will always prevail wherever there is an absence of that protection. Elisha was saying in effect, “God, let events bring what they will; do not give Your protection to these young people.” The bears were already in the woods nearby, and if the young people had been respectful to God’s prophet, then Elisha, God’s servant, would have brought blessing (protection) to them, and the bears would have wandered off never harming anyone. But Elisha said, in effect, “Lord don’t give any special protection to these young people; let nature take its course; and whatever comes their way, let it come.” 42 young people either died or were wounded that day by the two bears. The village grieved over the tragedy of their young people. They
may have remembered and regretted their example of mocking God’s servant in the presence of their children; the young people, no doubt, just imitated the parent’s disrespectful attitudes toward God’s truth and God’s servant Elisha.

ELISHA ASKED GOD TO GIVE HIM A DOUBLE PORTION OF ELIJAH’S SPIRIT—2 Kings 3-4: God grantred Elisha’s request. Elisha was a good, faithful servant with a persistent determination to get what he needed from God. The miraculous power of God continued to be manifested in Israel and the miracles of Elisha were similar to those of Elijah.

Music was used to soothe away the heat of the conflict and to help Elisha seek the face of the Lord. Good music has a great power to erase the cares of life and set our hearts and minds on God. Spiritual music is like a curtain to shut out the noises of the world and shut us into the presence of God. Godly music can be used to bring us nearer to God, and ungodly music can be used to take us away from the sense of the presence of God. ROCK MUSIC IS REALLY VERY ANCIENT. It came out of heathen jungles where it has been used in devil worship for years.

Oil in Scripture is a picture of the Holy Spirit. If we have received Jesus Christ as our Savior, we have within us the oil of the indwelling Holy Spirit. It is the Lord’s plan for our lives that the oil of His Spirit overflow and influence other people’s lives. As the door needed to be shut when the oil was poured out, so it is that our life vessels are filled to overflowing in the private place of prayer. WE MUST PERSONALLY COMMUNE WITH OUR LORD IN A SECRET PLACE OF PRAYER IF WE ARE TO HAVE THE HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD EXEMPLIFIED IN OUR PUBLIC LIVES. “But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, Just as oil is needed to make machinery run smoothly and quietly, so THE OIL OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IS ALSO NEEDED IN HUMAN RELATIONS TO REDUCE FRICTION, CONFLICTS,AND QUARELS AND TO GIVE SMOOTHNESS, QUIETNESS, PEACE, AND COOPERATION AMONG GOD’S PEOPLE. The oil of the Holy Spirit should be poured out in our lives with power to win other people to Jesus Christ.

The great woman of Shunem practiced hospitality and generosity. We are not to become to involved in providing for ourselves that we forget to share with others. Jesus said, “He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward” (Matt. 10:41). Shunem was a submissive wife: she asked her husband if they could construct a room for Elisha. She did not feel that God had treated her unfairly when she could not have children. “But godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Tim. 6:6). She put the responsibility for the boy’s death on the one who had told her she would bear him. Remaining calm and strong in faith, she knew that no one could help with the problem except Elisha, the man of God. Not even disturbing her husband in his work except to ask permission to take a mule and a servant, she went to Elisha and poured out her problem to him, insisting that Elisha come to her son. Let us learn to pour out our problems to the Lord, the only One who can really solve them.

WORKS CITED

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