Elijah Taken Into Heaven — Chuck Smith

For today, the broadcast ministry of Pastor Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, California. Pastor Chuck is currently leading us on a verse-by-verse venture through the entire Bible. And on today's edition of the Word for Today, we'll be concluding our look at Elijah as he is taken to heaven.

So let's begin by turning in our Bibles to 2 Kings Chapter 2, Verse 4. As Pastor Chuck Smith begins today's message.

Elijah and Elisha Travel to Jericho and Jordan

Elijah knew that the time of the departure is at hand, and so he said unto Elisha, Verse 4, Terry, here I pray thee, for the Lord hath sent me to Jericho. And he said, As the Lord liveth and as thy soul liveth, I'll not leave thee.

So they came to Jericho. The same thing, the sons of the prophets that were at Jericho came to Elisha, and they said unto him, Do you know that the Lord will take away your master from your head today?

And he said, I know it. Hold your peace. And so Elijah said unto him, Terry, I pray thee here, for the Lord hath sent me to Jordan. And he said, As the Lord liveth and as thy soul liveth, I'll not leave you.

And so the two of them went on. The fifty men of the sons of the prophets went and stood to view from afar off, and they too stood by the Jordan. These prophets sort of followed them from a distance, and they watched them as they came to the Jordan River.

And Elijah took his mantle, and he wrapped it together, sort of a leather cloak that he hung over his shoulders, and he wrapped it together, rolled it up, and he smote the waters. And they were divided hither and thither, so that the two of them went over on dry ground.

God stopped the flow of the Jordan, much as he did at the time that Joshua came in to the promised land with the children of Israel, God stopping the Jordan River. And it came to pass, when they were gone over, that Elijah said to Elisha, Ask what I shall do for you before I am taken away from you.

Elisha Requests a Double Portion of Elijah's Spirit

And Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me. Elijah said unto him, You've asked a hard thing. Nevertheless, if you see me when I am taken from you, it shall be so unto you, but if not, it shall not be so.

Many commentators believe that what he was actually asking was for the firstborn son's inheritance. For the firstborn son received a double portion over the other brothers of the father's inheritance.

And so he was asking for the inheritance of the firstborn, a double portion of your spirit to be upon me. Well, when you look at Elijah and all that he had accomplished, it was quite a request at that.

He said, If you see me when I am taken up, it will happen. If you don't, it won't. So it came to pass, as they were still going on, and they were talking, that behold, a chariot of fire and horses of fire parted them both asunder, and Elijah went up by a storm into heaven.

Whirlwind is a poor translation of the Hebrew word there, which just really means a storm. Don't picture a whirlwind. It was just a storm that came, and he went on up into heaven in this storm. Three people—Enoch, who walked with God and was not, for God took him—translated without seeing death, Elijah, taken up into heaven in the sight of Elisha, and, of course, Jesus Christ, taken up into heaven in the sight of his disciples.

When Elisha saw it, he cried, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof. And he saw him, Elijah, no more, and he took hold of his own clothes and tore them in two pieces. And he took up also the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and he went back and stood by the bank of the Jordan.

So he watched Elijah until he went out of sight, as the Lord took him up into heaven. Then, taking the mantle that fell as Elijah ascended, he came back to the Jordan River, and he took the mantle of Elijah, and he smote the waters and said, Where is Jehovah, the God of Elijah?

And when he had smitten the waters, they parted hither and thither, and Elisha went over. This was God's affirmation upon his life and upon his ministry that he was the one to take the place of Elijah as the prophet to the nation of Israel.

This was the beginning, now, of his ministry. God is confirming. These young prophets were sitting over there still watching. They saw Elisha come back. They saw him smite the waters. They saw the waters part, even as they saw it happen for Elijah, and they realized, Hey, the anointing is resting upon this man to be the prophet to Israel.

Where Is the God of Elijah?

The question, Where is the God of Elijah? Where is the God who demonstrates himself in power before the people? The God who stopped the heavens that it did not rain. The God who sent the fire from heaven.

The God who fed the prophet. The God who raised the dead. Where is the God of Elijah? Today, as we look at the conditions of the church, conditions of the world, we're prone to ask the same question. Where is the God of Elijah?

Where is the power? Where are the dynamics of the spirit? There's a lot of hyped up kind of emotionalism today that I really have no desire to be involved in at all. I cannot, in the wildest of my imaginations, picture Jesus doing some of the things that I see done by some of these healing evangelists, whipping people into frenzies.

There's a lot of phoniness today. A lot of these guys are nothing but charlatans preying upon people's problems. It's a sad and unfortunate thing when a person is terminally ill. The desire to live is so strong that they'll become a prey to almost any charlatan who promises them hope.

And they become victims and preys of these people who go about preying upon the illness and the tragedies of their lives. God will deal with those charlatans in a very powerful way, but usually there's just a lot of emotions, circus tent kind of an environment where everybody is just brought to a peak of emotions, and then the supposed healings take place in the midst of this emotional frenzy.

Now, some people are healed, and that I don't deny. Their faith somehow takes hold in that kind of an environment, and God touches and heals them. And I praise God for that. I thank God for His mercy and for His grace and for His love.

But there are far many people go away not healed than those that are healed. And if you take an average of those that are going there to be healed and those that actually come away truly healed, you'll find that we have a better average on Saturday night prayer meetings when the elders just gather in the back room and lay hands on the people according to the scriptures and pray for the sick.

There are more people being healed back there than in these big Ballyhooed kind of meetings. I long to see the power of God. I long to see God demonstrate His power. And my heart cries with Elijah, oh, where is the God of Elijah?

Spiritual Weakness, Materialism, and Divine Healing

I do not believe that God is faulted or can be faulted in the weakness of the church. I don't believe that God has changed. I don't believe that God doesn't heal anymore, that God isn't concerned with our physical needs any longer.

I believe that healing is for us and healing is for today and that God is able. I believe that there has to be somewhere in us a lack, and I think that that probably stems from the whole culture in which we live, which is a materialistic culture, and it is extremely difficult in this culture and society to really be as spiritual as God would have us to be.

I think that all of us are more deeply involved in the material things of this world than God would have us to be, and I think that that is the cause for the weakness of the church as far as the demonstration of spiritual power.

God is the same. His hand is not short that He cannot save, neither is His ear heavy that He cannot hear, but we've allowed the material things to come between God and our commitment to Him. So when some of the prophets which were to view at Jericho saw Him, they said, The Spirit of Elijah rests upon Elisha.

The Spirit of Elijah Rests Upon Elisha

And they came to meet Him and bowed themselves to the ground before Him. They saw the water's part. They saw the power of God was upon this man Elisha, and they came and did obeisance. And they said unto Him, Behold now, there be with thy servant fifty strong men.

Let them go, we pray thee, and seek your master, lest peradventure the Spirit of the Lord has taken him up and has cast him on some mountain or into some valley. And He said, Don't go. You're not to sin.

Now, it is interesting. You remember when Elijah came to Obadiah, the chief servant of Ahab, and he said, Go tell your master that I will meet him today. And Obadiah says, Hey, why would you ask me to do that?

Don't you know what an honorable man I am? Haven't you heard that when they ordered all the prophets killed, I hid some of the prophets in a cave and fed them and cared for them? You know, why would you ask me to go tell the king to meet you?

Because as soon as I'm gone from you, the Spirit of the Lord will catch you away someplace. And when the king gets back here, you're not here, and then he's going to kill me. So why would you do that to an honest, God-fearing man like I am?

And Elijah says, I'll be here. I guarantee I'll be here. Go tell the king I want to meet him. Obadiah felt that the Lord would perhaps catch Elijah away. Now, in the New Testament, we remember the story of Philip, who was preaching in Samaria.

Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch

Tremendous revival, and the Spirit said, Go down to Gaza, that desert area. And he went down there, and he saw this chariot heading for Ethiopia. And so the Lord said, Join yourself to the chariot, which he did.

As he came near, he saw the man sitting in the chariot reading the scriptures. And he said, Hey, fellow, do you understand what you're reading? And he said, How can I unless someone shows me, teaches me?

Come on up. So Philip got up in the chariot with him. The fellow happened to be reading in Isaiah, prophecy concerning Christ. He said, Who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else? And Philip began at that verse and began to preach unto him Jesus.

And as Philip witnessed to this Ethiopian eunuch, finally, the fellow said, Hey, here's some water. Why can't I be baptized? And Philip said, If you believe that Jesus is the Lord, you can. He says, I believe.

And so they got off the chariot, and Philip baptized him. And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of God caught Philip away, and he ended up in Azotus. He landed in Azotus. So these prophets thought that the Lord has probably caught him up, but maybe he's dumped him someplace on a mountaintop or in a valley or something.

Maybe he's fallen. They probably could see him from a distance going up, but figured that he may have fallen again to the earth. And so they said, you know, let 50 of us go out and search for him. And Elijah says, No, no need, fellas.

You know, you won't find him. But they kept insisting. They urged him till he was ashamed. He thought, well, you know, he was embarrassed. He said, Well, OK, send. So they sent 50 men, and for three days they searched, but they could not find him.

And when they came again to Elisha, for he stayed there at Jericho, he said unto them, Did I not tell you to don't go, you know? And so the men of the city said to Elisha, Behold, I pray thee, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my Lord sees.

Elisha Heals the Waters of Jericho

But the water is terrible, and thus the ground is barren. Down in the Jordan Valley, of course, it is around 1 ,200 feet below sea level there at Jericho. And there are many springs of water that come out of the ground, but most of them are brackish.

And you can't really drink them, nor can you irrigate with them, because of the high salt content. And so there was this one spring there at Jericho, and the water was brackish. So they came to Elisha, and they said, Man, you know, great place to live.

Everything will grow here, but this water is rotten. It's brackish. And so he said, Bring me a new cruise, and put salt in it. And so they brought it to him. And he went forth unto the spring of waters, and he cast the salt there.

Now salt is a symbol of purifying. There was a covenant of salt. Jesus said to his disciples, You are the salt of the earth, talking about the purifying effect, because salt in an area where there was no refrigeration was used to preserve the meat.

You cut your meat, and the bacteria immediately sets in on the warm meat. And so they would take and salt it down real good, and that kills the surface bacteria, keeps the meat from spoiling. And so he said, Bring me this cruise of salt.

And he went forth unto the spring of waters. He cast the salt in there and said, Thus saith Jehovah, I have healed these waters. There shall not be from thence any more death or barren land. So the waters were healed unto this day, according to the saying of Elisha that he spoke.

Today, right across the street from the Tell of Jericho, you can go to Elisha's spring, still a very healthy spring. Good flow of water comes out. And I've drunk the water, and it is good, even to this day.

That spring was healed. The water is not brackish. It's very palatable. And of course, the area below where the water flows is just verdant garden area. Beautiful. And so during the time of Elisha, that spring was healed, and it remains so to the present day.

Elisha and the Mocking Young Men at Bethel

So he went up from there to Bethel. And as he was going up by the way, there came forth, and the word little children is a bad translation. Better translated, young lads. You think little children, you see a bunch of little five, six year old kindergartners.

Not so. You're talking more about teenage boys. And you go over to those cities today, and there's still a lot of bratty little teenage boys around. Not all of them like tourists, and they will yell at you.

So there came forth these young boys out of the city, and they mocked him, taunting him. And they said to him, go on up. For he was heading up the hill towards Bethel. Go on up, you old bald head. Go on up.

And so he turned back, and he looked on them, and he cursed them in the name of Jehovah. And there came forth two she bears out of the woods, and tore up 42 of these young fellows. And he went up from there to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria.

So again, you're dealing with the Old Testament period of time, and they were mocking this fellow, bringing to attention his bald head, and he took care of them. So let me just warn you, be careful what you say.

We'll return with more of our verse-by-verse study through the Bible in our next lesson, as we follow the rebellion of Moab. And we do hope you'll make plans to join us. But right now, I'd like to remind you that if you missed any part of today's message, or perhaps you'd like to order a copy for that special friend or loved one, you can do so by simply contacting one of our customer service representatives, and they'd be more than happy to assist you with the ordering details.

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That's right here on the next edition of The Word for Today. And now, once again, here's Pastor Chuck Smith with today's closing prayer.

Prayer for the Spirit's Power and Receptive Hearts

Father, how we thank You for this age of grace in which we live. Your love that is shed abroad upon our hearts through Jesus Christ. We thank You, Lord, for these men who walked in power, whose lives were a demonstration of the power of Your Spirit.

And Lord, even as You revealed Yourself to that apostate generation, reveal Yourself, Lord, to this apostate generation. Come, Lord, in the power of Your Spirit. Walk in the midst of Your people. Work, O God, in meeting the needs.

And let our hearts, O Lord, be open and let our hearts be sensitive to receive that work of Your Spirit. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

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