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The
Coat from the Clouds |
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A Pocket Paper Robert J.
Morgan We’ve begun a series of sermons entitled
“Miracle Man” on the life and times of the prophet Elisha, one of
the heroes of the Old Testament.
In the history of ancient As they 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 *** This week I was supposed to have a quick in-and-out trip
to It seems to me—and this is the point of my message today—that this Old Testament chapter of 2 Kings 2 gives us a miniaturized depiction of New Testament living. It is Pentecostal living in advance. I don’t want to arbitrarily turn 2 Kings 2 into an analogy or allegory; but I do think there are clear biblical patterns here that border on being “types” of New Testament truth. We know that Elijah was a type or pre-figuration of John the Baptist, but there are also some remarkable parallels between Elijah and Christ Himself. For this message today, think of Elijah as a type, or at least as a symbol, of Christ; and think of Elisha as a type or symbol of you and me and the church overall. With that in mind, let’s go through this chapter and let me show you the four scenes that make up the story. There are four movements or stories in this chapter, and each one of them speaks of a different adventure in our own lives. Ascension: We Have a Whirlwind of Hope First, there’s an adumbration of the ascension here, showing us that we have a whirlwind of hope. It’s interesting that we’re studying this passage at the very time the new Superman movie has been released. I haven’t seen the movie, but there have been many social commentaries written on how the world needs a figure like superman, who is sort of a messiah from another world who comes to help and save the human race. He embodies this innate dream we have to be able to levitate into the air, defy gravity, and fly. Well, the last and final miracle in the early life and ministry of Jesus Christ was that very thing. He levitated into the air, defied gravity, and ascended into the skies where He disappeared into the clouds. In the old Star Trek programs, Captain Kirk was always saying, “Beam me up, Scotty”—and that is sort of what happened with Elijah. Let’s begin reading this chapter with verse 1: When the
Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha
were on their way to Gilgal.
Elijah said to Elisha, “Stay here; the Lord has sent me to “Yes,
I know,” Elisha replied, “but do not speak of it.” Then Elijah
said to him, “Stay here, Elisha; the Lord has sent me to “Yes,
I know,” he replied, “but do not speak of it.” Then Elijah
said to him, “Stay here; the Lord has sent me to the “Let
me inherit a double portion of your spirit,” Elisha replied. “You have asked a difficult
thing,” Elijah said, “yet if you see me when I am taken from you,
it will be yours—otherwise not.” As they 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 In the Bible, three people were caught up to heaven at the
end of their earthly lives. The
first was Enoch, whose story is told in Genesis 5 and Hebrews 11. The Bible says that he walked with
God, and he was not for God took him.
Second, there was Elijah.
The same thing happened to him, and it’s described here in vivid
detail. As he was walking along,
suddenly a chariot of fire drawn by angelic horses swept down out of the sky,
snatched him up, and translated him to heaven. This story was in inspiration for that
old Black spiritual that said, “Swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to
carry me home.” The third
person was the Lord Jesus Himself.
Forty days after His resurrection, He hiked with His disciples to the Then, while the disciples were watching in wide-eyed wonderment, Jesus raised His hands in blessing and He floated into the air, rose into the sky like a helium balloon, and disappeared into the clouds. He made His exit from this world as supernaturally as He had made His entrance. All three of these occurrences are predictors of the coming rapture that is described for us in 1 Thessalonians 4, when the dead in Christ will rise first, then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up onto heaven to meet the Lord in the air. Some glad morning when this life is o’er we’ll fly away. Elijah left this world in a whirlwind, in the chariots of the angels, and for our purposes today I’d like for you to think of it as a prefiguration of the ascension of Christ Himself. Pentecost: We Have a Cloak of Power But then what happened? Having ascended into the sky and returned to heaven, Jesus sent down the Holy Spirit upon His church on the day of Pentecost. And that is emblemized by Elijah’s cloak—the coat from the sky. Look at verse 13: (Elisha)
picked up the cloak that had fallen from Elijah and went back and stood on
the bank of the There can be no doubt that this cloak represents the Holy
Spirit, the double portion of power that Elisha requested. Look at the next verse, 2 Kings
2:15: The company of the prophets from Elijah ascended into heaven, and the cloak of his power fell to earth to clothe his follower with the power to continue the work. What a vivid and unmistakable picture of the ascension of Christ, followed by Pentecost. Jesus ascended into the skies and the cloak of His power—the Holy Spirit—fell to earth to clothe His followers to continue the work. The interesting thing about the Holy Spirit’s work is that sometimes it is spectacular and sometimes it is hidden; and I find that so very encouraging. There are times when there are great results and there are times when the results are “out of season,” but the Holy Spirit is nonetheless working and our work is not in vain. A few weeks ago, at the invitation of Curt and Mary
Holland, I traveled to Two things happened to me on that trip that I’d like to share with you. The first was the Sunday night worship service, where I was invited to preach. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the large, central building was packed to capacity with crowds standing along the back and along the walls. The service began and I’ve seldom heard such singing. They sang and praised the Lord for an hour and a half, with a full praise team and a full praise band and with clapping and cheering and joy and exuberance. I didn’t recognize most of the songs, so I knew there weren’t just American songs translated into Portuguese. They were indigenous songs of praise from the Latin culture written by Brazilian Christians. After the singing, they had a baptismal service where Pastor Osmir baptized fifteen new adult believers, each one standing in the baptistery and giving his or her testimony. Pastor Osmir had asked me to preach an evangelistic sermon, so I spoke from John 3, the story of Nicodemus, and the words: “You must be born again.” At the invitation, six people indicated they wanted to become Christians including an older man who had been so resistant to the Gospel that people in the church had said he would never be saved. The power of the Holy Spirit was palpable and evident that you could feel it, and I almost felt like it was Pentecost right there in that room. But something else happened to me that night that was just
as meaningful. A young man had
come from a neighboring city to translate my sermon and to serve as my
interpreter. He was very fluent
in both Portuguese and English.
When he arrived at the church, he shook my hand and said,
“I’ve been looking forward to this because I want to tell you
something.” Then he asked me if I recalled speaking on a college campus
in the The young man said, “I was in that audience, and you spoke on the story of David and Jonathan. Do you remember that?” I did not. He went on to say, “I can’t tell you how the Holy Spirit used that message in my life. I was transfixed by it and transformed by it, and I listened to the tape recording of it over and over and over. In fact, I still have it. And after all these years, I want to tell you what an impact that had on me and to express my appreciation.” Now, I’m not telling you that in any kind of boastful way; just to say that the Holy Spirit is working when we think He is working, and He is working when we don’t see any signs of it. Sometimes His presence is so real we can almost feel it, and other times we think things are as dead as a doornail, or that we ourselves are pursuing our work in vain. But the Bible says, “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit.” If we work for Christ in the power of our own energy and personality, all is in vain. But when we wear the cloak from heaven, there is life-transforming power even when we can’t see it or sense it; and our prayer should be that God will give us a double portion of His Holy Spirit. Proclamation: We Have a Bowl of Salt But let’s continue with this chapter. There’s another scene. We not only have ascension and Pentecost, we have proclamation. In this chapter there’s whirlwind of hope and a cloak of power, but there’s also a bowl of salt. Look at what happens next, as recorded in 2 Kings 2:19-22: The men of
the city said to Elisha, “Look, our lord, this town is well situated,
as you can see, but the water is bad and the land is unproductive.” “Bring
me a new bowl,” he said, “and put salt in it.” So they brought it to him. Then he went out to the spring and
threw the salt into it, saying, “This is what the Lord says: ‘I have healed this water. Never again will it cause death or
make the land unproductive. And
the water has remained wholesome to this day, according to the word Elisha
had spoken. What a perfect picture of the We help the world both spiritually and socially. There are hundreds of millions of illustrations of this throughout history, but I’ll give you just one of them. One of the blights of western history was the exploitation of children in the workforce of the 19th century. There were no child labor laws, and boys and girls down to age seven were put to work in the cold, wet, and dangerous coal mines. Some of them had to crawl on their hands and knees through narrow, blackened tomb-like tunnels, crawling in tattered clothing, cold, soaked to the skin because of water dripping on them from the mine shafts. Other children worked in the factories and endured similar abuses. But one man rose up against the exportation of children, a
Christian leader by the name of Anthony Ashley Cooper, better known as Lord
Shaftsbury, who was a member of The greatest society-changers and humanitarians the world has ever known have been born-again, Spirit-filled Christians who are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. The church not only delivers a message of hope and eternal life through Jesus Christ, but in His Name we perform good works and change the very texture of society. We’re a bowl of salt thrown into the morally polluted fountains of this world, and our presence has a healing effect upon the souls of men and women. Persecution: We Have a Band of Critics But does this world appreciate the Christian influence? Christians in this world have advanced education, combated illiteracy, elevated the status of women, protected the status of children, fought for the sanctity of life, and enriched the culture more than any other single influence—but what do we get in return? Persecution. We have a band of critics. That’s the fourth and final scene in this chapter. Look at the last paragraph of 2 Kings 2—verses 23-25: From there
Elisha went up to This is a disturbing story, so let me make some
observations about it. First,
some of the older translations say that these were children, but the Hebrew
word can mean they were young men, and that seems to be the case. Second, they weren’t just making
fun of Elisha because he was bald.
I believe they were hardcore Baal worshippers who were jeering him out
of hatred and anger. Third, it
doesn’t say that the bears killed these young people, only that he
mauled them. I don’t know
whether they were killed or whether the bears just gave them a good scare and
a few claw This persecution is happening all over the world. Just last week, the news came that a
prominent house church leader in the People’s Republic of And here in the So here in this chapter you have the four life-stages of church ministry—ascension, Pentecost, proclamation, and persecution. We have a whirlwind of hope, a cloak of power, a bowl of salt, and a band of critics. We’re walking in the footsteps of Elisha, and what we need in times like these is a double-portion of the Holy Spirit. Holy Ghost, come down upon Thy children, (Frederick
W. Faber) Copyright StatementWe grant permission for any edition of The Pocket Paper to be photocopied for use in a local congregation or classroom, provided no more than 1,000 copies are made, the material is distributed free, and the copies include the notice: "Copyright (year) The Donelson Fellowship."For any other use, advance permission must be obtained from The Donelson Fellowship church office. |
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