Intro - The Call of Elisha

[00:00:01] Hello, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Solta Alan Stevenson, and you're listening to the Anywhere But Backwards podcast. This is the first episode. I'm very, very happy to bring this message to you today. And this message is a message that I've been aware of for quite a long time, and I always use it and go back to it as a source of encouragement. And it's taken from First Kings, chapter 19, verse 19. I'm going to be written from the NIV and before I do, I'm going to pray. Father Lord, I thank you for bringing me here. Father God, I thank you for the gift to be able to share your word. Lord God, I don't take this for granted. I understand that in some countries that what I'm doing might not even be allowed to happen, Father God. So I don't take it for granted and I give you thanks always. Father Lord, I pray that you will bless the message that I'm going to bring, Father Lord God, I pray that when people listen and read to this text in their own respective homes, I pray that there'll be something in here that they can take from the text that will enrich them. Father Lord, I pray that there is something in here. There's a message in here, Lord, that you have for your people that will bring them closer to you. Father God, I pray for anyone who's listening that doesn't know you, Father God, I pray that out of this there will be a seed planted that they may know you, Father God, as their Lord and as their Savior. [00:01:27] Father, I pray that you also remove all ego, Father God, I pray that you remove all self, Lord God, and that you will shine and I will be muted, Father God. My ambitions and my own personal ambitions will be muted, but yet that the will of God will be put first. I pray all these things in the name of Jesus and I say Amen. [00:01:52] So as I said, I'm going to be written from the NIV. And this is First Kings 19, chapter 19. And this is entitled the Call of Elisha. 19. So Elijah went from there and found Elisha son of Shaphat. He was plowing with 12 yoke of oxen and he himself was driving the 12th pair. Elijah went up to him and threw his cloak around him. Verse 20. Elisha then left his oxen and ran after Elijah. Let me kiss my father and mother goodbye, he said, and then I will come with you. Go back. Elijah replied, what have I done to you? So Elijah left him and went back. He took his yoke of oxen and Slaughtered them. He burned the plow and equipment to cook the meat and gave it to the people and they ate. [00:02:48] Then he set out to follow Elijah and became his servant. And that is the word of the Lord. [00:02:56] So this text, it concerns two people. And I'm presuming one of these people listeners maybe familiar with or may have at least heard his name. And this man is Elijah. Elijah is a great prophet and a great man of God. And Elijah, even in his greatness, it's amazing how God works. And we see this pattern time and time and time again in both the Old Testament and the New Testament of God doesn't see people for who they are. God doesn't see people with their various flaws. He sees beyond that. He is the God of all time. And Elijah is great. Yes. And he was able to do many miracles in his life. He was able to do eight recorded miracles in his entire life. [00:03:44] And he was able to speak life into many, many people. But yet for all, Elijah had many, many internal struggles and internal battles going on inside of him. It gets to such a point in Elijah's life that he actually considers taken his own life. And we see much of this same sentiment and this internal struggle with people like Job. [00:04:10] And we also think of Peter, sorry, Paul in the Bible. And we think of this man was a Christian killer, that Paul, before he was called into ministry, was a Christian killer. He had so much hate and anger within his heart, but yet for all, God used him because God didn't see where he was when he called him. God was able to see past that and to anoint him and give him a promise that would lead him into the rest of his life and would actually lead him to being one of the greatest men in the Bible, full of faith was Peter. And such is that with Elijah. And I think the text that really, or the portion of the text that really explains this internal struggle happening within Elijah is when we look at First Kings, chapter 19, verse 4, and the text says, while he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, he came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. I've had enough, Lord, he said, take my life. I'm no better than my ancestors. So it shows you the mental state of Elijah, even just a few verses before the text that we're going to study today. This was a man that was ready to commit suicide out of the fear that he had. He was ready to commit suicide. But yet, for all, he is one of the most notable, most powerful prophets that we have why? Because God doesn't see. [00:05:50] God doesn't see where you are. God sees all of your life. And God has a divine plan. And Elijah, just like Paul and all of the other disciples and all the other great men of God, even though they are flawed, that doesn't put God off using them. [00:06:07] Now we come to verse 19, chapter 19 of 1 Kings, our study text for today. And as I said, we've been introduced to Elijah now, just prior to this meeting. So this is a divine meeting between Elijah and a man called Elisha, who I'm going to speak about in more depth in a moment. But before I do, before I do, I'm going to give some context to Elijah. Now, Elijah has been. He's been given a mission from God and. And his mission is to go to King Ahab and pronounce that to King Ahab, basically, that the gods that he's serving are not real and to turn to the God of Israel. At the time King Ahab is worshiping a false God. He's worshiping an idol called baal. [00:07:03] And what happens through the text is it gets to a point where Elijah is actually in a cave. He's hiding out in this cave before God calls him to go to Elisha. And God actually has to say to him, what are you doing here? There's a verse prior to this to verse 19, where God says, what are you doing here? If I go to verse 13 of First Kings, chapter 19, verse 13, it reads, When Elijah heard it, he pulled the cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, what are you doing here, Elijah? And it's amazing. That's the same kind of question that we see right at the beginning of the Bible when God says, adam, where art thou? [00:07:54] God always knows where you are. But he's asking Elijah. And the same way Adam would question, it's not a question for him because God is omnipresent and God knows all things. He's asking the question to Elijah that he might think and reflect on where he is. [00:08:13] So then God. So then verse 14 goes on to say, he replied, I've been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I'm the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too. So this is a man who is in turmoil. Yet again, Elijah is in turmoil. He is in a state where all of the other people of God have been Killed. And he is in fear of his life. He is on the run. [00:08:47] And then the Lord. Now watch this. The Lord says in verse 15, go back the way you came and go back to the desert of Damascus. When you get there, anoint Hazael, king of Aram. [00:08:59] Also anoint Jehu, son of Nimshi, king over Israel, and anoint Elijah, Elisha, son of Shaphat. [00:09:10] Now, so out of this situation, in the midst of Elijah's fear and in the midst of Elijah's turmoil, God repurposes him. He gives him a new destiny. And he says, there's three people that I want you to anoint. And one of these people is Elisha, young Elisha, who we're going to learn about today. [00:09:33] And so Elijah goes down to anoint Elisha, and I'm going to read the text again. So verse 19, now that you know the context, I'm going to read it again. And it says, verse 19. So Elijah went from there and found Elisha son of Shaphat. He was plowing with the 12th yoke of oxen, and he himself was driving the 12th pair. Elijah went up to him and threw his cloak around him. Elijah then left his oxen and ran after Elijah. Let me kiss my father and mother goodbye, he said, and then I will come with you. Go back. Elijah replied, what have I done to you? Verse 21. So Elijah left him and went back. He took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them. He burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat and gave it to the people and they ate. Then he set out to follow Elijah and became his servant. [00:10:30] So what's happened after, As I said, after Elijah has come to the cave, he then goes to find Elisha. And now this is a real meeting. In the Bible, there are some meetings that are almost destined. [00:10:48] They are like spiritual meeting points that have spiritual ramifications that will set the course of history. And this was one of those meetings. It's like the meeting that we see in the Gospels when Jesus is walking by the river and he calls his disciples one by one. This is the kind of meeting that we saw with Paul and Timothy. There are many of these meetings in the Bible. And I believe that even now, us as believers, there are meetings sometimes when we might not even be aware of the hand we're shaking, the person we're saying hello to. But there are these meetings that God has put in place to bring about his divine will. And this is one of those meetings. So Elijah, he's traveled and he's seen Elisha now, what Elisha is, Elisha represents the solution, and Elisha represents great promise and potential. And Elijah represents the reality. Elijah needed Elisha just as much as Elisha needed Elijah. And notice their names are very, very similar, Elijah and Elisha. [00:11:59] Elijah was growing old, and the work he was doing, it needed to be continued. The destiny of Elijah, it wasn't going to end when Elijah died. It needed to be carried on. And Elisha is a man who we're going to learn has something inside of him that needs to be awoke, that needs to be anointed. There's an anointing, I believe Elisha was waiting on, and this is the meeting that will bring about the anointing. [00:12:34] So the text says, it says he was plowing the 12th yoke of oxen and he himself was driving the 12th pair. So what's happening here is Elisha is driving this plow. So, again, I'm a musician and my experience of agriculture is very, very limited. But what I do understand from this text is Elisha, Elisha's life looks like this. So Elisha will get up and he will go to the field, and day in and day out, without rest, he will plow and he'll put the yoke around the oxen, and he will plough and plough and plow. And that is his job, day in and day out, to do the same thing, the same monotonous job. And the text says, yet he himself was driving the 12th pair. So that indicates to me that there were 11 other people driving with him. There was 11 other people that were doing the same monotonous job every single day. [00:13:39] Now, there's something different about Elisha. There's something that sets him apart from the 11 other people. And I believe that is potential. [00:13:50] There is potential within Elisha, and Elisha knows it. There is a calling, there is a destiny that is so great that I believe even Elisha himself knew, which would justify his later actions to completely leave his situation and follow after Elijah. But before we get there, I just want to say I think that this speaks to us in our. In our daily life. I think that there are people listening, or maybe even people that the listeners may know of that do the same thing. You do the same thing every day, whether that might be at your work, whether that might be at your school, whether that might be in the same relationship that you're in, and you feel like you're doing the same thing day in and day out, and there's other people around you. In the text, there's 11 other people around you, maybe in your life, maybe it's your friends, maybe it's your family, maybe it's your colleagues, but there's other people around you, and they're happy. They're content with doing the same thing. Every single day, they do the same thing. But you, within yourself, you believe that this isn't quite what your life is to amount to. You, within yourself, you don't believe that this is what your destiny is. You can't put your finger on it, you can't maybe eloquently and coherently express it, but you believe within yourself that there is more and that you could aspire to be more than doing the same thing, doing the same thing over and over and over again, waking up day in, day out through the same thing, and notice that Elisha, the man of great promise, the man that would go on to do 16 miracles, the man that would go on, if you read later on the text, he asks God for a double portion of what his master Elijah originally had. And now this man is this man who has great promise. [00:15:49] He is not willing to let this be his reality or following this ox. Now, an ox is a strong thing. Don't get me wrong. An ox is a very, very strong being, and it's a very powerful creature. It's a very powerful animal. But yet, for all an ox is an animal, it has no real kind of rational thoughts. It doesn't really know what its name is, if I don't know if oxen had names or anything. But an ox is, for lack of a better word, an ox is a dumb thing. It doesn't really know what it does. It acts irrationally. It's an animal. But Elisha is. Yet he's following this thing every day. He's following something that acts a ration, that eats when he wants to eat, that doesn't have any real hygiene to it. It's a wild thing. So Elisha is following this wild thing. But what Elisha doesn't realize, similar to David, who was originally a shepherd boy, is that the situation that he's in now is his training ground. The situation that he's in now is his training ground. That he might learn humility and that he might learn hardship, that he might learn how to be able to do the little things, that when his promise eventually comes into fruition and manifests, that he might be able to really appreciate the depth of his promise and the depth of his destiny. And again, it speaks to a variety of people. Now, where you might think you're doing the Same thing. And yes, you're not supposed to do that thing every single day of your life, but this is your training ground. That even though that this is the season now, this won't be your reality forever. [00:17:40] So Elijah comes and he finds Elisha doing the same thing over and over and over and over again. The same task, the same thing, the same reality. He's probably eating the same food at lunch, the same everything. And now watch this. So Elijah went up to him, as the text says, and threw his cloak around him. [00:18:03] So, but notice this. Elijah didn't say anything to him. Elijah didn't go up to him and say, hey, you know, God told me to anoint you, and I'm going to anoint you now. And you're going to be a man of great destiny and you're going to do so many miracles and God's going to use you in such an amazing way, and he's going to do this and this and this and this and this and this. No, that's not what happens. What happens is that Elijah went up to Elisha and he ushered him into his destiny. And he just gave him a sliver. He just gave him a morsel of what he was supposed to be called into. [00:18:44] He just gave him a touch. He just gave him a small, small portion of what God had in store for him. And he didn't even have to utter a word to his future understudy. He didn't actually have to say to him. [00:19:00] He didn't have to give him all the details. And that's sometimes again how the Lord is within our life. Sometimes God will just give you the cloak. He won't give you the message just yet. He'll just give you the cloak. He'll just give you a vision. He might give you a dream. He might. He might give you just a morsel, just a sliver of what he's going to bring you into. And he's expecting you to have the faith to be able to walk and claim it. [00:19:25] So he throws his cloak around him and watch the response that that gets out of Elisha. Watch the amount. Watch. Watch how this man is a man of great faith and is able to see past what he's doing and in despite of those 11 people. Because remember, he's doing this amongst 11 other people. And I can imagine those 11 other people looking to Elisha after. What is he going to do? Is he going to stay with us? [00:19:51] Is he going to follow this man? But he can't follow this man. He's surely going to Stay with us and do the same thing that we do, because he's one of us. But Elisha wasn't one of them. Elisha's destiny was bigger than the 11 other people that were surrounding him. And it's the same thing today. You might be surrounded by other people that are content with doing the thing, but that doesn't mean that you have to be content. That doesn't mean that you have to settle for doing the same thing, the same that your destiny is the same as those other people around you, as the people that surround you. No. Sometimes God has such an anointing that I believe that he's calling you out of your surroundings. He's calling you out of the other people who are doing the same thing as you. So Elijah then says, let me kiss my mother and my father goodbye, he said, and then I will come with you. So this is the amount of faith that Elisha, the understudy, he shows. Even at the very start of his journey, he still has faith. He has enough faith that he's willing to kiss his loved ones goodbye and follow, and follow after the taste, the taste was that that he was willing to tell his mom and dad bye, bye. There's something about this man that I have to follow. There's something about that touch, there's something about that taste of my destiny that it is worth me saying goodbye and denying who I once was, to walk into the fullness of my promise and to walk into the fullness of my destiny. This is the reaction of faith, and I believe that this is the reaction that when God ushers you in, into your destiny, when he gives you just a portion, when he just puts that cloak around you, I believe that this is the kind of faith that we as believers ought to show to express that we are willing to say goodbye to what we know. [00:21:55] So then, now, this is a really, really fascinating response from Elijah. So Elijah says, go back. What have I done to you? And I'm going to say that again. Let that marinate in your heart and in your head. So Elijah says, go back, Go back. [00:22:14] What have I done to you? Go back, Go back. [00:22:18] And again, I'm thinking of my life as a musician here. And it's amazing. When I was coming up, when I was training to do what I'm doing now, I had many. I was blessed to have many great teachers, good friends, friends are older than me, peers within the same industry. [00:22:42] And one thing they said is they always expressed the hardships of this life. The fact that you might not know when the next paycheck is coming. You might not know if this will work out. You don't even know how long you're going to actually have your heyday. You don't know how long your heyday will be. You don't have the same sense of security as people who work other maybe 9 to 5 more conventional jobs have. You don't have that same sense of security that's not there for what you do. And one of the things they tried to do is they tried to almost put me off of pursuing what I was trying to pursue. And it got to such a point when there was one day someone that said something so profound, and they said almost of the same profoundness and of the same sentiment that Elijah is saying to Elijah here. And I remember there was a teacher that said to me, if I can put you off, if I can express these hardships, and if you listen to them, and you out of that within yourself, say, wow, this is really, really hard. Maybe I should do something else. Then that shows to me that you never really wanted it. You never really wanted it. You never had any deep, unshaking, unnerving conviction to pursue this life of a musician. Because this is a very, very hard life. And this is very unforgiving. And this isn't for everybody. [00:24:11] And what we're left with me is the belief that if I can tell someone such and such and such and they believe me and they divert from their original intention or their original plan to do what they set out to do, then they never really had a very strong. [00:24:29] A strong willingness or inner urge to do it within themselves. And this is exactly what we're seeing with Elijah when he says, go back. What Elijah is saying, in a sense, is it's not that he's dissuading Elisha. It's not that he's rebuking Elisha. I think what this is, is this is a test. This is the test. Now, Elisha has been put through a series of tests in his life. [00:24:58] And the first test is enduring the same reality every single day with plowing the field. [00:25:06] And then it finally gets to the point where he's given the second test. Now, the second test is in Elijah throwing his jacket, his cloak around him. That's the second test. That's the second test. And he passes test number one. He passes test number two. Now test number three, arguably the hardest test is go back. And this is the first time Elijah actually speaks to him. Notice Elijah hasn't actually spoke to him yet, but the first words that come out of Elijah's mouth are one of almost negativity. You could perceive them as negativity, but it's not negativity. It's a test. It's a test to see, is Elisha really the one? Is he really the one that is supposed to follow me on my ministry and what happened? So he says, go back. And then this is. Notice what Elisha does. This is verse 21. So Elisha left him and went back. He took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them. He burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat and gave it to the people, and they ate. And then he set out to follow Elijah and became his servant. [00:26:22] So out of that, Elisha, the understudy, he passes the test. He understands that there is nothing, there's nothing anyone can say to him that will put him off of escaping the reality that he's in. And I believe that, again, this is something that we see in our everyday lives, is there will be people that will say to you, go back. [00:26:46] There will be people in this life that will say to you, go back. And these are people that are put in place. [00:26:54] Sometimes these people are from God. And I believe that these people are actually testing you. They're not. It's not that this is a rebuke. It's a test. You're in a season of testing. You was in your season of plowing, and now you've been called into a new season of the test. And the test is when people say to you, go back. Go back. Don't do that. This isn't for you. You're not really the one. You're not supposed to be here. You don't have enough qualifications to do what you are setting out to do. You don't have enough money to do what you're trying to do. [00:27:28] You're not the right person for the job. You shouldn't really be here. You don't have the right family history for this. You can never amount to doing this. You can never aspire to do this. This is not for you. Go back. There's many. It's amazing. There's many a way you can say, go back. But Elijah here says it very plainly. He says, go back. What have I done to you? [00:27:48] But again, Elisha has enough faith and enough understanding and enough wisdom to understand that this is the final test, that this is just another test as to how much does Elisha believe in the potential that is laying down in the depths of his soul? [00:28:10] How much? And the question, I believe to you listening, is how much do you believe within yourself that? How much do you believe in your potential? [00:28:20] How much do you believe in God's promises? [00:28:24] How much do you believe that where you are isn't where you're supposed to be? How much do you believe that joy comes in the morning, as the scripture proclaimed? How much do you believe that you are being called into a new season and that this right now is a test as to whether you will fold? When people say, go back, go back to where you came from. Go back, go back. And what does Elijah do? Elisha do? He burns up the equipment. [00:28:58] It's amazing. Just before that, he was ready to. To kiss his father and mother goodbye. But he goes even to a more extreme where he burns up the equipment. And notice what the burning is. The burning represents. It represents burning up your path, but even deeper than that, it represents sealing the door to what once was. A lot of times people leave certain situations, whether that be different friendships or whether that be a job, whether that be a relationship that's not fruitful to you, progressing in the will of God. And a lot of times what people do is they leave the exits open. [00:29:41] They leave, they don't go. They don't fully 100% follow through with creating a one way path to their destiny. And this is what Elisha is doing by burning up the equipment, he is creating a one way path to his destiny. There is no going back. There is no. This is, this is the irony. There is no going back for Elisha. He's burned up the equipment, he's burned up. He's created a situation where he has only one option, to follow through with the destiny and to follow this man. He only has one option. It's not like he can say, you know, I'm gonna try this thing out, but if it doesn't work, at least I still have my plowing equipment. And at least I can still go home and return to what I was once doing. I can return to my old life. No, Elisha burned up the equipment because he believed sincerely that this was his calling. [00:30:40] And then the scripture says, then he set out to follow Elijah and became his servant. [00:30:47] He became his servant. And notice the juxtaposition just in these few verses. Whereas earlier within this portion of the text, he was plowing. And then what happens? He leaves to set out and follow Elijah and became his servant. And I bet as Elisha was following, he was following Elijah. He could probably smell the fumes that were his old life. He could smell his old life being burned up. [00:31:17] He could smell the he Could. He could smell that, those fumes. He could smell the past. He could smell his old life. [00:31:27] And he could. He's probably. And as he went to follow Elijah, he had to walk past all those 11 other people that were doing the same thing. [00:31:36] And he. But he. But he knew that. He always knew that there was something within him called potential that meant that he wasn't going to stay where he was. Such a text, it really reminds me of. [00:31:49] It reminds me so much of the lady with the issue of blood. And this is. I'm sure many of you are very, very accustomed to this story, so I'm going to very quickly read this and turn to Luke 8:43 through to 48. So 43 reads, and a woman. So I'm reading from the King James Version. And the woman have an initial blood, 12 years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any. [00:32:18] Came behind him and touched the border of his garment. And immediately her issue of blood. [00:32:26] Her issue. Her issue of blood stanched. And Jesus said, who touched me? When all denied Peter, and they that were with him said, master, the multitude throng and press thee and sayest thou who touched me? And Jesus said, somebody has touched me, for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me. [00:32:50] And when the woman saw that she had not hid, she came trembling and fallen down before him. She declared unto him, before all the people, for what, for what cause she had touched him, and how she was healed immediately. And he said unto her, now watch this daughter, be of good comfort. Thy faith hath made thee whole. Go in peace. Now we see the same thing of this is a lady who has been dealing with the same problem every single day. She's been dealing with the same sickness, the same problem, and she is tired of dealing with this. And she understands also that what she's dealing with isn't where she's gonna end. What she's dealing with isn't. [00:33:41] This isn't her reality. This is just a season. And there's great promise within her. And she finally sees. She finally sees a get out. The same way Elisha was able to see a get out, he was able to see the fulfillment of the promise that was within him. And both of these people walk in faith. And this shows me that when, even in our daily lives, when we see, when we see the promise, we have to be praying. We have to be in the scripture, and we have to be praying that when God reveals to us the get out, when he reveals to us the plan for our lives, that we are able to seize it, that we're able to seize the moment. Elisha was able to seize the moment. He didn't listen to the 11 other people maybe telling him, no, this isn't for you. You should go back, you should stay where you are the same way. This lady, she didn't allow a crowd full of people to deter her from getting healed, from being made whole. It was her faith, as Jesus says in Luke here, that was the reason for her healing. She was healed by her faith the same way Elisha had enough faith to recognize that this was a man of God and that this is the plan of God for his life and he was able to deny his past. [00:35:07] So, in summary, this text is, as I said, it's many things. [00:35:15] Amongst these things, it's a meeting of two people. One person has the solution and one person has a question. As I said, Elijah has the question of, I'm getting old now. How is my ministry going to keep going after I die? What am I going to. There's still work to be done. How am I going to continue onwards with the same promise that God has given me? And I'm looking for someone to continue the promise. But amongst all that, Elijah is a man who has contemplated suicide. Elijah is a man that, yes, he has great promise and yes, he was able to do eight recorded miracles. But yet for all, there is still an internal battle happening in Elijah's head. But God still sees the promise and sees past all of that and is able to anoint Elijah to do great things. So that's Elijah. Now Elisha, on the other hand, juxtaposes to Elijah. In some ways, Elisha is the understudy. Elisha is a man full of life and full of a great promise. Elisha needed Elijah just as much as Elijah needed Elisha. They both needed each other. They both needed the company of each other. And as I said, this is a divine meeting. This is the kind of meeting that has spiritual ramifications. This was the kind of meeting that would change the course of Israel in the Old Testament. This has all of the previous history of the movement of the people of Israel, from Abraham straight through to Joshua straight through to all the Judges and straight through to here we are with Elijah. This kind of meeting has been set up for a very, very long time. And God has finally put all, he has put all things together to make this meeting happen. [00:37:24] And out of this, Elisha, his destiny is changed. And out of this, Elisha's promise is finally able to be realized. So this is, this message is Also, it's a message to people who believe that they are doing the same thing over and over again. If you're listening to this and you believe that you're doing the same old tasks every day, and you believe that there's something more for you, that this isn't quite where you're supposed to be, that this is okay for now, but this won't be okay forever. And there's people around you who are content and you understand that they're content, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you're content. [00:38:09] This is a message to you that there is greater, there's a greater day ahead and joy comes in the morning and that this is just a season and this is a test. The same way Elisha went through all those different tests. The first test of can you endure the same thing every single day? The second test of when I put my cloak around you, when I usher you in to your new destiny, are you going to be able to recognize it? Because it could have happened that Elisha put on the cloak and he didn't think anything of it, and he just thought, wow, this is a really nice jacket, that this is a really, really lovely jacket. But yeah, I mean, this is a really lovely gentleman. Wow, he's given me his jacket. But no, Elisha was able to realize that this was a calling, that this was a divine calling that he needed. And it was a divine calling that he was probably praying for day in and day out that he was promised. [00:39:05] And the final test of go back. Of go back to where you came from. Go back. This isn't for you. Go back. But he realized that that was just a test that he wasn't to listen to, he wasn't to internalize the negativity, he wasn't, he's not to internalize that to the point where it puts him off of achieving his destiny. And again, that's a message to the people listening of. There's many people that I'm sure are surrounding you saying, go back, go back. You're underqualified. Go back. You're not supposed to be here. Go back. You have no business being here. Go back. [00:39:44] But don't. It's just a test. [00:39:47] And then finally the test of are you able to create a one way route to your destiny? And this was what Elisha was able to do. He was able to create a one route, a one way road, a no going back and no reversing road that led directly to his destiny and that led to him following his master. And after this, Elisha becomes a really, really great man, just like Elijah, his teacher was. And he's able to do 16 miracles, 16 recorded miracles. He was able to do double of what his master did. He was able to do 16 miracles in his life. [00:40:28] If you read on, which I do encourage you to do, Elisha actually asked God for a double portion. He says, now that my teacher Elijah is on his way out, he's dying. Please, God, will you give me a double portion? And then Elisha gets a double portion, is able to continue the work of his great master Elijah. [00:40:53] So let this text be an encouragement to you for all those many, many reasons. And before we close, I'm going to pray. [00:41:02] Father Lord, I thank you for the gift of being able to speak to people that feel like they are in the same situation here as Elisha. They feel like they're doing the same thing day in and day out, Father God. They feel like they are doing the same old tasks and there's no hope for them. And they see people surrounding them who are content with doing the same thing. But, Father God, I pray that they will have the same spirit that Elisha has. Where they don't settle. They are willing to, just as soon as the opportunity presents itself. They have the faith, Father God, I pray that they will have the faith to jump at it, Father God, and escape this season and progress into the next season that you are calling them into, Father Lord, I pray, Father God, that whatever there is, their past, I pray that they will burn it up, Father. I pray that they will not go back, Father God, I pray that they will just follow through and be servants, Father God, for you. I pray that you open their hearts, Father God, I pray that you open their minds, Lord, I pray, Father God, that for peace that goes beyond all understanding. For all of those who listen, Father God, I pray that you'll be with them, strengthen them, Father God, heal them in your mighty name. Lord God, we pray all these things and we say Amen. [00:42:31] So thank you for listening, everybody. [00:42:33] As I said, this is my very first episode. And I hope, God, God willing, and if it's in the will of God, that this will grow, that this will grow, and that it will become something great. And as I said, I pray that when people find this, I pray that they will come to know Jesus and their relationships with Jesus, with the Lord God will be deepened and they will come to fall in love with reading the Bible. [00:42:59] I hope to speak to you soon. Take care. Bye.