Good morning, we are just flying through this month. Today will begin another book, 2 Kings, reading the first four chapters.
Elijah and Elisha have always been two of my favorite prophets. We will discuss them both.
First, we should contemplate the question the king asks in 2 Kings 1:7, “What kind of man was it who came to meet you?”.
Based on the physical description and message he was told, he knew it was Elijah.
Integrity
A mark of integrity is that people should know who you are in any circumstance.
This was not always something I could claim. People I worked with knew a serious, somber guy. My family knew a goof ball with a strange sense of humor. Some people knew me as an athlete, others as a musician.
I was always a chameleon of sorts. In highschool I drove a hotrod car, so some thought of me as a motor head. My after-school job aided this reputation. I worked at a gas station doing oil changes and tuneups.
Others knew I was a musician and that many of my friends were “stoners”. I didn’t enjoy marijuana, but it didn’t bother me to be around them.
Few knew I was on the honor roll and would get straight As. The few that did weren’t familiar with many of my friends.
I played sports, but had few friends on the football team. On game days, I wore my jersey, and it always shocked people I owned one.
In “The Breakfast Club”(1), there is a narration at the end. They realize that although people see them each as a specific thing, the truth is they all were all of those characteristics.
Being Christlike
Later in life, when I ran into someone from work with my family, I wasn’t sure which way to act. Thom at church differed from who he was at the office. Both differed from the dad my son knew.
We run into this complexity of the human condition when we try to understand the Trinity. How could God the Father be Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit? I have no problem with this having been many, yet one, myself.
Since becoming a Christian, I have tried to be the same person in all situations. It has freed me from confusing how to act in those awkward times.
My goal is that people never see me, or how I act, but only see Jesus and how He acts. He loves, He forgives. If you are sinning, He will call you out on it and even take whips and drive you from the temple if need be.
Foreshadowing
This identity confusion is not uncommon. Remember, in Mark 8:27-29, Jesus asks his disciple, “Who do people say I am?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.”
Why would they say He was Elijah or one of the prophets? We will see the answer in today’s verses.
After we ponder that question about the prophet, we see this scene where the king sends three captains and their fifty men to a cave. Elijah is in the cave. God protects him by sending a fire to consume the first two groups.
When you follow the world instead of God, there are consequences.
Replicating miracles
The third captain knew his fate and asks for mercy. He confesses the there is only one God in Israel. God gives him grace.
People ask Elisha if he knows the Lord will take Elijah that day (v2:3 and 2:5).
As Christians, we are about to celebrate Easter. We know Jesus will die. He went to the cross to pay the debt we owe.
Elisha did not want to fixate on the knowledge he was about to lose his master. We should acknowledge the crucifixion so that we understand the price He paid.
Easter is not about Jesus’ death, it is about His resurrection.
He defeated death for us. He will resurrect us with him (see Rom 6:5-6).
The other thing to know is how Elijah replicates a miracle of Moses and Joshua, proving he has the strength of God with him. He stops the Jordan river so the two men can cross on dry ground. (v2:14)
Elisha takes his cloak and does the same thing.
Jesus performed the miracles of God by trusting in the Lord for the power. He quoted scripture and glorified the Father.
We are to take that same scripture and do likewise.
As Elisha used the cloak of Elijah, we are to use the Word of God. By doing so, we can do miracles, too.
An example is that Elisha purifies the water by the power of God. Jesus turns water to wine with that same power.
These verses all foreshadow the work Jesus will do.
Elisha feeding a hundred men with 20 loaves of barley bread was foretelling when Jesus would feed five thousand men and their families with five loaves and have some left over (told in all four gospels, including Luke 9:10-17).
The story recorded in 2 Kings 3:27-28, where the king offered his son as a sacrifice, is a foreshadowing of God giving His only son for our salvation.
We read of Elisha raising the Shunammite woman’s son from the dead. It started with a son being given, much as Sarah and Abram had Isaac at an old age.
As we move toward Easter, let us all remember these are not tall tales or legends. This is the history of these people. Historians outside of the Bible had corroborated much and archeologist continue to find other proof.
We can know these things happened and trust that the Bible is true. Have you placed your faith in this hope?
Tomorrow we read 2 Kings 5-7
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Hughes, John. 1985. The Breakfast Club. United States: Universal Pictures.
