Inseparable (Part A)

They were amateurs compared to Elisha. God bypassed the schools of the prophets and went to a man working out in the fields to succeed the great prophet. That is called discipleship and it is supposed to thrive in Christianity. But I'm afraid in many places they put the kibosh on it, they throw a wet blanket on it, and that's the end of the discipleship.

Now you have to get a formal education in certain circles. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the Book of 2 Kings.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the Book of 2 Kings chapter 2 as he begins his message, Inseparable. In 2 Kings chapter 2, the message is entitled, Inseparable, and I hope it's not just a Bible study.

Always hoping that God has something to say to us, ergo, message. Paul, when he was on death row, at least he thought he was, he probably was released from the imprisonment of 2 Timothy and then re-arrested a few years later and then executed. But at the time that he wrote 2 Timothy, he was sure he was going to die. I'm already being poured out as a week offering, he said, and the time of my departure is at hand. And he writes in that section, only Luke is with me.

This almost makes you just tear up a little bit. He's on death row and he was talking about how there were those that just weren't sticking with him. But he and Luke were inseparable. Now in the Book of Acts, we all come across a change in the pronouns. As Luke writes, he says, we went, they went, because Luke is departing from time to time. As Paul treks through Europe and Asia Minor, Luke is likely researching his books. Only Luke is with me.

He couldn't get the two apart. In Christianity, it is your responsibility to know who you are in Christ, your identity. Okay, this is who I am in Christ.

You're supposed to think about things like this, to know where you belong in Christ, where you really can't get to that one until you identify who you are, then where you belong, and then to be inseparable from that station where God puts you or relocates as the case might be. We're going to get some of that in this chapter. With God's help, we'll get through it, because it's very exciting. Verse 1, and it came to pass when Yahweh was about to take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal.

Well, this is a true story. God is going to take the prophet Elijah off the earth miraculously in this whirlwind of fire. The prophet knows this. He's been telling people that God is going to take him home, up to heaven. Now, heaven there is the air, the sky, the atmosphere, the spiritual realm.

He's taking him out of this life. And as I said, this is a true story. And I don't need to have these events repeated before my eyes to believe them.

I have enough information from the Bible that closes the deal of faith. And when I go through life, and all the Bible study that I have is not working out things in my favor the way I want them to work out, I still notice God carries me. He bears me up on eagle's wings.

That means I get to soar. I get to fly high above the things that would drag me down, and I can only do that by faith. I cannot do that without faith. This way I don't become the hypocrite, I become the man that just endures and perseveres by faith. My relationship with Christ is intact, even though I may not, I may dread, I may despise what I'm going through. It says Christ despised the cross, the shame of it. Elisha has been Elijah's servant and apprentice for about 10 years. The way we get some of these numbers, the calculations come from the dates of the kings, how long a king was in office, and we just do little things like that.

We can get ballpark on some things, other things are said right out. But for about 10 years he has been a faithful servant to Elijah, who is of course going to heaven. Not many people get to go out this way, even in fact he tops Enoch. Enoch was walked with God and he was no more, for God took him. He's probably preaching the Old Testament gospel, and then he goes into his tent and nobody saw him again. They go, you saw him walk in that tent, I saw him, where is he now?

He didn't slip underneath, God took him. Well, this one of course has a witness, but it's time for this courageous man to go home and another courageous man continue the work. And the work is to drive Baal-ism out of the northern kingdom.

In fact, with the death of Ahab and soon Jezebel, the worship of the Sidonians will reduce somewhat. But anyway, it says here, Elijah went with Elijah from Gilgal. Now this is not the Gilgal that we are familiar with from the days of Joshua, when he first crossed into the Promised Land and rolled the shame away from the Jews, we're no longer wandering the wilderness, God has brought us into the land as promised and he named the place Gilgal, for the shame has rolled away. Well, this isn't the same one. This Gilgal is deeper into the Promised Land, close to Bethel, it follows this trek and that's why in the next verse he's going to say we went down to Bethel.

Geographically that's accurate. If it were Joshua's Gilgal, then it would have, we went over, it's more to the east. In verse 2, then Elijah said to Elijah, stay here please, for Yahweh has sent me to Bethel, but Elijah said, as Yahweh lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you, so they went down to Bethel. Well, there's the beginning of this inseparable service that the old prophet is benefiting from. I say that old, but we don't know exactly how old Elijah was, but it's easier to say it that way, it sounds better, forming a picture in your head. He certainly isn't in his teens, but anyway, Elijah comes off as a private man and being a private man, he likely wanted to depart in private. He told God's going to come take me today and he's thinking I'm going to go, but three times he'll tell his servant Elijah that you can go now. He's giving him a way out of serving, a way out of ministry, you don't have to be here for this. I think Elijah knew that Elijah loved him and vice versa. There's a mutual love going on here between the two men, a true agape, as with Paul and Luke and Paul and Titus and Timothy, of course.

I'll come back to Titus hopefully in a little bit. So he offers him a choice to stay with him or go, really emphasizing leaving him, you know, you can go. So he does this from Gilgal to Bethel, from Bethel to Jericho, from Jericho across Jordan.

Three times he's going to say, you know, you can go. Now, Bethel, of course, big place in the eyes of the Jews. Abraham pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to Yahweh and called on the name of Yahweh. And Jacob, of course, that's where he gets this vision of the ladder, Jacob's ladder. And he called the name of that place Bethel.

But the name of that city had been Lut's previously. And, of course, when Abraham, it was between Lut's and Ai, but when it's written down and published in scripture, the Jews give it its common name, Bethel, because Jacob is the one that named it Bethel and he came after Abraham. And as I mentioned, he sees the vision, he erects a pillar at Bethel to mark the spot where he had the vision. Even though he had so much growing to do, Jacob, he still had spirit enough to understand how, surely God is in this place and I knew it not. How holy is it, how sacred is this place?

I mean, he was just blown away by that experience. And later he comes back and he builds an altar and settles in Bethel and worships the Lord. So after Abraham and Jacob give this attention to God at Bethel about a thousand years later, Jeroboam comes and corrupts the whole thing with his fake gods. That's why his sin is so outstanding. It becomes the center of idol worship in the north.

A perpetual evil. We'll get that at the end of the chapter. But Elisha said, it says here in verse 2, as Yahweh lives, as your soul lives, I will not leave you. So three invitations or opportunities to leave and three times he declines. What if he said, okay, see you? Well, he would not have been the Elisha that God called him to be. He would have missed out on the chariot of fire and its horses. But he knew where he belonged. He knew where he needed to be. And he wasn't going to let anything take him away from that. He was called to be the servant of Elijah. He was called to be by his side.

God put him there. And nobody was going to take him away. And it wasn't a hostile kind of a thing. Whereas, no, I'm staying, you can't make me.

It wasn't anything like that. It was like, listen, you don't have to go with me through this. I'm going with you wherever you go. So he went down to Bethel, together.

Yeah, what a picture. They're inseparable. Genesis 2, verse 18. And Yahweh, God said, it is not good that man should be alone.

I will make him a helper comparable to him. Well, this applies to ministry as well as it does to marriage. If you can't have a spouse in life, get a companion. Companionship is understated and underrated until you don't have it.

It is a big thing. If you have a good friend, be thankful to God for them. To show your appreciation, buy me gifts. Verse 3. Things don't work that way, but they should. Verse 3. Now the sons of the prophets who were at Bethel came out to Elijah and said to him, do you know that Yahweh will take away your master from over you today? And he said, yes, I know. Shut up. He says keep silent and he's saying shut up. And that's an important part because now we understand what's going on. If he had said, oh, thank you very much, I know that, then it would have been a whole different thing.

But no, he says, I don't want to hear it. So countering, here in Bethel where this authority of evil is, God has allowed a school of the prophets, a brotherhood of the righteous to be established to counter the evil. About 90 years earlier when Jeroboam set up that altar here and in Bathsheba to the south, God sent his messenger, a man of God, condemned the altar and was killed by a lion because he disobeyed the latter part of his order. These brotherhood schools of the prophets, they're mentioned in 1 Kings and several times in 2 Kings goes back to the days of Samuel and Rama. This effort to establish righteous men in the land. Well, God had ordained the priests and the Levites and the prophets and so this was not out of bounds but they never really become key players in the scripture.

Micaiah, well not Micaiah, one of the ones earlier, the one that says strike me to show the king that he had been negligent in his duty. He was from the school of the prophets but we don't really get a lot from them as we would expect and on that one I'll come back to also. But the question that I come up with is when that man of God went up to Bethel to condemn the altar, the old prophet of Bethel who should have been sent but was not, he was bypassed, he lied to the prophet, got him to come home and then he tells him you're going to die for not obeying and that happens and then he has this remorse. Does that old prophet have enough remorse to revive in him a sense of I've got to counter the evil here, look what's happened to me and therefore the school of the prophets was born out of that in Bethel. Well, that might be. Certainly is a possibility and it's something that you just cannot dismiss and that's why I'm talking about it.

It says he came here in verse 3, now the sons of the prophets who were at Bethel came out to Elisha and said to him do you not know, Yahweh will take away your master from over you today. These boys are a nuisance. Apparent know-it-alls. Raise a show of hands, who likes know-it-alls? You got a kid and your child as it comes a know-it-all, you work a little scramble like, look I don't want you to be one of those. If you know, if you're smarter than your friends, act dumb.

Kidding, I'm kidding. But don't be a know-it-all. Not that I've had that experience, my kids are not giving me the opportunity. Okay, that's pretty funny.

And that's what my kid is like, that ain't funny dad. Anyhow, coming back to this, so they wanted to know something that the prophet didn't know. It's like the guy that's got to challenge the teacher to show that he's smarter, you know, the gunslinger, that unfortunately, I don't know, I've gotten older, I've had not had to deal with these types so much.

You know, that pepper spray helps. But in the earlier years, you get these folks, you know. Well, the Bible says, it's hard for them to read a Bible with your fingers poking in their eyes. But anyhow, back to Christianity, to them, it was more important that they show off, we know this is his last day, did you know it? Then the grief that Elisha was experiencing, he's grieving, he's not liking any of this, he's going with him, that's his duty. But we'll know that by his outburst when the prophet finally is taken up to heaven.

He loved Elisha. So he says, yes, I know, keep silent. This outstanding comeback.

This is the reply to show off. Yeah, I know it. Roll the eyes, don't forget that.

Roll the eyes is critical to getting them to not do it again. Of course he knew. He's the one that pours the water under Elisha's hands, he's always with him. What do you think? He bypassed me and told you because you're that special?

No, that didn't happen. Their behavior is immature, it's insensitive, and it is amateurish. They were amateurs compared to Elisha. God bypassed the schools of the prophets and went to a man working out in the fields to succeed the great prophet. That is called discipleship and it is supposed to thrive in Christianity. But I'm afraid in many places they put the kibosh on it, they throw a wet blanket on it, and that's the end of the discipleship.

Now you have to get a formal education in certain circles. Pastor Chuck Smith again would say, would cause the pastors to think about how many churches would never allow them in their pulpit, even though the churches that those men had were thriving with just the simple word of God. What makes a church thrive is the appetite in the people. Verse 4, then Elijah said to him, Elijah, stay here please, for Yahweh has sent me to Jericho, but he said, as Yahweh lives, and as your soul lives, I will not leave you, so they came to Jericho. So here's the second time, and clearly God is leading Elijah from place to place, sort of, I don't know, he has to be doing something that you would think, maybe preaching or something and just buttoning things up. And he says, God's called me to the next city, why don't you stay here?

Another opportunity. You know, duty well done comes from character well formed. You have no character, no high standard of character, then duty is going to be a problem for you, because you're going to find ways out of it. Rivers like men are crooked because they both go on the path of least resistance, but when you have character, you don't go so quickly in the path of least resistance, that's not what dictates your course, it's what needs to be done. In a sort of humorous way, it's sort of like the experienced plumber that doesn't mind sticking his hand where none of us would do it, to unclog the clog. He does what has to be done, and the rest of us do too, we call the plumber.

That's what has to be done. Is there somebody dumb enough to do this? Anyway, and he's saying yeah, chik chik. But anyway, these are fairly straight routes from Gilgal to Bethel, seven miles, the two walk together. From Bethel to Jericho, twelve miles. From Jericho to Jordan, twenty-six miles.

These two men at least are together. And he says, I will not leave you. That's resolve. It reminds us of Ruth to Naomi. Ruth chapter one, verse sixteen, but Ruth said.

You got to love that. Naomi gives her an out, look your sister-in-law, verse fifteen, has gone back to her people, and to her gods, returned after your sister-in-law. But Ruth said, man, that is resolve, here it comes, entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following after you.

Wherever you go, I will go. And of course, it just gets more beautiful as she just continues the speech. So powerful is Ruth's comeback, somebody wrote it down.

Naomi, I can say, Naomi, how did that go again? And Naomi said, Ruth, on the way back to Israel, writing that one. That, we got to get that in scripture. Anyway, of course, it wouldn't be scripture if humans had a say-so in it. What makes scripture scripture is God is the editor and author.

Well, verse five, now the sons of the prophets who were at Jericho came to Elisha and said to him, do you not know that Yahweh will take away your master from over you today? So he answered, yes, I know, keep silent. So it's like, where are these guys coming from?

They're quickly texting each other, he's on his way to you now, ask him, ask him if he knows. We did here and he acted like he, anyway. These, again, more amateurs, like those in Bethel. On Elisha's end, he's long suffering with the repetitive questions. Didn't I just answer this? Ask me again. It is a little difficult in conversation if the person just repeats themselves over and over. We try not to do that from the pulpit without noticing, saying, I know I'm repeating myself for this reason. I know I'm repeating myself for this reason. I know, okay.

So he answered, yes, I know, keep silent. Old Testament brilliance. The New Testament, we can't really hammer them like this. I mean, Paul is just so patient with the Corinthians. Verse 6, then Elisha said to him, stay here, please.

Pause for a minute. Paul was not always patient. When he says to them, I think if somebody smacked you upside your head, you'd be fine with that.

But no, we come preaching love and kindness, you've got a problem with us. He could turn it on when he had to. You've got to watch it. I bought a sports car years ago and as this old guy was polishing it, got to give me the keys, he says, be careful, this thing get away from you. I should have said, how do you know?

Do you have one? Anyway, he was right. If you weren't careful with that car, man, it'd just take off. So this is something to do with what I was talking about. Oh, you know, the comebacks, you know, the snarky comebacks, the people who deserve it. You've got to just, Lord, if the Lord is restraining you, be restrained. And most of the time he does restrain us from saying what we would think would be well serving us. Anyway, verse 6, then Elisha said to him, stay here, please, for Yahweh has sent me on to the Jordan. But he said, as the Lord lives, as your servant lives, I will not leave.

So the two went on. The third invitation, to abandon his station, to leave his calling. His calling was to follow Elijah. He promised that he would follow Elijah.

1 Kings 19, this is when Elisha goes and he throws his mantle, his, you know, not really a blanket, like his cape, over him as a symbol of anointing. And Elisha responds, and he left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said, please, let me kiss my father and mother and then I will follow you. And he meant it.

And here we see him doing it to the end. They're inseparable. So the two of them went on.

Again, the beautiful picture. Elisha knew where he belonged and so did Elijah. Both of these men knew where they belonged. He would say, now God is sending me to Bethel, now God is sending me to Jericho. And wherever you go, I'm going to be right there by your side.

Man, to have people like that in your life. Verse 7, and 50 men of the sons of the prophets went and stood facing them at a distance, while the two of them stood by the Jordan. So these are spectators, these are the sons of the prophets, and probably others joining into, you know, there's always somebody in the neighborhood that just, the crowd draws a crowd. But back to this overly formalized Christianity and seminaries, I think they have some things to offer.

You can learn how to pronounce a lot of things in seminaries. Thanks for joining us for today's edition on Cross-Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia.

We trust that what you've heard today in the book of 2 Kings has been something to remember. If you'd like to listen to more teachings from this series, go to crossreferenceradio.com. Once more, that's crossreferenceradio.com. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast too, so you'll never miss another edition. Just go to your favorite podcast app to subscribe. Our time is about up, but we hope you'll tune in again next time as we continue on in the book of 2 Kings. We look forward to that time with you, so make a note in your calendar to join Pastor Rick as he teaches from the Bible right here on Cross-Reference Radio.