One of the reasons we don't see the supernatural is we're too tethered to the natural. And part of the problem is too many of us are unwilling to cut our ties to the tangible. We don't want to risk giving up the things we can touch and taste for the things that are invisible that we cannot see. This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. Getting more of God in your life leaves less room for well, different things for different people. Today we'll revisit a classic message from Dr. Evans where he talked about the benefits of making those trade-offs.
Let's listen in. We've come today to that time in Elijah's life when his earthly life is about to come to an end. It's time to leave a legacy. When you make a will, you are preparing a legacy for the next generation of your family, usually involving material things—things of substance, houses, cars, bank accounts— and you're transferring what you have accumulated for them to benefit from based on the work that you have done. If you have a will, you can only will what you have. You can only give to somebody else what you yourself currently possess.
It is unfortunate today that there are legacies given related to stuff, but if the legacy you give has no supernatural components to it, then you may be giving something much less than what the person you're giving it to needs. And so I want to talk to you today about having and transferring a spiritual legacy that possesses supernatural components. And God expects you to, because in Psalm 71 18 it makes it clear that we are to transfer the power of God to the next generation. Not just information about God, but God's very power is to be transferred to the next generation, so that this generation should be able to piggyback off of our experience with God.
Of course, if you don't have one, you can't share one. But to be able to talk about the God you know rather than merely the God you heard about, because like Job, you have seen him with your own eyes. You're not just telling what somebody told you to say.
You can tell your experience. Many of us have grandparents who maybe didn't have much that they could leave materially, but they could sure share with you their experience with God in the land of the living, even in adverse circumstances. But unfortunately, today we have a generation like in the book of Judges who knew not the Lord, and therefore there was nothing to transfer. Well, we come now to the transfer of Elijah to Elisha. Elisha makes a request in 2nd Kings chapter 2 verse 9. When they had crossed over, Elijah said to Elisha, Ask what I shall do for you before I am taken from you. And Elijah said, Please let a double portion of your spirit be on me. Elijah said, What do you want before I leave here? And Elijah said to Elisha, I want twice as much God as you had. I want double the amount of spiritual, supernatural experience. Now to make a long story short, you will discover if you read the book of 2nd Kings that Elijah did twice as many miracles as Elijah did. He asked for a double portion of the spirit. Let me ask you a question. If somebody asked you for a double amount of God that you have, would they get anything?
Or would it be a deficit in their account? He said, I want twice as much of the experience of God. And he didn't make that up. That came from Deuteronomy 21 17, where the firstborn got a double portion. God said, I want to give the firstborn a double portion because the firstborn would have extra responsibility. And because he would have extra responsibility, the firstborn would get a double portion. Elijah picks up on that and asks Elijah, I want to be the firstborn. I want to be the one to receive a double portion of God in you. Are you having a spiritual legacy to transfer because you've had a supernatural walk with God? You can testify by experience that he is real, and you don't have to make it up pretend or quote somebody else. That is what he's asking for. Do people want a double portion of you? He asked for the right thing because what he asked for was spiritual first.
Let me stay with this. He saw in the life of Elijah the primacy of the spiritual. We're living in a day when the spiritual is last and the material is first. We want stuff. We want things. We want property. We want money. We want prestige.
We want career. Nothing is wrong with wanting those things in their place. But Elijah knew that the main thing he needed was the spiritual first. Or to put it in the words of Matthew 6 33, seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all of these things will be added to you. What we have done is we've sought these things and missed the spiritual. And that's why grandmother's grandchildren have more stuff than she had, but not a half as much God as she possessed. More stuff and more misery. Bigger houses with no home.
Nicer cars with nowhere to go. More money and more misery, because we've sought first the things. We've left or marginalized the spiritual. But he says, I want a double pot of God, because he knew something. If you get God, God gets you whatever He has for you.
I will add these things. If you don't have God, you got to go get it yourself. And so he says, I want a double portion of the God I see at work in you. And so that is his request. Now turn your Bibles back.
Hold your page here. Turn your Bibles back to 1 Kings 19. 1 Kings 19. That's where we first meet Elisha being connected with Elijah.
It says in verse 19 of chapter 19 of 1 Kings, so he, Elijah, departed from there and found Elisha, the son of Shepah, while he was plowing with 12 pairs of oxen before him. Okay. If you've got 12 pairs of oxen, that's because you live in large.
Okay. 12 pairs of oxen told you the amount of field you had to cover, and if you had 12 pairs, that meant you had a good-sized field, so you were driving a Benz. You were, you were living in a nice neighborhood. He was well-to-do.
But look at what happens. Elijah passed over to him and threw his mantle on him. And we'll find out about this mantle in a minute. But basically, he designated Elijah as his successor. Okay.
I need to turn this over to somebody, and I have selected you. Now Elijah makes a request. He left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said, please let me kiss my father and mother.
Then I will follow you. He goes home, says goodbye to his mother and father. Then he arose and followed Elijah and ministered to him. You see, if you're gonna get a double portion of God, you're gonna have to kiss something goodbye. He had all this material.
He was pretty well-to-do, given 12 oxen. Elijah was gonna transfer the spiritual to him, but before he could transfer it, he couldn't, he couldn't stay where he was. See, one of the reasons we don't see the supernatural is we're too tethered to the natural. We're too tied to the physical. We don't want to risk giving up 12 oxen. We don't want to risk giving up the things we can touch and taste for the things that are invisible that we cannot see. And because we don't want to risk losing that, we wind up losing this. Unanswered prayer, powerlessness, no sense of God showing up and showing off for us, because we are too tied. It's okay to have 12 oxen as long as you hold them loosely.
It's okay to have mother and father as long as you hold them loosely. But for God to take you to the next double portion spiritual level, you must be willing to kiss something goodbye when it's time to lay the mantle on you. We'll learn more about the value of those sacrifices when we return to the final portion of this message from Dr. Evans in just a moment. First though, today's teaching is the final installment in a powerful series on Elijah that concentrates on valuable insights gleaned from the life of one of the Bible's greatest prophets, lessons about understanding and waiting for God's provision, living a life of significance, overcoming discouragement and fear, and so much more. If you contact us right away, you can get your own copy of this powerful collection on either CD or digital download. Our gift to you and thanks for your donation in support of the alternative broadcast. Visit us today at tonyevans.org. Make a donation and receive all six full-length Elijah series messages. Again, that's tonyevans.org, or call us day or night at 1-800-800-3222, and one of our resource team members will be happy to help you.
I'll repeat that information after part two of today's teaching. Seek ye first the kingdom of God. If you remember Solomon, Solomon said, Lord, I want wisdom. I want wisdom to lead this people. These people are too big, too great for me to lead.
It's too big. God said, because you didn't ask me for money, because you didn't ask me for stuff, but you asked me for spiritual insight, because you placed the spiritual over the material, I'm gonna give you the spiritual and throw the material in for bonus. And God made him the richest man that ever lived, because his priorities were in order. In baseball, if you miss first base, it doesn't matter what any other bases you touch.
See, if you miss first base, the fact you touch second, third, and home plate won't matter, because they're gonna throw you out because you missed what's first. All through the Bible, God demands to be first. The spiritual is to precede the physical and the material, not because those aren't important, it's just that those are never to be first.
And because we've gotten that out of whack, we're seeing much less of the supernatural, not even to talk about a double portion. That's why Paul prayed in Ephesians chapter 1, verse 18, Paul prays that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened. I want your eyes to be open.
That's why this next verse is so important in 2 Kings chapter 2. He says, after he makes the request for a double portion, he says, you've asked for a hard thing. Now, I like this. He say, give me something. Give me a little nibble, give me a little something, something. He said, no, I want the honor of the firstborn.
I want a double portion. And he says, you've asked for a hard thing. Now, when it comes to the material, we don't have a problem asking for a hard thing. Folks will ask God to win the lottery.
You got a better chance of finding oil in your backyard than winning the lottery. But people will pray that they win the lottery. They will ask for a hard thing material. He says, you've asked for a hard thing. When's the last time you've asked God for something big spiritually, big spiritually, like we do for the physical miracles we want? He says to him, you've asked for a hard thing, verse 10, if you see me when I am taken from you, it shall be so for you.
But if not, it shall not be so. He says, I want a double portion. Elijah said, whoa, whoa, you want, you want to be, you want to be really chief man in charge. You really want God to double what the supernatural stuff he did for me? That's what I want.
And I'm asking big. That's what I want. He said, that's a hard thing, meaning I can't give you that.
Only God can give you that. But I tell you what, he says, if you see me when I'm taken from you, then it shall be. You'll get a double portion. So what would determine whether he got a double portion?
It would be determined by what he saw or did not see. Why did he tell him, if you see me, you'll get the double portion. If you don't see me when I'm taken, you won't get the double portion, because your spiritual insight will determine what you receive. If you don't have eyes to see the spiritual, then you can't handle the spiritual. So you won't get the spiritual unless you live your life seeing things from God's perspective. Seeing the spiritual, you won't experience the spiritual.
What you see, Flip Wilson said, is what you get. And if all you see is what you see, you do not see all there is to be seen, unless you can look beyond the physical to see God's point of view. In fact, that is the whole nature of spiritual growth, according to Hebrews chapter 5.
Spiritual growth is your ability to look at things spiritually first and not physically first. Hebrews 11 27 says that people of faith see Him who is unseen. It's when you see God working, even though you don't see God. It's when you see God's hand, even though you don't see five fingers. It's when you see God's heart, even though you don't see a muscle beating. It's when you see God's perspective, even though you don't see a brain, because you're looking at things spiritually. One of the reasons that we are blocked from the supernatural is we have limited ourselves to the five senses. And if all you see are the five senses, he says, I need you. I need to know before you get a double portion that you've got eyes that can see, meaning spiritual eyes. He could obviously see Elijah physically. He means spiritual eyes.
And so here we are. He has made a request. Paul makes the request that our eyes would be open. Now, we've already seen Elijah has given Elijah the mantle.
The mantle is the transference of the of the responsibility. We see in chapter 2, Elijah has asked for a double portion. But something happens between him meeting Elijah in chapter 19, verse 19, and Elijah's request in chapter 2, verses 9 and 10. And that is, between those two passage of Scriptures, there is a process that is put in place to move Elijah from where they met to where he makes the request, and the request gets responded to. And the New Testament word for the process that took place is called discipleship. In other words, he had to learn to look at things from God's perspective. If you have been in this church or any church for a length of time, any meaningful time, particularly five years, and as a reason I say five years, because the Bible teaches that it takes five years for a person to learn to look at things consistently spiritually. So if you've been saved for five years and you've not developed to look at the spiritual first, that means you've not grown in your faith no matter how much church attendance you had. You've not grown in your discipleship or your spiritual development because you still jump to the physical before you ever look at the spiritual. So in order to prepare Elijah for the mantle Elijah had placed on Elijah, chapter 2, verses 1 to 9, show the process with which Elijah took Elisha to prepare him for the request that Elisha is gonna make of Elijah.
And I hope I don't get these names mixed up. Chapter 2, verse 1, and it came about when the Lord was about to take up Elijah by a whirlwind in heaven that Elijah went to Elisha from Gilgal. Elijah said to Elisha, stay here please for the Lord has sent me as far as Bethel. He says, stay here.
Don't come any further. But Elisha says to Elijah, as the Lord lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you. So they went down to Bethel. He says, stay here. Elijah said, I ain't staying here.
I'm going with you. Now, he had already asked in chapter 19 for Elijah to follow him. They start walking and going on a trip. He says, you stay here. Why would he tell him to stay there if he really didn't want him to stay there?
To test the level of his commitment. Are you just in this for the ride? Are you in it for the notoriety? Are you in it for the power? Are you in it for the name? Are you in it for the prestige? Are you in it for the recognition? Are you in it for the real thing? Because a lot of folk will start out with you when they see you got a little something something. But the issue is, will they keep going with you when things get tough and things get rough and things are not convenient?
Are they in it for the long haul? That's discipleship. That's why the Bible says, if any man will be my disciple, he must deny himself. Take him as cross and follow me. And anybody who follows Jesus knows sometimes it's over rough terrain.
It's not all pretty and stuff floating down from heaven and no challenges. In Gilgal, the Bible says, God removed the reproach of Egypt from his people. You see, all through them going through the wilderness, they kept thinking about Egypt, wanting to go back to Egypt. We miss Egypt. We had meat in Egypt.
They were moving to Canaan while looking at Egypt. But at Gilgal, God removed the reproach of Egypt. In other words, you can't get the supernatural and the spiritual as long as you're still looking back at the world. So, Elisha, if you want this double portion you can really ask me for, you got to have a Gilgal reality. You got to let Egypt go. You can't be wishing to be back there and experience what God has you up here. And one of the reasons we don't get to see the supernatural is we're still tied to this world order.
We still bear the reproach of the world and are not willing to hang out in Gilgal. At Bethel, Bethel was where Jacob wrestled with God. It became the house of God. It was where he saw God at work.
Bethel was where his character got changed. If you want to see the supernatural, you can't be the same person you were. God has got to be able to deal with your attitudes and your actions, your character and your conduct. He's got to be able to speak into your life. If you want to see the supernatural, you got to leave Egypt and you got to become somebody that you weren't when you left there. A thought-provoking lesson today about how to receive more of God in our search for a more significant life. Now before we go, don't forget that this complete audio series on Elijah is available to own for review on CD or instant digital download, and thanks for your contribution to the ministry. Make a point of visiting us today at TonyEvans.org to make the arrangements. That's TonyEvans.org or call our 24-hour resource center at 1-800-800-3222 and let one of our team members help you. Again, that's 1-800-800-3222. When life gets thorny, many times our only instinct is to do whatever it takes to get things back to normal, but tomorrow we'll see that God often has something better in mind for us through those uncomfortable times. I hope you'll join us as we take a look at how to understand a thorn.
