Let's take our Bibles and turn
back to 1 Kings chapter 19. 1 Kings chapter 19. There was a
man called of God, called to be a prophet. His name
was Elijah. He was mightily used by God to
preach the word of the Lord, to prophesy God's purpose and
will. But he was just a man. He was
just a man. I told you before, I heard Brother
Henry say, the best of men are at best men. Frail creatures. The Lord had
blessed this man, taught him mightily. use this man to kill 450 false
prophets. And a woman named Jezebel, a
wicked woman, wicked queen, told Elijah, she said, Lord do so
to me and more so. If 24 hours from now I don't
do the same thing to you that you did to the prophets, the
false prophets. And so Elijah fled. And the Lord
came to him while he was out in the wilderness. We just read.
He asked him what he was doing there. He gave his explanation. And God told him, back in verse
15 of 1 Kings 19, He said, I want you to go down and anoint Hosea to be king over Syria,
Jehu, son of Nimshi, to be king over Israel, and Elisha, son
of Shaphat, to be the prophet in your stead, in your room. God was going to call Elijah
home. And he said, before I do, I'm
going to get you to go, and you anoint the man that I tell you
to anoint to be the prophet that's going to take your place. So
from these verses, we're reminded that it's the Lord who directs
the steps of his people and not his people themselves. It's God
that calls and not men. The Lord told his apostles in
John 15 verse 16, he said, you've not chosen me, but I've chosen
you and ordained you. that you should go and bring
forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatsoever
you should ask of the Father in my name, He may give it you."
So God calls His people. I know the religions of this
world that says that it's man in his free will that has the
final say, but that's not what God says. God told Jeremiah,
Jeremiah 1, Verse four to 10, he said, then came the word of
the Lord unto me, saying, before I formed thee in the belly, I
knew thee, before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified
thee, I set you apart. I ordained thee a prophet unto
the nations, then said I, ah, Lord God, behold, I cannot speak,
for I'm a child. But the Lord said unto me, Say
not, I am a child, for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee,
and whatsoever I command thee, thou shalt speak. Be not afraid
of their faces, for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the
Lord. Then the Lord put forth His hand and touched my mouth,
and the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth. See, I have this day set thee
over the nations and over the kingdoms to root out, to pull
down, to destroy, to throw down, to build, and to plant. So Almighty
God calls His people. He calls His preachers. God rules
heaven and earth. The hand of the Lord is the one
that holds The king's heart. As the king's heart is in the
hand of the Lord as the rivers of water, he turneth it whether
so ever he will. So back in 1 Kings 19, the Lord
instructed Elijah. He said, this is who I want you
to go anoint to be kings, and this is who I want you to anoint
to be the prophet. And the Lord moved that prophet,
and he did just exactly what God told him to do, verse 19,
1 Kings 19, 19. So he departed thence and found
Elisha, the son of Shaphat, who was plowing. He was a farmer,
obviously a wealthy farmer. And he was plowing with twelve
yoke of oxen before him and he with the twelve. What does that
mean? Well, there was twelve men out
there plowing with each two oxen and eleven of them was plowing
in front of Elisha. Obviously they were doing their
rows and their rows and their rows. And he was the 12th, he
was the one all the way in the back. And the scripture says
that Elijah found him plowing with 12 yoke of oxen before him
and he with the 12th. And Elijah passed by him and
cast his mantle upon him. Now, where did Elijah find Elisha? Well, he found him working. He
was a man that was not a sluggard. That's the first thing that I
noticed in him. I've told you before, Charles
Spurgeon said this, men that God calls to the ministry. I
know, I've heard this said before, and it's foolish, foolishness. The world looks, by and large,
at preachers as those that really can't do anything else. Well,
that's true in a sense. If God calls them, they can't
do anything else. That's what God's going to call them to do.
Mr. Spurgeon said this, his knowledge of preachers is most of the time
God has called preachers out of businesses or doing what they're
doing very successfully. And they're men that God has
given a heart to be responsible, to be doing. And Mr. Spurgeon said, he said, the history
that I've had with men that God's called is that they could do
anything they wanted to do, had a heart to do. They could be
successful at it. Why? Because they'll stick with
it. They weren't lazy. They're not sluggards. There's
nothing that's more distasteful than to find somebody that's
so lazy they just won't do anything. They're just lazy. They're looking
for a handout, looking for somebody to lean on. So he found him and
here was a man that was, he was a farmer, he wasn't lazy. And
the scripture says that Elijah walked, he found him, and he
was plowing with 12 yoke of oxen, and he came by and he cast his
mantle upon him. Now this mantle, according to
Zechariah, I won't read it, you can read it, Zechariah 13.3,
this mantle was skins off of an animal. It was a skin of an
animal, it was just a hairy like a cloak that they wore, and that
was the sign. That's what God's prophets, that's
what prophets wore, a mantle. It was just like an overthrow,
almost maybe like a coat, I guess, but just almost a covering. And
it was a mantle. They recognized them, and you
could tell those that were prophets by what they were wearing. And
they came and here was Elisha plowing and Elijah came and he
threw his cloak upon him. Now, Elisha was not looking for
Elijah. Elisha was doing what Elisha
was doing. He was a farmer, he wasn't looking. And God's sheep, here is Elijah,
the older prophet, as a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ by his
Holy Spirit. And he came and he found Elisha. And Elisha, he was a hard working
man, and had God not called him to be a prophet, I, by and large,
think that he probably would have died being a hard-working
man. That's what God called him to do. And that's what he was
doing. But now the Lord has moved his
prophet, and by the grace of God, just as the Spirit of God
calls out those that are not looking for the Lord, no man
seeks after God. You know, people, you know, they,
again, they put that thing, you know, you seek the Lord, and
if the Lord didn't exercise that, that's so ridiculous. God's people
were not looking for the Lord. They were doing what they were
doing. And God comes to them just like Elijah came to Elisha. And he cast that cloak. He just took his cloak off and
threw it on Elisha. And Elisha knew, by the grace
of God, he knew. He knew what that meant. He knew
that that mantle meant that God had called him to the ministry. And that mantle being thrown
upon him by the Spirit of God's teaching on him, he realized
that this was now his calling. Unexpected, unprepared, and undeserving. God's ways are not our ways. Whenever God, we read just a
minute ago when God called Jeremiah. Jeremiah, he said, the Lord said,
before I formed you in the belly, I called you, I sanctified, I
set you apart. I ordained you to be a prophet. Jeremiah said, I can't speak.
What am I going? The Lord said, I'll touch you. I'll bless you. And that's what
he did. So here is a picture of the effectual calling. I'm telling you, it just, It's
the most amazing thing. Men, women called out. They're
not expected. I'm telling you, I was the last
person, believe me, that I would have ever thought would be standing
in a pulpit right now. And God was pleased to call me. But the mantle set forth the
whole of God's will for him. that God had everlastingly loved
him, that God had chosen him, that God had called him, and
now was going to send him forth as a prophet, a prophet of God. And they called of God, the scripture
says, they obey. My sheep hear my voice, I know them. and they follow me. And here's what the scripture
says, verse 20. And he left the oxen and ran after Elijah and
said, let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother, and
then I will follow thee. And he said unto him, go back
again. For what have I done to thee? Now, listen. There was nothing wrong with
the work that Elisha was doing. It was good, honorable work,
but it was to be no more for Elisha. And Elisha ran after
Elijah. God called him, and he moved. He moved. I've told you this
many times. There's times that I can remember
somebody telling me something and it just really stuck with
me. But when Walter Groover, I was
sitting, I was at a friend's house there in Franklin and we
were sitting out on his back porch and Walter and Betty were
there, a few of them, and I, it just, I couldn't get over. Walter Groover, Y'all know him,
but I'm telling you Walter Grouffer, one of the most talented, I mean
Walter was an engineer in Houston at a big oil plant. Walter was a very successful
man. God called him to go to Mexico. And when Walter and Betty went
to Mexico back then, I mean, you've probably heard the stories.
But I'm telling you, I mean, we've gone, Chuck, Bob, some
of us have gone down there. I mean, it's an industrial place
now, especially in Merida. Merida is probably one of the
most progressive. I dare say many of us have ever
seen cities that are so nice as Merida. But it's not all like
that. Back in those Pueblos, back in
the jungles where some of these little churches are and stuff
like that, it's still just way, way, way. But years ago, it was
bad. And Walter, you know, contracted
some kind of a, something in his stomach, some kind of an
amoeba or something like that, still. And they had problems
and problems, and his children all grew up down there. And I
asked him, I said, Walter, how do you know going down there
doing that? What would cause a man to want
to do that? And he said this. I wrote this
down. He said, a man will go when something becomes more important
to him than what he's doing. That's right. A man will do what
he does when something is more important to him. For the glory of God is what
he's talking about than what he's doing right now. And nothing
else matters. If this is what he believed that
God wanted him to do, that's where he's going. And here was
Elisha and he was plowing and Elijah came and he threw that
mantle on him and he knew, he left. And when God calls His
people, it's not by blood, it's not by the will of the flesh,
Well, free will is not by the will of man desiring, you know,
but they're called of God. And when Elijah called Elisha
by throwing that mantle on him, he didn't say he said anything
to him. He just threw his mantle on top of him. And Elisha followed
after him and he said this. He said, let me, I pray thee,
kiss my father and my mother. Then I'll follow you. And Elijah
said, you know, go back again. For what have I done to thee? Now, the thing is, is that Elisha
recognized the call. He had a heart. He had a heart
to follow after Elijah because he believed that that's what
God wanted to do. But Elijah's answer to him, when
Elisha said, can I go back and kiss my father and my mother
and I'll follow thee, he didn't say like some did over the New
Testament, let me bury my father and my mother. And then I'll
follow you. Now that statement was this. Let me stay with them until they
die. And then after they die, and then you know I get everything
squared away here. Then I'll go. That's not what
Elisha said. What he said is let me go and
just give them, be cordial to them and tell them, let me tell
them bye. Let me just kiss them bye. And
when Elijah said back to him, go back again, for what have
I done to thee? Now some have insinuated that
those words were a word of rebuke from Elijah, saying, well now
you just make up your mind what you want to do. You know, I've thrown my mantle
on you. Obviously you can see that God's called you and now
if you want to go back and do that, you know, you let your
conscience be, that's not what he said. That is not what he
insinuated. What have I done to thee? And I jotted something down this
morning because that's such a hard thing to understand, but it's
so, it's such a sweet thing that he was saying to him. I jotted
this down. I said the call to the ministry is a call of God. It's a call to devotion and it's
a call to consecration to the Lord. But the God that calls
His people to the ministry calls them also to obey His Word. And in the Word of God, it's
said in Exodus 20 verse 12, honor thy father and thy mother that
thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth
thee. Almighty God has set forth in
His Word the respect that is to be given unto parents. Now,
Ephesians 6.1 says this, Children, obey your parents, now listen
to these next words, in the Lord, in the Lord. Now what does that
mean? It means that as the parents
who are obedient to God's Word, respectful to God's Word, honorable
to God's Word, that those that set forth in their speech and
in their manners respect unto God and respect to their spouse
and respect to their children, You obey them in the Lord. Now,
if there's somebody doing something, a parent doing something, and
they're disrespectful, disrespectful to God, disrespectful to their
spouse, disrespectful to their children, that's not in the Lord. That's not obedience unto God. Children, obey your parents in
the Lord. A man, a woman, is trying to
get their children to do something that's disrespectful. Disobedient
to God's Word. Disrespectful to each other. That's when Peter was told by
the Jews, did we not straightway command you not to speak any
more in his name? And Peter said, you know, you
do what you think's best. But as for us, we're going to
obey God rather than men. Children, obey your parents in
the Lord. Now, as long as I've got parents
in this world, I'm still my mama's child. I'm still my mama's baby.
And I'm going to honor her and respect her. When I got married,
I married Glenda. The Lord put us together. I love my mother, but I'm going
to cleave to my wife. and this is what I'm gonna do,
I'm gonna clean, but I'm gonna honor my mother, that's my mom.
My dad passed away, but I'm gonna honor her. That's my mother,
I'm gonna help her, I'm gonna do everything, but this is my
wife right here. There's the union right there,
but I'm gonna honor her. I never get away from honoring,
respecting, helping. I read something this morning
that says that storks, now whether this is true or not, I thought
this was so amazing, storks, a bird. A young stork will continue
to feed the elderly parent of the stork. They will help and
bring food too. If that parent stork that bore
those little storks, you know, can't fly, can't do, they're
sick, that little stork will come back and take care of that
parent. I thought, well that's an interesting thing. If that's
true, I hope it is. I thought that's real respectful.
I like that. But Elijah When he told him,
he said, you know, go back. It's right. Don't just disrespect your parents. You go back and do just exactly
what God has told you to do and you honor them. Kiss them goodbye. Tell them what the Lord has done. Tell them how God's called you.
Again, when Glenda and I, I use her for so many illustrations,
I always kind of have to You know, make sure I be careful
what I say, but you know, when we got married, she told me something
that she had told her mother. I guess your dad, I don't know.
But here I was pastoring in Franklin. We were getting married. And
plans were, I mean, I'm pastoring in Franklin. And she told me
later, she said, I talked to my mom and I told her, I said,
we both believe that Lord put us together and I wanted to go
wherever you feel we need to go. That's what I was going to
do. I'm going to go there. Wherever you feel that we need
to do. Now, we were only in Franklin four months. From March 22nd
until July the 16th. 4 months. 4 months. I thought to myself
later, how many times I thought about what she said. She, you
know, we got married and she said, wherever you say you think
we need to go, that's where I'm going. And we stayed there for
four months and I thought, I wonder why, you know, why would the
Lord send us back to Franklin for four months only and then
we went there and then moved back. And I thought, was it to
show Her respect to the ministry, her respect to, you know, wives,
submit yourself to your own husband. Would she show her, show me,
show others, show her parents? I don't know, I don't know. But
that was her attitude. Wherever you say you think we
need to go, that's where I'm going. We got in Franklin, stayed
there four months, and I had no idea I was coming back here.
Had no, until about two weeks before we came. Somewhere in
that area, two weeks. Called the lady down the street,
told her I was going to put my house up for sale. It sold the
next day or two days later, and we packed up and moved. And that
was it. He said, can I go back and kiss
my mom and daddy bye and tell them bye bye? And he said, go
back again. For what have I done unto thee? What I've done is reveal to you
the will of the Lord for the ministry. But don't, don't disrespect
your parents. You honor them. Go back and kiss
them goodbye. And so that's what he did. He
went back, and the scripture says in verse 21, and he returned
back from him, and took a yoke of oxen, and slew them, and boiled
their flesh with the instruments of the oxen, and gave unto the
people, and they did eat. Then he arose and went after
Elijah, and ministered, unto him. Elisha, obviously, he did
bid his parents goodbye and upon returning to Elijah, he set forth
by his actions his heart to follow after the Lord. What did he do? Well, he took a yoke of oxen,
I'm sure the ones, it doesn't say this, but I'm sure the ones
he may have been plowing with himself. And he slew them and
boiled their flesh. Now I know that it wasn't, he
wasn't going to make a sacrifice unto the Lord because the Lord
forbid for the sacrifice to be sautéed, boiled. There was never
a mixture. You didn't water it down, you
didn't boil the meat, you roasted it. You just roasted the meat.
So I know this wasn't a sacrifice unto the Lord. He wasn't doing
that. What he was doing was this. He set forth that as far as his
worldly vocation, what he was doing, his employment, you know,
whatever, whether that was the inheritance of his parents, he
told his fellow workers, he said, this is what God's called me
to do. God's called me to be a prophet. And for this, For
this calling, I'm going to take, I'm going to burn my bridges,"
is what he said. This is what he was doing. He
didn't say, well, just put this back in the barn and, you know,
I don't know, I'll see how this kind of works out for a little
while. If this doesn't work out, you know, if it doesn't work
out, then I'll be back. No. He killed the oxen. He took
the plow and he used it for the wood and he He made a feast and
he fed those and all those that he gave unto the people and they
did eat. What he was saying to this, unless
God providentially sends me back to this place to come through
here, I may never be back. This is what the Lord has called
me to do. He left all the comfort, he left
the security by a willing heart, and he followed at the Lord's
call and direction, and this is what the Lord said His sheep
do. My sheep hear. They hear my voice. I know them. And they follow
me. Oh, for the grace of God. to
give us a heart to leave the cares of this world and all of
the creature enjoyments that God is pleased to draw us away
from. Man, listen, I like nice stuff.
I really do. I enjoy nice stuff. But if that's not what the Lord
be pleased for any of us, oh, for a heart to be satisfied with
that. Paul said, I know how to abound
and I know how to be abased. Paul said, I've had some of the
real comforts and I really enjoy them and then there's times that
the Lord's removed them from me. But I'm telling you, when
God calls a man, a woman, they are resolved. They're resolved. The rest of this stuff's got
to go. I can't, you know, I can't serve Him with a double heart.
I can't, you know, you can't please God in mammon too. There's a calling. So Almighty
God called this man to the ministry. And Elisha, a man called of God,
convinced of God's calling. He burned his bridges and said,
this is what I want to do. Like Ruth, talking to Naomi. Naomi told her, said, you're
going back, going back to your people. Going back and she says,
no, where you go, I go. Where you lie, I lie. The Lord
calls my past to cross with you. And it's what I'm going to do.
The calling of Elisha, a beautiful picture. of every child of God
called out of darkness and given a heart to follow after the Lord.
I pray God bless this to our hearts, to the glory of the Lord
Jesus Christ.