If you have your Bible open to
2 Kings chapter 2, look at verse 14. And he, that is, Elisha,
took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and smote the
waters, and said, Where? Where is the Lord God of Elijah? And when he also had smitten
the waters, they parted hither and thither, and Elisha went
over. Now, Elisha, when he asked this
question, this question is our subject this morning. Where is
the Lord God of Elijah? When he asked this question,
he was not simply asking about a God in general. He wanted a
particular type of God. He wanted not any God, nor every
God, nor any aspect of the true God, but he wanted the Lord God
of Elijah. Where is the Lord God of Elijah? But was the Lord God of Elijah
different from the God of other people? How would you answer
that question? The implicit doctrine of this
question itself seems to indicate to me that he was, that he was
a different God than the God of many in this world. Elisha wanted the God he had
seen manifested in Elijah. Now, beloved, that's a tremendous
statement. He wanted the God that he had
seen manifested in his servant, in God's servant Elijah. Now,
beloved, Elisha had got all his theology from Elijah. Now, think about this. Elijah
never wrote a word that we know of. Never wrote a word. But there was no prophet who
had made such a permanent impression on Israel and on the world as
Elijah the Tishbite. Now, beloved, there's a great
lesson in this, and a child of God needs to think on this a
great deal. As we live out our lives in this
world, is God our God? The God that we love, the God
that we serve and worship, the God to whom we belong, is he
being manifested in our lives? Is he being set forth? Can people
learn their theology from us? Do they need for us to write
it down? Do they need for us to put it
out in word or by tongue? Can they get it from what they
see and witness of our lives? Now, that's a tremendous question. Has anyone ever had God manifested
to them as they viewed Him in the lives of other people? Well, certainly this is the way
that Elisha got his theology. He got it from Elijah just simply
following after him, watching him, seeing what God did, hearing
the testimonies of the power of God that fell upon the world
and upon men through the life of Elijah the Tishbite. He made
a permanent impression on those around him. He lived his theology. And he gave such a revelation
of God to the people of God that when he was gone, they said,
ìWhere is the God of Elijah?î Now, beloved, if we can so live
our lives, and God help us to do it, I hope that we have to
some degree that whenever people, when weíre gone from the scene,
that men will be able to say, ìWell, where is the God of Brother
so-and-so, where is his God? Because there will come times
when you'll say, we need a manifestation of the Lord God of Elijah. We
need the manifestation of the God of an elderly deacon or elderly
servant of God. We need a manifestation of that
God. Now, what sort of a God was the
God of Elijah? That's a good question. If you
read or listened to the reading of the first chapter, you might
have shook your head at the God of Elijah, because he was the
God, you know, that sent Elijah up there on the hill and said,
you sit there. These fellows are coming after
you with a captain of 50 and 50 and another captain of 50
and 50 and then another one. And he said, you sit there and
you tell them that when they say, the king said, you come
down. You see, the king didn't like the message that Elijah
had given him. And so the king sent messengers
out to see if there couldn't be something worked out. He said,
you go get him, just like, you know, he can be had. And you go get him, fetch him
off of the hill and bring him to me. Well, Elijah wasn't going
to move. And so he said, they said, well,
you come down, oh man of God. And he said, if I be a man of
God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your
fifty. And it fell. Now, did it come down from heaven
or did it come up from the devil? It came down from heaven. The
fire fell. That was duplicated twice, wasn't
it? And finally, the third captain,
he was humbled. And so he went up on his face,
as it were, to Elijah. And Elijah, God spoke to him. The angel of the Lord said, you
go down with him. You don't have to be afraid.
Go down. You see, Elijah's God, that's
the focus. Elijah's God. Now, what sort
of a God was the God of Elijah? He was a God of wondrous power. The God of Elijah was a big God. He was a strict, stern, holy,
jealous, austere God. Well, beloved, do we want a God
like that in our day? Do we want a God that's in charge?
Do we want a God that's in control? Do we want a God to manage the
affairs of men, those around us, the people in our families,
people in our church? Do we want this kind of a God,
a God who's in control? Or do we want a God that we can
just simply do with whatever we please? Well, most people
today have a God that they have imagined And it's a God that
they manage. It's a God that they never set
still long enough that He would have anything to do with their
lives, that He would reflect or teach or undertake for them. What a little God some people
have. Some people's God is not the God of Elijah, I'll tell
you that. They're not worshiping the God
of the Bible. Now it's either so or it's not.
And you have to examine and look and open your eyes and see whether
or not people are worshiping the God of the Bible or whether
they're worshiping some God that they've riddled out of their
little stump, you know, that they've made with their jackknife,
a God of their imagination. Some gather their conception
of God from watching us. Do you think that's true? Well,
I do hope that there has been some indication at one time or
another that we were worshiping the God of the Bible. We come
here to this place and we humble ourselves as we come into this
place. We reverence God. We stand in
awe at Him. We're mindful that we need Him. We're mindful that we cannot
do anything without Him. Jesus said, without me you can
do nothing. We're mindful of that, and we
come in here respecting the Word of God and the truth of God. And we hope that some could learn
something by just observing our life. Now, our aim in life then
is to live so as to reveal the God of the Bible to others that
are around us. Now, the meaning of the word
Elijah is that Jehovah is God. That's the meaning of the word
Elijah. Now the name of the Lord God
of Elijah carries in it a revelation of God that we need to believe
in in these days. There's a great deal in a name
if it's revealed from on high. Now Elijah was a man of great
faith. He asked for things. that were
never asked for before and was never disappointed in the answer.
He called upon the Lord. The Bible says that we are to call upon the
Lord and that he will answer us and
show us great and mighty things that we know not. We are to call
upon the Lord. Seek the Lord, the scripture
says. The scripture says that without faith, it is impossible
to please him. For he that cometh unto me must
believe that I am, and that I am a rewarder of those who diligently
seek me. That I reward those who seek
me. I'm a great God, and I can do great and mighty things. We
must be in a prayer if we would be living manifestations of God. We must pray. We must seek the
Lord. We must cry to God. We must be
in submission to the God of the Bible, because that's what we're
striving for, is not to write a book and leave it for people
to read after we're gone. It is that we want to be a living
manifestation of God. Has God been in this thing from
the beginning? Has God been in it? Has God led? Has God directed our lives? Are we submissive to Him? Is
He in this thing? Are we following Him? Are we
seeking Him? Are we seeking His will? And
when that will is done in our lives, it will be a manifestation. It will speak to others. It will
bless others. Others will know that surely
God is in the place, and God is in our lives. Now, it was
Elijah's God who gave him his power. And so
the cry of Elisha is, where is the Lord God of Elijah? Elisha
was a different man from Elijah. He could not go about imitating Elijah. That would
have been absolutely foolish, wouldn't it? For this man, Elisha,
to go about saying, well, all I've got to do is just imitate
him. I'll get up and I'll talk like him, and when I'm around
people, I'll act like him. I'll just imitate him. Well,
beloved, you can imagine how far that got, or how far it would
get. You can imagine that Elisha would
have been wet clear up to his waist immediately trying to imitate
Elijah at the brook when he went back
over of Jericho. And so he could not go around
imitating. We cannot recreate the days That's
gone by. We can't recreate them. Whether
this church's best days is behind it or in front of it, only God
knows. But you cannot recreate the days
that's ahead or that's behind. We cannot recreate the days of
Whitefield, the days of Edwards, the days of Spurgeon. We have
every right to pray, where is the God of these men? We have
every right to pray that. God has a will and purpose for
our day, and let us deny ourself, empty ourself, and seek not only
His power, but seek Him. Seek Him. That's my message to
you. So where is the God of Elijah?
The great object for our souls is to seek after this God. We love Him. We love His people.
We love His work. But all is dull and vain and
empty if the Lord himself be not here. Seek the Lord. We love the ministry of God's
Word, bide our lives, are fed and nourished, but still if God
himself be not in the Word and with the Word, what does it avail
us? What will it avail us? Well,
all is vain, as we've heard many a time, unless the Spirit of
God come down. Our spirits must be sustained
by the Holy Spirit, by the nearness and presence of our God, or else
we faint and fall by the wayside. Our spirits must be strengthened.
Have you ever felt that? Been a many, many time when you
wake in the morning, when you say, I just need that the Spirit
of God would greatly strengthen me, strengthen my spirit for
the day. In reading a book or in private
devotion or in coming into the assembly of the saints, our chief
question is, where is the Lord God of Elijah? Where is he at? For if we do not find God in
all these things, what have we found? Nothing. We have mere
husk, whereas the precious, priceless kernel is lost to us. If God be not here, if the Lord
God of Elijah is not among us, in prayer do we find the God
of prayer? Or do you just go through the
motions? When we sing, do we feel we have truly praised God? that we really lifted up our
souls in the inner part of our being unto the God of our salvation. Has our song found Him? Did you
ever go down the road singing? Have you ever felt that the Lord,
that your song found Him, and that you really did praise Him,
and that He knew that you were praising Him? the song of your
heart. Oh, my friend, how important
is this? Have we exalted Him? Oh, what an effort it is sometimes,
really, to get to God in all these things. We go through the
motions. Will the fire ever fall on our efforts? Will it ever
come down? Have you ever been in a meeting
where God was, where the power of God was, the Spirit of the
Lord, was among his people. We preach, but where is the power
of God unto salvation? Where is the power that converts
and saves sinners and delivers them from their sin and the awful
judgment to come? Where is the power of our God? The poet said, I will approach
thee. I will force my way through obstacles
to thee. One said, I'll break through
gates of brass, I'll leap over the loftiest wall, but I must
get to my God, the living God. Oh, when shall I come and appear
before God? I wish we were always in the
state of mind, but we're not. We're lackadaisical about it.
We come, somebody says, was God there? Well, Brother so-and-so
was there, and Sister so-and-so was there in their regular pew,
but was God there? Was the Lord God of Elijah there?
The God of power, the God of purpose and might. Was He there? We cannot live without Him, beloved. Spiritually, you cannot live
without Him. You can't live physically without
Him either. We've been reminded of that a number of times. that
he's got to give you every breath that you breathe or you're not
going to breathe it. Breath is a gift of God. We live
and move and have our being in him, the apostle said in the
book of Acts. You cannot live without him,
seek him. We cannot be strong in the Lord
without his presence and without him being near us. We cannot
rejoice without him. How can a believer rejoice without
the Lord. How can he do that? You know,
the people of God, they're shut up to it. They're shut up to
it. They're willing to find joy in
this world. We think of what Paul said, that
if in this life only we have hope, we're of all men most miserable. It's in our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ that we have joy. Joy unspeakable and full of glory. Joy. The Lord Jesus Christ is
our joy. I was reading the other day the
words of Toplady in one of his songs. He said, If my Lord himself
reveal, nor the good I want, only Christ my wounds can heal,
or silence my complaint. He that suffered in my stead
shall my physician be, I will not be comforted till Jesus comforts
me. The child of God, beloved, he
knows that he cannot rejoice and be glad in his heart in carnal
things. He cannot. He must rejoice in
him. We cannot live the Christian
life without him. Without him. I often hear people
say, well, you know, I cannot live the Christian life. Well,
you can't live it. No, you can't. But nobody is
going to live like God wants them to without Him and His power
and His strength in their lives. Seek the Lord. Seek the Lord
God of Elijah. We would not even want to be
in heaven without Him. You wouldn't want to be there,
would you, without Him? Luther one time said if he was walking
across the bridge over hell, and looked down into hell and
he saw Christ there, he jumped off the side. He jumped right
in. Now beloved, we know that the
Lord Jesus Christ and one of the glories of heaven is not
the gold as people talk about gold on the streets and this
and that, but the glory of heaven is Jesus is there. Once heaven
seemed to fall off place until Jesus showed his smiling face. Now there's joy in my soul. It'll
last while endless ages roll because we're going to be with
the Lord Jesus Christ. It would be no heaven to us if
the Lord was not there because we love him. and we're seeking
him. Whom have I in heaven but thee?
And there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee, saith
the psalmist. So let us stir ourselves up to
seek the God of the early church, the God of the apostles, the
God of our spiritual fathers. Now let's look just a little
bit more at the God of Elijah. You know, I think that every
believer ought to have at least a mental diary. If they don't have a diary that
they write in every day of their lives, I think they ought to
have a mental diary where they can keep track of their experiences
with the Lord. and what happens in their lives
and how God works in their lives and how he manifests himself
in their lives and in their situations. A mental diary. And so when we're thinking about
Elijah, now the scripture furnishes us with a diary of the life of
Elijah the Tishbite. All the great things that happened
the experiences that happened in his life. Now, I'm not going to turn to all
these scriptures. I'm going to mention them to you, but I'm
not fast enough this morning to turn to all of these scriptures.
But in pointing out who the Lord God of Elijah is, he's the one
who kept Elijah when all the rest had turned aside. You remember
in 1 Kings 18.22 where he said, I only am left and they seek
my life to take it away. He said, I'm the only prophet
God has left in this world. I'm the only one. Now he didn't
realize that God had reserved 7,000 who had not bowed their
knee to Baal. He didn't know that, but God
kept his prophet and sustained him when he thought that all
there was left in the world was him and then all the prophets
of Baal. But God sustained him and enabled
him to stand. Now if you've never been in a
place where that, like Paul said on one occasion, all men, he
said, has forsaken me. But he said, nevertheless, the
Lord stood with me. And brother, sister, if you ever
get to the place where that you're forsaken by all, and God stands
with you, you know that the Lord God of Elijah is with you. He's
the God that sustained Elijah in that situation, and he went,
you know, into combat, as it were, with those prophets of
Baal, and they were all destroyed because of the Lord who was with
him. Jezebel, the Sidonian queen,
had Ahab entirely under her power, but there was one man at least
whom Ahab and Jezebel could not touch, and that man was Elijah. The God that answereth by fire,
he said, let him be God. the God that answers by fire,
and so God answered by fire. The fire came down, consumed
the sacrifices of the prophets of Baal, and answered by fire,
and let him be God, let him be God. Take the prophets of Baal,
let not one of them escape. So he stood like a rock, unmoved
and unmovable. For the most part of his life,
he was steadfast and firm. May God help us to be. He's the
God that provided for Elijah at the Brook Sheriff and at Zarephath
so he can provide for us. He was a providing God, a sustaining
God, a God who met the needs of his prophet. Now how important
is this in our lives? It's tremendously important.
It's been so to me. The God of the Bible can set
a table in the wilderness He's proven it over and over. The
God of the Bible is able to meet the needs of His people as they
rest in Him, as they trust Him. He provides for them and meets
all their needs. And then He's the God in 1 Kings
17, 17 through 22 that raised the dead. You remember the boy
in the household where Elijah had been staying
and he died, the boy died, and so Elijah went up and stretched
himself upon the child and the child came back to life. But
it was not Elijah that brought him back to life, it was who? The God of Elijah. that brought
him back. That's who we're talking about.
We're talking about a God that can raise the dead. Now you believe
that, don't you? And you believe in the resurrection,
don't you? Well, you believe in the resurrection
because you believe in a God that can raise the dead. You're
not expecting the undertaker to raise you, are you? No, no,
no. You're expecting God to raise
you. Well, this is the God of Elijah. the God who can raise
the dead. Next, he's the God who gave Elijah
such wondrous food. In 1st Kings 19, 4-7, in the
strength of that meat, the scripture says he went for 40 days. Verse
8 there says he went for 40 days with the meal that the Lord served
him. Wouldn't it be something to have
a spiritual meal like that? In our day and time, the meals,
the spiritual meals, most of them that we hear in churches
is one grain of meal to a gallon of water. One grain of meal to
a gallon of water. There's nothing in it to satisfy
or sustain the soul, really. 40 days meat at one meal. That was such a meal that there's
no other like it. But the spiritual meals, you
know, I realize that sometimes we're accused of putting out
too much meat. Too much meat maybe. But beloved,
that's the kind of meals that will sustain a believer, there's
the need for electing, discriminating grace to be taught and expounded
upon. God loving his people before
the foundation of the world, loving them everlastingly, loving
them so much that He gave His Son to die for them. He spared
not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all. How shall
they not also through Him freely give us all things? He loved
His people and gave His Son for us. And so we need to set that
forth. A love without beginning. A love
that is unchanging. A love that will never cease
toward His people. Love without an end. love without
an end, of an atonement that atones, that indeed puts away
sin. It's wonderful to be able to
have somebody to preach to us atonement accomplished, sacrifice
offered, and that it was a sacrifice that was accepted, not just accepted
by a few folks around the country, but accepted by the great Father
in heaven. And that sacrifice was accepted
on our behalf. It's a sweet smelling savor in
the nostrils of God. And he's well satisfied, he's
well pleased. I like to be told that. Because
that nourishes my soul. And I can ride on that, I can
go on that for a while. I mean, that's an encouragement
to me. The meat of union to Christ. of being in Him, such as we stressed
here last Sunday morning, and safe before the Lord, to be safe
before the Lord, to be hid in Christ, so hid in Christ that
God never sees us anymore, doesn't even look at us anymore. He looks
at His Son, looks at the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, And he's
always well pleased with him. This is my beloved son in whom
I am well pleased. Now, I'm glad to be in him, aren't
you? In him, glad to be in him. Well,
I like to be told about that. The blessing that is from being
in the Son of God. And God sent this food one time to my soul,
bless God, when I was able to receive it. And I know that there are people
sometimes who say, well, I get choked on doctrine and I get
choked on these spiritual meals that exalt God and exalt Christ
and that speaks of the purpose of God in all things. Well, God
is able to give you the ability to assimilate spiritual meals
into your system that'll do you to eternity. God send us back
this food. Keep it before us. Do not be
satisfied my friend until you get this kind of a meal that'll
hold you for 40 days. I mean it'll keep you for a while.
Lord evermore as the saying is give us this bread. Well, I thought
a great deal about this, this week. When could we use this
prayer? When could we use it? Well, now
we know this prayer here that it was offered by Elisha. And he had just taken the office,
the mantle had fallen on him. And he had a great responsibility,
now the prophet in Israel. And so when we're called upon
to undertake some new office or work that's unknown to us,
a great weight of responsibility has fallen upon Elisha and upon
his shoulders. He's the successor of the prophet
of fire, and he has Elijah's mantle, but it's only a relic
apart from the God of Elijah. If he can get Elijah's God, then
the mantle will mean something. And beloved, that's what's being emphasized here this morning,
that the power is not in the relic. The power is in the God
of Elijah. Second, when some great difficulty
lies in your way, you can pray this prayer. Where is the Lord
God of Elijah? Before Elisha, the Jordan is
flowing a deep and rapid stream. Well, how is he to get across?
Well, he strikes the water with the mantle and the water divides
and the prophet walks through. Have you come up against some
great difficulty in your life? Now brethren, I would never mislead
you I don't want anyone to believe that you can walk with God, serve
God, be God's servant without sacrifice. You can't do it. If you walk with God, if you
serve God, if you do His will, if you wait on Him and you allow
Him to lead and direct and provide, you will have trials. and you will experience times
when you're in great difficulty. The Lord will bring you into
these difficult places, and in the experience, he will manifest
himself and speak to others through what he does in your life. I am thankful to be able to have
one of these mental diaries. I'm very grateful to have one and dates clear back into the year
of 1951 and after I'd been asked to leave a Bible school
in Chicago, Illinois, and the Korean War was on, and so I had
to inform the draft board that I was no longer a ministerial
student, but was So I'd be reclassified back to
1A again. And it was a time of great crisis
in my life. Because I knew that God had laid
hold of me to preach the gospel. I knew that he'd call me to preach.
I knew it with all my heart. So I cried to God. I cried to
God. Lifted up my soul to Him. I had
left the Bible school for reason, for conviction, for reasons of
conviction. I could not tolerate Arminian
free will religion. And so I left believing what
the Word of God taught, and I believed God would sustain me. And the
Lord spoke to me and told me clearly that I'm going to take
care of this situation. You're going to preach the gospel.
I'm going to take care of this situation. Don't be concerned
about it. I told the pastor of the church
that I'd been called up to have an examination. He said, well,
you'll be going then right away. I told my dad. Of course, my dad knew it. He
said, you'll be going. I said, no, no, it's not going
to work out that way. The Lord showed me it ain't going
to be that way. It won't happen that way. And so I went in and
had the physical and the written test, and when it come to the
physical, they said, well, do you ever have a heart murmur?
And I said, yes, I've had a heart murmur. I had rheumatic fever
when I was a child. And they said, well, you got
a heart murmur. You go dress. That was the end
of that. Lots of people who said, you
left that school for the reasons you left that school, and now
you're in trouble, mister. You're in trouble. And the Lord
said, no, I'm managing this thing. They're not managing it, John.
I'm managing this thing. And then I could go ahead and
tell you story after story. dates, give you dates, when God
manifested Himself, when the Lord came near, and when He said
to me, you do this, you do that, you do so and so, you follow
me, you do what I ask you to do, and the Lord has always,
to this good hour, been faithful to His Word in my life. And when
you come up against a very difficult situation in your life, and you
don't know what to do, You look to the God of the Bible, and
you say, where is the Lord God of Elijah? The God with the answers. Where is the God with the answers?
That's what I'm looking for. I'm not looking for somebody
to come along and give me some advice. I want to hear from God. That's what I want to hear from.
I want the Lord to speak. I want God to say. And then when
He says, oh my, my, my. He has the solution of all of
our problems and the answer to all of our riddles. Do you believe
that? He does. There is nothing which can possibly
be beyond the power of Him whose name is Jehovah, the I Am, the
God All-Sufficient. He can will the power of nature
and providence. He wields the power of nature
and providence. Does not the Bible say that he
has his way in the whirlwind? And the clouds are what? The
dust of his feet. That's what they are. This God
can do whatever he has to do. He's able. Now beloved, I am
inclined at times, recently, And I'm bringing this to a conclusion.
I'm inclined to pray, where is the Lord God of this church that's
been with us for the last 35 years, that's sustained us for
the last 35 years? Where is the Lord God that raised
up a voice in this wilderness and sustained that voice and
empowered that voice, and give means to that voice, where is
the Lord God? You see, we need to pray that
way. This church is not here by accident.
This church did not get here by accident. I can take you places,
physically take you places, and show you where God directed in
the past of this church. The history of this church. June
the 10th, this church will be 35 years old. And God has been
God in this church. He has undertaken. Where is the
Lord God that raised up this church? Where is He? Where is
the Lord God that kept giving a word to that preacher week
after week, month after month, for years and years? Where is
He at? Well, beloved, He's with us. This God is with us. This God has power. This God
is speaking still. This God has worked some wonderful
miracles right in our midst. And we've witnessed them, and
it's been joyous to see the hand of God, what God has done. And
we praise His name. But we're pointing you, as a
church, we're pointing you to this God, this God of Elijah,
this God of the Bible. We're pointing you to Him. Seek Him and make you a mental
diary of when the Lord appears, what He says to you, and don't
ever forget it. Oh my, my, my. Just like to sometime,
and maybe I'll have opportunity to go through date after date
of the manifestations of God in my own life and experience.
But I do trust that the Lord will open our eyes and that we'll
see clearly, we'll see clearly where the power is. The power
is in our God. Seek Him. Seek Him with all your
heart. And the Lord said, I didn't say to the sons of Jacob, seek
me in vain. Oh, you won't seek Him in vain.
No, sir. If God owns you, you're not going
to seek Him in vain. May the Lord bless you. I wish
I'd have had more strength, but may God bless. Our God is strong. May the Lord be glorified.