Would you turn to 1 Kings chapter
19? 1 Kings 19. Look in verse 16. This is where The Lord is telling Elijah who
to anoint, verse 16, and Jehu, the son of Nimshi, shalt thou
anoint to be king over Israel and Elisha, the son of Shaphat
of Abelmelo, shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room. Now,
Elisha did not know anything about this. Now look in verse
19. So he, Elijah, departed thence
and found Elisha. the son of Shaphat, who was plowing
with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he with the twelfth. And Elijah passed by him and
cast his mantle upon him. And he left the oxen and ran
after Elijah and said, Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and
mother, and then I will follow thee. And he said unto him, Go
back again, for what have I done to thee? 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 rose, and went after
Elijah, and ministered unto him." Let's pray together. Lord, how thankful we are to
be able to come into your presence and know that we're heard through
thy dear son. How we thank you for the salvation
that's in him. Lord, we ask that you would be
pleased to speak to us, reveal thy son to us, teach us by your spirit, forgive
us of our sins and cleanse us for Christ's sake. In His name
we pray, amen. Now we're going to consider the
call of Elisha to be the successor of Elijah. And what we have here
is a picture of the call to the ministry. If you want to know
something about what the call to the ministry is, we'll learn
something in this passage of scripture. We read where Elijah
had been instructed by God to anoint Elisha to be the prophet
in his room. And Elisha didn't know anything
about this and there's no reason to believe it was something he
aspired to. But in this passage of scripture, we clearly see
the call of God to the ministry. And this is something that you
say, well, what's that got to do with me? I'm not called to
preach. It's something that is very important to every believer
because the way we feed, the way we're fed is through the
preaching of the gospel. And that's how important this
thing is. You and I need to understand something about what the scripture
has to say about a pastor in the call of the ministry. Now
would you turn to Jeremiah chapter 3. I'm going to look at quite
a few scriptures. Jeremiah chapter 3, verse 14. Turn, O backsliding
children, saith the Lord, for I'm married unto you, and I'll
take you, one of a city and two of a family, and I'll bring you
to Zion, and I will give you pastors according to mine heart,
which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding." Now the feeding
with knowledge is the preaching of the Word. That's what this
is about. Pastors after his own heart,
and I want to be a pastor after his own heart, and I pray that
you will pray that God enables me to be a pastor after his own
heart. In this thing of preaching, 1
Corinthians 1.21 says, Titus 1.3 says, God has manifested
his word through preaching, which is committed to my trust. Turn
with me to Romans chapter 10 for a moment. Romans chapter 10, and this is
a quotation from the book of Jeremiah. Verse 13, for whosoever shall
call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall
they call on him in whom they've not believed? And how shall they
believe in him of whom they've not heard? And how shall they
hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except
they be sent, sent of God to preach the gospel? Now this is
the way God's people are fed. Acts chapter 20 verse 28, Paul
said to the Ephesian elders, feed the church of God. which
he hath purchased with his own blood." Now that's the job of
the preacher is to feed. Now obviously I can't do anything.
It's up to the Lord to feed you, but that happens through the
preaching of the gospel. Turn to 1 Peter chapter 5. I'm
going to get to Elisha in a moment, but I just want to give you some
kind of background about what the Bible says about this. Peter says in verse 1, the elders
which are among you, that's another name for a pastor, I exhort who
am also an elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ and
also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed, feed
the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof,
not by constraint, but willingly, not for money, but of a ready,
willing mind, neither as being lords over God's heritage, but
being examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd shall
appear, you shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away."
Look back in Hebrews chapter 13, verse 7. Remember them which have the
rule over you. Now before we go on, my marginal
reading says remember them that are your guides. A pastor is
not somebody who tells people what to do. You know, I know
some preachers look at it that way, you know, you've got to
rule the church and so on. No, you don't. You preach the
gospel. Someone says, well, how do you discipline? Preaching
the gospel. That's what the Lord uses, not trying to correct people
all the time or telling people what to do. I mean, there are
pastors who people come up, I mean, the members come up and have
to give an account of how they spend their money and what they
do. That's ridiculous. That's ridiculous. It doesn't
mean they rule over you like telling you what to do. Remember
them which are your guides, who have spoken unto you the word
of God, whose faith follow, considering the end, the goal of their conversation."
And here it is, Jesus Christ the same. That's the goal of
every believer, really, the end of their conversation, Jesus
Christ the same. Yesterday, today, and forever. Look in verse 17.
Obey them, and that word obey is literally be persuaded by
them. It doesn't mean you need to be here at 10 o'clock, okay,
I'll do it, I'll obey. It doesn't mean that at all.
It means be persuaded. Listen to what they're saying
and be persuaded by them that are your guides and submit yourselves
for they watch for your souls as they that must give account
that they may do it with joy and not with grief for this is
unprofitable for you. Now, God chose Elisha to be the
prophet in Elijah's place. Elisha didn't know anything about
this. This was something that God determined and he told Elijah
to go anoint him. I think it's interesting when
Elijah goes by, if we're going to consider just a minute, all
he did was throw his mantle on him. He didn't say anything to
him, but he knew what that mantle symbolized. But he didn't try
to talk him into it. Here's what I need you to do.
He just threw his mantle on him and kept on walking because he
knew this was God that was going to take care of this. He wasn't
going to try to talk him into being a prophet or try to explain
to him. He just threw the mantle on him and kept going. I think
that's very interesting. But Elisha's name, go back to
our text. First Kings 19. Elisha's name
means God is salvation. That's the meaning of his name.
And that tells us right off the bat what the message of a true
prophet is, somebody that God has called to preach the gospel.
Here's their message. God is salvation. Salvation is of the Lord. He himself is the salvation.
He purposed salvation. He purchased salvation with his
own blood. The reason I'm saved is he paid
for my sins and gave me his righteousness. He applies salvation. He gives
life. He gives spiritual life. Now
God is salvation tells us what the message of the true prophet
is. Salvation is of the Lord. Now, before Elisha was called,
what was he doing? He was working. He was plowing
in a field. And we read of 12 yoke of oxen. Evidently, he was a fairly wealthy
man because you would have to have a lot of money to own 12
yoke of oxen. He was a wealthy man, or at least
he was the supervisor of all this going on, and he was working. He wasn't a lazy man. He was
an industrious man. He was seeking to do what responsibility
he had to do. He was working. I love the thought
of plowing. What is the only way, and this
is kind of to the side, what is the only way you can plow
a straight furrow? by keeping your eyes fixed on
the object ahead of you. If you look down at your feet
while you're plowing, your walk, you're not going to plow straight
furrow. If you look to the side, somebody else's walk, you're
not going to plow straight furrow. You're going to veer off, veer
off. If you look behind you, You look at your experience.
You're not going to plow a straight furrow. You're to keep your eyes
totally on that object. And that's what faith in Christ
is. It's looking to Christ only. That's the only way you're going
to plow a straight furrow. And I think that gives a kind of
a a different slant on where the Lord said in Luke 9, he that
has put his hand to the plow and looking back is not fit for
the kingdom of heaven. I've always thought of that as
somebody who leaves, and that's true, but more than anything
else, look, if you look back, you can't plow, can you? You're
not fit to be a plower. He was plowing in a field. And that is how he was found. Now, Elijah, without a word,
walked by him, cast his mantle on him, and it was, I guess,
made of camel hair, everything I read said, but this mantle
was significant. Turn to 2 Kings 2 for just a
moment. You see the significance of this. Verse 8. Now this is six years later.
This is when he enters his public ministry, six years later. And
Elijah took his mantle and wrapped it together and smote the waters
and they were divided hither and thither so that the two went
over on dry ground. He took his mantle to smite the
river Jordan and parted. And it came to pass when they
were gone over that Elijah said unto Elisha, ask what I shall
do for thee before I be taken away from thee. And Elisha said,
I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me. And
he said, thou hast asked a hard thing. Nevertheless, if thou
see me when I'm taken from thee, it shall be unto thee, but if
not, it shall not be so. And it came to pass, as they
still went on and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot
of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them asunder, and
Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it,
and he cried, My father, my father, the charity of Israel, and the
horsemen thereof. And he saw him no more. And he took hold
of his own clothes, and rent them into two pieces, and he
took up the mantle of Elijah. fell from him, and went back,
and stood by the bank of Jordan. And he took the mantle of Elijah
that fell from him, and smote the waters, and said, Where is
the Lord God of Elijah? And when he also had smit the
waters, they parted thither and thither, and Elisha went over."
So we see the significance of this mantle. This signifies the
prophet, God's anointing. And so when Elijah comes looking
for Elisha. Elisha was just plowing a field,
minding his own business. We don't know that he was aspiring
to anything like this. But he threw his mantle over
him and Elisha understood just what that meant. Now look in
verse 20. After the mantle was thrown upon
his shoulders, verse 20, and he let the oxen, and ran after
Elijah. I love to think of Elijah as
just putting on him and keeping on going. He didn't make any
explanation for what he was doing, he just kept walking. Elisha
had some understanding of this and so he went after him. He
wanted to find out what was taking place. And he left the oxen and
ran after Elijah and said, let me, I pray thee, kiss my father
and my mother, then I will follow thee. He wanted to say goodbye
to them. And he said unto him, go back again. And I think what
that's saying is go ahead and do it. Somebody says, well, what
about Luke chapter 9, where that fellow said, let me go bury my
father and mother before I come and follow thee? Well, that fellow
wanted to wait till they died. And he wanted to wait till everything
was over, and then he would come. And this is not what was in Elijah
at all. He was perfectly willing to do
whatever Elijah was calling upon him to do. And it's only right
that he wanted to go say goodbye to his parents. It's only right. And he did. And he came back
and Elijah, when Elisha said to Elisha, do you realize what
I have done to you? Verse 21, and he returned back
from him. He had gone back to tell his
mom and dad goodbye. And what did he do with the oxen,
the yoke of oxen? He slew them, he took the yoke
and started a fire 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. Now, it's good that he went back to
say goodbye to his parents. Y'all love your parents. You
gotta treat them with respect. That was a good thing. Now when
he comes back, he takes that yoke and burns it. He slays the
oxen and gives food to everybody, and by this he's saying, I've
left this stuff. I've left this stuff. I'm giving
myself completely to the ministry. I'm giving myself completely
to what God has called me to do. That's what that signifies. He burned his way of making a
living, his yoke, he set it on fire, he killed the oxen, he
fed everybody, and he said, I'm leaving all this stuff and I
am separated unto the gospel of God. And for the next six
years, he's going to follow Elijah and he's going to minister to
it. Now, I think this gives us some insight into what the training
of a preacher is. It's not going to seminary. It's
not going to seminary. Let me repeat that. It's not
going to seminary. You want to ruin somebody, send them to seminary. You've heard of career politicians. What do you
think of career politicians? Not much. Not much. You send somebody to seminary
and what you got is a career preacher, a career pastor. That's
about what it comes to. He's now trained to get a job. Can you imagine the Apostle Paul
sending out a resume trying to get a position? That's offensive. There was a
man sent from God, a man a sinful, weak man, the way all men are,
but he was a man sent from God. A pastor is not somebody who
applies for a job and then that church hires him. That is just
totally contrary to everything the Scripture teaches. A pastor
is a man sent from God, whose name was John. This, I love the
way he burned his yoke, slew the ox and said, I'm not going
to have anything to do with this anymore. Now, when we started this church,
for the first six years I worked, I was a bank teller and got fired. The only job I've ever been fired
for. I couldn't stay in balance to
save my life. I remember after I got audited
the first time, the auditor said, why haven't you been fired? Well,
the next day I was. I was. And they said, look, you're
a nice guy, but you need to find something else to do. And then
I was in printing for several years, three different jobs.
And the reason I did that was because Church couldn't support
me. We were a very small group, couldn't
do it. And I remember when I did finally quit, somebody said,
well, now you're in the ministry. And I got so irritated when they
said that. I was just as much in the ministry when I was working
as when I was not. It's an attitude of the heart. And what he was
saying was, is I'm separated to the gospel. That's my one
desire. That's the one thing I'm going
to do is preach the gospel. And that's what he signified
by that. Now, when God sends a man, we're
talking about a call to the ministry, it doesn't begin with that man.
Well, I think I want to be a preacher. I think that's what I want to
do. There's a lot of those. There's a whole lot of those.
It's the way they make a living. It's their job. And boy, I think
it'd be a miserable job to try to keep everybody happy the way
pastors do. I think a high school principal would be difficult.
And I think a pastor would be difficult, trying to keep all
these people happy and so on. That's your job, you know. No. The call to the ministry begins
with God. God determined that Elisha was
going to be this man. Now, when God calls a man to
preach, there's three things. And you and I need to understand
this because I want to hear somebody that God has called that's actually
giving me the Word of God, don't you? Desire the pure milk of
the Word that you may grow thereby. When God calls a man to preach,
these three things are there. Number one, a desire. If a man desireth the office
of a bishop, he desireth a good work. You're going to have a
desire that will not go away. And if a man can do something
other than preach, he ought to. He ought to. Well, I could preach
or I could be a carpenter or a plumber or a president. Well,
you ought to do one of those other things. The desire has
to be all-consuming if God's in it. If God's in it. It's an
all-consuming desire. Number two, there's a gift. There's a gift to understand
the scriptures. There's a gift to communicate
the gospel in a simple way. There's always a gift if someone
will what Paul said to Timothy. He's got to be apt to teach.
He has to have a gift for this where he can communicate the
gospel. There's a desire. There's a gift. And thirdly there's a hearing.
there's a hearing. There's gonna be somebody that
wants to hear what that man has to say. There's a true hearing.
He's got some folks who want to hear him. I've known men that,
I've known several men that just can't figure out why people can't
see that God's called them to preach. Nobody wants to hear
me. They can't see my great gifts. Well, if God has called a man
to preach, there will be a hearing. And when he slew those oxen,
got rid of the, burned the oats and gave everybody something
to eat out of it. What he was saying was the same thing Paul
said, I'm separated unto the gospel of God. And he followed
Elijah for six years. Elijah was his mentor. And you
know, I thought about this in my situation. Henry Mahan was
my mentor. I mean, he was my pastor. He
was my mentor. Seminary, no. People say, where
have you gone? How many times have I heard people
say, where'd you go to seminary? Well, 13th Street Baptist Church,
I reckon, if you want to call it that. I mean, I sat under
Henry Mahan, and I'm thankful for the interest he took in me.
But that was my training. The Scripture says the church,
1 Timothy 3, the church is the pillar and ground of the truth.
The church. And the training for a man is
the church, the local church. And God's people will recognize
if the Lord's hand is on somebody to preach the gospel. The Lord's
people will recognize that. You'll know, you know whether
or not the Lord has called me to preach the gospel. You know
about Whether, you know, hearing, hearing what I'm preaching. You'll
know, you can make that determination. But a para-church organization,
like a seminary, the Lord's not in that. He's not in that. He
does everything through the church. The church, what we're doing
right now, is the pillar and the ground of the truth, not
some kind of place to train people. I wish I could express properly
the contempt that I have for the idea of going to school to
be trained to be a preacher and then sending out resumes and
finally somebody hires you and you go and all of a sudden you
become their pastor. That is so utterly wrong. It's fleshly, it's And I see the example of this
from Elisha. And he spent six years just following
Elijah around, and that was his training for the ministry. And
he goes on to, the Lord used him in a very remarkable way,
but six years pass until he enters into the public ministry. But
we have a picture of the call and let me close by reading a
passage in Matthew chapter 9. Verse 36. But when he saw the multitudes,
he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted
and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. Then saith he unto his disciples,
the harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of
the harvest that he will send forth laborers into his harvest. Pray for me that the Lord would
make me to be a man after his own heart and a pastor after
his own heart giving myself completely to this. Pray for me. I covet
your prayers. I know that I'll be no good unless
the Lord is pleased to have his hand upon me in this. And pray
that the Lord would send forth laborers into his harvest. The only way there'll be anything
to them is if the Lord sends them. One other scripture. Turn to Jeremiah 23. I just thought
of this. this thing of the Lord sending
somebody. Verse 30, Therefore behold, I am against
the prophets, saith the Lord, that steal my words, every one
from his neighbor. Behold, I'm against the prophets,
saith the Lord, that use their tongues and say, he saith, the
Lord said this. Behold, I'm against them that
prophesy false dreams, saith the Lord, and do tell them and
cause my people to err by their lies and by their likeness. Yet
I sent them not, nor commanded them, therefore they shall not
profit this people at all, saith the Lord. The only way we're
going to benefit is if the Lord truly sends out His prophet. And if one is not sent by the
Lord, no good, only harm comes from Him. May the Lord deliver
us from that.