See you Later Elijah
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You may have heard the old quotation...
Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.
U— Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Jean-Baptiste Le Roy, 1789
However, according to Wikipedia
Franklin's letter is not the origin of the phrase, which appeared earlier in Daniel Defoe's The Political History of the Devil.[2]
Things as certain as death and taxes, can be more firmly believ’d.
— Daniel Defoe, The Political History of the Devil, 1726.
And in The Cobbler of Preston by Christopher Bullock (1716)[3]
’Tis impossible to be sure of any thing but Death and Taxes
So it seems that the third thing we can count on is not concealing our sources.
John Wesley preached his last sermon of Feb 17, 1791, in Lambeth on the text "Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near" (Isa 55:6). The following day, a very sick man, he was put to bed in his home on City Road. During the days of his illness, he often repeated the words from one of his brother's hymns: I the chief of sinners am, But Jesus died for me! His last words were, "The best of all is, God is with us!" He died March 2, 1791.
W. Wiersbe, Wycliffe Handbook of Preaching and Preachers, p. 245.
When you're old as I am, there are all sorts of extremely pleasant things that happen to you...the pleasantest of all is that you wake up in the night and you find that you are half in and half out of your battered old carcass. It seems quite a tossup whether you go back and resume full occupancy of your mortal body, or make off toward the bright glow you see in the sky, the lights of the city of God.
Malcolm Muggeridge, Christian Times, September 3, 1982.
That is a morbid thought but I think good for us mortals to remember.
The lift off of the prophet.
The route (2:1–6): Traveling from Gilgal to Bethel to Jericho to the Jordan River, Elisha is repeatedly reminded that his master is going to be taken away. Elisha repeatedly affirms his loyalty to Elijah.
The river (2:7–8): At the Jordan River, Elijah performs his final miracle by parting its waters.
The request (2:9): Elisha asks to become Elijah’s “rightful successor.”
The requirement (2:10): Elijah tells Elisha that he will receive his request if he witnesses Elijah’s departure.
The removal (2:11): As Elisha watches, a chariot of fire appears, and Elijah is carried into heaven by a whirlwind!
He parts the Jordan (2:12–14): Elisha takes up Elijah’s cloak and parts the Jordan by striking its waters with it.
H. L. Willmington, The Outline Bible (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1999), 2 Ki 2:1–18.
The focus of death in the life of Elijah...
Drought and lack of water. I Kings 17.2
Crop failure I Kings 18.5
Famine I Kings 18.2
Livestock dies I Kings 18.5
Military attacks I Kings 20
Military defeat I Kings 20.42
Loss of Family I Kings 21.23-24
Jezebaal’s murder
450 priests of Baal
Ahab’s death
Yet we find the Prophet Elijah misses out on death.
Universal consequence of Death.
It is here that we are reminded that all of us face the same exact consequence - death.
You and I each face this same sentence - death.
Yet like Elijah our lives surrounded by death will never really know death. I’m not talking about Rapture I’m talking about this life will end and those that know Christ will not know of death.
And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:
Elijah’s Story doesn’t end at his disappearance...
Consider the times that we find Elijah after this...
Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me:
And the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple,
Even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in:
Behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts.
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet
Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord:
And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children,
And the heart of the children to their fathers,
Lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
And as they came down from the mountain, he charged them that they should tell no man what things they had seen, till the Son of man were risen from the dead. And they kept that saying with themselves, questioning one with another what the rising from the dead should mean. And they asked him, saying, Why say the scribes that Elias must first come? And he answered and told them, Elias verily cometh first, and restoreth all things; and how it is written of the Son of man, that he must suffer many things, and be set at nought. But I say unto you, That Elias is indeed come, and they have done unto him whatsoever they listed, as it is written of him.
Elijah will fore run Christ’s great kingdom
John the Baptist as Elijah
And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.
And this is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou? And he confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ. And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elias? And he saith, I am not. Art thou that prophet? And he answered, No.
Jesus is Elijah
When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?
Calvary waiting on Elijah
And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them.
Then they see Elijah...
And after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and James, and John, and leadeth them up into an high mountain apart by themselves: and he was transfigured before them. And his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them. And there appeared unto them Elias with Moses: and they were talking with Jesus. And Peter answered and said to Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. For he wist not what to say; for they were sore afraid. And there was a cloud that overshadowed them: and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him.
Well now they have seen Elijah. But Jesus is telling
They get the Cross wrong because they became focused on the Kingdom first.
What is missing is that you and I when death is a part of the conversation must not look to the kingdom first but to the Cross.
For the resurrection is our hope.
The Kingdom is our certainty.
God’s plan for your death is a Kingdom that is only foretold about.
And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.
We find Elijah referenced just one more time in Scripture and it is in the obedience of two prophets.
It is never said that these prophets are Moses and Elijah. Nor does it change anything of our promises if it is or is not.
But these prophets will not avoid death…They will enjoy resurrection.
And this is the point.
Even at the faithlessness of an Emotional prophet. God allowed great weight to be placed on a fragile vessel. One without whom we would not have the certainty of the sufficenecy of the Cross.
For it is in the Cross Death is beaten
It is in Christ the Cross is Validated.
It is in the Cross that the Kingdom makes sense.
To the hopeless this morning come to Christ for if he can handle your greatest enemy of Death, Hell and the grave. You can trust him with your temporal problems.
To the lost if you can look back on the omnipotence of God’s working for our redemption you can trust him with your forgiveness.
Death is not extinguishing the light from the Christian; it is putting out the lamp because the dawn has come. - Unknown
To the faithful, You can trust a God that will show kindness even to a frail vessel like Elijah.