 Amen. Well, we're there in 2 Kings chapter number two. Let's go ahead and start in verse number one, just kind of get the context of what's going on in this chapter. 2 Kings chapter two in verse number one, the Bible reads, and it came to pass. Notice this, when the Lord would take Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah with Elisha from Gilgall. So let's get this off right away, and what we are told right away is at this time God intends to take Elijah home. Elijah has been a great prophet. He's been through some crazy times in the nation of Israel, and he at this point, God is deciding he, it's time for him to come home. It's time for his ministry to end, and as we're going to see, maybe not everyone knows the details of this, but this is definitely the word on the street. People somehow know that something of this sort is going to happen, verse two. And Elijah said unto Elisha, so we're going to be looking at these two men throughout this sermon, but don't get them mixed up. Elijah is at this point the prophet, and Elisha was his servant. He was the man who had been spending the past six years serving Elijah the prophet, being with him, ministering unto him, helping him in the ministry. Verse two, and Elijah said unto Elisha, Terry here I pray thee, for the Lord hath sent me to Bethel. And Elisha said unto him, as the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. So they went down to Bethel. And the sons of the prophets that were at Bethel came forth to Elisha, and said unto him, knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head today? And he said, yea, I know it, hold thee your peace. So they're going through these cities and traveling through the city, these different cities, and we're going to see a recurring pattern here where every time they go into a city, you have the sons of the prophets that go up to Elisha and say, don't you know that God's going to take Elisha somewhere else? He's going to take him to another place. And Elisha says, I know it, don't worry about it. And then we see Elijah, the prophets say to Elisha, you know Elisha, you don't have to follow me anymore. You can stay here, but Elisha we see refuses to leave Elisha. Verse four and verse five, sorry, in the sons of the prophets that were at Jericho came to Elisha, and said unto him, knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head today? And he answered, yea, I know it, hold thee your peace. Hold thee your peace, meaning basically a nice way of saying, shut up, don't worry about it. And he told me this, I know this. Verse six, and Elijah said unto him, Terri, I pray thee here, for the Lord hath sent me to Jordan. And he said, as the Lord liveth, and as I soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And they too went on. Verse seven, and fifty men of the sons of prophets went, instant to view far off, and they too stood by Jordan. So they now traveled through these three cities, and now Elisha and Elisha are standing at the bank of the Jordan River. And these fifty or fifty of the sons of the prophets are viewing them, they're seeing them from a long distance off, but they can see them at the river. And look what Elisha does. Verse eight, Elisha took his mantle, that's like his cloak, and wrapped it together, and smote the waters, and they were divided hither and thither, so that they too went on over on dry ground. So if you think about the well-known story of when Moses crossed the Red Sea with the Hebrews, this is a small scale version of this, where he's just the rivers in his way. And so, and this by the way shows the power of God that was on Elisha's life, where he could just perform these miracles at will. He goes to a river, and there's a river in his way, so he departs the river, and walks across. This was the type of power that he had on his life. Verse nine, and it came to pass when they were gone over, that Elisha said unto Elisha, Ask what I shall do for thee, before I be taken away from thee. So Elisha tells his servant, he says, I'm going to leave you now, and he said, Ask me one thing. He said, I will do one thing for you before I leave. When Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me. We'll look at this in a second. Let's keep reading. Verse 10, and he said, Elisha said, That was after a hard thing, never the last. If thou see me, when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee. But if not, it shall not be so. So we see it meant so much to Elisha that he had what he wanted, when Elisha told him, Hey, you can have anything you want before I leave. What mattered most to him is that he had the same power of God on his life, and the same spirit that Elisha had. Verse 11, And he came to pass as he still went on, and talked, that behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and part of them both asunder, and Elisha went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it. I'm sure this was an amazing sight to see. Elisha saw it, and he cried, My Father, My Father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof. And he saw him, no more. And he took hold of his own clothes, and rent them in two pieces. Look at verse 13, because this is really going to be the two verses we're going to focus on for the sermon this evening. And he took up all the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, 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 don't miss this, he says, Where is the Lord God Elijah? And when he had also smitten the waters, they parted hither and Elisha went over. And you hear this phrase, and you say, Why would he say that? Obviously, he knew that it's not like he thought he worshipped a different God than Elijah. It's not that he thought that him and Elijah had two separate gods they worshipped, or two separate religions. So you say, Why would he ask that? What was he saying here? As he stood before this river, he hits the water first, intending to part it, and then he shouts, Where is the Lord God of Elijah? Here's what he was asking. What he was saying, or what he was asking, he was saying the same thing that he asked Elijah before he was taken up. He was saying that the God that was with Elijah, the God that protected Elijah, the God that gave him the power that allowed him to do the miracles, that gave him the boldness, and gave him the spirit of God in his life, what he was saying is, I want that too. That's what mattered most to Elisha. And I think this applies to us, because obviously God deals with us differently. At this time in the Old Testament, they did not have a completed preserved word of God, so God used the prophets. That's how he conveyed his word to his people as he used the prophets. And many times what he did to show that he sent these prophets was he used the miracles. The best example of this is Moses. Moses is really the first example of this, where God told Moses that the reason he was going to have him do the miracles was so that they knew he was sent from God. Moses was the prophet. He was conveying the word of God. But God allowed him to do these special miracles just to prove that he was sent from God. Now obviously today we don't have prophets in this manner that are giving us extra revelations. The Bible has been written. The Bible is complete. But that doesn't mean that we have any less access to the same power of God that Elijah had. And that's the point that we need to remember is, yes, God may use us in different ways than he did with Elijah and the prophets in Elijah. However, God that was available to Elijah, the God that allowed Elijah to raise people from the dead, was just as available to Elijah. And that's what he wanted. It is just available to us. So the title of the sermon this evening is Finding the God of Elijah. Finding the God of Elijah. And what I'd like to look at is how we can unlock the same power of God in our lives that Elijah had. Now again, that doesn't mean we're going to be raising people from the dead. That doesn't mean we're going to be doing the same miracles that he did. God uses us in different ways. And I would argue in better ways. However, the same power that these prophets, that these men of God in the Bible had, we can also have on our life. So how do we find it? Where is the Lord God of Elijah? How do we get the same power that Elijah had? And how did Elisha find it himself? Turn to 2 Kings chapter 3. 2 Kings chapter number 3. We're not going to look into the context of this story. We're kind of jumping into the middle of the story here, but I do want to show you something from it. 2 Kings 3.9, if you do read the whole context of the story, it is kind of a humorous story. 2 Kings 3 verse 9, so the king of Israel went, and the king of Judah, and the king of Edom, and they fetched a compass of seven days journey, and there was no water for the host, and for the cattle that followed them. The king of Israel said alas, that the Lord hath called these three kings together to deliver them into the hand of Moab. They say, what in the world is going on here? Long story short, a bunch of people went camping and didn't bring enough water with them, and now they're stuck in the wilderness. Verse 11, but Jehoshaphat said, so they're stuck here, and I think this is kind of funny, because when I picture them, they're here with this great amount of people. I picture them in like a desert. They're like the middle of nowhere. And basically, Jehoshaphat's like, hey, Elisha's right here, let's go ask him. So Elisha's just conveniently right there for them. But Jehoshaphat said, is there not here a prophet of the Lord that we may inquire of the Lord by him? One of the king of Israel's servants answered and said, here's Elisha, the son of Shaphat, but notice how he describes Elisha, which poured water on the hands of Elisha. And Jehoshaphat said, the word of the Lord is with him. So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat and the king of Edom went down to him. The first way this evening that we can unlock the power of God is to be a loyal follower. It's to be a loyal follower. Here you have Elisha, and we're going to get into this later, but Elisha actually ended up being a greater prophet than Elisha was. Elisha ended up, according to what's recorded in the Bible, Elisha actually ended up performing numerically more miracles than any other prophet of the Testament. He performed about twice the amount of miracles that Elisha did. And how do they describe this man? When they say, oh, I'm talking about Elisha, the son of Shaphat, they describe him as the man that served Elisha. You see, Elisha didn't just, Elisha went through years and years of serving the man of God and serving in ministry himself before he had the same power of God and the greater power of God than Elisha had on his life. Turn to 1 Samuel chapter 14. Think about this story that we read. We're not going to reread all those verses, but notice as they go through all these cities, the leader, Elisha, is looking at his servant at the time, Elisha, saying, you know, Elisha, you don't have to follow me any longer. Just stay here. It's okay, it's fine. Just stay here, just stay here. But what does Elisha say? He says, I will not leave you. He refused to leave the man of God. 1 Samuel chapter 14 verse one says this, now it came to pass upon a day. So here the Philistines are at war with Israel, that Jonathan, the son of Saul, said unto the young man that bear his armor, come and let his guard to the Philistines garrison that is on the other side. So he has these plans, just him, just Jonathan, who is the king's son, and this armor bearer of his, this man who serves him and has his armor. He has this plan, just the two of them, to basically go over to the camp or the garrison of the Philistines and attack them, just the two of them. Skip down to verse number six. I love this verse, verse six, and Jonathan said to the young man that bear his armor, come and let his go over unto the garrison that he's on circumcised, and then he says this, he says it may be that the Lord will work for us, for there is no restraint of the Lord, say by many, or by few. So Jonathan hears the leader and he says, this man that's following him, he says, notice he doesn't say we're for sure going to win. He doesn't say this is my plan and I'm doing this because there is no chance we're gonna fail. Everything's gonna go perfect. Notice he says I have this plan, this is what I'm going to do, but he says it may be that the Lord will help us. God is able to help us either way, but will he? Maybe. And notice verse seven, and his armor bearer said unto him, that's a stupid idea. That's not what I would do. I wouldn't do that if I were, you know, his armor bearer said unto him, do all that is in thine heart, turn thee, behold, I am with thee. Sound familiar? According to thy heart. See great leaders need great followers as well. And you cannot have, you cannot have someone who becomes a great leader themselves without serving as a servant before that. It's extremely important, it's extremely important to be there and be loyal to, and that's not just with a church. This is with any, this is at work. It should be loyal. The Bible says you should serve your leaders at work as if you're serving Jesus Christ. You should serve in any situation in life where you are under someone, you should be loyal to them. And obviously there's of course this caveat of we serve God above man, right? We obey the higher powers. So if your leader in any capacity is asking you to do something that is immoral, that is against the Bible, that's different. But by and large for the most of it you should be loyal to someone. I've seen even just in the workplace, I'm sure every man has seen this, but I see so many people who they're good at their job. They're good at what they do. But they can't stay at a company or they can't stay with a certain boss for any length of time just because they're the type of person that refuses to get on that boss's agenda. He refuses to do things the way that the boss wants it. We ought to not be like that as Christians. An example I want to bring up is King David. King David, one man I think is really overlooked. There's a certain man in the Bible that I believe was the most loyal person to David by far compared to anyone else. And I believe that was a man named Abishai. And I'm not going to go into every single story about Abishai, but what I'd like to do is I'd like to read you just a few quotes from Abishai. A few things, and as I read these quotes you're going to start to pick up pretty quick the type of man that Abishai was. He was, in short, he was a man in David's army. He was mentioned at the end of David's life. He was listed as one of the mighty men. But I want to read you some quotes from Abishai. 1 Samuel 26, verse six. Basically, David is in a dangerous situation and he's looking for someone to help him. And Abishai says, quote, I will go down with you. End quote. 1 Samuel 26, verse eight. David runs into an enemy of his. Abishai says this, quote, God hath delivered thine enemy into thine hand this day. Now therefore, let me smite him, I pray thee, with the spear, even to the earth at once. And I will not smite him the second time. End quote. 2 Samuel 16, 9. This is somebody else. Quote, why should this dead dog curse my Lord the King? Let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his head. So this is the type of man that Abishai was. This is how loyal he was to King David. Here's some more. 2 Samuel 19, 21, quote, shall not shimei be put to death for this? Because he cursed the Lord's anointed, referring to King David. There's actually one point where Abishai literally saves King David's life. When King David is older, he goes to battle and he almost dies. In 2 Samuel 21, 17, the Bible says, but Abishai, who was there for David? When he was about to die, when he was in a tough situation, who was close enough to him to save his life within seconds? But Abishai, the son of Zeruaia, suckered him and smote the Philistine, the man that almost killed David, and killed him. And the men of David swear unto him, saying, thou shalt go no more out with us to battle. So you read this. Turn to 1 Thessalonians chapter 1. 1 Thessalonians chapter 1. You read this. Like, what's the deal with Abishai? I mean, he's constantly threatening to assault people, kill people, behead people, all because of people saying mean things to David, or people saying nasty things to David. Why would he be like this? Isn't that a little over the top? It's not like people were attacking him personally. Why David? Why would someone attacking David make Abishai that upset? Here's why. Abishai was such a good follower that, and this is how all followers should be, he was such a good follower that when someone attacked David, he saw that he took that personally. When someone attacked David, when someone was about to, especially when someone was about to kill David, even when someone was cursing David, he took that personally. That was as if someone was saying that to him. You're there in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, look at verse 6. Here Paul says this. He says, and he became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy to the Holy Ghost, so that notice this. You were in samples to all that believed in Macedonia and Ikea. You see, here's the beauty of this. If you as a believer, like I said, we're talking about all leadership positions in life, but mainly a church. But here's the thing, if you can get behind church and a pastor and a leader that has the power, if you can do that, and you can just go all in supporting a man of God who is doing a great work for God, or a church, or whatever it is, that has the power to be a major inspiration to get other people on board. Here, that's what Paul is saying here. He's saying, you heard the word of God and you became followers of us, but he said what you did when you chose to do that is you were an example to all these other churches. And to where all these other churches said, you know what, that's something I can get behind. That's something I can support. And that's how we ought to be. See, most people, unfortunately, in this world, in general, most people are waiting for someone else to act. Most people are waiting for someone else to take the first step. I think about David and Goliath. Here you had this, it was sort of this draw between the Philistines and the Hebrews. And it mentions that before David got up on the scene, they would get themselves in an array and fire themselves up and go march against the Philistines and then Goliath would come off and scare everybody and never want to go hide again. But once David killed Goliath, once David actually stepped up and had some faith and did something great himself, it mentions all the Hebrews got up and chased the Philistines. Most people will fight, but only if someone else fights first. That's just the reality of how it is. So if you can do that, if you can get behind a leader and you can be a great follower, you can be a lie shi, nabashai, that someone attacks your pastor or your leader in any capacity. Someone attacks your boss. You take that personally. That has a major inspiration for other people to get on that same good cause. It's a great opportunity. So we're talking about how to unlock the power of God in our life. The first way is be a good follower. Be a good follower. Pastor Men is, I always liked how he said this. He said, every believer should either be a pastor or supporting a pastor. I think that's a great way to put it. Obviously the vast majority of believers are not going to go into ministry and be pastors, but if you're not, you should be supporting one as a Christian. Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, but not only should you be a great follower, but here's another way to unlock the power of God on your life. Not only be a great follower, but you must observe it for yourself. Go back to 2 Kings 2. 2 Kings 2, we'll keep reading in verse number nine. We'll just reread this one verse here. 2 Kings 2, 9, and it came to pass when they were gone over. And then Elisha said to 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, that was asked a hard thing. This was a pretty big deal. You had Elisha, who was this man who did these amazing things for God. And you have Elisha saying, I want that double. I want twice that, which it's interesting that's exactly what Elisha got. Elisha performed twice as many miracles as Elisha did. But he says, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so, and it shall not be so. So he tells him, if you see me when I'm taken up into heaven, you will receive this. But if you don't see it, you will not receive this. And I believe that one reason this could be is maybe God knew or Elisha knew if Elisha was gonna be this great warrior for God and he was gonna have the faith to do these great things, he needed to actually witness this great miracle happen right in front of his eyes. You know, maybe that's what he needed to have the courage to pick up the mantle and walk straight back to the river and have the faith to hit the waters, expecting them to part. Maybe he needed to see that, to have that encouragement. And how I wanna apply this to is, you know, in many ways, the way that the Bible will work in people's lives, not just with salvation, but the way the Bible will transform your life if you follow it. And if you commit to doing what the Bible says, the way that it will change it is almost unbelievable. One of my favorite verses is Habakkuk 1-5 that says, there's God speaking, he says, behold the among the heathen, in regard, and wonder more closely, for I will work a working place which you will not believe, although it be told to you. Here, God specifically was speaking about judgment that he would bring on these people. But this applies to the way God works in general. I can guarantee you that if you talk to someone who has been serving the Lord for years, who has been a good church for years, I can guarantee you that if you ask them, they would describe what God has done in their life the same way, where they would say, you know, if someone told me before I started serving the Lord, before I got saved, where the things that would happen in my life, I wouldn't even believe you. That's just how, that's what this verse is saying. Here, God's saying, when I work, whether it's for good or for bad, when I do something, it's gonna be done in such a way to where you wouldn't believe, though it be told to you. So, as a Christian, if you say, I wanna have the power of God in my life, the same God that gave Elijah his spirit, I wanna have that too, then you should observe it. Go souling. Go talk to people. See, just observe it. Observe the difference. Focus on it. Study it. The difference that the Bible has made in other lives and that will give you encouragement as well. But not only this, look at other people that are serving the Lord and that you see a success that are spiritually successful. Look at them, identify what brought them that success, what they did, what they changed in their lives, and repeat that yourself. There's nothing wrong with repeating success. That's another reason you should be a good follower is you should be able to, if you're a good follower, you'll be able to look up to a leader, a spiritual leader, and see, why is he like this? Or why is my boss like this? How's my boss gotten good at this? Even if it's just some skill at work. How has he gotten to the point where he's good at management or he's good at X or Y or Z? How has he gotten to the point that he has become successful in them? Observe that and then just repeat that for yourself. 2 Kings chapter two, look at verse 13. And he took up the mantle of Elijah that 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 basically what we see is he repeats the same process that Elijah did when he was coming over. Do you know what that means? Don't miss this. Because sometimes I think the fact that, how the Bible mentions the waters parted the first time, it kind of can seem a little random. It seems like it's a little out of place, but I think the reason it puts it in there. In notice two, isn't it a little strange that Elijah goes back up in heaven but his mantle falls? The tool that he used to hit the water the first time? The fact that Elijah, I'd noticed this. He picked up the mantle and then he repeated the exact same process that Elijah had done perhaps minutes before. Do you know what that shows? That shows that he was observing. He was paying attention. When they came over the first time, Elijah wasn't just walking around just kind of following Elijah. He was paying attention to specifically what he was doing. Down to the article of clothing that he used to hit the water, to strike the water. And I don't know if this is why the mantle fell or why the mantle was left. I just presume this, this is my opinion. But I almost wonder if the reason it fell is if it was a little test of how well were you paying attention, Elijah? How well were you paying attention? And you see that he was. Because the first thing he does, he picks up the mantle, he goes back and he was apparently watching his leader because he repeats the same process he did and as a result, he gets the same effect. He gets the same result that Elijah did. So find those with the power of God on this and do the same yourself. Turn to Proverbs chapter 24. There's nothing wrong with repeating success. In fact, it's one of the best ways to learn. While you're turning to Proverbs 24, sorry, I'll read you Psalm 37 verse 37 that says, mark the perfect man and behold the upright for the end of that man is peace. Here, this is just saying, find people who are perfect here meaning complete, meaning whole, find people who are complete, who are upright and identify those people, observe the people and repeat what they do. But look, this goes both ways. This goes for good examples and bad examples. You know, there in Proverbs chapter 24, let's look at verse 30. Here, Solomon is speaking. He says, I went by the field of the soft-fols. These are not good examples. And by the vineyard of the man void of understanding, saying, I went by the field of people that was run by people who were lazy and I went by the fields of the people who were stupid. And verse 31, and lo, it was all grown over with thorns and nettle had, it's not maintained and nettles had covered the face thereof and the stone wall that was broken down. Verse 32, then I saw and considered it well, I looked upon it and received instruction. See, how can you receive instruction from that? It's a terrible example. Well, he looked at that in the same ways. You should look at good examples and learn what they're doing to get that. You should look at bad examples and see what they're doing to get the bad and say, I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna repeat that. You have something that sounds like a good idea or it sounds like something you wanna do, but everybody you know who does it, it fails for them, don't do it. Don't go, you know, you can learn from your own mistakes. It's one of the best way, most effective ways to learn, but it's much wiser to learn from other people's mistakes if you have to choose. Turn to Psalm 101. Psalm 101. 101, turning their Philippians 317 says this, Brethren, be followers together of me. He says, and mark them which walk, mark them which walk, so as he have us for ending in sample. Here, Paul is saying, just look, and he says this, and he says many times in the New Testament, in the letters he wrote, but he's saying, if you're looking for an example of how to live the Christian life, he's saying, look at us and use us as your example, there's nothing wrong with that. That's what you should be doing. If you want to have the power of God in your life, and it shows how you have to have all these things, right, because if you're not a follower, if you're not following anyone, you're one of these people, you're just gonna be this lone wolf Christian that thinks you don't need a pastor or something, they're out there, then here's the problem, now you're not gonna have any good examples to follow. Now, who are you gonna look from? Who are you gonna look to that has the power of God in their life, and who are you going to look for for receiving instruction for yourself? Unless you're a perfect Christian that will always benefit you. That will always be a tool that you can use. That's why the Bible says in the New Testament that God has given us pastors, he's given us teachers in our life. And like I said, we're mainly talking about just church, but this goes within any area of your life. This is a principle that you can apply to any area of your life. It doesn't have to be your boss, find someone, find a co-worker who's really good at their job, find a co-worker who's really good, really skilled at what they do, and what specifically do they do to get this result? Every time they do this, it looks really nice and it's professional, what are they doing to get that? Ask questions, ask people, ask people advice. There's nothing wrong with that. You're there in Psalm 101, look at verse four. This is a great mentality for a Christian right here. Because look, you should be looking for good examples, but you should be staying away from the bad examples too. Psalm 101 verse four says this, a forward heart shall depart from me. I will not know a wicked person. That's a good thing to ask yourself. Do you know any wicked people? When I say no, I'm not talking about people, I'm not talking about people you, I'm talking about people you choose to be around. People at work you can't choose who you work with, in general. You can go work someone else if people are really bad, but in general, you can't really choose who you work with. But people that you choose to associate yourself with, people that you voluntarily put yourself around on a regular basis, do you know any wicked people? Because you shouldn't. What do I do if I do know any wicked people? Verse five, who's so privately slander with his neighbor? Here he's just talking about someone who's a gossip, who rails. He says, who's so privately slander with his neighbor? Him will I cut off. Him that hath a high look and a proud heart will I not suffer. Look, if you're trying to live the Christian life and separate from the world and live spiritually and have the power of God on your life, I can promise you it will not happen if you have people who are your friends or that you associate yourselves with who are wicked people. Show me who your friends are and I will show you who you are. That's the quote goes. It's impossible, it will not happen. I also think that perhaps maybe it's not the most, but the most dangerous thing, the most effective thing that stops people from getting into church and getting into, getting the power of God in their life is friends that they have, people that they know, family that are around them, that are dragging them down spiritually where they have the Holy Spirit in them and they're saved and they're being led by the Holy Spirit but you have someone grabbing them by the collar, pulling them back and they don't even know it. It will stop you, I can guarantee you for sure. Okay, so what do I do? I don't know any wicked people now. I don't have any bad examples for friends. Now what do I do? Now I just have no friends. Am I just alone? In the Christian life, verse six, mine eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land that they may dwell with me. He that walketh in a perfect way, he shall serve me. He that worketh to see it again shall not dwell within mine house. He says, someone who works to see it, someone who's a wicked person, they're not even walking into my home, he says. He that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight. He said, look I get it, we live in the world especially as men, we're working in the world. There's nothing we can do about that. We're just gonna be around worldly people. But don't put yourself on purpose. If you have worldly people at work, who aren't saved, you shouldn't be hanging out with them after work. You shouldn't be hanging out with godly examples with spiritual people and that's another example why you need to be a good follower of a good church. Because that's one of the, the only church is not just to hear the word of God. It's to have other believers that can edify you and strengthen you. Look, you go to a good church, it's not just that you, there are people you see when you come to church, they'll hang out with you. They'll hang out with you during the week. They'll, you will find people, you'll find lifelong friendships here if you do it right. That's a great opportunity because the Bible aside, you just won't find that in the world. You will not find friendships and relationships that will last you a lifetime. It'll be much harder to find than in a Bible-believing church. Those who you, essentially those who you surround yourself with, they are a direct reflection, I can guarantee you they are a direct reflection of who you are or who you will become for sure. Even if you don't, even if you're gonna say, well I'm not quite as bad as my friends or I'm not quite like them, that maybe not, but I can guarantee you that they are at least to a great degree pulling you back or holding you back in the direction that they are. Man, it's no place for a Christian to be. I'll read you one more verse here. 1 Corinthians 2, 4 says this, in my speech, in my preaching, Paul speaking again, was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and power. That your face should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Here Paul is saying, the way I preached, the way I spoke to you and the way I led you, was I was demonstrating to you, he says the demonstration of the spirit of power. He was saying, I'm demonstrating you how to have the spirit and the power of God in your life. Look, there's demonstrations everywhere for you, for as a Christian. Use that, utilize that, it's a tool that you have and if you want the power of God on your life, if you want the same power of God in your life that Elijah had, you must achieve this. You must remove, it's the song we sang this morning, right, nothing between. If you wanna have the power of God in your life, you can't let anything between, whether it's sin or bad influences, you have to remove all that. Nothing between my heart and the savior. Turn to Mark chapter 11. So what have we learned so far? How do I unlock? How do I find the God of Elijah? How do I unlock the same power that Elijah had on my life? Well one, you have to be a great follower. Two, we learned, you have to observe the power of God. Find those who have it and find out why they have it and what they did to get there. But third this evening, to unlock the power of God, you must act on unshakable faith. One thing I wanna note about Elijah is his faith. I mean, it's pretty bold. I mean, this man had never performed any miracles in his life. I mean, he's just, he mentioned earlier that he poured water on the hands of Elijah. He was just his servant. He was just his assistant. He just went with him and helped him and humbly served Elijah. This man's never done a miracle in his life. And here, the second that Elijah goes away, he's by himself when you think he could choose to get discouraged and that he's all alone and now for the first time in six years, Elijah's not there anymore. He maybe, he quits serving God now that his, that's what many people do, now that his leader is gone. But the first thing he does is he goes in the complete opposite direction. He picks up the cloak and he doesn't ask for the God of Elijah and then hit the water. Notice, he hits the water expecting the waters to part. And they do. That's some bold faith. That's some bold faith right there. Mark 11, look at verse 22. And Jesus answering, said unto them, have faith in God. How do I have faith in God? Verse 23, for verily I say unto you that whosoever shall say into this mountain, be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea. And here's the key, it shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you that whatsoever things he desire when he pray, believe that he have them and he shall have them. And obviously this doesn't mean that if you say, God, I want a mansion. And you believe that and poof, there's a mansion for you. Well, obviously we know from other scriptures in the Bible that, you know, we're in James, why don't you have what you're asking for? Well, you ask amiss that you may consume it upon your loss. What you're asking and you're praying for must be in line with the will of God, of course. However, but if you were asking for a godly thing, if you were asking for the right thing and you have complete faith that God is able to give it to you instantly, God says you will have those things. And that's the faith that Elisha had. Where he went and he knew that this was God's will for his life. He knew that God would give him this and so he acts on complete another faith. And that moment when that cloak strikes the water is when the miracles and the ministry of Elisha began to start. And that was the man that would become an even greater prophet than the man he followed. Look, you're never going to, you're never going to unlock the power of God if you're not even sure it works. If you and yourself are not convinced of it, that's kind of why we talked about observing it. That's why you need to actually see that it's real. You need to see, you need to go so many. You need to see that it's real. People will get, people, it is possible to go to people door to door and find people that want to hear about Jesus Christ. It is possible to lead someone to Christ at their doorstep. It is possible to see someone pass from death unto life and have someone understand the gospel and be saved in that moment just by going out and knocking doors and offering to preach the gospel to people. You need to see that for yourself. If you don't really believe the Bible works, you're not going to commit to it all the way and if you don't commit to it all the way, it's just, it'll hinder you. If you refuse, if you refuse to commit all the way and you refuse to have that faith, it's just not going to happen. You must have faith. Hebrews 11 verse six says this, but without faith, it is impossible to please him talking about God. For he that come to God just like with salvation must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them to diligently seek him. Here it's saying you have to believe, you have to have the faith that God will reward you. The power of God will be there if you diligently seek him. You say, well, I don't have any faith. Well, it's impossible to please God without it. If you want the power of God in your life, it's a must, you must have faith. Turn to Matthew chapter 14. And here's what's hard about this and here's why most people can't do this because what's so hard about having faith is it involves removing yourself and your own reasoning from the equation. That's what we want to do. We want to say, well, if it doesn't make sense to me, I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to put my energy and time to something if it doesn't make sense to me right away. Well, you're turning to Matthew 14, Proverbs 3, 5 through 7 says this, trust in the Lord with all my heart and lean not into thine own understanding. We all have our own understanding. That's fine. God gave a brain to us and he gave a mind to us and he gave us free will. But here, the Bible's saying, but don't lean too heavy on that. Don't lean too heavy on your own understanding and all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths. Verse seven, be not wise in thine own eyes fear the Lord and depart from evil. You want to depart from evil. You want to live spiritually. You want to have the might and the spirit and the power of God in your life. Then don't be wise in your own eyes. Don't lean on your own understanding. Fear God instead and depart from evil. Matthew chapter 14, this is a perfect demonstration of this. Here, the Bible says verse 23, and when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up again to a, he went up into a mountain of parts of prey when the evening was come, he was there alone. The ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves for the sea, for the wind was contrary. Forth watch of the night, Jesus went under them walking on the sea. So Jesus just performs the miracle where he feeds thousands of people. And at this point, he has disciples to go out on the sea by themselves in a ship. And he's not with them. He goes to prey by himself on the land. And in the middle of the night, so there's a storm that comes up. Jesus is when he walks to them on the water. And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were trying to sing it to the spirits and they cried out for him. Jesus spake unto them, saying, be of good cheer in his eye. But those when he tells them here, be not afraid. And Peter answered, and Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee in the water. And he said, come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water to come to, to go to Jesus. And notice this, when he saw the wind boy strip, hear that word again, he was afraid. In the beginning, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately, Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him and said unto him, so we know he's afraid. We know they're all afraid, but what comes along with that? Why are they afraid? Here's, look what Jesus says to him. O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? When they were coming to the ship, the wind seized. When Peter, down to the second, down, this is in real time, down to the second of when Peter had faith, that he had the power of God, he had it. When he believed that he had, just like Jesus said in those verses earlier, when he believed that he had that, and he knew as a will of God that he went to Jesus on the water, he knew that he had it and he did have it. But the second he was doubtful, the second he was afraid and he lost faith, he dropped through the water immediately. Even so, with us, if we want to have the power of God under life, we can't doubt. We can't doubt if we, if we have fallen a good church and we are observing in other people that the power of God works and it's there, it's time for us to let go of the doubt. It's time for us not to be afraid to have faith that the Bible works and commit all the way to it. That's a theme, I feel like a lot of, it's a mystery standing with a lot of churches, where you hear a lot of churches saying, we need to pray for revival in America, we just need to pray for revival, pray for revival, there's nothing wrong with that. But many people and many of these churches that you're looking at the mentality of, we're just gonna sit and do nothing. We're not gonna go door to door to door and preach the gospel and try to give many people into heaven as possible. We're just gonna sit back and pray for God to just, as if God would just come down one day and snap his fingers and everyone will want to believe in Christ. That's some revival miracle that just happened. That's not how God works. How God works, and God's never worked that way, by the way, how God works is that we act first. We go preach the gospel. We take the first step in faith and God honors that and he works with us and he gives the increase. Even when Jesus ascended into heaven, perhaps the greatest works ever done for God were in the book of Acts. But when this starts, when Jesus ascends into heaven, it mentions the disciples went and preached the gospel everywhere, the Lord working with them. You see, they got expecting them to take the first step first out of faith. And then he honored that. Even in the beginning of the book of Acts, before the book of Acts can begin, before the miracles can begin, before the Bible, all the miracles of the Bible can begin, it mentions the disciples when Jesus went into heaven were just staring in the sky. God didn't come down and have the city of Jerusalem come to them while they're staring at the sky doing nothing, begging to be saved. God had to send angels to them and say, what are you doing? Why are you staring up into heaven? Get to work, essentially. Get to work. We have to take that first step out of faith first and then God will give us the power of God. He will give us the strength to do what we're trying to accomplish for him, guaranteed. As thy days, thy strength shall be in measure. Turn to 2nd Kings chapter two. 2nd Kings chapter two. So, in conclusion, we look at all these things. How do I have the power of God in my life? Well, here's a few places to start. Be a good follower. Observe the power of God in other people's lives. And third, you have to act on unshakable faith. You're there in 2nd Kings chapter two. Look at verse 13. We already read verse 13. Look at verse 14. He took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him and smote the waters and said, where is the Lord God of Elijah? And as if to answer him immediately, it goes on. And when he had also smitten the waters, they parted hither and thither and Elijah went over. And when the sons of the prophets, which were to view at Jericho saw him, because remember you have these sons of the prophets. I don't believe they saw Elijah when he was taken up. But I do believe they saw the Jordan. They were looking at the Jordan because they saw the first time they crossed over. So they see that Elijah and Elijah crossed over the first time and they see Elijah to do this miracle and these two men cross over. But now they just see one man come back. They see Elijah come back and they watch him do the same exact thing they just saw Elijah do. And look what they say right away. When the sons of the prophets, which were to view at Jericho saw him, they said the spirit of Elijah dealt the rest on Elisha. He got what he asked for. God gave that to him. And when they came to meet him, they bowed themselves to the ground before him. Here's the neatest thing about this. Turn to 2 Kings, believe it's 2 Kings 13. We'll end here. Perhaps the most amazing thing about this is this, you know, if you think of these things we talked about this evening, is you think about them as a key. All these things of being good follower, these just different steps. Think about it as a key to unlocking the power of God in your life. The coolest thing about this is if you can, if you can successfully look at verse, look at verse 21, we'll read it in a second. If you can successfully take this key, if you can do that and you can accomplish that. And now you can get to the point where you looked at other people and followed other people and have the power of God in your life now, then you get to have the process repeat for somebody else. Here Elijah, for years served Elijah. Elisha served for years, Elijah. He served him for years, he observed him, he watched him, he paid attention, he followed him. He acted in an unshakable faith and now he's coming over and other people get to see the same thing and notice what they said. They noticed that that spirit was able to transfer to Elisha. Other people can look at you and your life. You can succeed in doing this. You can have other people that are where you once were and say, the spirit of God's on that person, I want that too. And you can start the process of someone else gaining the spirit and power of God in their life just like it did with you. This is interesting. This is proof that this is the case is because with Elisha, Elisha didn't have a good servant like Elisha had. There's a man who served Elisha. We read about in the future named Gehazi and we're not gonna look into Gehazi right now. We don't have time, but Gehazi was not a good follower. He was in it for the wrong reasons. He actually ended up getting fired essentially from his job. And as a result, there was no one to carry the torch for Elisha. There was no person to repeat this process and to pick up the torch and to continue with what Elisha had done. And it's interesting, look at verse, this is the end, this is after Elisha has died now. This is years in the future. Verse 21, look at verse 20, I'm sorry. And Elisha died and they buried him. And the bands of the Moevites invaded the land at the coming in of the year. So you just have these bands of these people basically just raiding the land. 21, it came to pass as they were burying a man that behold they spied a band of men and they cast, so they're burying someone and they see people coming by. So those are what they did. They took the dead body and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha. They just kind of hide this man, they throw him in his tomb. They kind of hastily bury him. And when the man was let down and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived and stood up on his feet. Here's a miracle that's often counted as one of Elisha's miracles and it was after he died. And I always wonder, this is almost an interesting picture on how you can, if you can do this successfully, if you can successfully get the power of God in your life from observing other people and in following other people's example, if you can work in following someone else who has the power of God in their life, if you can do that, then you can have an effect on other people that will last even after you're dead. Even after you're long gone, even after you've left this earth, there are still people who will be benefited by you. Here, Elisha was in heaven. Elisha's time on earth was over Elisha. At this point, he's back up in heaven with Elijah. And even after he's almost of God, just to give one more final testimony to the effect of a man with the power of God in his life, a man is raised from the dead, perhaps the greatest miracle that you ever see in the Bible. It's done very few times. A man is raised from the dead after the man has already died. That's pretty impressive. But that's the best thing about this is if you can succeed, just keep this in mind this evening. This isn't just for you. If you can succeed in doing this, you can ignite other people's lives with the same power of God that you were able to find. Let's go ahead and bow our heads and have a word of prayer.