Series: Other Speakers

Sun am 11 July 2010 – Shane Egypt

1 Kings 19:19-21; 2 Kings 2:1-10; 1 Sam. 7:16; Gen. 22:19; (1 Sam. 7:16); Phil. 2:20-22

God’s building pattern – the father-son relationship – has been revealed in the current living Word, and we need to embrace it fully. One of God’s building principles is that he builds generationally. He calls fathers to impart the DNA of Christ to their sons.

We will look at the journey experienced by Elisha and Elisha. Elisha went with Elijah. The sons of the prophets told Elisha that Elijah would be taken away from him. The Old Testament speaks in types and shadows and is an example for us. Elijah was a father ministry. The calling of Elisha was to be a father ministry but before that he had to become a son. He left everything behind and served Elijah.

There is a spirit of antichrist that is trying to destroy what God is doing. It is like the spirits of Jezebel and Nimrod, and in the New Testament like Herod and like the harlot. Jezebel was out to destroy all the prophets of God in her day. It was at this time that Elijah was called.

Elisha was a man of substance. His life was in order. The book of 1 Timothy is full of instructions of what qualifies you and brings you into alignment and into the order of God. Elisha was ploughing with 12 oxen. He was occupied. Even Jesus spent time with His father who was a carpenter. He assisted him; He got His hands dirty, He was being moulded and tested.

When God spoke to Elijah to anoint Elisha and he threw his mantle on him – immediately there was an acknowledgement from Elisha and he knew what it meant. He immediately followed. He cut off everything of his past; there was no plan B, he sacrificed his oxen. If you are ready and committed to follow and you get an answer, “What have I to do with you?”, you would be discouraged. Yet in his heart Elisha knew he was ready and he was born for that day.

Sometimes being gifted can prevent you from getting your inheritance as a son. Being gifted alone does not qualify you for sonship. God knows the heart. The journey for Elijah and Elisha starts from Gilgal. Gilgal is a place of testing and a place of judgement (1 Sam. 7:16). We need to have the dealings of God on our lives before we continue our spiritual journey. We need to surrender ourselves as spiritual sons, to the dealings of God in our lives. Embrace it. Gilgal was also a place of renewal. We are no longer orphans, we have received a lineage.

Elisha went with Elijah. The initiative came from Elisha. The initiative has to come from us, we need to move. We have been reconstructed, we have been upgraded, the dealings of God have been in our lives, we have been circumcised in our heart, we had a Gilgal experience, but there’s a Jordan experience waiting for us.  Before Elisha could come to the place of receiving the double portion of the grace of his father, he had to make a decision in his heart to move on. There’s a journey for me as a spiritual son and that journey has to be pursued at any cost.

As a spiritual son you first need to be called to this journey. There is no human interference; you need to hear from God. In these days we need to ask that the hearts of fathers and father ministries start turning. A father ministry knows what this means, so he is not in a hurry. The initiative and calling is from our side saying, “I want to submit as a son.” It has nothing to do with skin colour; it has nothing to do with wealth and money. It has nothing to do with prestige or anything in the physical. It has to do with motivation. What is in your heart? What was in Elisha’s heart? He wanted to have a double portion. The desire was placed there by God.

We know the Gilgal experience is behind us and we move forward to Bethel. Jacob had the experience of wrestling with God. His name was changed from Jacob to Israel. But the journey was not over. There’s a Jordan experience waiting; there’s an inheritance, there’s a provision of God. We need to move on. When you see eye to eye then you are ready. We need to surrender to the dealings of God in our lives; we need to put away the clutter. We need the Gilgal experience, we need to have the Bethel experience and then there is a valley of Jordan.

“What do you want?” Elijah asks. “Why are you so persistent? Why do you want to be connected to me all the time?” The desire in his heart was to receive the grace in double portion.  He did not ask for fame or money. His desire was for the grace of this man in double portion. If we do not receive a double portion we will not be able to accomplish what God wants us to accomplish. That is why He works with the seed potential, He works with the doubling so that there can be an acceleration in His work. Let it be in a double portion that things may happen. “If you see eye to eye with me and you see me taken, it will be so.” When I am through with my journey and I come to a finality and I have been through the Jordan I can say, “My father, my father, I take the grace.”

We will never hear the words. “What can I do for you?” if we do not remain on this journey. It is by the Word of God and by an apostolic sending, an apostolic people who are rightly connected and aligned. Knowing that they are called, we will remain on this journey until our Jordan experience and so receive an inheritance.

There is an age that is going to disappear, there is a generation that is going to remain in the wilderness and die there. But give me a different spirit Lord, like Caleb and Joshua so I can still take the hill country. There is so much to do. Your commitment as a spiritual son is to submit to the dealings of God in your life through a spiritual father. Do not resist, or you will never come into your double portion.

You hear Paul’s heart in Philipians 2:20-22 – there was nobody with a kindred spirit like Timothy. His proven worth was evident and he served with Paul in the furtherance of the gospel like a child serving his father. There’s a cry from the heart of a spiritual father. All others had deserted him. Find in us Lord as spiritual sons, a readiness to embrace whatever you send our way. Do in our heart what needs to be done. Cut off what needs to be cut off, like Isaac on the altar in self denial.