I Will Follow You Until the End

2 Kings 2:7-8 ESV

7 Fifty men of the sons of the prophets also went and stood at some distance from them, as they both were standing by the Jordan. 8 Then Elijah took his cloak and rolled it up and struck the water, and the water was parted to the one side and to the other, till the two of them could go over on dry ground.

For several years I have been a fan of Westerns, and so, it probably won’t surprise you that some of my favorite Western movies star the most famous Western actor of all time, John Wayne.

But my favorite John Wayne movie of all time is actually the last movie that he starred in in 1976, three years before he died, it’s entitled: The Shootist.

Now I’m sure that most of us know that John Wayne died of stomach cancer, but what is really interesting is that in The Shootist, the last movie that John Wayne was in, he played the character of J.B. Brooks, a man who was dying of cancer.

In the movie, after seeing the local physician in Carson City, Nevada, it is confirmed that he is indeed going to die of cancer, and therefore, Brooks takes up lodging at a local boarding house with the intent of dying quietly there.

In the movie, Wayne knew that when he went to Carson City, the odds were that he wasn’t going to leave, and after receiving this confirmation, he sought to quietly and obediently accept his fate.

As we look at our reading for today from the narrative that we are looking at this month concerning the departure of Elijah and the succession of Elisha to the prophetic office, we see some striking similarities to the plot that was just given in John Wayne’s last film.

But what I think we will find even more striking is the similarities between Elijah and another important figure in the Bible, Moses. And the way in which they both left this world.

When we look at the ministry of Moses, many years before Elijah was ever born, we see that his mission was to lead Israel, the people of God, to the Promised Land, the place which God had specifically designated for them, and in which they would experience great blessings from the hand of God.

Now, something else that we see is that while Moses fulfilled his divinely appointed ministry by leading Israel to the Promised Land, Moses himself was not permitted to enter. Instead, he died right at the edge of it.

God told Moses to ascend to the top of Mount Nebo, telling him that he would not return from the mountain, but that he would die there.

At hearing this command of God, Moses did not fight or complain or object, instead, he obediently went, knowing that this was God’s will for him.

Well, Elijah too led the people of God in what was good for them as he urged them to walk in the ways of the Lord. And while the majority of Israel ignored him and sometimes even attempted to silence God’s voice by persecuting him, he still had a small following. And this small following heard in Elijah the prophet, the Word of God, and they recognized and embraced it as the Word of God.

Elijah obediently followed the Lord his God, and when it was time for Elijah’s ministry to end on this earth, he obediently followed the Lord his God to the place that he knew was going to be the end of the road for him here on earth. He too obediently went, knowing that this was God’s will for him.

But one of the things that I find really interesting is that the place in which Elijah was taken up to Heaven was the same general area in which Moses had died so many years earlier. The difference was that Moses was not permitted to enter the Promised Land and Elijah had spent his entire life within the Promised Land, but now it was God’s will for Elijah to end his earthly ministry just like Moses, at the edge of God’s promise.

You see, I’m sure that the people of Israel who had wandered in the desert with Moses and Aaron at the helm were sure that once they reached the Promised Land, all of their worries and cares would be over and that every last one of God’s promises to them would be realized right then and there.

But once Israel entered the Promised Land, it became obvious that just having the material things that God promised to them specifically was not the fulfillment of His promises. Rather, they realized that the material was only a part of it, in fact, a very small part of it.

To be recognized as one of God’s people and truly experience His blessings requires a lot more than just God giving you material stuff. More than anything else, it requires spiritual salvation. And for one to obtain spiritual salvation, one must adhere to the orthodox faith given by God.

Now, what that word orthodox means is: correct, right, true. So, when I say that for one to obtain spiritual salvation, one must adhere to the orthodox faith what I mean is that you have to believe the right way.

You can’t be given a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill, believe that it’s legit, and then it somehow be of the same value as a legitimate twenty-dollar bill just because somebody told you that it was real, and you believed it.

Well, in the same way, you can’t follow a counterfeit unorthodox faith system and be just as saved as the person who followed the true, orthodox way.

Yet an unorthodox faith system is what the vast majority of the people of Israel believed during the time in which this narrative took place.

They believed that because they were the people of Israel, born in Israel, dwelling in Israel, that that was all that they needed. That being a member of the people of Israel alone was enough to guarantee that they were both protected and saved by God physically and spiritually.

In other words, they saw no need to seek any kind of spiritual salvation or to live their lives by any particular rule of faith for they believed that they being who they are was enough. They essentially looked within themselves rather than to God for salvation.

Well, Elijah the prophet comes on the scene as one who is called out of this spiritual mess going on in Israel, as one who God has enabled to believe and follow the orthodox faith, and he tells the people of Israel, who are quite content to stay in their sins and spiritual blindness that they need to repent and start following the orthodox faith.

Well, this didn’t gain him many friends. In fact, it gained him many more adversaries than it did friends. Yet, it was God’s command, and God’s will that Elijah speak His Word, and that’s exactly what he did. And very, very often, speaking God’s Word, the orthodox faith gains us more adversaries than it does friends.

Elijah spoke the Word of God, and very few adhered to it… and because very few adhered to it, then to many, it would seem as though Elijah’s ministry here on earth was a complete failure.

But you see, what so many of us fail to realize is that the success of a ministry is not based on the visible results that we see. No, the success of a ministry is based on whether or not one has been faithful to God’s Word and obedient to God’s command in the process of what God calls us to. And many times, being faithful to God’s Word and obedient to God’s command doesn’t manifest itself in visible results.

And amid the pain, the comfort, the ups, the downs, Elijah faithfully obeyed his God and followed the path that God had laid out for him to follow. Sure, times were hard and sometimes Elijah complained to God that the times were hard, but in his heart, his chief desire was to always be obedient to his God no matter where that obedience would lead him.

And in this case, obediently following God meant Elijah walking straight into his departure from this world.

We see this in our reading where it says:

2 Kings 2:7-8 ESV

7 Fifty men of the sons of the prophets also went and stood at some distance from them, as they both were standing by the Jordan. 8 Then Elijah took his cloak and rolled it up and struck the water, and the water was parted to the one side and to the other, till the two of them could go over on dry ground.

Last week we read of how God had made it plain to Elijah that He was about to take him to heaven in a whirlwind. And as Elijah walked to the destination that God had marked out for him to go, he met with several of his students, those who are called, the sons of the prophets.

And on his journey here, every time that he met with these sons of the prophets, they confirmed God’s Word to him, that that very day, God was going to take him from the earth.

So, obviously, by this point Elijah knew and had been thoroughly convinced that following the command of God in this instance was going to result in him leaving this world. But that did not deter Elijah from obediently following the command of God. He didn’t complain, he didn’t object, he didn’t try to get God to change His mind, no, he headed straight to where God commanded him to go.

And as Elijah and his apprentice stood by the Jordan River, Elijah knew that all that was left for him was to cross the Jordan and that sometime after he got to the other side, God was going to take him from this world.

And so, as Joshua walked from the east bank of the Jordan to the west bank on dry ground when God parted the river for him when he and Israel first came into the Promised Land, so does God part the river once again as Elijah rolls up his cloak and strikes the water, allowing he and Elisha to pass from the west bank to the east bank of the Jordan on dry ground as they leave the Promised Land.

Thus, Elijah knew that in the same place where God had Moses end his ministry and his time on earth, so would it be where God would have him end his ministry and his time on earth. And as we will see in the coming weeks, the same place where Joshua’s ministry commenced, was also the same place where Elisha’s ministry commenced.

You see, to Elijah, though he may not always have necessarily agreed with the way that God did things, in fact, there were even times when Elijah was downright mad about what God had called him to do, but because God had graciously given Elijah a new heart, a heart that was able to obey God, a heart that wanted to obey God even when his flesh thought otherwise, because of this, Elijah obediently followed God where He led him, even unto the very end.

That heart that God gave to Elijah was indeed a peculiar heart, but it’s the same heart that God graciously gives to everyone He graciously saves.

And just like Elijah, we often are baffled, confused, sometimes even angry at what God commands, our fleshly nature that still hangs around fights against what God commands.

Yet, because we are saved, we now have a new heart, a new nature that regardless of what the flesh wants, it wants to follow God, and it will urge us to follow God.

Sometimes it will urge us to follow Him into the spiritual wastelands, sometimes it will urge us to follow Him to places and situations where people will despise us because we are who God has called us to be, it may even urge us to follow Him to a martyr’s death if that’s what He desires.

And we’ll look at it and we’ll say, “That’s crazy!” but the new nature, the new heart tells us that regardless of what we think, because it is what God wants, it’s just what we need.

Beloved, it’s hard, it’s scary, it might even make you a little angry that things have to be this way, but like Elijah, follow.

Amen?