A Man and His Mantle

What are You Holding On To 4 1 Kings 19:9-18

We have been talking about using what we have at hand to obey God. If we look thru scripture you can find that God uses the weak, the feeble, the small things to do the strong, the mighty and the great things. We’ve seen Moses used just a staff, Jael used a tent peg, David just a handful of stones. You can find in the Bible where God fought battles with bees, hail, or just a little rustling in the bushes. It doesn’t take a lot just someone who will say I will use what ever I have for Jesus.

I would seem that Elijah didn’t have a lot of money or resources, but he was in contact with someone who owned the cattle on a thousand hills. Just about the only thing you see that Elijah kept with him was his mantle. Just basically a tunic or robe. Apparently the only one that Elijah ever had. Elijah used his and God worked thru it lets look just for a moment how,

A. To show glory and reverence to God - 1 Kings 19:13

B. To Win souls 1 Kings 19:19

1. It doesn’t have to take a multimillion dollar budget to win souls. For some reason in our day we think if the speaker isn’t just polished, or the service just right, things just don’t flow toward a certain theme and our message doesn’t sit well with our audience we should throw it out. Look at Elijah, and Ahab on Mount Carmel and others. Just simple things

2. Bro. Gibbs received a phone call from a minister once who told him he was in real legal trouble, What’s that, The minister told him that they had passed some legislation to stop him from witnessing and passing out tracts in his community. Attorney Gibbs told him he ran into that all the time don’t pay attention. The preacher said, “no they passed this one to get me,” How do you know that asked Gibbs, “ when they passed it they said this is to stop you.” Attorney Gibbs called the attorney general for that state who confirmed the ministers story. The Attorney general said, “Mr. Gibbs, you’ll get this overturned but we’re just trying to slow him down. He’s like superman, I’ve never seen a man with power like that. Do you know how many gospel tracts he hands out a day? 400. Up here everyone was happy we thought if you joined the church you went to heaven. This guy comes up here and preaches, “Join my church that won’t get you to heaven. You got to get saved and live right.” He even got a preacher at another church saved. “ Bro. Gibbs said, “I want to meet this guy” So he called the preacher back and told him he’d be there to defend him. He flew up their got out of the airport and the church sent this man to meet him. He was hunched over, had to walk sideways hands gnarled, couldn’t even get Bro. Gibbs bags for him. Attorney Gibbs was just a little upset that they would send this poor man down who couldn’t even walk hardly. He told the man, the church send you here, the man replied, “Oh no, I came on my own,” Does the pastor know you are here, the man looked at him and said, “I am the pastor” Bro Gibbs looked at him and said, “You’re superman?” The Minister said look at me I’m damaged goods I was always the last one picked for teams as a childe no one ever wanted me, but when I found the Lord, he wanted me, The only difference between you and me is I asked

C. Part the Jordan. 2 Kings 2:8

1. Got any rivers you think are uncross able, got any mountains you can’t tunnel thru

God likes to works when things seems impossible, _____________________

D. To Pass the torch 2 Kings 2:13

1. We have a lot of mantles so to speak left to us, I want to be one to pick them up and not store them away in my memory somewhere but dust them off and use them like Elisha did to part the same waters that Elijah had done.

One has said, “God still uses foolish tools in the hands of weak people to build his kingdom. Backed by prayer and his power we can accomplish the unthinkable. “ What are we holding on to?