2 Kings 2, we're going to read this very, very familiar passage, starting at verse 1. It came to pass when the Lord would take up Elijah by a whirlwind into heaven, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal. And Elijah said unto Elisha, Tarry 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 to-day? And he said, Yea, I know it. Hold ye your peace. And Elisha said unto him, Elisha, tarry here, I pray thee, for the Lord hath sent me to Jericho. And he said, As the Lord liveth and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. So they came to Jericho. And 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 ye your peace. And Elisha said unto him, Tarry, I pray thee, here, For the LORD hath sent me to Jordan. And he said, As the LORD liveth and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And they too went on. And fifty men of the sons of the prophets went and stood to view afar off. And they too stood by Jordan. And Elijah took his mantle and wrapped it together and smote the waters. And they were divided hither and thither, so that they too went over on dry ground. And it came to pass, when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto 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, Thou hast asked a hard thing. Nevertheless, if thou shalt see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee, but if not, it shall not be so. It came to pass, as they still went on and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder, and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And 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 of his own clothes and rent them in two pieces. 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 smote the waters and said, Where is the Lord God of Elijah? And when he also had smitten the waters, they parted hither and thither. Elisha went over. And when the sons of the prophets, which were to view at Jericho, saw him, they said, the spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha. And they came to meet him and bowed themselves to the ground before him. Amen. The Lord will add his own blessing to the reading of his own precious word for his name's sake. As we have approached this new year, This text in verse 14 of 2 Kings chapter 2 has been very much on my heart and mind. The question Elisha asked, where is the Lord God of Elijah? Where is the Lord God of Elijah? There are many ways in which the question may be asked, where is God? Again and again, in the Old Testament, especially in the Psalms, you find this is a burden of the psalmist's heart. The ungodly come and say, where is now your God? Where is your God now? That was a very pointed and hurtful question to the men of Israel. They had a great history. The Old Testament recites that history again and again and again. It's as if God is saying, when you read the Old Testament, it hits you so often. God is saying, I am not going to let you get away. from the basic facts of what God has done for Israel. And He tells the story again and again, how He found them in Egypt, how He led them out of Egypt, how He brought them through the Red Sea, how He brought them through the wilderness, how He cast down mighty nations and then brought them into the Promised Land. That history of the mighty acts of God was something that was ingrained into the memory of every Israelite. And so, when they were facing powerful foes of their own, who were running rampant over them, this was a hurtful question. Where is now your God? You're very good at talking about what happened in the days of Moses. You can tell the world what happened in the days of Joshua. You can regale us with stories of the old days, but in the here and now, where is your God? That's a way to ask the question in utter mockery, dismissively, really denying that God is of any manner of use at all. in the work of the gospel. There's obviously a parallel with the church of Christ. We have our history too. The book of the Acts of the Apostles, following on from the Gospels, gives us an encapsulation of the great workings of God among His people in the early days of the Christian church. In Acts 2, we read of the descent of the Holy Spirit And then the story is one of constant action. And not just action, not just busyness, but forward movement. As first in Jerusalem, in the very place where Christ had been crucified. In the place where the men who had led to His crucifixion were still entrenched in power in Jerusalem. God did a mighty work and saved thousands of souls. And then He moved out to Judea. And then He moved on to Samaria. And then He moved beyond Samaria. It appeared because of persecution and therefore tragedy. But it was the direction of the Lord moving beyond there to take the Gospel ultimately to the uttermost parts of the earth. We have our history. That history continued. God did great things. Now and again through history, we have the story of more mighty acts of God. You mustn't think that God was inactive during the great, the long, long centuries, even of the dark ages. He was not. Christ was still building his church. But now we come to this century, full of unbelief, full of wickedness, atheism, even where it's not supposed to exist, where it's supposed to be theism, it is ultimately humanism, which is atheism. The question is, where is your God now? You realize that almost the entirety of the Christian church has given up on really seeking God for a mighty divine intervention of God's power in its affairs. Do you realize that? Even among Bible believers. That's not on the agenda anymore. We want to have things centered around what we can do, what we can organize. Because I honestly believe that the vast majority of Christians, in their hearts, feel this stab. Where is your God now? And they feel it and they know it. We do not know God the way we read of Him in Scripture. We do not know God the way we read of Him in history. We do not see God doing those things. Is it because of the age in which we live? Is it because in this so-called post-modernist age? I always laugh at these big terms that men stick on the same rotten old unbelief. Is that the reason? You know, I know that God is sovereign and God may have and does have a purpose even in those things, yet you can never make that an excuse for spiritual powerlessness. The real reason is, we don't know God after that fashion. That's it. That's it. Where is your God now? So it can be asked in mockery. It can be also asked in, if I may use Mixed terms. Christian unbelief. Where is God when I need Him? Ever felt like that? Where is He when I need Him? A great deal of rebellion built in there. A great deal of unbelief built in there. That's another way to ask the question. Well, you know, the answer to that is Very simple. God is in the heavens. God is where He always was. God is what He always was. Another way you could put it is, if you were to look at this, say, in terms of the life of an Abraham, who walked with God, and then, when things were a little bit challenging, he decided to take matters into his own hand. He went down into Egypt. He got into sin. He got into backsliding. He lost out with God. Where was God? The answer is, you could say, back where you left Him. Abraham had to get back to the altar. That's where he got restored to a knowledge, the blessing and the power of God. So there are various ways in which to ask the question. But Elisha asked this question in a very different frame of mind. Remember the scene. For some time he has been the servant of Elijah the prophet. He had, to use the scripture language, he had poured water on his hands. In other words, he was there as Elijah's servant to do whatever needed to be done. It's quite a humbling way to be prepared to be the leading prophet of God on the earth. God was going to make a great man of Elisha, but first of all He humbled him. And remember, from what we read of him, he came from a rich family. You just read of what he was doing and what he was doing it with when Elijah called him. That's the description of a rich boy. He had it made in human society. God put his hand on him to pull him out of all that. He left it all behind to become the wandering servant of Elijah. But he couldn't have been in a better seminary. He couldn't have had a better teacher. As he got there, face to face, up close and personal with the mightiest man of God in the world. You know, you'll learn more of God in the presence of a man of God than you'll ever learn in a hundred years from reading books. I learned more of prayer kneeling beside Jordan Kahn than I ever learned from any book on prayer that I ever read. I learned more how to seek God in the presence of men who knew how to pray. It was one of the great privileges of my life as a late teenager was to be in prayer meetings where there were mighty men of prayer. And you are born along to be taught by men who knew God. That was Elijah's lot. God was preparing him. Then there came this day. He knew it. The sons of the prophets knew it. Elijah knew it. And Elijah gave him every chance to step back. Leave me here. I don't need you now. Don't need a servant anymore. Just step back. No, no. You notice, they too on together. They too stood by Jordan and they too went through the river after God had opened it up when Elijah smote it with his mantle. Now they are on the other side Jordan, the water has come back. Elijah has been taken up into heaven dropping his mantle as he goes. The promise of God through Elijah to Elisha was, you see me ascend and you'll get a double portion of my power. That was the promise. There's an uncanny resemblance between Elijah's being taken to heaven and the ascension of Christ. An uncanny resemblance. I think it's a very, very much intended resemblance. One picturing and prefiguring the other. But now Elisha takes the mantle. Put yourself where he is. He's now facing a new and tremendous responsibility. He's going to face the same opposition that Elijah faced. He's going to have to fight the same internal battles that Elijah fought. Remember, Elijah, the man who could stand on Mount Carmel, was brought to what we would call a nervous breakdown, a total mental collapse. The pressure, the weariness, and the attack of the devil. Elisha knew all that. This is where I'm standing. I'm on the edge of something I've never known before. A path I've never trodden before. What's my greatest need? What's my greatest need? Right at the beginning, there's the River Jordan. I know what Elijah did by the power of God to that river. I have got to get to the other side. That's the first obstacle. What do I need? Well, he had the mantle. But that wasn't enough in itself. He says, I need the Lord God of Elijah. That's what I need. As I thought of that text, I thought of us, men and women, I want to tell you, as we stand now on the threshold of this year, in our first prayer meeting of this year, there's many things we're going to need this year. There are many battles we're going to fight this year. There are many victories we're going to have to win this year. But the key to it all, we need the presence of the Lord God of Elijah. That's it. Bringing in the New Testament terms. We need the power of the Spirit of the risen Christ. He who promised that greater works than these shall you do. The double portion if you want it. He who promised that He would send forth His Spirit. We need now. We have the Bible. We have the gospel. We have the ministry. We have the responsibility. We have the opportunity. We have all those things. But we need the reality of the Lord God of Elijah. So therefore, the prophet stands, takes this mantle in his hand, and he says, Where is the Lord God of Elijah? As he smote the waters. You see, the idea is he could stand there all day smiting the waters, and if waters could laugh, they would laugh at him. I mean, you go down to even a small river here, you take whatever cloak you like, and you stand bashing those waters, and they'll lock you up in martial pickings, but you're never going to see that stream divided. It's not just aping Elijah that's going to do any good. It's one of the things that bothers me when scholarly nitwit start writing papers about revival. You know, how often have you heard it said that when you look at the beauty of a rose and then you dissect it petal by petal, at the end of it all you don't have a rose anymore, do you? You may have a scholarly journal at the end of it, or a great thesis. And I suppose those things are important in their place. But you pull and pick the thing apart until there's nothing left of it. That's what has happened to the whole subject of the movings of the Holy Ghost with power in the history of the church. We have learned characters who sit in their little ivory towers who know nothing about what they're talking. Nothing at all beyond the dry letter of history. And they want to give us what they have learned from their scholarly study of revival. Now, we have had hundreds of those things. Hasn't done that much good. Not at all. Now, there is a way of studying revival, by the way, that does you good. If you ever read Lloyd-Jones's lectures on revival, they'll stir your heart to want revival. In other words, it's not some dry dissection. It is a vital story of the mighty acts of God. I'm all in favor of that. It's not just a study we need. It's the reality. We can stand all day doing what Elijah did and see nothing. That was one of the great mistakes of Charles G. Finney. How to promote a revival. You do this and this and this and this. And it's just like you're building a house, if you do this and this, you get the next tradesman to do this and this, end of the day you have a house. That's not the way God's work goes on. The vital reality is the Lord himself. I want to tell you, as we start this year, there's one thing we've got to be praying for. And that is the reality of the presence of God in our hearts, in our lives, in our homes, and in the church. The presence of God. Dr. Paisley often refers to the Holy Spirit as the dove. and remarks on how easily he has grieved away. How easy it is to grieve the Holy Spirit of God. He does not tolerate our sin, our worthiness, our half-heartedness, our bitterness, our gossiping, You name it, the evil wickednesses that flow from the human heart. He does not tolerate those things. He's looking for clean vessels, clean in mind, clean in their motives, clean in their lives, fully dedicated unto him. We need to be praying for the presence of the Lord. I'm not talking in terms of mysticism where you're simply cultivating some mystical sense of God's presence. I'm talking about the objective reality of God actually coming with his presence and power into our lives and into our church services. I think very often we are like Elisha. We have the mantle. I think church services are often like this. You have the mantle, the preacher strikes. We sing, we pray, we read, we preach, we give out the truth. But what happens? Many Christians go home untouched, unfeezed. Whatever their problem was when they came. I'm not talking now about health problems. I'm talking about moral, spiritual problems. Whatever their problem was when they came, it's the same when they go away. They're untouched. Sinners come and sinners go. Unfeezed by the gospel. Now, there's something wrong. We need the presence of God. What more than anything I would want for this church in this year is that every time we come to God's house, people will come face to face with God. That's it. Where is the Lord God of Elijah? It's important to notice how he put the question. It's not just, where's the Lord? No, no. Where is the Lord God of Elijah? You see, as Elijah stood there on the brink of a new career, on the brink of a new responsibility that would have weighed down any man, feeling his own weakness, he first of all cast his mind back and realized, I am serving the One who has done all this before. I have seen what God can do. And I'm serving that same God. Now, He's the Lord God of Elijah. But Elijah was just like me. He was a man of like patterns. As I've said, there was evidence of his own weakness. So the strength was not in Elijah. It was not in the brilliance of Elijah's brain or the greatness of Elijah's courage. The secret of all this was in Elijah's God. And Elijah stood there conscious, I am serving the Lord God of Elijah. What an encouragement it is. Our God is still the same. Times change, personnel change, Elijah goes his way, Elisha takes his place, but God remains the same. When you think of the Lord God of Elijah, and I'm not going to take time over this for it would take far too long, But I'll suggest it to you for your own meditation. Just let your mind go over the career of Elijah. And when you think of the Lord God of Elijah, there are certain outstanding things that come to mind. He is the God who answers prayer. That's the very first thing. Elijah's God answers prayer. You remember Elijah came forth Like a whirlwind himself, he seemed to come out of nowhere, right into the presence of Ahab. And he said that it will not rain by the space of three years. Neither it did. Now we learn from the book of James that it didn't rain for three and a half years. In other words, Elijah had been praying, the drought had already started, and he came out to say, this is happening because God has answered my prayer. Sounds a strange prayer to us. Praying for drought, praying for famine, praying for death, praying for judgment. Do you know there is a love of nation that demands that God will deal with sin. Elijah loved his nation. But he loved his God even more. And he realized that there's a need for the judgment of God on Israel's sin. And there's nothing that was going to bring Israel to its knees while it was living in prosperity. That should be a caution to you, you know, when you pray for a great move of God in South Carolina or in America. I don't know what God has for America. I don't know if there are any national awakenings. That's in God's hand. But I can tell you if there is such an awakening to be given by God, this country economically and many other ways will hit the skids in a way that it has never known for a generation or far more. God has never in the history of the church, he has never sent revival to a prosperous people. Never. Why? Because prosperous people don't need God. Why would they? Oh, they piously say, give us this day our daily bread. But they no more believe that they depend on God for their daily bread than they believe in the man on the moon. That's why in every case, revival comes in a time of great need. Elijah prayed for that. But then there came that day when Elijah prayed that it would rain. And he prayed again and again until there came the cloud the size of a man's hand. And then the clouds rolled in and there was the sound of abundance of rain. James tells us he prayed that it would not rain. He prayed again that it would rain. He was just a man subject to like passions as we are. The thing is he prayed. God answers prayer. Where's the Lord God of Elijah? Would it be too much? Would it be Would it be too much to say he's waiting for Elijah's to start praying? He's waiting for people who not only say they believe in prayer, but who actually believe in prayer and who actually pray. There's more talk about prayer than prayer. There's more written about prayer than prayer. There's not a Christian anywhere who will say he doesn't believe in prayer. But the prayer lives of God's people are so scandalously inadequate that you would have to say that, for the most part, we have given up praying. Where is the Lord God of Elijah? He is the God who answers prayer. And He's waiting for Elijah to start praying. That's what He's waiting for? Where is He? He's just there waiting for us to pray. But He answers prayer. Now that's the God we need in 2008. That's the God we need in this church in 2008. God to be answering prayer. But there's another word that comes to mind when you think of Elijah that is obviously the provision that the Lord made for them. Zarephath, for example, and then before that, by the drying brook, the whole land was in famine. But Elijah wasn't in famine. Do you know that Elijah never missed a meal in the entire period of drought and famine? Never missed a meal. Because the Lord provided. And then later, you remember, when he was running away from Jezebel, and he was there down in the wilderness and he had gone on and on and on and on until he was totally exhausted the Lord met him the Lord fed him and he went in the strength of that meat for 40 days provision the Lord God of Elijah is the God who provides for the needs of his people the promises verily in famine they shall be I've often pleaded that promise before the Lord, for we're living in a day of spiritual famine. We're living in a day when, as I've said, churches really know little or nothing about the power of God. There is an exception here and there, and thank God for them. I think one of the reasons people turn to the false fire of much of the charismatic movement is because they can't stick the deadness everywhere else. And they're so desirous of some kind of fire that they're taken in by these false claims. Of course, there's a whole lot of other reasons why people are there. I'm talking about good people, misled. They're looking for something. There's so much deadness. There's a famine in the land. Amos talks about a famine of the hearing of the Word. You know what that means? People don't want to hear the Word. People are not going to come to hear the Word. They may come for a rock concert, they may come for a picture show, but they're not coming to hear the Word. There's a famine of the hearing of the Word of God. That's what the prophet says. But in famine, God has promised to feed His people. In other words, there is no reason at all, and I'm going to stick my neck right out here, there is no reason at all other than our own unwillingness to go through with God in prayer. There is no reason at all why we should be part of the general malaise. There is no reason at all why we should not be having sinners come in to hear the Word. and why sinners should not be converted unto Christ. David said when he repented of his sin, Psalm 51, when he got rid of his sin, when he got right with God, he said, Then shall I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners will be converted unto thee. I believe that's God's promise. That's God's way of doing things. Not just for the individual, but for the church. That's God's way. Now, we are in a famine. Instead of lamenting the famine, let's say, where is the Lord God of Elijah? Where is the God who feeds His people while others are starving? Where is the God who visits His church in the midst of a spiritual wilderness? Where is the God who comes with this rich provision of the fullness of His grace? despite what others are enduring. That's what we need. And of course, the other great word that's associated with the Lord God of Elijah is power. Elijah was known as the prophet of fire. Power. He stood there on Mount Carmel. Against him were the combined forces, 850 false prophets. and the nation standing back, waiting to see what would happen. And Elijah says, the God who answers by fire, let Him be God. There's the challenge. Now Elisha comes in. This is what I'm looking for. The Lord God of Elijah. The God who answers by fire. You know, let's be very honest with ourselves. If we were to apply, if we were to apply the logic of Elijah on Mount Carmel to our own lives and to our own church experience. I think the world could well conclude either that we worship a false God or we certainly are worshiping the true God in a wrong way. His logic was, and this is his appeal to the masses by the way, His appeal to God was, let it be known in Israel this day that thou art God, that I am thy servant and I have done these things at thy command. That was his appeal to God. His appeal to the masses was, the God who answers me by fire, you worship him. But implicit in that was, if he doesn't answer him by fire, don't worship him. For I am not a prophet of Jehovah. That's the logic. And men and women, if we were to take that for the great sweep of the Christian church today, just look over the Christian church today. Where is the church, including this one, where is the church that could stand up and make that appeal to the world? Where is it? Without going around the world to judge everybody else, we have to bow our heads and say, Lord, it's not here. We are not that church. We haven't been that church. But we can take our stand with Elisha tonight and say, by the grace of God, we will be. is the Lord God of Elijah. Where is he? He's on his throne. He's absolutely sovereign. He has lost nothing of his power. He has not gone back on one word of his promise. That's where he is. We're coming to his throne tonight. And I trust we'll come with the desire We want His blessing. But first and foremost, we desire Him. Him. It's not just the blessing. See, it's easy to get caught up. We want the blessing. We want the answer. We want the solution. We want this. We want that. We want the other thing. We want things so much that we forget these are secondary. What we really need is to get through to God Himself. Whom have I in heaven but Thee? There is none upon the earth that I desire beside or beyond Thee. That's the heart. Even of the depressive psalmist Asaph. That's the heart. That should be your heart. That should be my heart. Let's come tonight. Lord, We want the Lord God of Elijah. Time forbids that I finish the text or the verse. Because you've not only got a question. You do have an answer. The answer is. The water split. It was a way to pass over. And the testimony was established. The spirit Elijah has come upon Elisha. Everybody could see it. Elisha didn't need to run around telling people, I have the Holy Ghost, I have the power of the Holy Ghost. He didn't need to run around trying to convince people. He just lived and worked and labored and God gave the testimony. That's really what we're after. That's the second part. Some other time, perhaps, perhaps not. I don't know what we'll do, but I want you to take it. There is an answer. You turn this question into a prayer. For you, for your home, for your family, for your situation, for your service, for your challenge, for this church, this year for us. And I make no bones whatsoever about it. This year for us. has to be a year, you'd have to say in human terms it would be make or break. I don't believe that. I believe that this year has to be the year where we prove God and where God does a thing that we have not seen him do before. That's the challenge. Get that vision before you. Right in this first prayer meeting of this year. This year, we must see God work in a greater way than we have seen Him work ever before in our congregation. We have got to see God at work. Are you available for that? Are you available for that? Do you stand where Elisha stood? Is that your heart before God? The Lord knows our hearts. But tonight I trust that there will not be one of us stand back. We are on the brink, not only of a year, but of a new experience with God. Let us not stand back as some sort of, like the sons of the prophets did, some sort of spectators. And you'll notice the very next thing about them, they were there full of unbelief and rationalism, and all they were good for was hindering the work of God. Sons of the prophets, and all they could do was hinder God's servants God's work. That always happens when you become a spectator. Spectators become critics. They become passers of judgment on other men's work. What God is looking for is Elishas who stand right up to the task and say, Lord, this is my prayer. Where is the Lord God of Elisha? I'll take the promise and then the strength of that promise. I'll go forward, I'll smite the waters and God will do the rest. I trust that we'll see him work. Certainly we can ask him and I trust that you will be an Elisha available to God for all that the Lord will do in you, through you, in this body of believers and through us to the honor of his own great name.