Welcome to the preaching ministry of Tri-City Baptist Church in Chandler, Arizona. Our desire is that God would be magnified through the preaching of His Word, and that Christians would be challenged, strengthened, and edified in their personal walk with Christ. Let's take our Bibles tonight and turn to the book of 1 Kings chapter 19. 1 Kings chapter 19. Last week, We began looking at two of the great prophets of the Old Testament, two men who are often confused with each other, Elijah and Elisha. And we looked at Elijah last week, whose name means the Lord is God. And we saw that much of his ministry was that of teaching the truth and declaring the truth to God's people that indeed the Lord alone is God. But associated with the name of Elijah is that of Elisha, whose name means the Lord is salvation. He, as a prophet, was a successor to Elijah, one whom often is confused with his predecessor. But he is remembered for many of the great miracles of the Old Testament. The story of the widow's oil, which did not run dry. the raising of the Shunammite son, the story of the healing of Naaman, who had leprosy and was cured of his leprosy, the story of the floating axe head, which I always thought was a little fascinating, And one of my favorites though, my absolute favorite was the blinding of the Syrian army. That was, I believe it's chapter six, if I'm not mistaken. And that's just a great story of how that the king is concerned because it seems like everywhere he sends his army, the Israelites know where they're at. And they try to surprise him, and they're never surprised. They get ambushed every time. And so he says, well, to his men, who's against me? Who's the spy? And they said, oh, there's no one that's spying. It's Elisha down in Israel. He knows the words the king speaks in his bedroom. That was kind of scary. And so he decides, I'm going to get rid of this guy. So he sends an army down to capture Elisha. And the army comes in, surrounds the city at night, and Elisha's servant wakes up in the morning, he gets up and he looks, and oh no, we're surrounded. What do we do? And he goes and tells Elisha, and Elisha says, Lord, open the eyes of my servant that he may see that there are more that be with us than be with them. And the Bible says he opened his eyes and he saw the mountains around him surrounded by chariots of fire. And God's heavenly host was there. Then Elisha goes down and he blinds the entire army. And he goes down to the captains of the army and says, hey, you're in the wrong city, you're in the wrong place. I'll show you where to go. And he drags them down to where Israel had their army set and then removes the blindness. And all of a sudden they realize, oops, we are in the wrong place now. They're surrounded by Israel's army. And the captains of the army say, shall we slay them? He says, no, just treat them like prisoners. They fed them well. set them set them free and one of the great understatements of scripture it says and they returned no more into the land of israel you bet they didn't after that elijah did some great miracles did some did some mighty mighty things for the lord but tonight i want to focus on one of the stories which is really a series of stories that connects elijah to elisha And that is the passing of the mantle, the passing of Elijah's mantle to Elisha. So significant is this story that the phrase, the passing of the mantle, is still used today, even in secular circles. In fact, if you, I checked it out just to see, if you Google the definition of a mantle, One of the definitions is a responsibility or knowledge that is passed on from one leader to another or from one generation to the next. When we talk about a leader turning over the reins to a younger man or younger woman, someone who is held in high esteem is replaced by a younger individual often speak of them as passing on the mantle. I want us to begin our reading tonight in chapter 19, 1 Kings, and I want us to get the context here of the story. Elijah has fled from Jezebel. We talked about that last week, and he is He is there, God feeds him, takes care of him. He goes to a quiet place and there the Lord passes by him with an earthquake and a fire. But the Lord was not in the fire, after the fire a still small voice. God spoke to Elijah. And picking up our reading in verse 13, it says, so it was when Elijah heard it that he wrapped his face in his mantle. And he went out and stood in the entrance of the cave, and suddenly a voice came to him and said, what are you doing here, Elijah? And he said, I've been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts, because the children of Israel has forsaken your covenant, torn down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I alone am left, and they seek to take my life. Then the Lord said to him, go return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus. And when you arrive, anoint Haziel as king over Syria. Also, you shall anoint Jehu, the son of Nimshi, as the king over Israel. And Elisha, the son of Shaphat of Abel, Mahola, you shall anoint as prophet in your place. This shall be that whoever escapes the sword of Haziel, Jehu will kill, and whoever escapes the sword of Jehu, Elisha will kill. Yet I have reserved 7,000 in Israel, all whose knees have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him. So he departed from there and found Elisha, the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with 12 yoke of oxen before him, and he was with the 12th. Then Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle on him. And he left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said, please, let me kiss my father and mother, and then I will follow you. And he said to him, go back again, for what have I done to you? So Elisha turned back from him and took a yoke of oxen and slaughtered them and boiled their flesh using the oxen's equipment and gave it to the people and they ate and he arose and followed Elijah and became his servant. Here at Tri-City, we focus a lot on the idea of passing the mantle. the idea of training, mentoring the next generation of God-fearing leaders. That's one of the reasons we have a Christian school, a college, a seminary, even a mission board, as we are concerned to pass on the mantle from one generation to the next. I look around Tri-City sometimes on a Sunday morning, especially, I mean, even tonight, Sunday evening, and I marvel at the broad age differences that are here even tonight in our auditorium. Children, teenagers, college students, young single adults, married couples, families, senior saints, all gathering to worship the same Lord and Savior, all with a similar mission and a desire to proclaim Christ and carry out the Great Commission. But as a generation grows older, it is more and more critical for that generation to pass on their knowledge, their burden, their opportunities of service to that next generation. So I want us to look tonight from the story of Elisha, the passing of the mantle, and I want us to see five lessons. about the passing of the mantle. They're very, I think they're very practical, I think they're very obvious lessons. But I think it's important for us to think of them and to remember them. The first lesson we come to as we read the passage I've just read to you, and that is, it's obvious but sometimes we don't always notice the obvious, I guess, or remember the obvious, and that is that God really sees much further down the road of life than we do. You know, Elijah had experienced some of the highest highs and lowest lows of ministry. He had called down fire from heaven. He had raised the dead. He had chased the false teachers off in a mighty showdown there on Mount Carmel. He had also fled for his life because of the threat of Jezebel. And he says to God, I am I alone. I'm, you know, I've done all this and here I am, I'm alone. And God had to remind him that I have reserved 7,000 in Israel whose knees have not bowed the veil and every mouth that has not kissed him. From Elijah's perspective, he seemed defeated, exhausted. I've done all this. And yet in spite of that, and it's at this time, in spite of all that has happened and transpired, it's at this time that God tells him to go and to anoint Elisha. He is going to be your successor. There's no argument from Elijah. There's no jealousy for his role and position, but a recognition that perhaps the time was near for his ministry to come to a close. Now, it didn't come to a close. It's hard to pinpoint the time exactly, but most commentaries on this passage in Bible scholars say probably maybe around six years or so from the time this mantle was passed to the time that actually Elijah was taken up to heaven. We don't know that exactly, but it was a number of years had passed by. So Elijah was not just going to die there at the moment, even though he had asked the Lord to take his life. God still had ministry for him to do. And a great deal of that ministry that God had for him to do was to train and teach and model the ministry for Elisha. We read here that Elijah does not argue with God. Elijah does not, he makes almost no comment on this, at least that is given to us. And as I said, I think he perhaps had come to grips with the fact that maybe it was time. We don't know how old he was, but maybe it is nearing the time, the end of my ministry. An interesting oddity, I think, in life, and particularly in Christian life and ministry, is that some people, some men especially in ministry, never come to terms with the truth that their ministry will not go on forever. They fail to think ahead and make provision for a replacement. We get calls here frequently, I get calls, I've had several calls within the last couple of months from churches asking for help because the pastor had either had to retire or he is nearing retirement and there's no one to take over that position of pastor in their church and they're calling us and they're saying you know we need someone here next week which is probably not going to happen and because oftentimes people just don't want to deal with this reality that we need to be preparing the next generation. We need to be preparing to pass on the mantle. As much as we would like to think we are, none of us here are going to live for another hundred years. We will eternally in heaven, praise the Lord, but here on this earth. And you know the Bible talks about, I love that expression, the Old Testament prophet talks about how our life is like a hand's breath. I studied that one time. A hand's breath is this, like four fingers. That's taking your life and that's putting it in four fingers. Well, if life is a hand's breath, how many fingers do you, where are you at? I mean, some of us, you know, two of the fingers are gone, three are gone. You know, that one's barely hanging on right now. It's getting shorter and shorter. And we have to be thinking about that next generation. We have to be thinking and praying about passing on the mantle of responsibilities and opportunities and giftedness and knowledge that God has given to us. It doesn't mean as we get older we stop serving the Lord. When I was a pastor, one of the things that frustrated me was some of our older people in church who had served God faithfully for years, getting to a point in their life where they just said, okay, I'm done. I've served the Lord for 30 years, now let the young kids do it, you know? Well, I get the fact that oftentimes we need a change because of health and other issues in our life, and I also get the fact that we want the younger people to learn to serve the Lord, But rather than just quitting and just saying, forget it, I'm not doing anything, why don't we continue to serve the Lord, then train someone to take our place and teach them how to do it, then maybe step back, rather than just saying, well, forget it, I'm done. As we get older, we may find other ways to serve the Lord, be faithful as our health changes and as our health allows. There's no retirement from the Christian life, just readjustment of positions and responsibilities. So we have to understand the importance of passing on that mantle. And because God does see further down the road than us, there's a second truth that's very important to grasp, and that is that God is preparing a man to continue his work. God's in the business of preparing people to continue his work. I think it's fascinating here how that God points out Elisha. And Elijah is allowed to continue in his work while at the same time anointing his successor. And not much is known about Elisha's family, but the family name does indicate, perhaps many believe that it was a family that would have been known at least to some of the Jewish leadership perhaps, or maybe had a reputation for being a pious family. The fact that he's plowing with 12 yoke of oxen indicates that he was a man of some substance. And so it could be assumed that Elisha came from a godly family that enjoyed God's physical and tangible blessings. which reminds us of the truth we already know, that God uses the home to prepare his leaders. That's why it's so important for us in the Christian home to teach and train our children and to seek to invest in them and pour ourselves into them. You see, God is preparing a new generation of leaders to lead his church in the decades ahead. And we have to be a part of that. by discipling young people, by investing in our academy, our college, our seminary. It is a thrill to go to one of the mission fields and see someone like Josiah Wambua planting churches and leading a highly respected church, as well as teaching Kenyans to go and do likewise, realizing he was trained here. He, as he went to school, was here. You know, I see Sala back there. She, you know, she has been trained here and you've gotten to know her and she's been a part of this ministry. And to see them on the field serving, that's that next generation. I could go on and on. I remember being in Hong Kong and listening to James Ewan preach. Oh yeah, he was preaching in Cantonese. I didn't understand a whole lot of it. But I'd had James in all three of my seminary classes on preaching. And seeing him do that, that he had been taught to do, I've oftentimes been in some of the churches overseas and felt like I'm at Tri-City Baptist Church, Nairobi, or Hyderabad, or wherever else it might be. That's because we've trained some younger leaders. that's wonderful what has happened, but the need is still greater. I thank the Lord for what he's allowed to happen here. And we could go on and on about the different ones who have been trained here on different mission fields, but God is looking for a new generation to whom that mantle can be passed. What are you doing to help that new generation, that next generation? And if you are a young person, are you preparing to take up that mantle? We need to be challenging our young people for ministry. There are a lot of things out there that are attractive to our young people other than ministry. And it's not that God always calls every young person into ministry, but I think oftentimes there are a lot more that are called than that surrender to go into ministry, because the temptation is just so great to go do something else, live the American dream, or whatever it might be. I think it's interesting, when I first began as missions director, when we went to go to India, it was, there was just a lot of young people who would want to come to our Bible college. And, you know, I mean, not huge numbers, but that was an attractive option because at that time, that was at least a potential career ministry that you can at least go back to the village and have a living, be able to survive. But as the economy has grown, and businesses have grown, and the middle class has grown in that country, I've talked to our pastors over there, and we're finding it more and more difficult to get the young people to go into ministry, because they all wanna do something that's gonna make a lot of money. And I can understand that. If you've grown up in poverty, and now you have the chance to actually make a living and support your family in a way you've never been able to do before, But I can't help but wonder if God's not calling a number of those young people to ministry. When we were over there, I spoke with some of the young people. It's one of the things we do regularly when we go over now, try to meet with some of these young people. And I remember being in the one church, one of our first churches there, which is now a very large church. pastor asked me to speak to some of the young people afterwards and I was getting to talk to them and just asking them what were they doing after they graduated from school and what were they going to pursue and you know some were medicines, engineering, computer technology, you know almost everyone had some occupation like that and there were none of them that said you know I think God's calling me into ministry. We need to be challenging our young people to pray about going into ministry and encourage them to do so. Not that they all will, not that God has called them all, but encourage them to at least pray about and consider and seek whether that is where God wants them to be. It's important to do that because third lesson here is that to be worthy to pick up that mantle requires you to be a dedicated servant and learner. It's interesting, Elisha takes, I guess it's verse 20 of chapter 19, he takes an oxen, he slays it, he holds a great feast. Some have called this his ordination banquet. If we ordain someone in the future, I do hope you do better than boiling ox flesh for dinner. But this was quite the spread, I'm sure. And the last phrase of verse 21 says, he followed Elijah and became his servant. And you know, you don't read the name of Elisha until you get into 2 Kings. Six years, if that's the correct amount of time, passes by, and he is by his side, by the side, learning from his mentor, Elijah. What did he learn? Learning the scriptures, maybe learning how to pray, learning how to do ministry, learning how to deal with people, whatever was involved in the day-to-day activity of being a prophet. When you come to 2 Kings chapter 2, we find Elisha again, it's common knowledge, it seems, at least among the sons of the prophets who were at Bethel, that the Lord was going to take away Elijah. Verse 3 says, they came and said, do you not know the Lord will take away your master from you today? And he said, yes, I know, keep silent, don't tell me. And Elijah said to him, Elisha, stay here, because the Lord has sent me to Jericho. And he said, as the Lord lives, as your son, I will not leave you. Elisha makes a determined decision that he is gonna stick by Elijah's side. That's dedication, that's commitment. If God's gonna take you, I wanna learn everything I can from you. That ought to be the attitude of young people. Those of you and younger who are thinking about maybe going into ministry or serving the Lord in some way or just serving God wherever God puts you, find a godly Christian that you can learn from. Find a godly mentor and learn everything you can from them. I've often told people, I think one of my biggest challenges when I began ministry was I really did not have a mentor like that. that I could follow and look at their example. I mean, I had a lot of good people I knew and respected and learned from more at a distance, but I feel like I kind of struggled the first several years of my ministry because I did not have that in my life and in my ministry. It is a great advantage to be here in a ministry like this to see how things are done, to see how ministry is carried out, to see how do I share the gospel, how do I disciple someone, how do I teach a class, how do I teach children, how do I learn these things? And young people, your attitude ought to be I want to stick as close as I can. I want to learn everything I can and get everything I can get because let me tell you, the day will come when you'll need everything that you have learned. Dedication and a servant spirit, a servant's heart. Because he was committed to serving Elijah and learning everything he could, Elisha even asks of Elijah for a double portion of his spirit to be upon him. I don't think that's presumption or greed, I think that's humility and a passion to be able to carry on what his mentor has accomplished. I think any good protege feels the weight of his inability. Our ability is in the Lord, not within ourselves, and taking the responsibility to teach or to proclaim God's word is a serious matter. speaking for the Lord as Elisha would be doing, whether in private or public, is a heavy responsibility. It does not mean we should shun that responsibility, but we just rather need to be keenly aware of our need of God's help. You know, maybe he wanted a double portion of God's Spirit because he realized he was only half the man Elijah was. I don't know why he particularly put it that way, but the fact that he knew his dependence and his need of God's help. Every once in a while when I go to a missions conference, they have a question and answer time. And when that time comes, I know there's going to be a question asked. It's asked every place I go. It comes up somewhere. And the question is usually this, what is the most important requirement for a missionary to be successful in the mission field? Well, obviously, salvation, you know, I mean, some of the basic spiritual maturity. But my response is always the same, and it's immediate. Teachability. Because if you are not teachable, you will never do much for the Lord. If you have an attitude, I know everything, God's gonna put you in some places where you find out how much you don't know, let me tell you. You know, I hate to say, I've had students in my classes at IBCS who were quick to challenge me on anything they saw to be slightly off-center, whatever they thought was truth, and the sad thing is, I've never really known any of those individuals to go on and do much for the Lord. It wasn't just me, they challenged everybody else, because they knew better. On the other hand, I've had students who are hungry to find out what God's word says, they're eager to learn, they have a, they're not just dedicated, but they have a desire to be a learner, to know what God has said. It's amazing what God does with individuals like that. an evangelist friend who told me one time he said I was preaching at a Christian high school and I preached he said well it was really a pretty tough message pretty hard message on surrender and dedication to the Lord commitment to the Lord and afterwards he said that young lady came up to me young high school girl maybe she was junior high but I think he said she was high school and he thought oh she must have some something Lord's touched her heart she wants something she wants to talk to me about And she wanted to point out the fact that he had said a couple of words incorrectly. And there was a couple of factual mistakes that he had made along the way, and she wanted to make sure he knew that that little bit of trivia was not, you know, he had gotten it wrong, and she knew what that little bit of trivia really was. The sad thing is, unless her spirit has changed, that young lady is heading for a life of sorrow. You know, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. that attitude that acknowledges and humbles itself before the Lord. So picking up that mantle means you need to be a dedicated servant and learner. But here's the fourth lesson, and this is just practical, something you need to be aware of. Following a godly leader is difficult because men will naturally long for the older leader. That's going to happen. understand that will happen. Young people, when you get in a position of leadership, realize that. The truth that Elijah learned that still resonates today, the man who follows a godly leader will often be challenged by loyalties to the past. It's interesting in chapter two, Elijah crosses the river, hits the water with his mantle, which is like a piece of cloth, a robe or blanket, hits the water. The water divides and he walks over, miracle. Once he has taken up to heaven and the mantle falls, Elisha picks it up and he goes to the water and he says, where's the Lord God of Elijah? And he hits the water with the mantle and the water divides again. And we read that the sons of the prophet saw that, verse 15. When the sons of the prophets who were from Jericho saw him, they said, the spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha. Hallelujah. They came to meet him. They bowed to the ground before him. Then, Then they said to him, look now, there are 50 strong men with your servants, please let them go and search for your master, lest perhaps the spirit of the Lord has taken him up and cast him upon some mountain or into some valley. Now think about that. These people knew, we read earlier in the chapter, they knew the Lord's gonna take away your master today. Yeah. They saw Elisha come back with the mantle with the same power of God upon him, they should be rejoicing. God's given us a new leader. And they say, can we send 50 men up into the mountains and look? Maybe the Spirit of God took him away and he dropped him on a mountain peak somewhere down in one of the valleys. Now, why would that? Why would the Lord do that? It's not a very logical thinking. It's not a very logical statement. It's an emotional statement. Maybe God dropped him off somewhere. We need to go check on him. And first, Elisha says, no, don't go. And it says they persisted. They kept asking, they insisted. So they urged him till he was ashamed. He said, send them. Therefore they sent 50 men. They searched for three days, but did not find him. And when they came back to him, and he had stayed in Jericho, he said to them, did I not say to you, do not go? You know, there is oftentimes resistance to when God does pass the mantle on, when we do pass the mantle on to someone else. It's typical of human nature to be slow to follow the new leadership that God provides. David saw as king, his son Solomon also saw resistance when it was clear that God had established him as the new leader And in Christian circles, we actually have a name that describes a younger pastor who follows a man who's pastored a church for many years. You know what that name is? The sacrificial lamb. Not because of his ability to provide atonement, but because he is often slaughtered in a righteous cause. God brings new leadership to churches, colleges, to mission agencies, oftentimes they face resistance because he's not, not that he's doing anything wrong, but because he is not the old leader. Now, Tri-City has been very blessed. Dr. Singleton founded Tri-City, pastored for, I can't give you the years off the top of my head, but for many years. Then Pastor Mike became the senior pastor. And I'm sure Pastor Mike had some headaches during those years, but I know he was careful about making changes. He understood that issue. Pastor Mike was here for a number of years, Pastor Ken's done the same thing. Realizing that you just don't go in and change things that you think need to be changed overnight, because that's human nature. And so it takes maturity in a new leader to realize that, but it also takes maturity of God's people to realize the distinction. There is a need of discernment. as to whether or not a new leader is being unbiblical or just different from the former leader. And that's very critical in our day because there are young new leaders who are not wise and who have not been tested and are not discerning and can and will lead God's people off in the wrong direction. But there are also many others who are faithful to their calling and simply their crime is that they're not Elijah, they're Elisha. And they're gonna do things a little differently. And if they are allowed, they will do many more great wonders than their predecessor, just like Elisha did. But that takes maturity on the part of God's people to recognize what is error and what is just a little bit different. And that brings us to the last, the final lesson, which I think is maybe one of the most important, and that is this, that the new leader may do greater works than his predecessor, because the power is not in the mantle, but it is in the God of the mantle. You see, Elisha struck the water with the mantle and he cried out, where is the Lord God of Elijah? People often mistake the power of God to be contained in some way, in some particular form, in a box, in a mantle. The Israelites treated the Ark of the Covenant as though they had God in a box. You know, they would live wickedly. Many times you read stories of how evil they were, what was going on in society, and they go out to battle and they go drag their box with them, God in a box with them, This will take care of it, and oftentimes God allowed them to be defeated in those situations, even though they had the Ark of the Covenant with them, and even see the Ark of the Covenant stolen at one point. Because God is not in a box. The power of God is not wrapped up in a person, or even a methodology. He is larger than our personalities. He's larger than our systems. He's larger than our methods. mantle was only a symbol of Elijah's and Elisha's position and leadership and do not confuse the symbol with the reality. In our day sometimes and even in our circles and it's not just our circles but it's it's spread all over Christianity we are sometimes entranced by effective methodologies. That is, if a pastor becomes successful to some degree, the church grows, he gets a big name, you know, they mark, check all the boxes of human success, there is the tendency to want to market that. And so all of a sudden there will be conferences all over the country where he will be speaking, telling people and teaching people the methodology that he used. Now sometimes that can be a helpful thing, that's not always bad, that's not always bad. A pastor has seriously considered and thought about where he's at and what he's doing and the people who he's ministering to and maybe he's thought through a way, maybe he's written some material, maybe he's thought through a kind of a system of presenting that material or reaching people or discipling or evangelization and In his area, where he's at, as he has prayed and sought the Lord, God blesses that and it becomes successful. People are being reached. People are being discipled. The church is growing. There's nothing wrong in sharing what God has taught you. The great danger is that sometimes we think that God is confined to that methodology. Oh, if only I get the next program. If only we buy that book. If only we do that program here. Then we forget. The power of God is not in the mantle. The power of God is in the person of God. And sometimes we forget that. The power is found in God and God alone. And God may not give you a mantle. Maybe he gives you a robe. He may give someone else a rod, as he did with Moses. Maybe a scepter, as some of the kings had, or to others, a sword. But the power is not in the inanimate object, but in the person of God and in his spirit. And we must be, as we seek to serve God and seek to pass on the mantle, be aware of our need of the power of God and of our relationship with God. So I want us to just think about these lessons again briefly. You know, we think about passing on the mantle. God does see further down the road of life than we do. God is concerned about it. God is interested. And the Lord knows when he's gonna come back. We do not know. And if he tarries his coming for another hundred years, then God is concerned about providing leadership for his people, for his church in the next hundred years. And God is preparing leaders to continue his work. You may be here studying at IBCS, preparing for ministry. You may be a new person, a new believer, studying or growing. God may have his hand upon you someday to go serve the Lord in some capacity that you right now can't even think about. But God is preparing leaders to continue his work. But for those leaders to be effective, they must be dedicated servants. If I want to pick up that mantle, I have to learn. I have to be dedicated to the cause of Christ. I have to be determined to learn what I can to be yielded to the Lord and realize that, you know, hey, it's not always going to be a bed of roses. I may decide this is where God wants me to be, and I know God wants me to pick up that mantle, but man, sometimes I know it's going to be difficult. But I have to understand the power of God is in him, not in the mantle. Power is in the God of the mantle, not the mantle. We talk so much here in our ministry about training that next generation of godly leaders. The pastor even mentioned it tonight, talking about the men's breakfast. Not always easy to pass on the mantle. In fact, it seldom is. But the Bible tells us to pass on to faithful men who shall teach others also. The Great Commission talks about teaching them all things whatsoever I have commanded you, even until the end of the age. That concept, that idea, has to be in our very DNA as believers. So let's learn from the passing of the mantle from Elijah to Elisha the importance of preparing that next generation of leaders. Let's commit ourselves, whether it's in the home, whether it's here in the church, let's commit ourselves to preparing, equipping, training young men, young women to pick up the mantle after us. and to carry on the work of God long after we are gone until the Lord comes back again. Let's pray.