Divine Seal to the Call of Elisha

The point: Consider what you would ask for if God offered you anything, as this reveals your true character.

Elijah's question, 'Ask what I shall do for thee,' is likened to pulling a blank check from his mantle, emphasizing the profound opportunity and revelation of heart it presents.

Now that's an amazing question. It's as though Elijah pulls from the folds of his mantle a blank check and throws it down before Elisha and says, fill it in.

9:20 - 9:35 Read in full sermon

The point: Consider what you would ask for if God offered you anything, as this reveals your true character.

Martin recounts asking a congregation what they would want if God gave them a blank check, and a little girl honestly sighed, 'a new bike,' illustrating how such a question reveals the true desires of the heart.

Now any such opportunity is one of the most profound and incisive revelations of the state of a man's heart. If God were to throw down a blank check from heaven into your lap sitting in that auditorium tonight, saying, ask what you will, it would be a tremendous revelation of your character. Now not if you knew the elders were going to collect it, because you might write something there to impress them, of the depth of your spirituality. But if you were forced to write exactly what your heart would write, if it could, no other motive influencing you but the desire of your heart, I say this wou...

9:44 - 10:58 Read in full sermon

The point: As a congregation facing challenges, find comfort in God's faithfulness to equip us with the Spirit for our tasks, seeking His 'portion of the firstborn' for effective ministry and witness.

The apostle's question, 'What soldier ever went forth at his own charges?' is used to illustrate that God equips His commissioned servants, like a government providing ammunition for its soldiers.

For these things, the apostle says, we are not sufficient of ourselves to think anything as from ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God who hath made us able ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. Oh, what a wonderful God we have. The God who responds to the felt need of an Elisha, granting him that portion of the firstborn so that he might not be sent out in the language of 2 Timothy as a soldier who has no ammunition and equipment provided by the government that sends him forth. What soldier ever went forth at his own charges?

34:17 - 35:00 Read in full sermon

The point: Jealously guard your spiritual eye, meticulously removing any 'splinter or speck' of lust, pride, or ambition that would dim your vision of spiritual reality.

The metaphor of 'eye salve' from Revelation is used to describe the process of spiritual cleansing when sin (a 'cinder' or 'scratch') blurs one's spiritual vision, restoring clarity.

They immediately run to that. They have found an open for sin and uncleanness. And they're anointed with the eye salve of spiritual cleansing in the language of the book of the Revelation. Anoint thine eyes with eye salve that thou may see. And the cinder is taken out. And the eye salve of the palm and Gilead is placed upon it. And once again they see with clear vision. A lustful thought arises in the heart. No one sees it. It's miles away.

49:56 - 50:30 Read in full sermon