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Let's begin by reading, shall we, in the second book of Kings and chapter one. Second book of Kings and chapter one And verse one: And Moab rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab. Chapter three and verse five. But it came to pass, when Ahab was dead, that the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel. King Joram went out of Samaria at that time and mustered all Israel. And he went and sent to Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, saying, The king of Moab hath rebelled against me. Wilt thou go with me against Moab to battle? And he said, I will go up. I am as thou art, my people as thy people, my horses as thy horses. And he said, which way shall we go up? And he answered, the way of the wilderness of Edom. So the king of Israel went, and the king of Judah and the king of Edom, and they made a circuit of seven days' journey. There was no water for the host, nor for the beasts that followed them. And the king of Israel said, Alas, for the Lord hath called these three kings together to deliver them into the hand of Moab. But Jehoshaphat said, Is there not here a prophet of the Lord that we may inquire of the Lord by him?" One of the king of Israel's servants answered and said, "Elisha the son of Shaphat is here, which poured water on the hands of Elijah." And Jehoshaphat said, "The word of the Lord is with him." So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat and the king of Edom went down to him. And Elisha said unto the king of Israel, "What have I to do with thee? Get thee to the prophets of thy father and to the prophets of thy mother. The king of Israel said unto him, Nay, for the Lord has called these three kings together to deliver them into the hand of Moab. And Elisha said, As the Lord of hosts liveth, before whom I stand, surely were it not that I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, I would not look toward thee, nor see thee. But now bring me a minstrel. And it came to pass, when the minstrel played, that the hand of the Lord came upon him. And he said, Thus saith the Lord, make this valley full of trenches. For thus saith the Lord, you shall not see wind, neither shall ye see rain, yet that valley shall be filled with water, and you shall drink, both you and your cattle and your beasts. This is but a light thing in the sight of the Lord. He will also deliver the Moabites into your hand. And you shall smite every fenced city and every choice city, and shall fell every good tree and stop all fountains of water and mar every good piece of land with stones. It came to pass in the morning, about the time of offering the oblation, that behold, there came water by the way of Edom, and the country was filled with water. Now when all the Moabites heard that the kings were come up to fight against them, they gathered themselves together, all that were able to put on armor and upward, and stood on the border. They rose up early in the morning, and the sun shone upon the water, and the Moabites saw the water over against them as red as blood. They said, this is blood, the kings are surely destroyed, and they have smitten each man his fellow. Now therefore, Moab, to the spoil. When they came to the camp of Israel, the Israelites rose up and smote the Moabites, so that they fled before them, and they went forward into the land, smiting the Moabites. Then if we can just remind our- ourselves of the incidents that occur in chapter four, and that will complete our reading. Early verses of chapter four about the woman who's wa- are about the woman whose husband was dead, you remember, and the creditor came to take her sons to be bondmen. And Elisha showed her the way to a miraculous supply of oil, selling which she paid her debt and avoided slavery for her sons. The second story, from verse eight onwards, is of a woman who was barren. And Elisha was the means in God's hand of performing a miracle so that that woman had a child. Then we are told how that child, when he grew up, went out into the harvest field and suffered some stroke and was taken up dead, and Elisha was used to restore the lad to life. Verse thirty eight onwards is a view into the college where the sons of the prophets were taught. And how at one of their meals, one of the young prophets put poisonous herbs into the pot and nearly killed the whole college of theological students. Whereupon Elisha put in other kind of meal and saved those young gentlemen from that terrible fate. Now, presently there came a man of God, and he brought, uh, bread of first fruits and twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of corn in his sack, and said, give unto the people that they may eat. And his servant said, but that's not enough for this great crowd of people. But it proved to be, for the people ate of that supply and were satisfied and left some over. For in that provision there was supernatural resource. And may God give us good understanding of his word. We have spent two of our studies together considering the background of Elisha's appointment and ministry. Now, in the will of the Lord, we spend our second two studies thinking of the ministry of Elisha itself. When we studied the background of his call and appointment, we found it was heavy with ideas of judgment, somber and solemn indeed. I suspect that none of us enjoyed it. How could anyone possibly enjoy listening to the solemn matter of the judgments of God? Tonight and next week, God willing, we shall be turning to far brighter subjects. That gracious ministry, that supernatural ministry that Elisha was given to exercise in Israel at this time. How that he brought new hope and new life to people who were at the very end of their resources and teetering on the edge of disaster. You will observe that all those stories that we have read about this evening all have this one thing in common. They present to us people in real life situations, going about their responsibilities, trying to cope with life, and finding life too much for them. People that are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, of slavery, of disaster. There were the three kings gathered together to try and put down a rebellion against the throne of Israel. A very necessary and urgent task that the rebellious Moab should be subdued and brought again into proper servitude to Israel. And away go the kings to do their kingly job of putting down rebels. And presently, they run out of water for their army and suddenly find themselves on the very edge of disaster and defeat. The task of putting down the rebel has brought them near to disaster. And Elisha comes along, and empowered by God, he brings them a supernatural supply in the moment of their distress, demonstrates to them the infinite resource of God. And then there was that mother. Her husband was dead, and she was having to fight a very lonely battle through life to win her daily bread and butter and maintain the family. But now she was in debt, and life was proving too much for her, and her responsibilities too arduous. And she cries to the prophet that the creditor has come to take her children, her sons, for slaves in order to discharge her debt. Woman for whom life has proved too much. Its work, instead of being a joyful occupation, is now turning into a threat of becoming sheer slavery. And Elisha is used of God to point her to a supernatural resource that rescues her from slavery and makes life once more and life's task the bearable and interesting work that they ought to be. And that was that lady. His mother for a time had been barren. It was altogether a gracious miracle on God's part that she ever had this child. And doubtless she brought that child up with all the care that a mother would bring a child up, being a firstborn, and a child that she felt had been given her specially by God. What a responsibility for a mother to have a child like that, specially given by God, by God's miraculous intervention. One day, to her great pride, he grew up strong enough, and he was going to take his place with the workers in the field, and he went out to harvest. The harvest sun was hot, and the work was hard. And eventually the work of harvest and the heat of the harvest sun proved too much for the boy, and he succumbed. Work in the harvest would have proved an utter disaster for him, had it not been for Elisha. The way he was able to point them to a source of supernatural revival and renewal of powers. Then, as I say, there was that theological college, not untypically, at one stage, accidentally, they got themselves into a very curious situation where they were supposed to be offering the students, uh, nourishing food, and in its place somebody unwittingly put in a whole lot of poison and nearly poisoned the whole college. Rescued at length, uh, by the ministry of Elisha. And so these stories tonight are going to regale us with the lovely side of God's salvation, God's infinite resources. Tell us that when we've come to the end of our resources, his gracious giving is only begun. There's one just one little point that we ought to notice before we proceed, however. We mustn't think that now we've finished talking about that solemn and unpleasant business of the judgment of God, and now can safely forget all that business about judgment and turn to the lovely side of God's love. Because actually God's judgment and God's love are two sides of the same thing. God's wrath is not something that we Christians ought to regret or be ashamed of. It is a glorious fact that God is wroth against sin. Nothing to be ashamed of. Moreover, we shall find, when we begin to peer and pry into the question, what was Elisha's secret of blessing? We shall find that his secret of blessing lay partly in this, that he had accepted the fact of God's judgment against Israel's sin. So then let's begin the story. We notice how one Kings one and verse one— two Kings one and verse one begins. And Moab rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab. The inspired writer puts the remark there, and then you don't hear any more of that rebellion until you come to chapter three, and then the story of the rebellion is told at great length. This is the first major problem, and we're going to be shown how that the solution to that problem of Moab's rebellion was found in Elisha. And we're going to be shown why it was that Elisha was able to solve this problem of Moab's rebellion. Whereas the three kings, when they tried to solve the problem, instead of solving it, nearly made matters ten thousand times worse and nearly brought the armies of Israel to disaster. Moab therefore re- rebelled after the death of Ahab. And Ahaziah son of Ahab, poor chap, being king of Israel, fell down through the lattice in his upper chamber that was in Samaria and was sick. The most unfortunate time to have a fall, wasn't it? Particularly if you were a king of Israel, bad enough to have a fall any day of the week. But now in this situation where Moab, one of Israel's servant kings, had rebelled against the throne and were now a threat to Israel, for the king to have a fall and have to lie on his bed powerless and sick, that was a most unfortunate thing to happen just at that moment. A fallen king and a rebel Moab. What a plight to be in. This fallen king in his distress, unable in his weakness to cope with the rebellion, sent a message for help. And alas, as we saw last week, he sent a message for help to Beelzebub, idol of the nations that were around. Foolish man, for there was no help. There was no help to restore him in that idol- idolatrous God. There was no help in that idolatrous God to overcome this rebellion either. So Elijah came to his messengers, we are told, and told them to go back to the king and tell the king, foolish king that you are, is it because there's no living God in Israel that you apply to dead idols that cannot help? Foolish man, there is only one God. There is no other name under heaven given among men whereby you can be saved, king. What is the use of your going to idols to save you? There is none can save, but the living God can save. Because then you have rejected the living God and gone to idols. You will never recover from your fall. When Elijah sent the king's messengers back to tell the king that message, the king got angry, sent a squad of troops to arrest Elijah himself. Whereupon Elijah, who had gone up the mountain, called down fire from heaven upon them and consumed them. We still need that message. Not only King Azar fell down out of his window. Man as a whole has fallen, hasn't he? And one of the unfortunate things about our fall is this, that a lot of powers that should be subject to us and obey us have rebelled against us. Haven't you found that so? You were meant to be a kind of a king, weren't you, in your own castle? As many a British man likes to think he is king in his own castle anyway. But, you know, many of us, we may be kings in our own castle where we get inside our front doors and shut the door, but inside the castle of our own lives, we have suffered all sorts of rebellions, haven't we? Well, perhaps you haven't. I have. All that tongue. Ha. It's not a bad, uh, organ, the tongue, you know, a very necessary organ, so long as it obeys you and obeys the man that's supposed to be in charge of the castle. I've got a tongue that from time to time, instead of being subject to mind control, revolts and rebels. You got any rebels in your castle? Yes, man has, uh, fallen. And instead of being a sovereign king over his own personality and ruling mind and soul and body, man finds himself very often, as C. S. Lewis used to say, as a prisoner in one of the cells of his own palace, shut in and hemmed in and controlled by this passion or that habit. Or, if you would like to use the theologian's term, a prisoner of the flesh. That old unruly principle that is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. And we're not talking parables now, we're talking plain reality. There isn't a man or woman whose experience hasn't proved it. We're less than kings in our castle. We've suffered rebellion of what the Bible calls the flesh. There is salvation, but where to be found? The whole of the Old Testament unites to tell us that there is salvation, but it's only in the living God. And if men turn to idols to put their trust in the works of their own hands to save them. They will find to their cost that there is no cure that way, no salvation that way, no deliverance that way, and the fall will become permanent and end in eternal death. And if then men turn and reject our blessed Lord himself, who came to offer the sacrifice by which we might find forgiveness and reconciliation with God. Well, then, as we saw last week, the situation becomes doubly hopeless. Just as Elijah, rejected by Jezebel and Ahab, went up the mountain, and there fire came down upon those that would have arrested and destroyed him. So our Lord Jesus has gone to heaven, and the Holy Spirit has come down from heaven to do this very thing, to convict the world of its sin, because it does not believe in Jesus. To convict the world that Jesus Christ is right. He is the Son of God and risen from the dead, even though this world condemned him and put him to a cross. And to remind the world that at Calvary, the prince of this world was judged. Satan was defeated, and there awaits nothing but judgment for all who stand on the side of Satan. So Ahaziah died. But the problem didn't go away. Moab was still rebelling. Difficult problem, Moab. What kind of folks were the Moabites? Well, they weren't bad as servants, you know. In fact, so our passage tells us in chapter three of two Kings, that, uh, Moab, when he was subject to the kings of Israel and under their control and made to behave nicely and as he should, Moab, in fact, rendered unto the king of Israel the wool of a hundred thousand lambs and of a hundred thousand rams, and that kept all Israel nicely warm in the winter, their toes and fingers nicely, uh, uh, heated up, you know, and their bodies protected from the cold. He was not a bad servant, was the king of Moab, if only you could keep him in control and, uh, uh, behaving properly. It was a difficult job. Once you let him get out of control and rebel, then he could be dangerous. Do you remember what Moab did, for instance, in the wilderness before Israel conquered him? He'd been in trouble before, had Moab. When Israel were pilgrims through the wilderness, they got to a certain stage where the king of Moab tried to curse them through Balaam the false prophet, and found he couldn't curse them, for God was for them. And God wouldn't listen to their prayers or their cursings. But then, alas, Balaam the false prophet taught the Moabites to do a very dastardly thing. He taught old Balak, king of the Moabites, to cast a stumbling block in the way of these pilgrims who were on the way to their inheritance. And the stumbling block was just this. They invited the Israelites to their feasts, to their religious feasts. And when they held a festival to their pagan deity, the Israelites were invited to join in. Now, you know there was a very big difference between the Moabites' religious festivals and Israel's religious festival. You see, I can imagine the kind of conversation that went on. First of all, the Moabites sent out some of the charming young ladies. You mustn't think of the Moabites as half savages, you know. They were charming young ladies. The style was beautiful. Wow. And they had a certain taste in the way of dress. Well, if it was a little bit advanced, nevertheless, it was, it was very stylish, you know. Nearer to Paris than the kind of dress perhaps that the Israelite girls wore most days. Very attractive, the Moabite girls. They came along with their invitation to the religious party, and some of the Israelite boys said, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we mustn't come to that. Oh, but what harm is there in it, you know, said the young ladies, and it won't be all religion. You see, we don't take this religion quite so to extremes as Moses did. There will be fun afterwards, you know, and games. And then, you know, of course, well, you're right, you, you Israelites, you're right, but, uh, you know, your Moses is a bit old fashioned, isn't he? I mean, things have changed since Moses climbed Sinai and gave out the law about not committing fornication. I mean, that was all right for that day. That's some weeks ago now. I mean, in our day, people have a more enlightened idea of what is permitted. You come along and do any harm. And they put the stumbling block in the way of the Israelites, and they taught the people to commit fornication under the name of religion and to eat things offered to idols. That was a dastardly thing to do, wasn't it? Dastardly. For here were Israelites, their loins girt, their staff in their hand, pushing across the wilderness, and it was tough work pushing across the wilderness, and day after day marching, and month after month trying to make progress across the wilderness, and trying hard to believe that at the end of it all there was an inheritance which flowed with milk and honey, and you had to take the whole business on faith. Milk and honey tomorrow, but, you know, only manna today, and sometimes running out of water and, uh, difficulties and snakes and goodness knows what. You know what wildernesses are like. Near these chaps, worn out and weary as pilgrims, trying to press on, in their hearts perhaps learn- yearning for a little bit of relaxation and taking it easy a bit, and tired and weary with the journey, then the stumbling block came, and they fell for it. And they fell under God's wrath too. Let us not say that we in our day are immune from such things. The Apostle Paul in one Corinthians ten is inspired to write to us, to tell us that these things happened to the Israelites as a warning and a lesson and as a type for us. Neither commit fornication as they committed fornication, and thirty three thousand of them fell in one day, let alone the rest that fell on other days as well. Our blessed Lord, having occasion to write to the church of believers at Pergamon, said, in this day and age, and he is not to be accused of fancifulness either, writing to his church of believers at Pergamon, our blessed Lord said, I have this against you, that you have, uh, some there who, like Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before my people, are teaching my people that permissive morals are okay even for Christians. You don't have to be so strict about morals as you used to be. You're teaching my people to eat things offered to idols. It was a danger in Pergamon. We should be bold to say it isn't a danger for us, shouldn't we? Nor should we think merely of the flesh in terms of sexual aberration. That may be one of its ugly results when the flesh gets out of control. There are perhaps worse things, aren't there, such as backbiting, and anger and malice and jealousy and hypocrisy and envy and greed. The works of the flesh are numerous indeed. Do you know where Moab had its beginning? Well, of course you do, being good Old Testament historians. Moab had her beginning when that good man Lot lost control of himself in the cave outside Sodom and got drunk and committed sorry irresponsibility. Oh, what an enemy Moab proved to God's people, and what an enemy uncontrolled flesh is to the people of God still. Well, Moab rebel- re- rebelled, of course he did. And the king of Israel knocked his head together with the king of Judah, and he in turn knocked his head together with the king of Edom, and they said, you can't let this kind of stuff go on. I mean, this spells ruination. Not only we're losing our wool, but you see, huh, if Moab gains her independence, it won't be long before she comes back with her armies and tries to domineer over us and get control of us. We must, as kings, as responsible people in our free nations, we must join together to put Moab down and bring him back into control. Ooh, they put on their uniform and they put on their crowns. They gathered all the king's horses and all the king's men. And they weren't able to subdue Moab. Ooh, they had a campaign against Moab. We don't know what its code word was. But instead of bringing Moab back under control, they nearly brought the hosts of the Lord to disaster. And the reason is this. Fighting wars is very thirsty work, as you all know, I suspect. Fighting Moab can be exceedingly thirsty work. And, uh, the army ran out of water. And they ran out of puff. Possible, perhaps, isn't it, for us to suffer a similar fate? We fight against the flesh, that old rebel flesh within us, and its wrong and uncontrolled desires. But you know, if you're going to get control over wrong desires, you won't do it unless you can satisfy true, healthy desires. Yes. Many a man has found that, hasn't he? He's tried to become religious in order to gain control of the flesh, and he has bethought himself of all kinds of disciplines, whips, and goodness knows what else, to control the flesh, or maybe rigorous prayer or rigorous religious exercises in order somehow, by religious, diligent, rigorous exercise, to control the flesh, and found to his dismay, that instead of, uh, achieving control of the flesh, he exhausts himself spiritually, and then he's weaker than he was before. Loses his powers of resistance. We are going to conquer wrong desire. Then number one lesson is this, that we shall have to find adequate satisfaction of true and healthy desire. Was anything wrong at all for Israel to be thirsty in the desert, was he? And if those three kings couldn't, with their combined powers, provide enough water to satisfy the thirst of their army, then they might as well give up the struggle. They were defeated men. Where should you get water from? In the middle of a desert. Well, Elisha did it, didn't he? We read the story how, under the inspiration of God, he prophesied that the very next day there would come water, and there came water. Quietly, without any fuss, but supernaturally it came and satisfied the thirst. And the men rose up in their renewed vigor and subdued Moab. Well, that's an Old Testament story, and if you don't like typology, well, forget the story, absolutely forget it and banish it from your mind, because I do want to mention a New Testament scripture, and if you don't like New Testaments being, uh, linked with Old Testaments, well, please forget the Old Testament, because I, I, I want to mention the new. Our blessed Lord stood once at the Feast of Tabernacles, and at the end of the week and the great day of the feast, when the people had been through all the paraphernalia of their religious observance and hadn't got scarcely anything out of it, our Lord stood and cried, and he said, if any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink, and out of his inward parts there shall flow rivers of living water. This spake he of the Spirit. And it is number one principle. In our warfare against the flesh, to keep the old flesh subdued where it should be. We cannot do it unless we know something of those supernatural streams of water that come from our risen Lord to satisfy our spiritual desires and make us strong and refreshed. The true spiritual satisfaction that will in turn give us the strength to overcome the flesh. How did Elisha succeed in doing it? What was the man's secret of supplying that water for the troops when the kings themselves had so miserably failed to do it? Once more, you know the answer. And the answer in the, in the narrative is sandwiched between the first announcement of the rebellion and the story of the, uh, overcoming of that rebellion, and in the middle, chapter two, there is given us Elisha's secret. Came to pass when the Lord would take up Elijah into heaven. That Elijah and Elisha were going together along the road, and Elijah said, tell me, what would you have me do for you? And Elisha said, I would have a double portion of thy spirit. Said Elijah, you've asked a hard thing, but if you see me when I am taken from you, then it shall be. And so it happened. As they two went together past Bethel, past Gilgal, back over Jordan into the wilderness, it came to pass that Elijah was taken up by whirlwind in a chariot into heaven, and Elisha saw him go. Into heaven. And as he stood watching that ascending figure, there fell down from the rising and ascending Elijah, there fell down his mantle. And Elisha took it. Therein lay his secret. Actually see a man go into heaven. He was thereafter actually clothed with the clothes of a man who was now in heaven. And once more, if you don't like typology, forget it. Because you know better than I what the secret for the overcoming of the flesh is going to be if you ask the New Testament about it. Said our blessed Lord, a little while and you won't see me. So he said in those last hours before he left his disciples to go to the temple. A little while and you shall see me. The world seeth me no more, but you see me. Because I live, you shall live also. Then he added to them before he left them at the end of the forty days, wait in Jerusalem until you be clothed upon with power from heaven. Down from the ascended Christ there came God's Holy Spirit to close the believer in the power of the risen Lord. If you see. Oh, what a wonderful day that was for the apostles, as with literal eyes they stood on Mount Olive, facing the task that the risen Lord had given them of being his witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth. Where should mere mortal men, plagued with passions like we are, one of ourselves, where should mere mortal men get the power from to be witnesses for Christ? Why, as they stood, and he was commissioning them, he was parted from them and carried up into heaven, and as they stood looking, seeing him go. What a lovely story the Ascension is, and we join with Wesley, was it, who wrote, but we believe that mortal eyes beheld that journey to the sky. We saw him go. We haven't seen him with our physical eyes ascend from Olivet to heaven. There is a sense in we can s- in which we can see him, is there not? What has come to pass? asked Judas, not the Iscariot one, the other one. How has it come to pass that you'll manifest yourself to us and not to the world? Yet that is precisely what happens, as the Holy Spirit reveals to our inner spiritual sight, not spooky visions, but the glorious reality that there is this man, Jesus Christ, our Lord, in heaven, and we endued with his power. Seen him lately? I, my soul, behold him, Jesus. Jesus fills thy wondering eyes. See him now in glory seated, where thy sins no more can rise. All our sins were laid upon him. Jesus bore them on the tree. God who knew them laid them on him, and believing you are free. How free? Why, see him, my brother. See him, my sister. See him in glory, seated at the right hand of God. The great work of atonement finished, and the believer forever free. See him in glory, your very representative, gone in, announcing that you are coming on behind. Gone in not just for himself, gone into the very throne of God, saying, if I may paraphrase it reverently, to Almighty God, beware, there's coming on behind me a whole host of people whom I represent. There's Thomas, there's John, there's Philip. Father, they're coming on behind if you don't stop them. They'll be here because they're coming on behind me, and I represent them. And there's Gooding. God, knowing that this Jesus has come in representing his people that are coming on behind, pray, what has he done with this Jesus? Who's gone in representing you and representing me and announcing that we're coming on behind. Oh, see him, my brother, see where he sits at the very right hand of God, accepted and accepted this nineteen hundred years in the knowledge that behind him there comes you and there comes I, and we are represented. See him, as Paul bids us see him in his letter to the Colossians, the power of principalities, mights, and dominions, and resources. Oh, resources as wide as the universe itself. For through him, by him, and to him, all things made. Resources. Why said our blessed Lord before he left his apostles, when the Holy Spirit has come, yes, he must be witness to the world of judgment, but to you who know me, he shall be witness of this, he shall take of the things that are mine, and he shall show them to you. For all that the Father has is mine. See him? Seated in glory this very moment for you. And all that the Father has is his. Have you some real healthy desire? He can fill them and satisfy them by his Holy Spirit sent down from heaven, all those lovely living streams of water to satisfy the longing soul. Herein was Elisha's secret. How he could triumph over Moab. Here is our secret of triumphing over the flesh. In touch with that man in heaven, satisfied by the living water of the Holy Spirit. Before Elisha was able to take that message to other folks, it had to become a reality, did it not, in his own life. We haven't time tonight at the end of our study to go over all the details of that journey upon which Elijah took Elisha just before he left him. And then others have done it, and done it better than ever I could. Let us just notice this simple point, that when Elijah was to impart this gift to Elisha, he took Elisha back out of the land of Israel, out of the inheritance over the Jordan, back into the wilderness. You can see them going, can't you? There was Bethel. Oh, what memories that brought back, Bethel, goodness me. What memories of years and years ago, and the old brethren. I mean, not the old brethren, I mustn't talk of Moses like that, must I? Nor, nor, nor, nor, nor Joshua, goodness me, I must have a bit more respect. But you know what I mean. All those ancient folks there, Joshua and Caleb and company, call what exploits you could read of if you turned the pages of ancient history. And they come over Jordan, i- i- in Bethel, you know, and then there was Gilgal. Oh, goodness me, what lessons they had learned about circumcision and cutting off the flesh and having no confidence in the flesh. What lessons there had been all those centuries ago, when Israel had come into their inheritance and discovered it for the first time. Oh, but there weren't many in Israel that were enjoying it now. While physically they were in the Promised Land, as a whole they had departed from the living God. Bethel and Gilgal, they were only names in history, names in some obscure book in the Old Testament, didn't mean anything to anybody anymore. Positionally correct in the land. Experientially dead. How will you cure that? Well, says Elijah, if you want a double portion of my spirit, then Elisha, you better go back to scratch. Let me take you back, right back into the wilderness now, and let you have your own personal experience of entering into the inheritance. To make good in your own experience what the nation once experienced all those centuries ago. Remember how when they came to their inheritance, first they had to go down into Jordan, walk into a river in flood when you couldn't see where the bank was. It was committing suicide, wasn't it, to walk into a flooded river like that when you couldn't see where the bank was, and any minute you might be in and under. And that was the prescribed way into those waters and down to the bottom before you might come up the other side and into the lovely acres of glowing corn. I mustn't say any more about that because some of you are fanciful enough already to see all sorts of spiritual lessons in that on how to get into your inheritance, so I leave that to you. But Elisha did it for himself personally, what it meant to enter into the inheritance himself. But this time with the advantage that I think the other Israelites didn't have. This time, when he did it, it was in the knowledge, in the sight that there was a man who'd gone into heaven. And in the power of that man in heaven and clothed with his mantle, and using his power, he went through Jordan on dry land, just like his fathers had done, and into his inheritance. Would I know victory in my life over the flesh? Oh, how little I know of it. Would I know more? Ain't good enough, is it? Just to know of the Old Testament experience of Israel going into the land. Not good enough to have read in books about the great preachers of Christian times who have gone in and enjoyed their inheritance. It is for me, so to speak, to start at the beginning and myself personally enter into my inheritance. How shall I do it? Oh, I have the advantage that even Elisha didn't. I have the advantage of, uh, of knowing of a savior who, for my sake, went down into Jordan, went down into death, died and was buried, and rose again, gone into heaven, and is at the right hand of God. And if I'll have it, his spirit will make good to me that in Christ I too am seated in heavenly places, that the risen Christ in heaven is risen that he might fill all things, little me included. And thus Moab was subdued by a man who was, so to speak, in touch with the man in glory, and therefore had at his command those living waters of refreshment and satisfaction. Oh, my dear young fellow believer, if you'll permit, uh, an elderly saint to talk to you, would you win the battle against the flesh and its wrong desires? You won't re- you won't win it simply by trying to have some rigorous religious discipline, though discipline is good. We could do with more of it. But the secret of the discipline and the secret of the victory is to let the living Christ fill you with satisfaction, satisfying your deepest spiritual desires, satisfying them so you don't have to pretend that you're enjoying God, so that you don't have to pretend you're enjoying spiritual life, but the reason Christ fills you with his spirit, so it really satisfies your desires. In the power of that spirit, there is a secret of overcoming the evil desires of the. To that end, may God bless his holy word for his name's sake.