What does it mean to follow Christ? 1 Kings 19:19-21
Sunday, June 22, 2025
It was not a great me to be a prophet or a follower of the Lord by earthly standards. Elijah was the main prophet of the Lord at this me in Israel, and Israel had been on a streak of evil kings. And King Ahab was the worst yet. Ahab did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of the kings before him. And then he married Jezebel, a woman from a foreign land who brought the worship of Baal, a false god, into Israel. Now, if Ahab was bad, Jezebel was even worse. One of her main goals as queen was to kill off all of the Lord’s prophets to make room for her prophets of Baal. And frankly, it was the job of God’s prophets to bring bad news to the kings of Israel and Judah, to be the bad cops to straighten out God’s people. So, Elijah was given some work to do, but the Lord was with him. He had a faceoff with 450 prophets of Baal. Elijah produced a sacrifice, and the prophets of Baal did the same. The goal was to see whose God would send down fire on the sacrifice. The prophets of Baal begged their false god and cried out to him even cu ng themselves, but 450,000 prophets would have brought the same result: their false god could never produce the miracle they were looking for. But the Lord, the one true God, heard Elijah’s prayer. And he answered it with an amazing display of power, and the people who witnessed were reminded who the one true God of Israel was. But Jezebel didn’t care. In fact, now her anger was pointed toward Elijah specifically, she threatened to hunt him down and kill him. So, Elijah fled and hid himself and pre y much had himself a pity party. He was in despair because he felt that all hope was lost for God’s people. The other prophets were dead, and even a er this amazing display of power, it didn’t look like anything was going to change in Israel. But out of love, God gently reassured Elijah that he was and is true God, that God had a plan and there was someone who would join Elijah and ul mately replace him as prophet, and that was Elisha. God told Elijah that it wasn’t me to roll over and quit, but to see God’s perfect commitment toward Elijah and to mo vate Elijah in his commitment and trust in God. He told Elijah to go and anoint the next prophet of God, and that’s were our text picks up this morning. 19So Elijah went from there and found Elisha son of Shaphat. Elisha was doing the
plowing with twelve teams of oxen in front of him, and he himself was driving the twel h team. Elijah crossed over to him and threw his cloak over him. 20Then Elisha le the oxen and ran a er Elijah. He said, “Let me kiss my father and my mother good-bye! Then I will follow you.” Then Elijah said, “Go back! For what have I done to you?” 21So Elisha turned back from following him. Then he took the team of oxen and slaughtered them. Using the equipment from the oxen as fuel, he cooked the meat and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he got up, followed Elijah, and served him. Perhaps this isn’t the amazing event you would expect as Elisha was being called to be the prophet of the Lord. But make no mistake, this is an event we can learn a lot from. Elijah put his cloak on Elisha’s shoulders, his cloak which could be also translated to “mantle,” the origin of that phrase “passing the mantle” and the successor knew exactly what this meant.