Under a hot Middle Eastern sun, spread out across an open field, 12 pairs of oxen laboriously turned the dusty soil, the cries of their masters echoing across the valley. Suddenly a figure was seen running up alongside the freshly-turned furrow made by the 12th team, his cloak flapping wildly.

He pulled the cloak from his shoulders and, hardly missing a step, flung it over the back of the young farmer, and continued overtaking the oxen, his feet kicking plumes of dust into the dry air. The young man’s mouth dropped open as he recognised the rugged face that flashed past him, then gathering his thoughts, he broke into a run until he caught up with his unexpected visitor. The oxen, lacking their driver, slowed to a halt as the two men continued side by side in animated conversation, half running, half walking.

Thus met Elijah the prophet and the man chosen to be his successor. Thus also began a relationship whose significance as a prophetic sign has never been so dramatically relevant as I believe it is today In the Scriptures Elijah is much more than the historical person that flung his cloak over the young Elisha. The final words of the Old Testament, written long after Elijah had died, prophesy this: ‘See I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.

At the birth of John the Baptist, it was prophesied: And he John the Baptist will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedience to the wisdom of the righteous - to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.’

Furthermore, immediately following his transfiguration during his meeting with Elijah and Moses, Jesus said: ‘To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things. But I tell you, Elijah has already come and they did not recognise him, but have done to him everything they wished.’

It is this ‘Elijah ministry’, the ‘spirit and power’ of which is far greater than even these larger-than-life characters, which has come but is still coming, and which will bring about the restoration of all things, the final culmination and fulfilment of God’s redemption of the world.

Central to this ministry is the reconciliation of generations whose hearts have been turned away from one another. Hence Elijah’s relationship with Elisha, and Elisha’s to him, must contain some important lessons, especially when we consider that it culminated in Elisha successfully receiving double the ministry that Elijah had. How can today’s rising generation get twice as much as their spiritual fathers ever had? How can there be not only continuity but multiplication? Let’s try to draw some simple lessons from the story.

First of all the choice of Elisha was not arbitrary He was God’s choice. The passing-on of anointings is never a matter of human choice. Gifts and callings are entirely at the will of the Holy Spirit and they can not be gained or given any other way Secondly as people like Balaam and Saul demonstrate, anointing does not guarantee godly character and right motives. In fact it tests them to the extreme. Although Elijah’s cloak is a symbol of his anointing, the symbol was not yet reality. Note that Elijah does not retire to a cottage in the country but keeps going while Elisha falls in step alongside him. This is not a point of handover or takeover but the moment when they begin to travel together.

A vital stage was yet to come, a period of training, of mentoring, of friendship lasting several years. The first occasion on which Elisha appears after Elijah’s death, he is described in these terms: ‘Elisha, son of Shaphat is here. He used to pour water on the hands of Elijah.’ In other words his only reputation was that he was Elijah’s personal servant.

When it is time for Elijah to be taken up into heaven, the two of them are seen still walking together Elisha is still a servant, and the cloak is still on Elijah’s back. Could it be that Elisha has no personal drive or vision of his own? No, this is the point at which Elisha declares his ambition to have twice the ministry that Elijah had. It seems that during their time together they had been training and raising up a new generation, and their final journey together takes them from town to town where they meet companies of the ‘student’ prophets.

With Elijah’s departure imminent, there is a position of leadership to inherit, but Elisha is not after position but anointing. Position can be taken but anointing can only be received. Perhaps this is the test behind Elijah’s strange order to Elisha to stay behind every time he meets one of these groups. Is Elisha simply interested in being top prophet? Is he going to abandon servanthood for status? No, God had joined them together, and he was determined that nothing and no-one would separate them.

Elisha picked up the cloak that had fallen from Elijah’s back. He did not grab it but waited until the moment when God dropped it at his feet. He stood on one side of the River Jordan while on the other stood the young prophets, the new generation. He folds the cloak and, crying out those famous words, ‘Where is the Lord God of Elijah?’, he strikes the river with it. The waters part.

Church history records the sobering fact that there has never yet been a generation that has experienced revival which has enabled the next generation to inherit a ‘double anointing’. If it had, perhaps world evangelisation and Christ’s return would have happened long ago.

We live at a crucial moment of opportunity in the Church. The momentum of world mission is such that missiologists tell us that the completion of world evangelism is closer than it has ever been. The rising generation of children and young people at this present time could see it all!

Only if the father’s hearts turn to their children and the children’s hearts turn to their fathers, only if every generation of believers across the world unite in one passionate desire to see Jesus return, will the job be done.

© Graham Kendrick