(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Alright, so this morning we have this great passage here, 2 Kings chapter 2, about Elijah and Elisha and I'm hoping to encourage you this morning and maybe motivate you to just seek more in your Christian life to spiritually and understand that there is of course a reward that God will give us at the judgment seat of Christ. So you know, of course, the life we live here matters a lot. It matters not just for yourself, but it matters for other people, of course, right? The most important thing you could have settled ever is your own salvation, knowing for sure that you're going to heaven when you die, right? We're here for a very short period of time. The Bible says our life is like a vapor that appears for a short time and vanishes away. We never know how long we're going to be here on this earth, so we have to make the most of it. And the most important thing is just getting settled, that your eternity, where you will be forever, is settled, is taken care of, that you are resting in the finished work that Jesus Christ did when he died on the cross and shed his blood for you to pay for your sins, that you're trusting his payment, you're trusting his sacrifice, you're trusting what he did, his death, burial, and resurrection to pay for your sins and completely trusting that to be saved. That is the most important thing that anyone can do. But after you get saved, hopefully you hear, everybody's saved this morning. I don't know. That's my hope, my sincere hope. If you have any questions on that, please talk to me after service. I'd be happy to go over that in more detail. But assuming you're saved this morning, right, that's not just what life is all about. Just like, okay, well, I'm saved now. Now what, right? Well, now we ought to be serving the Lord sincerely with a pure heart and doing, living this life the way it will be pleasing to him. And the way it will be pleasing to him, as I preach on over and over and over again, is being a minister. To be Christ-like means you're a servant, means you're going to be ministering, means you're going to be focused on helping others. When Christ came to this earth, he came to serve. He didn't came to be served, he came to serve. So the way that we could serve others best, of course, which is why we focus on this the most, is by preaching the gospel, helping people understand that salvation, that number one most important thing of having eternal life, right? Pretty simple. It's not super complicated. Our lives end up getting complicated, but that's because of us. It's not really that hard. It's not that complicated to understand what God would have us to do. But it is important to keep things, keep our minds spiritually minded. There's a lot of distractions out. There's a lot of things that can draw us away from doing what's right. There's a lot of carnality. We have this flesh that's going to cause us to want to sin. It's going to cause us to want to be lazy. It's going to cause us to want to just kind of get into things that don't really matter, right? Like we've got the digital detox this month, and there's a lot of things that just are total waste of time that people spend tons of time doing, which if you get to the end of your life and you look back, I don't know anyone who's going to be like, man, I wish I just spent more hours on Facebook, right? Can you imagine someone on their deathbed thinking back on their whole life going, I could have spent so much more time doing, you know, like no one's going to say that. No one will. And unfortunately, if anything, people are going to be like, man, I wish I could have done more. I want, you know, we don't want to have that regret, right? We want to be able to look back and say, okay, you know, obviously things weren't perfect. There's mistakes I've made, but overall, I kept this course. I worked hard, and you can see results in some fruit, and the life I had here had more meaning than just me getting saved, right? Impacting other people is huge. Now that's all just a kind of a preface, an opening, because I want to focus on a few specific characters in scripture. And the first one that we're going to spend the most time on here is Elisha, and what I think is interesting here about Elisha is that he asked for the double portion. So if you know anything about Elijah and Elisha, these are two prophets of the Lord, both who did amazing things. They were both used of God mightily. There's these miracles that were performed through hands of both of these men. They were great preachers. They stood up to kings. They did a lot of great work in their day and in their time, and just great heroes of the faith to look up to. And Elijah alone was just this amazing man of God. And what we see in this story is his servant, Elisha, someone who was going to succeed him, someone who was planned to kind of fill his shoes and take over and take the mantle, so to speak, and continue moving forward in the ministry. But before he can get in that position, he has to serve. He's going to be the servant of Elijah. And one of the things that I think is kind of awesome and kind of amazing is when he asks Elijah, or Elijah, excuse me, asks him what he wants, because he's been such a faithful servant. He's been so good. And he says, you know what I want? I want a double spirit of the spirit that you have. Why? Because he knows that the spirit of God that's upon him is what's allowing him to be able to do all these great things. And basically he's just saying, you know, I love your ministry, and I love what you're doing, and I love the work, and I see God working in you, and I want to do twice as much. I want to be able to just do twice as much. Hey, that's a great thing. You know, the carnal person might be like, oh, what do you think you could do more than me? You know, like, don't you know I'm the goat, I'm the greatest, no one's going to get more than me. What are you thinking? You know, he admitted, he said, look, this is a hard thing because God used it mightily. But isn't it a good thing? I mean, wouldn't you want to see more people doing more for God? I mean, even if it's more than you, like, so what, right? The cause of Christ, the cause of the Lord, if we get more people involved in dedicating more time and doing more good and reaching more people, then I just say praise the Lord. Right? If there's people outshining you, so to speak, in whatever, it's not about you. Right? If you're worried about that, then you got a serious problem, you got to look inwardly to and look at your heart and look at your pride and say, you know, are you doing the things you're doing to be seen of men? Are you doing what you're doing for the actual cause of Christ? Because if you're doing it for the cause of Christ, it shouldn't matter any recognition, any accolades, any, you know, I'm doing better than everyone else, look, we don't need to compare ourselves among ourselves with the Bible. That's a immature, spiritually immature way of looking at things. It's not wise, it's right. We need to just see, hey, how can I satisfy, how can I be pleasing to the Lord? Right? The Bible says that we need to study to show ourselves approved unto God. Not approved unto other men, not approved to someone else who might be thinking, you know, that I'm in competition with. Study to show yourselves approved unto God. Right? A workman that needeth not to be ashamed. And we ought to keep God's standards in mind, not man's standards or anything like that, but just focus that way. Now, Elisha, he asked for the double portion and he received it, which is why we're focusing on this. Right? I'm sure there's plenty of people who wanted things, but maybe they didn't get it. We see this story here that it was a hard thing that he asked, and we read that in the passage already. We'll cover it again real quickly. But God apparently liked that request. And God granted that request to him to be able to receive that portion. And of course, we know, as you continue reading out about Elisha, he did a lot of amazing things. But how is it that he even got to this place? And Elisha, okay, because getting things like that, if you want God really working in your life, it doesn't just happen all on its own. Okay? You can't just be like, you know, I don't want anyone to have to wonder, well, why would Elisha be someone that God's going to pour out a double portion of his spirit on? And just think, like, well, who knows? Now, because there's very good reasons for it. Now, the first thing I want you to understand, though, too, when we look at this and we look at these great heroes of the faith and great people who have made such an impact and such an impact to be even mentioned in scripture and to be used of God so mightily is that, first of all, they're just men. They're just women. They're just people. Like, they're human beings. Okay? And just every person you know today, all of us, you know, they are no different in the sense that they're just people. They have all the same, the same flesh, the same desires, the same temptations, the same problems, the same, you know, just their lives are not just that unique or special or different in any other sense than what they chose to do and where their heart was and what, you know, anybody can be used the same way. Anybody can. You can. Everybody has that opportunity to be used of God. So let's dig in a little bit to see even just when Elisha was chosen to be the successor to Elijah, we find that back, if you want to flip back real quick to 1 Kings 19, it's just a few pages back in your Bible, God gives Elijah a few instructions, a few tasks that he has to carry out regarding kings and anointing kings, and then he talks about Elisha, and we're going to look at verse 16, the Bible says, In Jehu the son of Nimshai shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel. This is the instruction to Elijah. And Elisha, the son of Shaphat of Abel-Meholah, shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room. So he's basically saying he's going to be the next preacher, he's going to be the next prophet, Elisha is chosen. So God chose Elisha, and we get a little bit of an understanding here about why God might have chosen Elisha when we see Elijah approach Elisha in verse number 19. Look at verse number 19, the Bible says, So he departed thence and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he with the twelfth, and Elijah passed by him and cast his mantle upon him. So one of the things we see about Elisha is that he's a hardworking guy. He's out there plowing the field. He's doing the work, and not only is he doing the work, he's got this twelve oxen, but he's in there with the twelfth. So he's literally just putting everything into his work. He's right there with the oxen, just doing whatever it takes to get the job done. He is just a hardworking individual here that clearly he's working when Elijah shows up. He's not taking a nap, he's not sitting under a tree, like he's working, right? He's busy doing work, and the Bible is clear, it teaches that if you're not able to be faithful in that which is least, then you're not going to be faithful in much, right? So just the first principle to get down is, you know, if you're looking for the blessings of God and you want to have a double portion of God's Spirit on your life and you want to be used of God mightily, you can't be lazy, okay? You got to be working, you got to be faithful in whatever you do, and this is a characteristic, this is a trait that ought to transcend everything that you do, and this is something you could work on right away. You know who's not going to be successful even in the work of God? People who go to work and say, well, you're only paying me for this much, so that's all you're going to get. That attitude, well, you're not hiring me for this, I'm not going to do that. You know what? That's going to get you nowhere. It's a bad attitude to have. We ought to be, and the Bible teaches us that we ought to work and serve as if we're serving Christ, like even in the most basic jobs. Whatever it is that you do, you should put forth your best, and that can be at the lowest level or at the highest level. You don't just have to do good when you have a really important job because you're never going to get that really important job if you can't show that you're a really good worker and that you really care about what you're doing at the lower level. It's just not going to happen. And the Bible teaches us, you say, oh, but what does this work have to do with serving God? I mean, it's a spiritual thing. It shouldn't matter. The two are totally different. That's not the way God views it, because here's the thing, the way that you work in the smallest, if you could work really hard and care and be like, no, hey, my name is attached to this. I'm doing this job. I'm going to make sure that this is the best that can be done. If you can do that on the smallest matters, you better believe that that person is going to then, if anything, take it even more serious later, right? But if that's the lowest that you can see you're going to get from somebody is this awesome job, well, that's exactly the type of person you want doing more work. You want to give more responsibility to, and that's not just the way of the world, but it does work in the world. By the way, out on the job, you want to get promoted, you want to get better positions, you work and you work as if you're serving Christ and you work hard and you stay humble and you don't have a proud attitude, okay? It doesn't mean that you just have to be taken advantage of or something like that. Look, find another job. We live in an awesome place still to be able to find work and get employed, but don't have a proud attitude of thinking you're above anything or don't have the wicked attitude of just going like, well, I don't like this job at all, so I'm just going to do the bare minimum to make sure it gets done. Well, you're just going to be known as the bare minimum person then, and no one wants the bare minimum person doing the important jobs, which by the way, if you have a mind to be in ministry work, I'll tell you right now, I'm not keeping any secrets, I'm looking for the people who are going to put their all into the work that they do, whatever that is. I mean, all the way down to straighten up chairs and putting song books away at the end of service or whatever, right, like whatever little menial tasks that have such little weight overall, that's what I look to. The big picture, how are you doing in all that you do? And this is something that apparently Elijah seems to possess this quality because he does care a lot about everything he's doing. He cares enough here to be in with the, you know, you say Pastor Moses, one verse, I know, but we get to also see the rest of his life too in ministry with all these other stories where he is working, he is care, he does care, he's not dropping the ball like ever. And that doesn't just happen by chance and you don't just flip a switch one day and all of a sudden now you're just a totally different person, right, like it doesn't happen, you have to work at this. You have to build it into your character. And parents, you need to be building this into the character of your children and not allowing them to be lazy and teaching them the value of working hard. And you know, the thing is with this, and this is great application even spiritually because that's totally the way it is spiritually, but even in this world oftentimes you put forth that hard work, you may not get recognized for a long time. It may not happen, but you know what, you have to do it anyways and you do it because it's right. But here's the thing, in this world, God sees everything that happens. So people might lie about you, they might slander about you, you just keep doing your hard job, you keep doing the good work, some people might try to take the credit for what you're doing, whatever, and that's not right, but you just keep doing what's right anyways. Don't get discouraged, don't quit, don't stop because like, oh, this person just keep, you know. Look, God will make all those things right. You just do what's right and you serve as if you're serving Christ and do the best job that you can, God will make sure that that stuff turns out the way it's supposed to. I mean, we've got the story of Joseph. I mean, talk about the guy that kept on having bad things happen to him that weren't his fault. It's Joseph, right, and everywhere he keeps on succeeding, why, because his situation is what it is, he can't change it, but he's just going to work hard, he's just going to serve the Lord, he's going to do what he can do, and everywhere he goes, he keeps getting promoted. And then someone lies about him, he gets thrown into prison, right, like his brothers sell him off into slavery, well, he didn't have any choice in that matter, it's just what happened. Well, but in slavery, what happened? He worked real hard, he says, okay, well, I mean, he couldn't change where he was at, so what did he do? He worked real hard, God blessed him, and he was put in charge of everything. Some woman falsely accuses him of committing adultery with her, or attempting to commit adultery with her, or attempting to force her, and he gets thrown in prison. He didn't do that, he didn't do anything wrong. But then what happens in prison? He's the model inmate, I guess, and he's really able to work hard and just show himself to be trustworthy, and God elevates him there, too, ultimately, of course, to being elevated to the position that is just under Pharaoh over the land of Egypt. But that doesn't happen by accident. You have to stay motivated and stay focused and build that character. Now I want to point this out, then, too, is that once Elijah, you know, casts his mantle upon him, is passing the torch to him, verse number 20, the Bible says, and he left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said, let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother and then I will follow thee, and he said unto him, go back again, for what have I done to thee? Look at verse 21, and he returned back from him and took a yoke of oxen and slew them and boiled their flesh with the instruments of the oxen and gave unto the people and they did eat. Then he arose and went after Elijah and ministered unto him. So when it came time for him to transition here into being a minister of the Lord, being a minister to Elijah, he kills the oxen, that's what he was just working at, that was the job he just had, and uses the instruments to make that offering, he's not going back to that job. Just like when Jesus called to his disciples and said, hey, I'll make you fishers of men, right? And what did they do? They dropped their nets and they went and they served the Lord. And this is a similar story where we see Elijah going, okay, well, I guess I'm going to serve God now. You know, the calling came in his life and he said, yep, here I am, Lord, send me. He was ready to now take on that job. He was working real hard in what he was doing. He gets that call and says, okay, I'm ready to do it. I'm willing to do this. I'm not going to serve God and mammon. He's like, I'm just going to serve God. And he burns the equipment and he's ready to go. And then it says, that last sentence in verse 21, then he arose and went after Elijah and what do you do? And ministered unto him. So what was his role? To minister, to minister unto someone else. He goes, well, I'm not taking that job unless I could be the boss. No, you don't get to be the boss until you learn how to serve. The best bosses are ones that have served. Like, I'm not saying it's not out there. Obviously, it's out there in the world where people get positions and get elevated to positions that maybe they don't deserve, maybe they didn't earn, maybe they haven't served before, maybe they were brought into it because of family or whatever. But the best leaders are the ones that were the best servants. I mean, no doubt about it. The best leaders are the ones that have already been in the trenches, they know how things operate, they know how things go, they know how to serve, and then you learn how to lead. And if you want to be used of God, that's where I started off, you want to have this double portion and you want God to bless you because you really want to be used of God. If you're used of God, you're going to be a minister, right? That's the whole point, because life's not about you. It's not about your wealth. It's not about your well-being. It's not about you, like your life should not be about you, it should be about serving the Lord and serving other people, right? Love God and keep his commandments and love your neighbor as yourself are the two great commandments in the Bible. So let's go back to 2 Kings chapter 2 now. We saw a background of Elijah himself, and really this whole sermon could just be about Elisha, but I do have a couple more examples I want to get to. But before this request of getting a double portion is answered, we see a few more traits of Elisha in this story here in chapter 2. Look at verse number 2, the Bible says, and Elijah said unto Elisha, Terry here, I pray thee, for the Lord hath sent me to Bethel. And Elisha said unto him, as the Lord liveth and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. So they went down to Bethel. And the sons of the prophets that were at Bethel came forth to Elisha and said unto him, knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head today? And he said, yea, I know it. Hold ye your peace. And Elijah said unto Elisha, Terry here, I pray thee, for the Lord hath sent me to Jericho. And he said, as the Lord liveth and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. So they came to Jericho. And the sons of the prophets that were at Jericho came to Elisha and said unto him, knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head today? And he answered, yea, I know it. Hold ye your peace. And Elijah said unto him, Terry, I pray thee here, for the Lord hath sent me to Jordan. And he said, as thy Lord liveth and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And they too went on. So basically, three times the same chain of events happen. Elisha serves Elijah. And Elijah's saying, okay, you know what, just wait here. God's calling me over to this other place. You could just wait here. And he's given permission to just stay behind, right? He's told, yeah, you could just wait here. God's got some work for me to go. But what is his heart? What is his attitude? No way, man. Hey, I'm here to serve you. So if you're going, I'm going. Right? You've got to take this trip over there. Well, guess what? I'll be right there with you. But I don't want you to be inconvenienced. Yeah, that's all right. I'm going anyways, right? God called you over there. Well, I'm going to be there to help you. I'm going to be there to serve. And even when, you know, so he's getting an opportunity to opt out. No, just stay here. Nope, I'm with you. I will not leave thee. He says this three times when God's telling Elijah to go to these three different places. And then when he shows up to these places, he's got the sons of the prophets going, hey, don't you know? I mean, God's going to take him away from you. And that's not the most encouraging thing to hear. Right? Hey, don't you know? I mean, he's going to be gone. What are you doing here? Why are you even still with him? God's going to take him. Right? Like, what are you doing? And he's like, hold your peace. Which is a really nice way of saying shut up. Right? Hold your peace. I don't want to hear it. I'm here with Elijah. I'm serving him. Right? Don't discourage me. So in the face of discouragement, in the face of the opportunity to just not work that hard, he persists and stays with it. Because if he didn't stay with it, he wouldn't have even been asked the question, hey, what do you want? He had to get to that point first, and we jumped down to verse number nine. The Bible says, and it came to pass when they were gone over that Elijah said unto Elijah, ask what I shall do for thee before I be taken away from thee. Because of course, I mean, everyone knows it's Elijah's time to go and God's going to take Elijah. And apparently this was a known thing. The sons of the prophets knew about it. Elijah knew about it. And he's just like, hey, okay, you've served really well. You've been with me. You've stuck with me to the end. Ask now what I can do for you before I'm gone. And Elijah said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me. And he said, thou hast asked a hard thing. And of course, especially from Elijah's perspective, of course it's a hard thing. He's done a lot of great things for the Lord. The Lord's really worked hard in his life. But what does he say? Nevertheless, hey, if thou see me when I'm taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee. But if not, it shall not be so. He's leaving it up to just, well, hey, if the will of the Lord be so, then you got it. You can be granted with that blessing. Elijah, I think, was just going like, you know, I can't really control that, how much God's spirit is going to be on you. But he was willing. He was willing to put the blessing on him and say, okay, well, hey, if God wills, there you go. You got it right. He's been that faithful of a servant to show that he's not going to waste the gift. He's not going to, you know, that he will, he will utilize it and use that gift. So he's there. And then, of course, he sees them when the chariot of fire and the horses of fire show up and they divide them. And Elijah goes up to heaven by a whirlwind. And verse 12 says, Elijah saw it and he cried, my father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horseman thereof. And he saw him no more. And he took hold of his own clothes and rent them in two pieces. And then he goes on and parts the river and the Jordan River and continues on. And we kind of see the rest of his ministry and all the work that he's done. And you know, Elijah, Elisha, our man of like passions, like as we are, the Bible says in the book of James, you know, Elijah prayed that it wouldn't rain for the space of three and a half years and it didn't rain. And he prayed again that it would rain and God opened up the windows of heaven and it rained right on the earth. So but in the book of James, it explains that, look, he's just a man. He's just a person, right? Yet he had this power with God. And that's, you know, we want to have the power of God in our life. We want to be used of God and say, you know what? I really want God to use me mightily, right? Hopefully you have that desire, right? Not everyone does have that desire, but I hope you do. If you have that desire, we can look at these examples that we're going to show you and learn, hey, it's it's it may be a slow process and maybe something that's going to take some time. It's not going to happen overnight, right? You want to be a vessel prepared and meet for the master's use. Then it's a daily thing. It's not enough just to show up to church and hear the Bible. It's not enough to read your Bible every day. It's not enough to pray. You need to actually start putting into practice these things and change your life to have these qualities that are being sought for by the Lord in your life, possess these qualities and you're going to be fighting the flesh in order to do that. And you're going to be fighting the status quo around. You're going to be you're going to be fighting the the culture. That's going to tell you you're a fool. Why are you doing this extra work? No one could even see you, you know, like like the man pleaser crowd that's only going to do work because they could be seen of somebody. Look, I see it all the time. I've seen it all the time throughout my career, throughout my life working. It's amazing when the boss is around and I'm talking about the top boss, right? Every company I've worked at, when the boss is around, people will work at least what they're supposed to. And when the boss is out, it's crazy how much people don't work. Why is that? They were employed to do the same job, to get the same pay for the work they're supposed to be doing. What does it matter if the boss is standing there or not? It shouldn't matter. It shouldn't matter for you as a Christian. You should be doing the work no matter what. And you put in the extra time and you put, you know, you do what needs to be done to get the job done. And you do a good job and you do something that you could say, hey, I did that. I'm going to stand by my work. And whether that be out in the world or whether that be in the house of God or whether that be in the ministry, in any type of service that you do. When you're out at the door talking to someone, yeah, I talked to that person, be willing to own it, stand up and be like, yeah. Hey, did you say this? Did you do that? Yes, I did. We need to be upright, hardworking, and have integrity in all that we do. And you need to be demonstrating that in order to receive, especially if you want to receive a double portion. Turn to the book of Ruth, Ruth chapter one. We have a lot of examples of men that do great jobs in the ministry, but there are also examples of women too. So I want to make sure that we see this because Ruth is an awesome example of a godly woman that gets the blessing of God in her life. And again, it's not by accident. And Ruth is a Moabitess. She's from the land of Moab. She's not of the children of Israel. She's of a heathen nation. So she doesn't necessarily have the best upbringing. We don't know what her upbringing was, but she's in the land of Moab. She doesn't necessarily have everything going for her spiritually. She's not raised in a Christian home, right? But nonetheless, she's a person. She has choices to make, and she decides how she's going to live, what she's going to do, what she's going to prioritize, what's important to her. And has a selfless attitude, as we'll see, and if you know the story, you already know this. She's not concerned about herself. She's concerned about others. One, she accepts the Lord. The Lord's her God. She's decided, okay, I'm going to serve God. This is my God. This is my religion. This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to follow the Lord, and I'm going to serve you, and I'm in your family, and I'm going to be there for you and minister unto you and help you in any way that I can. That was the heart of Ruth. Look at verse number eight in chapter one in the book of Ruth. The Bible says, and Naomi said unto her two daughters-in-law, because Naomi's the mom, her husband dies, right? They're off in the land of Moab. There's a famine in Israel, and they leave, okay? They go in the land of Moab. She goes out there with her two sons and her husband. Her husband dies, and both of her sons die. They'd gotten married out there. They married these women of Moab, and all the men in the family die. So now Naomi's speaking to her daughters-in-law, right, because there's no one left. It's just her and these daughters-in-law, these widows now. She says, go return to her mother's house. Return each to her mother's house. The Lord deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead and with me. And I want you to see some of the similarities here. Didn't Elisha have the opportunity, hey, Terry, here? I'm going over there. The Lord's calling me over here. You could just stay here. She's saying the same thing to her daughters-in-law. Hey, I'm going back to Israel. I'm going back to the land of promise, right? I'm going back to the Lord because obviously things didn't go out that well here, maybe outside of God's will. Now I'm headed back to go in God's will, but you just stay here with your families. Verse nine. The Lord grant you that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband. Then she kissed them and lifted up their voice and wept, and they said unto her, surely we will return with thee unto thy people. So at first they both say, no, no, no, we're going to come with you. And Naomi said, turn again, my daughter. So this is the second opportunity. Why will you go with me? Are there yet any more sons in my womb that they may be your husbands? Turn again, my daughters. Go your way, for I am too old to have an husband. If I should say I have hope, if I should have an husband also tonight and should also bear sons, would ye tarry for them till they were grown? Would ye stay for them from having husbands? Nay, my daughters, for grieve with me much for your sakes, that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me. So she's explaining like, look, I'm too old to get married again. And even if I did, and even if God gave me a child, would you like wait around? Because normally what would happen with widows, oftentimes in the Bible, there is a duty of the brother, like the next in line, if someone wasn't married in a household and say one of these brothers died, and they had a brother that's not married, that they would be able to then take the widow unto them and be a husband to her and to continue on the seed in her brother's name. And that's just how it worked. And she's saying like, look, even if I got married today, like you're going to have to wait quite a while for a child that you would be able to then ultimately be married, be grown up and married, and like there's no point in waiting around for them. She's telling them like, just go, right? You don't have to stay with me, just go. And they lift up their voice and wept again, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, meaning she's leaving, she's kissing her goodbye. But Ruth clave unto her. And she said, behold, thy sister-in-law has gone back unto her people and unto her gods, and return now after thy sister-in-law. Three times she's told, just stay here, go back. You don't have to go with me. You don't have to do this. She had the opportunity three times, just like Elisha had the opportunity three times to not go, to not follow, to not serve, to not minister. So look, would it be a sin for her to stay behind? No. Would it have been a sin for Elisha to not go with Elijah? No. I'm not saying it is a sin. But if you're seeking the double portion, if you're seeking to have God really working in your life, okay, then you need to be willing to say, no, I'm dedicated to serving, I'm dedicated to doing this, I'm going to work hard, I'm in it, man. I'm not just going to sit back, I'm not just going to, okay, and just kind of be lazy and just go live off and do my own thing. God wants people who are invested and they want to work. So hey, there's nothing sinful about not getting the double portion in your life, right? You could still serve God, you could still be a good Christian, you could still live your life, but if you really want to have the highest amount of God's blessing in your life and you want that double portion of spirit on you, then this is how you do it, right? You can't just be backing out and bowing out and going like, yeah, yeah, no. It's a little bit easier for me to stay back here. Even when there's nothing in it for you, right, there's nothing in it for Ruth. She's already saying, you're not going to have a husband, you're still young enough to go get married and have kids and have a family and everything else. She's saying, nope, I'm going to stay up with you. Verse 16, and Ruth said, entreat me not to leave thee or to return from following after thee, for whither thou goest, I will go. And where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people and thy God my God. Where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me and more also of aught but death part thee in me. You see the dedication, you see the service, you see the heart, you see the faithfulness because she stays true to that. When she saw that she was steadfastly minded to go with her, then she left speaking to her. And then, of course, throughout the book of Ruth, you see Ruth goes out. She works, she goes, and she gets the gleanings, right, and she follows after, which is what widows would do. She can't just go get her own job, but she's going and doing what she can to help support her and her mother-in-law, these two widow women that are staying together, and she's doing everything in her power to be able to help provide for the home. And it becomes known, she has a reputation then of, hey, have you heard about this woman, this Moabitess woman that was a widow that came with Naomi, that has made this sacrifice, and now she, you know, all this stuff, and it turns out to become a blessing for her. Go to chapter 4, and we're going to look at verse number 10, because we see where Boaz gets involved, where she was serving him as well, and then ends up getting married to Boaz, and we see how, you know, this is kind of at the end where he's explaining how all this plays out, and he's going to do the duty of a kinsman to her by taking her to wife, and verse 10 here says, moreover, Ruth, the Moabitess, the wife of Malon, have I purchased to be my wife? You know, it sounds kind of funny to us he purchased to be his wife. Just because he needed to get her property and this other stuff, it was the duty of the next of kin, which someone else chose to refuse, and then Boaz was next in line. He wasn't, this isn't a mail order bride type of thing, okay, this is more to the story, just don't get too hung up on that, it really isn't that weird when you read it all in context. To raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance, so he's doing the honorable thing by getting the land and then being able to raise seed unto her deceased husband, right, so the child that we were born, if they have a child, would be raised in the name of her deceased husband, that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his brethren, from the gate of his place, he are witnesses this day, and all the people that were in the gate and the elders said, we are witnesses, the Lord make the woman that is come into thine house like Rachel and like Leah, which too did build the house of Israel, and do thou worthily in effort them, and be famous in Bethlehem, so these are now the blessings coming upon Ruth for her faithfulness, that she's being blessed just like Rachel and Leah that were these pillars, these women that raised the founding fathers of Israel as it were, and the 12 tribes, and saying that she should be famous, and this great woman, she's receiving all these blessings, verse 12, and let thy house be like the house of Phares, who Tamar bear unto Judah, of the seed which the Lord shall give thee of this young woman, so Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife, and when he went in unto her, the Lord gave her conception, and she bare a son, and the women said unto Naomi, blessed be the Lord, which hath not left thee this day without a kinsman, that his name may be famous in Israel, and he shall be unto thee a restorer of thy life, and a nourisher of thine old age, for thy daughter-in-law, which loveth thee, which is better to thee than seven sons hath borne him. That's a pretty, I mean, that's a pretty good report to have. It's a pretty good reputation to have, and a pretty honorable thing to be mentioned that like, look, this Moabitess woman, your daughter-in-law, she's better to you than seven sons, and, I mean, what a blessing she has been for you, and has brought life back into your family, and turned around, you know, the cursing, and all the problems that you've had, and brought this great blessing, and verse 16 says, And Naomi took the child, and laid it in her bosom, and became a nurse unto it, and the women, her neighbors, gave it a name, saying, There is a son born to Naomi, and they called his name Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David. So, we also see the impact that Ruth had, because this is in the lineage, now the very short-term lineage of David. So, the child that was born is David's grandfather. And even, she's listed now, too, in the genealogies, like Ruth is listed. Ruth was a Moabitess woman. What an honor, but why? She didn't stay back. She stayed faithful. She dedicated herself, and said, No, I'm going to go where you're going. She stayed faithful to Naomi, but she stayed faithful to the Lord, too, and she just chose, like, I'm going to cleave to God. I'm going to cleave here. I'm going to do this work. It's not going to be necessarily in my best interest of being able to go out and have a family, but then you know what? She's blessed with having a family, and what a great family. One last example. Of someone who received a double portion. And here we see the physical double portion is Job. And turn to Job 42, the end of the book of Job. I think we all know the story of Job, who was a righteous man, was doing right in the eyes of the Lord. God was even commending him, and you know, when Satan came before the Lord, he's like, Hey, have you considered my servant Job? Like, look at how good he is. He's upright. He's one that fearth God and eschews evil. You know, he's just this great guy. He's a great servant. He's living a good life. He's doing what he's supposed to be doing. And of course, the devil attacks Job, and is falsely accusing him of saying, Oh yeah, he's going to curse you. He's only looking so good because you put a hedge of protection around him. He's only serving you, and saying these things. It's not genuine. It's not real. If you cause bad things to happen, basically, I'm summarizing, Satan's like, then he's going to curse you. He's not going to, you know, he doesn't really have the integrity that you think he has. But then, of course, we see what happens when he's tried. What happens when he does lose his possessions. What happens when he does lose his health. He remains faithful. He has integrity. He keeps the faith. He persists. And says, look, I don't know why all this stuff is happening. I didn't do anything wrong. His friends are all against him. His friends are falsely accusing him, going, come on. God doesn't just do this to people. You know, you must be really wicked. God does this to wicked people. So you must be wicked and just coming out with all these accusations. They're supposed to be comforting him and helping him. And they're talking about how wicked his sons were. You read through it, it's pretty crazy, actually. The sum of the things that they say. And you've got to be aware that when you read through the book of Job, too. I know we have a, Job is, and this is just a little side note, but generally when we read the Bible, right? Most of what you're reading, it's like, hey, this is, it's all the word of God, but we have a tendency to look at it going like, well, everything I'm reading is right. Or what maybe is the right thing to do. But that's not always true. So the Bible is completely true. The Bible is completely the word of God. But of course there's things recorded in here that people do that are wrong. And Job can be confusing to people for some, you know, for some people especially, because you're seeing the advice of his friends and you're reading full chapters in the Bible of all of his, three different friends are saying all these different things. And it's a lot of scripture, right? Normally when you see something and you see Satan saying something, you're like, okay, well, yeah, I know that's Satan, so I'm not going to just listen to what Satan's saying. Obviously it's what he said, but Satan isn't like saying anything good or telling the truth here. He's Satan. But Job's friends, you got to read through it because it's a mix, too, because some of the things they say, it's like kind of right, but they're misapplying it, they're misinterpreting it. It's a little bit more difficult, but you have to have that understanding until you get that when you read by the end of the book. God's saying, like, these guys don't know what they're talking about. Job, you pray for them, right? What Job said is correct, what these guys said is wrong, and God sets the record straight there. So you got to understand that and study that out a little bit more to just come to that conclusion, understand that that's what's happening there. So Job has all these things going on, yet he retains integrity. His wife tells him, hey, curse God and die. He lost his family, he lost all the stuff, but what does he do? He stays faithful, and he just says, hey, the Lord gave, the Lord is taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord. He doesn't curse God. He doesn't understand what's going on, but at the same time, he's like, hey, I know. He says, when I'm tried, I'm going to come forth like gold. He's like, I know that, you know, he knows that he's not just some wicked person. He's like, when I'm tried, I'm going to come forth like gold. And his persistence, his, you know, integrity in staying there to the end, as a result, what happens? He gets a double portion. Look at Job 42, verse number 10. When the Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends, also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. Then came there unto him all his brethren and all his sisters and all they that had been of his acquaintance before and did eat bread with him in his house. And they bemoaned him and comforted him over all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him. Every man also gave him a piece of money and every one an earring of gold. So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning, for he had 14,000 sheep and 6,000 camels and 1,000 yokabaks and 1,000 she-asses. And if you go back, you'll see that this is double everything that he had. Because it lists off what he had before, it's double. And then verse 13 says he had also seven sons and three daughters. And his 10 children previously had died and now God's blessed them with 10 more children in his latter end. So we see the blessing of God on Job. And of course this isn't the spiritual blessing, but it works the same way, right? Job stays faithful. Job is determined. Job has integrity. Job was a hard worker. Job was someone that cared about his children too. Job was making sacrifices for them, not even knowing if they did anything wrong. He's just like, man, I don't know what they're doing. I'm going to make sure that things are right. I'll offer up the sacrifice for my children. You know, he cares about people. He was a wise man. He gave instruction. And he received the double portion at the end. And all of these people, Ruth didn't get it right away. Job didn't get it right away. Even Elisha, you know, I don't know the amount of time. I don't think you can tell for sure the record amount of time. It doesn't tell us. From the time that Elisha quits his work with the oxen and starts serving Elijah until Elijah is actually taken away by a whirlwind, we don't know how much time that is. But the faithfulness and the character, I think, in all of these examples, all these people was there long before they even got the opportunity. And we need to be working on these qualities and on these characteristics right away, now, instill them young. And, you know, even if you didn't have the best, the best, you know, background or you didn't receive these qualities growing up, put them in place now. Start now. And you want God to use you. You want God's spirit just to be, to have this great portion, to be on fire and do these great things for God. Well, start now. Start showing yourself worthy and ready to receive God's blessings. And don't get frustrated and don't get discouraged when you feel like, man, I don't think God's really used to me. Well, just stay at it. Because, you know, you could just be being tried, or you're just going to be a quitter. Right? And look, this is exactly, when I'm considering ministry work, you know, we've got a church plant that's, that's going to be starting real soon. I'm going to, I take my time with all of these things. I know there's a great need out there. I know there is. But the work is so important. We can't have people doing and committing to this work that just, oh, it's really hard. It's harder than I thought and then quits. I would to God, and I hope that, you know, that whatever comes out of this ministry, we don't ever produce a quitter. But you know what, that takes some time then to see and kind of see where people are at and be able to help get a good idea of who's really dedicated, who's really, and you know what, the only way you could even know that is through time. It just takes time. And, you know, hopefully everyone can understand this and especially if you come into our church and people might not even come in our church yet, you want to serve, you want to work, have patience. Have patience and keep working. Because you need to be proven. And then the blessing comes and then the opportunities come and then the work comes. So don't get a bad attitude that's going, oh, but I've been, you know, look, just stay faithful. Stay faithful. And if you, you know, if you really want, have that desire, you'll keep serving anyways in whatever capacity it is and God will open up the doors for you. He will. And I'll tell you what, I am not someone who just wants to hold people back. Like, that's not who I am. You might think I'm that way, but that's not how I am. I hope you don't think I'm that way, because I want to have as many churches, as many people reached, as much work going forward, but it's so important that we do it the right way. It has to be done right. It takes time to do things right. It takes effort, it takes work, it takes dedication, it takes faithfulness. But hey, I'm someone that, if I'm going to put my name behind something and my stamp of approval on it, well, I'm going to make sure that it's right. I'm going to make sure that the people who are coming out of this church and starting new ministries, they're ready to go. They're equipped. To the best that we can do, you're not going to fail, right? That they're already dedicated and committed to serving God through thick and thin, because they're just going to do it even at all costs and all of their own self-sacrifice, and you're not going to be making a lot of money or whatever. Like look, this is just the ministry. Okay, who cares? It is what it is. It's a ministry. We're going to serve. We're going to serve for the right reasons. Double portion. Again, you don't have to be the pastor of a church or start some church plant or something to get the double portion in your life either. Ruth didn't pass her a church, but she sure did raise, help raise a great family and have a great line, a kingly line. She's listed in the lineage of Jesus Christ. She definitely was honorable and definitely got a blessing. And even just having one child, I don't know for a fact if that's all they had. I don't know, but even still, hey, what a great blessing it is. Spar-Reds, I have a word of prayer. Dear Lord, thank you so much for these great examples we could see of people, human beings, people, your creation, people like us that we could look to, that have been used mightily, Lord, help us to improve in our own lives, that we can be, we can have your blessing, we can receive that double portion, Lord, that spirit. We want to serve you, and we know that just through ourselves, through our own efforts, our own abilities, really we can't do much, spiritually speaking. We could only yield ourselves to you. It truly is the spirit that we need to have, your spirit to guide us, to teach us, to give us the power to preach, to preach your word, to get a lot of good things done, spiritually, and to the people around us, dear Lord, we need you. We need the power of the Holy Ghost upon us, dear Lord, so help us to be in the place that we could possess our vessels in sanctity and honor and be meet for your use as you see fit, and Lord, just help us daily to be mindful of these attributes and to stay with it and to encourage one another and to provoke one another unto love and to good works here together as we gather in church. God, please bless everyone here. Help us to continue just to improve. We love you, Lord, and we want to be used of you, mighty ladies. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.