And Elijah stood in the gap and saw nothing, then Elijah pressed in some more and saw nothing. And there went Elijah and stood in the gap some more. There it was, a cloud of rain the size of a man’s hand, and the drought ended.
What was God pleased with? Was He pleased with Elijah’s prayers? Did he say the right prayers? Did he decree the right things? Did he declare? Did he proclaim?
I tell you what, Beloved, it was none of these things that pleased God, but what it was that pleased God was that someone stood in the gap! Someone was pressing in! Someone was stirring up the flame of God’s heart on behalf of Israel! Someone was crying out save us! Someone was seeking Him! And someone was found on that day. If you seek, you shall find. It is unbiblical for someone to seek and not to find.
Elijah not only saved himself but saved the whole nation of Israel from a drought. Drought represents spiritual dryness. We see a drought in today’s church, spiritual dryness. How much bigger would that cloud have been if all of Israel would have stood in the gap. That was the power of one man’s heart pressed into God. Just imagine if the whole nation did the same.
“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14
This is a promise to God’s church! Yet there is a condition! That condition is that you would seek Him. “Seek the kingdom and all its righteousness and all else will be added unto you.” Another promise! But on one condition, “Seek Me.” Fan the flame, stir yourself up in the Holy Spirit. Be called into His temple, into His place of dwelling. Beloved, we don’t just belong on our face on Sundays. We belong on our face 24/7, 365. The problem for some is that we’re only willing to seek Him 364. The problem is we’re not willing to go all the way, non-stop, until we have the full manifestation and measure of Christ.
“Then Elisha said, Shoot. And he shot. And he said, The arrow of the Lord's deliverance, and the arrow of deliverance from Syria: for thou shalt smite the Syrians in Aphek, till thou have consumed them. And he said, Take the arrows. And he took them. And he said unto the king of Israel, Smite upon the ground. And he smote three times, and stayed. And the man of God was wroth with him, and said, Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times; then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it: whereas now thou shalt smite Syria but thrice.” 2 Kings 13:17-19
Thou should have struck the ground five or six times, O King! Yet he only struck the ground three times. The arrows represented the Lord’s deliverance, and the more he struck, the more of the king’s enemies were killed and delivered from his land. We need to strike the ground! We need to stir up and press in until every last devil is destroyed and until all is conquered! And this is why Elisha’s life was so powerful, even more powerful than his teacher, Elijah.
Elisha was so powerful, if you read on in that chapter, it said that when Elisha died, they put a dead man’s body in his grave and it revived the dead man to life. His body laid dead because of sickness, but he was alive because of the heavy weight of power that was on his life.
And little did the people know that earlier in the chapter, in verse 14 of 2 Kings 13, the same chariot of Israel and its horses, was witnessed by Joash, the King of Israel! Interesting that Joash sees the same thing before Elisha’s death that Elisha saw before Elijah was taken up in 2 Kings 2:12. I believe that Joash was seeing in the spirit just like Elisha saw Elijah in the spirit.
Elijah said to Elisha, “If you see me go up, then you will receive what you asked,” which was the double portion of Elijah’s spirit. Just like Elisha did see Elijah go up in the spirit and received that double portion, so did Joash see in the spirit the same chariot and horses appear before Elisha. Because his eyes were open in the Spirit, he was able to receive the same anointing that was on Elisha to defeat the enemies of Israel!
And just like Elijah, the power was never on Elisha’s body. It was on his spirit, and his spirit lived and still was healing people after the body was dead. These horses of fire led these men, and marked these men. This is how we must be! Horses of fire that never stop galloping. This is what these horses symbolize: endurance and the never-ending will to press forward. They are fire and a fire never stops burning, just like we are to never stop seeking!
Paul was never relenting on pressing forward to the high calling. Elijah, Elisha, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and so on, all these mighty men were mighty because they were never relenting when it came to pressing into the gift of God inside of them. They wasted their lives, their time, and gave every second and thought to the Holy Spirit. They did not let their mind and heart rest.
They wanted nothing but for God to come in spirit and manifest in the flesh in the fullest way possible. All their hearts wanted to hear was what He was saying, what He was doing. That’s all they desired to know day and night. Even the angels seek the deep things of God and cannot have it because it is reserved for you.
You think just because your called it is all just going to be given to you? Beloved, we must contend for this! We must be like Jacob, “Bless me with your name! I will not leave until you bless.” He wrestled with God until he got Him. He told Jacob to let Him go and Jacob said, “No! Not until you bless me!”
Where are the Jacob’s in the church? Where are the Elisha’s in the church? Elisha wouldn’t let Elijah go until he could have his mantle. Elisha struck the ground, Elijah struck the ground, Jacob struck the ground, more than three times. They had no number of times they stopped striking their spiritual ground until it yielded the fruit that it was called to bear! This was Elisha’s rebuke to King Joash, don’t strike the ground three times, strike it five or six times, until all your enemies be devoured! Until Christ is made whole in you, until deliverance has come in fullness!
See 2 Kings 2 and 2 Kings 3.
They went city to city and Elijah kept testing him, “Stay here and pray and I’ll go.” Elisha said, “No! I will go with you.” Again, “Stay here and pray and I will go on.” Elisha, “No! As the Lord lives, I will not leave thee!” Then the prophets of each city went to almost taunting him, saying, “Don’t you know your master will be taken away by the Lord?” Yes, I know. Another city, “Don’t you know your master will be no longer on the earth?” Yes, I know. Elisha was being annoyed, Elijah was being poked at and stalked by God. Trying him, testing him. Is this what you want, Elijah?
You can take a break, you can have a rest, you can have your own life. You can marry and wed and settle down. Have kids and be merry. You can still go to heaven, but Elisha stood in the gap and said no! I will have this mantle. The cloud the size of a man’s hand will rain over me, too! “I will have my blessing, Lord. I will not let you go!”
And Elijah said to Elisha, “If you see me when I go, you will have what you ask. Yet if you don’t, you will not have it.” In other words, IF YOU CAN SEE IN THE SPIRIT, ELISHA, YOU WILL HAVE THE DOUBLE PORTION MANTLE!
If you were buying oil this whole time, your spiritual eyes would be open and the blessing of having your eyes open is that the power of my fullness will be available to you! And Elijah went in a chariot and horses of fire, and there lay the mantle of Elijah. And Elisha tore his clothes and took on the mantle of Elijah and the two became one. The same anointing that was on Elijah was now on Elisha, a double portion, of his spirit, God’s spirit.
God is the spirit of Elijah. They say who has come out of the wilderness, is it John, is it Elijah? It was even Elijah that confronted the Pharisees, it was Elijah that turned the water into wine, it was Elijah that parted the Red Sea, it was Elijah, it was Elijah, because Elijah this whole time was the Spirit of God!
It was God in Elijah, it was God in Elisha, it was God in Christ, it was God in Moses, it was God in Paul. It was God! The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Elijah. Can you feel it, Church! The same spirit that was on Elijah, that was on Jesus, that was given to you when you were born again, is Elijah, is the Spirit of God.
Don’t look for Elijah to come down from the cloud in the last day, look down at your belly and fan the flame. You are Elijah, Church, you are Elisha! You are the one coming out of the wilderness. You are the one screaming, “Holy, holy!”
It’s you, you are the last day Elijah movement. It’s the Holy Spirit in you. Just like Elijah imparted to Elisha, so is how the bridegroom is imparting to you, the bride! You, the bride! You shall have a double portion. But to be like Elisha, we must press in like Elisha! Don’t let Him go. When you’re traveling through the cities with Him, when you’re passing by the people and they are screaming to you, are you sure? Are you sure you want to do this? Are you sure you want to pay the price, are you sure? Press through! Fan that flame, because the fire is the only thing that’s going to get you through!
We need to be like the woman with the issue of blood and cry out for the hem of His garment. The hem is the lowest part of His garment. And this woman was so hungry and thirsty to just cry out for that one string that hung from His garment. O woman, great is your faith! Not because you touched me, but because you pressed through the crowd! Great is your faith because great was your hunger, Woman. O that the church would just have the faith of this woman!
Or the faith of the other woman that cried out for just the crumbs, or the faith of Mary that just desired to lay at least at His lowest parts? O that I cry out, Jesus, that I could lay out at least at your feet!
And after Elisha put on the mantle, he smite the waters and they parted, he healed the land of Israel from its barrenness and spiritual dryness, and he healed the waters. He commanded curses on his enemies. He was taken in a chariot of fire. He raised people from the dead, even when he himself was dead.
This is the latter rain, Church! Wake up, you want this and you can’t even press in more than one day a week? Wake up, Bride, lay at the feet of the groom. Elisha’s, wait at Elijah’s coattail, stand in the gap until your cloud comes. Reach until you pull on His hem and substance pours out of His Spirit. Wake up! He is the flame. The time is now to stir up that flame
“Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” 2 Timothy 1:6-7
By. Joe Pinto
Full Message: https://youtu.be/V3SOEKz_NHk
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