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Episode 612: In this episode, we dive into a discussion about the biblical figure Elijah and his dramatic ascension to heaven in a whirlwind, accompanied by a chariot of fire. We explore the vivid imagery presented in the scripture and reflect on the significance of Elijah being one of only two people in the Bible who did not experience death before entering heaven. This leads us to discuss the transition of prophetic authority from Elijah to Elisha, highlighting Elisha's first miracles, including the purification of water in Jericho and the incident with the mocking boys.
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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in practical ways. Hey, everybody, get morning to you. My name is Chris, this is Jeff. We are the Bible Guys. It's good to be here. Yes, it is really another good day. Our website is the Bible Guys dot com. If you want to go there and subscribe, and if you want to pass along the link perhaps to a friend or post something on social media, we would. Really appreciate it. That's awesome. We are the Bible Guys dot com. Yeah, so we are going to jump into Jeff a brand new segment that. Sort of is you never know. I don't know how it's gonna fly. This was this is a hard one. Yeah, this is so. It's called the name Game. I'm fifty to fifty on this one. It's a name game. Yep. And we just saw this like rate before this episode. Started twenty seconds ago. Yes, and it says that I am supposed to say a name real or fake yep. And you have to come up with a song, a movie, or a TV character whose name starts with the same letter or sound. Yeah, which is pretty vague. That's really vague. For example, if the name is Sarah, you might say Sarah Connor from Terminator, or you might mention the song Sarah by Fleetwood mac oh. So. So basically it's it's just a matter of you being able to associate any name I mentioned. What's something in pop culture? Okay, it sure seems like. It that sounds that's actually a really good summer Okay, Okay, pick a name, Okay, Frank, Frank. It was the name of Leo DiCaprio in the movie Departed. Okay, wow, Bob Bob is what about Bob? Bill Murray played with what's his name? Dreyfuss Okay, yeah, And what about. Bob when he goes baby steps out the door, baby steps, I'm shaving Okay, Okay, okay, okay. Uh Betty Betty Betty Brandt, which is played the secretary to Peter Parker in uh in Spider Man Okay, okay. Uh Man Alive. There's a bunch of them, but they're all they're all easy. Uh. Julio Julio. Jolio Julio is the name of the jalapeno of the guy who does the puppets a jo Jo Okay, that's pop culture. That's it. It feels right to me. It is a movie, a TV character, or a song Julio song on TV. Oh I did see it on TV? Yes, okay, so that counts all right, okay, pretty good? Yeah you are? How about man? I can't think of one people are you're just come up with? I know, well I know, but okay, Jeff. Oh, Jeff, okay, Jeff, Wow, Holy Christmas, Jeff. Okay. Did you ever see twenty one Jump Street? No? Uh so twenty one Jump Street? Uh? Chadum Tanning and Jonas what was his name? Jonah Tatum Channing? What did I say? You said Chadum Tanning? Oh yeah, yeah, Tatum Channing, Yeah, okay, and Jonah Hill. They were pretending to be undercover and there's this really famous line where he goes. In and he goes, hey, man, how you doing? And Jonah Hill starts to act like he's a Spanish, you know, Mexican or whatever, and then uh and then he he looks over at his friend and uh, and his friend goes, my name's Jeff, and it's a really funny line. Oh no, okay, Well, so good job, Chris, thank you. We are so proud of you. How about uh, Chad Chad? Oh wow, Chad. These are hard names. I know Chad, Chad, I'm not sure besides our executive pastor. Yeah, I don't think I know of a Chad. So Chad always makes our executive pastor. He always makes fun of the fact that he said in every movie that a Chad ever shows up, he's usually wearing like docker kind of shorts and has a has a sweater tied around his shoulders. It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, Chad or Nerd? Those are those are the two? Either preppy or nerd. I gotta be honest. I I just don't want to waste anybody's time. You can't find one, maybe I can later be As of right now, I'm drawing a blank. Okay, okay, how about here's here's the last one. Bonnie Bonnie. Oh that's your wife's name. Yeah, that's my wife's name, Bonnie. It seems like nobody ever can recognize Bonnie's name, Like if she goes to Starbucks and they write your name on your yeah thing, it'll say Connie, It'll say Fanny, yeah, it'll say Betty. Yeah, never Bonnie. I honestly don't know of a Bonnie either. About Bonnie and Clyde. Oh yeah, Bonnie and Clyde. Way to go. Well, you would know that because your wife's name is Bonnie. You thought of that before exactly? Yeah, yeah, Bonnie and Clyde. Honestly, besides Bonnie and Clyde, I'm not sure, because Bonnie is a decently uncommon name. Yeah, it's pretty uncommon. Yeah. Okay, Well, hey, you did a good job, Chris. Well I get for our inaugural run. Yeah, I get three out of five. Yeah, it's a sixty. Yeah. And and the first three I got pretty quickly. Yes, you did. But then you started Bob, Fred and Julio. Yes, well Julia was actually pretty hard. Yeah that was a good one. Yeah, okay, well there you go. I don't know if that's what Desire wanted from us, but that's what we gave her. That's what we gave her. Yes, and we're only at five minutes, so our listeners, we're going to bail. Yeah, we didn't. We didn't drag it out, which is good. So yesterday talking about not dragging it out, God took a light of the heaven in a whirlwind. He didn't drag him there he took him in a tornado. That's right. Which, by the way, we didn't even talk about the physicality of how this must have looked, because it says a chariot pulled in between them, So so that gives us a fantastic visual right, and it was a flaming chariot, is. That correct, chariot of fire? So it comes through and so we know that, like you know, dramatically, they're they're, they're, they've parted, and here comes this flaming chariot. Right now, here's what I would have expected. I would have expected the scripture to say. And then Elijah got in the chariot, and the chariot, like Santa Claus, was like ah, and then went off into the you know sunset where the flying deer reindeer. In the sky. That's what I would have pictured. But he doesn't say that. It says the flaming cheriot came down and then all of a sudden God used. A wind a whirlwind. Yes, So so it's like, was the flaming chariot in the whirlwind? I think? So did he get in the chair? I think so, yeah, he get in the chariot. Oh no, that's the music and the reason it was that's great. Yeah, you know how she's riding on the bicycle and yes. That's exactly what I'm thinking as she's staring at the window and all those things come by, right, yeah, but then she turns. Into the wicked witch. By the way, that was a scary. Moment, right. So anyways, that's the that's kind of the image, Yes, I think, is that he goes up in this tornado in a chariot of fire. And and he is the only the second person to ever not. Die in the Bible and go to Heaven. That's correct in the Bible. Yeah, yeah, so there was Enoch early on in Genesis, and then you go all the way to hear and it doesn't record that Elijah died, just that he was taken to heaven. And how did Enoch go to heaven? Uh, he was walking with the Lord and he was not. He was not, That's what the Bible says. Yes, he just he was there. Then he wasn't. Yep, he just he just teleported to heaven. That's amazing. But this one is a little bit more visually stunning, Yes it is. And then the only Elijah didn't do anything halfway right, everything's over the top of Elijah and and and. By the way, the only other person recorded in the Bible other than Enoch and Elijah who didn't die but went to heaven is. It's sort of a trick question. Who Jesus went to heaven but didn't die. Jesus, Okay, but he died, he rose again, meaning. He didn't have to die to get to heaven. Jesus died on the earth and then rose again on the earth, but then he ascended them great And I told you it was a trick question. Send all of your theological arguments to seizar ba at whatever. Dude, Jesus just trying to tell. You that he wasn't required to die. Okay. All I'm saying is every other person was every other person's Bible. Their body died, and their and their soul went to heaven. That's correct. Okay. Jesus went back physically, Okay, Okay, that's what I'm saying. He went bodily back to heaven. Yes, okay, all right, I'm good with that. Yes, thanks good. The lawyer in your head, oh is that what it is? Well, I think yeah, that's a big one though. Here we go, so talking about Elisha. I don't even have a transition for this one. Now, I got, I got did it. We already did the fluss, We already did it. What I said, you said, uh speaking of dragging along? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. So Elisha now is stepping into Elijah's position as the key or the main prophet in Israel. And it says in the Second King's Chapter two, verse ninety, because remember this all happens right across the river from Jericho, so the natural first town to go back to would be Jericho for supplies or whatever, says. One day, the leaders of the town of Jericho visited Elisha. We have a problem, my lord. They told him. This town is located in pleasant surroundings, as you can see, but the water is bad and the land is unproductive. Elisha said, bring me a new bowl with salt in it, and so they brought it to him, and they went out to the spring that supplied the town with water and threw the salt into it. And he said, this is what the Lord says, I have purified this water. It will no longer cause death or infertility. And the water has remained pure ever since, just as Elisha said, Elijah left Jericho and went up to Bethel, and as he was walking along the road, a group of boys from the town began mocking, making fun of him. Go away, baldy, they chanted, go away, baldy. Alisha turned around and looked at them, and he cursed them and the name of the Lord, and then two bears came out of the woods and mulled forty two of them. From there, Elisha went to Mount Carmel and finally returned to Samaria. Well yeah, right, yeah, And by the way, let's just get this out of the way. I love the note on the Life Application Study Bible that says this. This group of boys was from Bethel, the religious center of Idolatry in. The Northern Kingdom. They were probably and they were probably were warning Elisha not to speak against their morality as Elijah had done. They were not. Merely teasing Elisha about his baldness, but showing severe disrespect for Elisha's message in God's power. They may also have jeered because they were in disbelief about the chariot of fire that had taken Elijah. And when Elisha cursed them, he did not call out the bearers himself. God sent them as a judgment for their callous belief. So this probably was not a group of you know, children, It was probably a group of young men, young men from you. Know, Yeah, you weren't fully a man until you were thirty. Yes, so you were acknowledged as a man at thirteen, right at en barmentzvah or whatever their their ceremony was at that time. You'd be acknowledged as a young man at thirteen, but you weren't a full adult man until you worked thirty. Which is probably the reason why Jesus began his ministry at thirty for credibility, right, And so. Children versus young men. Yeah, but either. Way, it says as a group of boys and we see a think eight year olds right, right, but it could have been a twenty five year old and so but yeah, so it says they were mocking Elijah or Elishah, right, So it doesn't It doesn't just mean they were only making fun of him being bald. It means they were mocking him as a person and they called him baldy. Right right right right, just death, just name calling. But the issue at hand seems to be from Bethel right that they were rejecting his leadership rejecting his God. Well, I think there's a reason why the scripture includes the fact that they were from Bethel, that's right, right, So it gives us some indication of what was happening here. Right, He's like, Okay, there's a group of boys from Bethel. If you're in the Old Testament times and you read that, you go, oh, I see what's happening here, right, right, So that's what happened. And then Elisha cursed them, and then God is the one who set the bears and so so yeah, holy cow, by the way, forty bears mauling forty two of these, it's a rough day. Yeah, well, it just goes to show you that God takes a blasphemy. Seriously, you know. That's why you know it was there. I think you can know that their intent was going after God, not after Elisha. Right. Elisha just happened to represent God. He washet the prophet. Yeah yeah, so, but but yeah, that's that's pretty crazy. And then hey, let's not look over the fact. That Elisha's first miracles were throwing a bowl of salt in unpurified water and saying, Okay, God's going to purify this water is going to be completely clean after one bowl. Of salt was in it. Yeah, and yet that's what God did. It purifies, it preserves, right, you know, all those things. But these miracles really highlight the idea that God had decided to descend on Elisha and give Elisha the same authority. That's really what he's doing. He's confirming Elisha's authority with the people of Israel. And I'm guessing after this incident with these forty two, yeah, people voice that were mocking yet of them, Yeah, which is there's more than forty two, but the forty two that died, I'm guessing after that, not many people had the courage to mock correct, you know, the man of God or whatever. And this is an issue for me personally. I used to be very frustrated with different faith leaders that disappointed me or whatever, and I found myself kind of talking bad about them. But then several years ago, before I ever came to Herida Church, I had had a kind of a devastating event where somebody who should have known better kind of betrayed me and my wife and I just decided, Okay, we're not gonna we had hurt feelings certainly, and we had our own personal bitterness we had to work through, but we decided we weren't going to talk about it a lot publicly, And don't I don't think that the Bible is saying that you should cover up sin or bad behavior, right, that that's not or illegal things. He's not saying that. But I think a lot of times when we see somebody who makes a mistake, we're quick to point quicker to point it out with God's leadership than we are, you know, our own, or we just can't seem to look away. And so we kind of took this position then and then on into serving the previous pastor that I served before I came to Heritage, that we just weren't going to be public at all about any disagreements we had as long as it wasn't immoral or illegal or unethical. Right, We're just going to be silent because it's not our job. That's God's man, not my man. And we took that principle from David when David chose not to kill Elis kill Saul two different times, yep, right, And he said, how do I lay my hand on God's man? So that was one one and then the other one was this story here that I thought, you know what, it's not my business to mock or call out on others. So when somebody writes a new book, or there's a new podcast that comes out, or there's some new Netflix series that comes out about some bad thing that happens at some church somewhere or whatever, I almost never do. I'll read an article, right. I think being informed is an interesting thing. I normally will not indulge in anything where somebody's going to make money off of my participation with it. Right, So they make money off of my click, they make money off of my watching on Netflix, they make money off of my listening on the podcast kind of thing. I just decided, you know what, I don't want to participate in those things. That's God's responsibility to fix that person or straighten that person out. And it's just kind of me watching it, you know, rubber necking at a car accident. There's nothing I can do about it. It's none of my business. I just can't hardly look away, right, And I think it becomes a habit there. And it's a little bit of this that these these boys, these boys did the opposite of what David did. David decided to spare Saul, even though he was in his hand. He could have killed him. He ran from Saul for twenty years and he could have killed him, and he didn't, and God raised him up and he became the greatest king in Israel, not only because of that, but partly because of that. And these young men mocked the man of God. They took advantage in this moment, and their lives ended because of it. And I just think, ugh, you know what, I don't want to take shots at bad at bad leaders. It slips sometimes. You know that we've been around it. It slips out on me sometimes. I just don't want to be that guy. I don't want to do that. I don't want to indulge in that. And it's partly because of this passage has always been a big one for me. Yeah, that's great, that's great. The you know, it's it's funny because with every with every great lesson that can come out of passage, you know, it's a it's I've seen this passage also used UH in the wrong way, but that's almost every passage, right, so you know, so like you know, like uh, wives submit to your husband's we've seen that taught properly because we know exactly what that means, right. Mutual, mutual is perfect. Big fan of that passage. My wife is going to give it to me when I'm no. But we've seen the passage that misused. Misused, And so I've seen this passage misused in an unbelievable gross way as well. Uh, just like wife Smith, your husband's it's when that's misused that's gross, just absolutely gross. And and and and. Uh you know, there was some really really really bad behavior by you know, uh, the pastor and uh, you know, I'm not sure it could be called uh sinful in in in that it broke like a commandment like voushot not kind of thing, but it was uncharacteristic, uh to the to a gross degree, you know, and just you know, bad bad form of character and integrity and things like that. Uh you know, technically you know that that's about integrity, those kinds of kinds of things, but just a gross offense. And uh and then he used this scripture to defend himself like saying, do you know. My title right back off right right? And and uh and so you. Can't seen that too, Yep, I've seen that you. Can't come at me, you can't challenge me. No, that's not what the scripture says. You know, we should be subject to you know, to accountability and and and you know, wise counsel and all these kinds of things. But no, you know, you shall not touch the annoidat of God. I'm the anoidant of God. And it's like wow, Wow, that's that's crazy, right. Yeah, Well, then all you have to do is hand him over to God. It turns out elisha wasn't the one that sent the bears. God did right, right. So that's the other side of it is. Sometimes when people decide to come after me, my first response is I want to punish them, But hopefully I get past that to the second response, which is it's up to God. God alls I have to do. Say God, you see what they did? Yeah, And that's that's what Elishah did. He cursed them. He's like, God, you see these wicked kids? Yeah? And then God's like, yep, I doo, yeah right, and he sent God's the one who sent the punishment there. And I think that there's something to that that when somebody's coming after us, it's okay just to go God, what they're doing is wrong, and you see it. It's up to you, which is how David wrote how often so many times David said, God, my only hope is that you would bring judgment on my enemies. Right. So this is, this is what I'm about to tell you very quickly, is a public It became a public thing. So I'm not going to mention any names. But because it's public, I'm not saying anything that's that's private at all. But when I when I left my first church, I was there seven and a half years. Our pastor was struggling with pornography and he was using the church's computer. All that came out. So everybody knows that. But but but I was the only one that had the computer, like it was my computer, right, So so I challenged him on it and privately, and I wanted to bring in other people, but he begged me not to. So it was just he and myself and then and it was just I had this secret. It was it was just this terrible, terrible, terrible thing that went like a year and then finally I just said, I have to resign. I gotta, I gotta resign from this thing. And so and so I went to him privately, and I just said, hey, I said, I'm hoping that my resignation will be enough for you to stop and change your ways, right, because I'm graciously leaving privately leaving. I'm not telling anybody, right, but I'm but I'm but I'm telling you that I can't. Work for you anymore. Right. And and then what ended up happening was my father in law, who's a businessman, told me. He's like, hey, you got to cover cover your butt. He's like, so, he's like, I would download all the evidence on a hard disk just to make sure that people don't blame you when you leave this place. But you know, but I left quietly and then and but but to your point, I didn't want to necessarily take down the church. I didn't want to speak against him. But I felt like I did everything I could to right the wrong myself. Okay, So I left, I didn't say anything. And then guess what happened. This is the bears, This is the God sent the bears. Lightning struck the church. I kid you not, lightning struck the church. The computer fried, and the head one of the head elders it was he used to be had a little bit. He was a it was actually a deacon. He was a computer repairman. He says, I'll. Fix it, and then he went ahead and found everything, and so everything just came out in the open. Right, So that was the bears right. God made sure. God made sure. So so he came to light anyway. So as much as he tried to hide it, as much as I tried to do whatever I could, I was like, okay, like get this thing right. And all of a sudden, you know, lightning. What are the odds right that lightning would strike the church and fry the computer. But it did, and it all came out anyway. God will take care of it, that's right, and that's what's important. So you do the best you can with it. But for us to kind of it turns into that rubber necking on the side of the road thing. We're not we're not able to do anything. We just keep looking and that doesn't do any good for anybody, right, it just slows down the traffic. Yeah, that's right, that's right. Let God take care of it. Yeah, that's great. Okay, Well, hey, that's our time, so hopefully we will see you next time. On the Bible guys,