The Mantle of Elijah

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The Mantle of Elijah

• Khinckley1_at_yahoo.com

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Question

• To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken
  than the fat of rams. (1 Samuel 15 22.)
• Why is that? Isnt obedience a sacrifice?

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Elisha

• So Elijah 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.
• 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 (1Kings
  1919,20)

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Elishas Response?

• 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 (1K1921).

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Question in Elishas head

• Im supposed to replace HIM????
• Sound familiar to anyone?

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President Monson to New Mission Presidents

• everyone of you should be a little more
  comfortable after these Brethren have told you
  all that is expected of you. When you are on the
  Lord's errand, you are entitled to the Lord's
  help. Remember, whom the Lord calls, the Lord
  qualifies.

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A Mantle?

• A new convert want to know what this mantle is.
  How would you describe it?

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Elishas Willingness

• JST 2 Kings 21-2.
• 1 And it came to pass, when the Lord would take
  up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah
  went with Elisha from Gilgal.
• 2 And Elijah said unto Elisha, Tarry here, I pray
  thee for the Lord hath sent me to Beth-el. And
  Elisha said unto him, As the Lord liveth, and as
  thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee.

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Following the Prophet

• 1- Will require sacrifices
• 2- Will require me to change
• 3- May be unpopular
• 4- May mean not knowing why
• 5- Will require my service
• 6- Will require the little things as well as the
  dramatic ones
• 7- Will require me to stand as a witness at all
  times and in all places

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Naaman

• 9 So Naaman came with his horses and with his
  chariot, and stood at the door of the house of
  Elisha.
• 10 And Elisha sent a messenger unto him,
  saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and
  thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou
  shalt be clean.
• 11 But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and
  said, Behold, I thought, He will surely come out
  to me, and stand, and call on the name of the
  Lord his God, and strike his hand over the
  place, and recover the leper.
• 12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus,
  better than all the waters of Israel? may I not
  wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went
  away in a rage.
• 13 And his servants came near, and spake unto
  him, and said, My father if the prophet had bid
  thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have
  done it? how much rather then, when he saith to
  thee, Wash, and be clean?
• 14 Then went he down, and dipped himself seven
  times in Jordan, according to the saying of the
  man of God and his flesh came again like unto
  the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.

Complaint 1 Cant he just do it?
Complaint 2 Cant I do it my way?
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Question

• What determines whether following the Savior,
  through His prophet, will be easy or difficult?

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Matthias F. Cowley

• In an age of the world when independence is the
  proud boast of the nations, obedience is, by
  mistaken ideas of freedom, considered a mark of
  humiliation. true obedience to the Lord's
  commands is an indication of moral courage, union
  and power.
• It is not blind obedience that is referred to and
  maintained, but that type which characterized the
  ancient seers and saints, who, like the Messiah,
  were ready to say by word and deed, "I came not
  to do mine own will, but the will of my Father
  who sent me."

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Brother Leon Hartshorn

• My father was a good man. He took good care of
  my mother for numerous years while she was ill
  before she passed away. He taught his children
  to be honest and upright. He always paid his
  tithing, but he did not attend Church. My
  father had worked in the mines much of his life,
  in an environment that did not usually invite the
  Spirit of God, and perhaps for this reason he did
  not think that he could be fully active and enjoy
  the full blessings of activity in the gospel.
• When I had been married two or three years, I
  returned to my father's home for a visit. As we
  sat down together, he said to me, "Son, I've had
  a dream. I dreamed I was standing on the edge of
  a cliff, and the Savior came riding toward me on
  a horse. He had a rope tied to the saddle and
  wrapped around the saddle horn. He reached the
  rope out to me and said, 'Bob, I want you to
  lower me and my horse down this cliff.' I replied
  that this was impossible there was no way one
  man could lower the weight of a horse and rider
  down a cliff. He responded, 'Bob, lower me and my
  horse down the cliff.'

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Brother Leon Hartshorn

• So I took the end of the rope and lowered
  them down the cliff. To my surprise, it was
  not difficult at all. When the horse and rider
  arrived at the bottom of the cliff, he looked
  up and said, 'Bob, drop the rope.' I dropped
  it, and he wound it around the saddle horn
  again. Then looking up at me from the
  bottom of the cliff, he said simply, 'Bob,
  it's just that easy for you to live my
  commandments if you will try.' "
• It was a lesson my father could understand, a
  lesson in his own language of horses, riders,
  saddles, and ropes. Thereafter he would try
  whatever he was asked to do in the Church and was
  very active during the last twenty-five years of
  his life.