Working After You Are Dead
2 Kings 13:14-21
In the passage we see the sickness and death of Elisha. Even after Elisha a miracle takes place. A dead man is thrown into his sepulchre and when the man’s body touches the bones of Elisha he was brought back to life. This should make us think about the possibility of what we can do today that might be able to accomplish something after we are dead. Life is short and we have but a limited time so we must not only make the most out of each and every day but we must also think about the possibility of doing something today that will endure after we are dead.
It is interesting that in his last dealing with Joash, Elisha used a bow and arrow to make a prophecy concerning Israel defeating the Syrians. When we think about a bow and arrow they were the long range weapon in Bible times. So we will look at this last message to Joash of Elisha’s and see if we can learn something regarding our own work for the future.
Steps to working after we are dead:
1) Preparation (verse 13)
- Elisha told Joash to get a bow and arrows.
- Arrows are a long range weapon (Psalm 127:4-5)
- Shooting anything at long distance requires a lot of preparation.
2) Find the right direction (verse 17)
- He opened the window eastward. This is the direction that God comes from (Matthew 24:27).
- If we want to hit the future we must aim toward the future not the past.
- Elisha also guided his hand with his hands. Many purposes fail for lack of counsel (Proverbs 15:22).
3) Take a shot (verse 17)
- Wayne Gretzky a great hockey player once said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”. Many times I think we as saved people are afraid of failure therefore we simply don’t take a shot.
- This reminds me of the story for how Ahab was killed, a person took a shot on a venture (1 Kings 22:34).
- We must remember that God guides the arrow if we just shoot it in the right direction (Psalm 7:13).
4) We must trust God to do the work (verse 17)
- They could not see where the arrow landed and it was called the arrow of the Lord’s deliverance. That is the only hard thing about working for the future is that you will never see the results.
- This is why we must trust the Lords deliverance (1 Samuel 14:6)
The key to all this is faith (verses 18-19) and this is where Joash messed up in not striking the ground 6 or 7 times. Whatever God allows you to do, do it with all thy might and keep going no matter what because you never know what it will accomplish down the road.