Steven Furtick - The Remains of Revival (06/05/2017)
On the final night of Code Orange Revival, Pastor Steven Furtick delivers a powerful closing charge from 2 Kings 13:20-21. Elisha died and was buried, yet one more miracle remained in his bones—when a dead man's body touched them, he came back to life. Revival meetings may end, but the power of God's spoken Word remains. Don't let it die. Return to the bones of what God spoke to you—throw every attack, discouragement, and fading passion back onto those bones. The breakthrough has only just begun.
Welcoming Perry Noble – A Friend Who Believed in the Vision
It has been so amazing and so life-changing to be together, to respond with enthusiasm to the presence of God, the Word of God. And we've had some guest speakers. That guy that preached the first night, he had such a good time that I thought we would invite him back. He hails from Charlotte, North Carolina. He is the pastor of Elevation Church. He has the privilege of leading some of the most wonderful people on planet Earth.
It's been a great ten years, but a new decade is upon us, and we ain't seen nothing yet. Some of you believe it. His wife's name is Holly. He has three beautiful children. I have never introduced myself before as a speaker. This is new. Why not?
Hey, stay standing for a moment at all of our locations. Do you know how God sends people in your life at pivotal seasons when you don't believe in yourself and they believe in you and they get you over? We're starting the church ten years ago or, you know, really over ten years ago. We're kind of celebrating our ten-year anniversary all here.
But, uh, one guy. in Anderson, South Carolina I appreciate your eagerness. Let me say the whole thing. Believed in me and spent time with me. And I just think it's the timing of God. that on our tenth night of Code Orange Revival, one of my best friends on the planet, one of the most effective pastors of this generation, Perry Noble, is joining us for Code Orange Revival.
And we salute you, man, because I don't think any of this would be here without you. And we want you to know that we believe the best is forthcoming in your life. We want you to know that we believe that there is a cloud beginning to swell. Come on, will you help me celebrate. one of the greatest men of God I've ever known, Pastor Perry Noble?
I love you to death, man. I love you more than you love biscuits. That's saying something. And, uh, each one of you, God bless you. We're not going to do a lot tonight. I want you rested for day 11 of Revival. I do want to give you a quick word tonight.
A Short Charge – Not Another Full Sermon
I said, Holly, they don't need another sermon. Just a charge. Just a charge. So I have restricted myself and disciplined myself to two, maybe three verses of Scripture. And let's see if there's something here for us. I just want to bring it home. And, um, the Lord led me to 2 Kings 13.
Don't worry about, like, pulling out your notes yet or anything like that. Just watch the screen. The Bible says. in 2 Kings 13 20, Elisha died and was buried. Somebody say, Pastor Stephen. This is kind of a depressing text. for the last night of revival.
I know, but stay with me. Elisha died and was buried. Now, Moabite raiders, this is before they were in Oakland, used to enter, used to enter the country every spring. Once, while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly, you know how the attack can just come on you suddenly?
We talk about how the breakthrough can happen suddenly, but so can the breakdown. The favor can come on you suddenly, but so can the fight. And suddenly, somebody shout, suddenly. That's why you have to be ready, instant, in season and out of season, with the whole armor of God on you.
You can't wake up in the morning and not take the shield of faith with you to work. You can't go out the door without your feet shot with the preparation of the gospel of peace. You can't leave without the breastplate of righteousness. You have to have the helmet of salvation. You have to be ready. You have to be ready.
Vedid. They saw a band of raters so they threw the man's body into Elisha's tomb. Some desperate situation. Radical response. I have two titles for the message. One is Fancy, to stay in our flow, and one is what I really want you to walk out of here remembering.
Fancy title first. The Remains of Revival. The Remains of Revival. And I'm going to let you give the subtitle to your neighbor. Touch three people and say, don't let it die. Don't let it die. You may be seated.
Help me thank this choir. Help me thank this band. Help me thank these cameramen, sound men, technicians, ushers, greeters, children, workers. Who else? The staff, the volunteers. Incredible, incredible, incredible, incredible, incredible, incredible.
I don't even know who to thank at this point. So many people sacrifice so much. But hopefully, hopefully, the work is its own reward as you see what God has done. But a lifetime of thanks would never be enough.
Thank you, worship team. Did we have revival? We'll have to check and see what remains. You know what I mean. I'm not being pessimistic. I believe very much in what God did here. I really do.
344,222 viewers online. That's what they tell me. Who knows if that's true? Web guys may crap up. But I think a lot of people have been watching, coming a long way. Amazing. All to receive a word from God.
Do you see how many notes I'm spreading out across this podium? And I told you I had a short message. All this on two verses. But I'll go quick. I'll go quick because I think we have sometimes in our lives. underestimation of the power of God and a misinterpretation of the process by which that powerful word becomes practical in our lives.
Can you write fast tonight? Sometimes in our lives we have an underestimation of the power of the word of God and a misinterpretation of the process by which it becomes practical in our life.
Elisha’s Death – The End of an Era
Say amen, Don't shout down all these guest preachers and leave your pastor lonely. I haven't slept much, and I need a little help. You better preach me into tomorrow.
So I went to Elisha because he had a word from God. He was a prophet. Man, he was a great prophet. You ever heard about him? Bad dude. He had to be because he came up under Elijah. Elijah.
He wasn't trying to be a prophet or anything like that. He was plowing with this 12 yoke of oxen. He was back there just doing his job. When God gets ready to use you, you don't have to posture yourself or manipulate circumstances.
God told Elijah exactly where to find Elijah at the time his assignment was necessary. He threw his mantle on him. He didn't even stop and have a talk with him and ask him if he wanted to be used by God. He just walked over to him, threw something on him and said, follow me.
He said, let me kiss my father and mother goodbye. And he said, we don't have time for all that. If you want to go with me, go with me. Sometimes God will walk by you in an opportunity and say, you want a breakthrough? Come on now.
Sit around and reason, rationalize about it. You might miss it. You just have to go. You just have to go. You just have to go. You just have to go with it. You just have to go with it.
But that's not my message. I feel like that would be… If I was preaching on that, the mantle in 1 Kings 19, that would be a great message for John Gray. John Gray could preach that message. That would be awesome.
Waiting Actively – Service Prepares for Power
Elisha went on to do a lot of miracles, not all at once, because there was a period of waiting. He had to kind of like prove himself before he could do great things. So, you know, reinforcing what some of the speakers have been saying in this, what we would call lag time.
But one preacher said that waiting time is never wasted time as long as you're waiting on God and waiting actively. And as he waited actively, serving the needs of Elijah and not serving his own purposes or preferences, God was preparing him for something.
And so when the time came in 2 Kings 2 for Elisha to part water, he was prepared to do it because he had poured water on Elijah's hands. So sometimes God has to teach you how to pour water, which represents service, before you can part water, which represents power.
Can I preach at my own revival tent night? But I won't preach that part of the text because that would be a great sermon for Christine Cain. Hello, Christine. She's watching online every night. Everybody say, Yo, Chris. I'll leave that for Christine Cain.
The Power Transfer – Picking Up the Mantle
When Elisha finally got ready, he picked up the mantle and parted the Jordan waters. And it proved that the power of God was with him, because there were a lot of people waiting around to see, would the same power that rested on Elijah rest on Elisha?
And they're waiting to see. And I wonder if the world might be waiting to see if the power that rested on the Savior that we claim to worship will now fall upon the church in this hour of need and bring revival to the world.
They're waiting. They're watching. Will this work? And now if Elisha doesn't get the mantle and take it up where Elijah left off, the ministry of Elijah will die with Elijah. But touch somebody and say, don't let it die.
He picked it up and he parted the water and God was with him in his act of obedience. But I'm not going to preach about that. That's not my message. So he goes on into some pretty cool things.
Purifying Waters – Salt in Jericho
He comes up on Jericho. There's a body of water. They say, hey man, this is a great place, but the water is bad. And he says, okay, bring me a bowl and some salt and took the salt and threw it in the water. And he said, there, it's clean now.
Because, well, you might remember Jesus said in the New Testament that you are the salt of the earth. And so salt represents not only preservation, but purification. So he's saying that the surroundings don't determine the outcome.
That is not my sermon. That would be a great sermon too. But we'll leave that for Joyce Meyer.
Digging Ditches – Preparation for the Flood
One time, this coalition of kings had a fight and they had a war and they were in trouble because they were out of water and they called on Elisha the prophet.
And he showed up, he told them something stupid. He said, dig a bunch of ditches in the valley. He told them to build an irrigation system and there's not a cloud in the sky. Because he said, about this time tomorrow, you won't see the rain, but you'll hear it.
And God is about to flood this place because sometimes you have to make preparation for the move of God before it manifests or you won't be ready to handle it when it comes. Come on, hit your neighbor in the shoulder and say, I'm getting ready.
That's not my sermon. Pastor Craig Groeschel can preach that.
The Widow’s Oil – What You Already Have
One time, this widow came to Elisha. Can I give you a Bible lesson? I know you feel like you've been at Chima or Fogo de Cho and they've been bringing you meat and you've flipped it over on red and you can't even take anymore and you feel like you're gorged on the Word of God.
I saw you walk in here. Your gut is just protruding with your spiritual gut is hanging over your belt and you came in here looking like you can't take another bite. But can I serve you one more meal?
This woman had a problem. Her creditors were coming to take her son and she was desperate and she said to Elisha the prophet, my husband served the Lord, do something. And Elisha said, you do something.
Because often when we point to an area of limitation or lack in our life, God will get us to go back and look and see that there was something there that we overlooked that is critical and essential to the meeting of our needs.
And she said, I don't have anything. And he said, check again. And she said, but I got a little bit of oil and sometimes it's only a little bit. I was going to preach a sermon one time called, it's not too little and it's never too late. Wouldn't that be good?
But that's not my message. That'd be a good message for Levi Lusko.
The Shunammite Woman – Making Room and Receiving Life
Louis Giglio probably preached about the Shunammite woman in second Kings chapter four, because she made a little room.
When you make room for God in your life, he starts working in those deep places. Sometimes even the dreams that you buried, because a Shunammite woman, well, she had no son and she'd given up hope that she would ever hold a child in her arms.
But sometimes God will use his word to speak to an area of your life. where you've completely given up hope. And she had a son. He told her about a year from now, I'm going to hold a baby in your arms. She said, don't lie to me.
Don't lie to me. Don't get my hopes up with all this spiritual mumbo jumbo talk. Now, I've taken good care of you. I built your room. I cooked you some food, and I don't mind serving, but I don't want to get my expectations raised.
I've kind of settled into the way things are. And then God disrupts the rhythm. of her expectation with one word. And one word from God can do that. It can disrupt. You know, you're just going along. And God will stop you in your tracks and disrupt the rhythm to bring you into deeper relationship with himself and to reveal things to you that you hadn't seen.
But that would be a good sermon for Louie, huh? He could preach about that Shunammite woman. And if he did, he should probably tell you that sometime later, the child that God gave to that woman died.
Fortunately, she knew what to do with a dream that has died. And she took that baby in her arms and she walked past everybody that was asking her, what's the matter? Because you don't have time to slow down and talk to people who have no power to help you.
You got to get back to the one who made it. Is that why you came to church? Because I don't have time to fool with people, skeptical people, negative people. I got to get in the presence of God. And she put that baby on the prophet's bed, and she said, I'm not letting this die.
And Elisha, he spread himself out over that little boy, and he breathed on the boy, and the boy sneezed seven times and came back to life. That's not my sermon. That's Louie's sermon. If somebody said, don't let it die, don't let it die.
You give up too quick. You give up too quick. You get disappointed too easily. Don't let it die. It's the word the Lord gave me. I said, what do I tell them? God, they've heard so much. My goodness.
What do I tell them? He said, tell them don't let it die. After all they've been through to come to this point, you can't let it die here. Not now. Not after the word that's been spoken. Not after the power and the presence of God we've experienced.
It can't die now. I preach like I'm passionate because I'm helping somebody. Some things have come alive in our imagination and our hopes, and we refuse to let it die now. We refuse to let it die.
Naaman’s Pride – Almost Missing the Miracle
Darius could probably preach about Naaman, who had so much pride that because Elisha told him to go dip in the Jordan River and he thought it was a dirty body of water and he didn't want to do it that way, he almost missed his healing because he didn't want to strip down and expose his vulnerabilities.
The Floating Axe Head – Recovering What Was Lost
Then maybe Carl can come back one day and tell you about the axe head, how they were chopping down trees one day. Sometimes it's in everyday life because they were chopping down trees. They went back to work. They went back to their cubicle. They went back to their school. They went back to chemistry.
While they were working, the axe head flies off and falls in the water. It represents the times in life where you lose your edge. But don't let it die because Elisha is on the scene. They went and got Elisha and said, Hey man, we lost it.
We lost this axe head and it was borrowed and we have to get it back. We have work to do. Elisha said something very powerful. He said, Take me to the place where you lost it. And that's what we came to revival for, right?
It's to recover some things that we lost in our lives. I refuse to let it die. I refuse to let it stay down at the bottom. I came to see it rise back to the top. And with one word from the prophet's mouth, that iron axe head started floating on water, transcending the laws of buoyancy.
One word from God can do that. One word from God can change your life, even on an iPhone, even in a hospital room, even in a kitchen while you're making brownies for your daughter's third grade dance recital.
I don't know who I'm talking to. That's somebody somewhere. I'm saying it because there's somebody somewhere, even in that kitchen, even in that hospital room, even listening on a podcast, even watching online at a later time on YouTube, even addicted to porn and you accidentally clicked on this sermon because you didn't know what it was.
But one word from God can set you free in a moment. But that's not my sermon. We'll let Carl Lentz preach that.
Elisha Dies and Is Buried – An Unceremonious End
What I want to mention is Elisha died and was buried. So unceremonious. The dude he modeled his ministry after, from whom he inherited a double portion of his spirit. When he went up to heaven, it was a heavenly Uber. What's it called? Uber black? The chariots of fire came and took him away.
He didn't die, but Elisha died. And was buried. Tonight, we're kind of like saying goodbye to a decade of ministry. in our church and marking the faithfulness of God and celebrating that, moving forward and beyond.
Somebody say beyond. That's how we're going to end our year. We're going to gather around the word beyond because we're going somewhere. God didn't do all this for us to sit on it. You hear me?
Every location, we're going somewhere. We're growing somewhere. We're expanding. We're exploding. We're walking in the favor of God. I don't feel tired anymore. I feel energized getting around you. Holy Spirit-filled, revival-looking, revival-talking, prophesying, Jesus Christ-exalting, Bible-believing, demon-defying, devil-defeating Christians.
Are there any believers? But Elisha always dies. All good things come to an end. So it's the end of ten years. It's the end of our revival meetings. Somebody said you can't schedule revival. Nah, probably not, but I can decide to release it if it's in me.
I told y'all we weren't waiting on revival to come down. God was waiting on us to send. revival up and out. But now, now, now it's over. And all those things… I kind of was being funny, you know, the different speakers, but all these different words that God spoke to you…
I'm going to ask something. And at every campus, play along, because I know some of you watching on the screen and you think that when I say this kind of stuff you're exempt, but you're not. Raise your hand if God spoke something to you through one of the speakers in worship, through somebody that you met.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Keep it up, keep it up. Put it down real quick if you don't feel like me putting this mic in your face. I don't have long. If you talk more than like ten words, I'm going to pull the mic back.
But what did he speak? To let the past go and focus on what's beyond, on what's ahead. Just leave it back and focus on what's in front of us. All right. So, that's good. That's perfect.
Are we on camera? Do that. Here and now, X marks the spot. But now… Okay, you can sit down. Now, did God speak to anybody else? I thought I saw a lot of hands. Anybody? Something just specific in your life? Something just cool that he spoke to you, reassured you about, a promise that he made you?
I like to be diverse. Let's get a black woman now. A black woman with amazing hair. You've got all the bases covered. Blue hair, black woman. This is like… Come here. We've got to talk. Is this your first night? It's your first night?
Sit back down. But you look great. I'm looking in your eyes to see if you might have had a word that God spoke to you. What was it? To reach out to my sister. Our relationship has been a little iffy.
And I text her after…. after Levi Lusko preached, because he said that you can't do something if you're not willing to invest in it. So I reached out to her and we've been texting every day and talking a little bit more. But it's been a little bit better.
It's amazing. It's amazing. Did you know? Oh, you got more? Yes. And you said that there was somebody sitting at home that needed to be here on. Tuesday. So I called my friend and bought her a plane ticket. Ohio.
But now God spoke to you. You acted on the work. And that's where the enemy attacks. I found this fascinating. Elisha… Just let me think this out now. When I read the text, this is how I study the Bible, because you know how you people are.
You expect me to have something new to say every time I stand up. And there are only so many stories in the Bible. David kills Goliath every time. Because you have to be fresh. So I think about it real deep.
And I was noticing in the text that the unceremonious death of Elisha, because it didn't come to an end with chariots of fire. He doesn't even get a full verse. There's almost a whole chapter on how Elijah dies, but for Elisha, it just died and was buried.
Raiders at Harvest Time – The Attack on the Promise
Then it moved… In the same verse… Can you put it up? In the same verse, it talks about these raiders that would come into the country, these Moabites. The Israelites had a lot of trouble with them all the time.
They were under Syrian oppression, and so they were used to this enemy. Not only were they used to this particular enemy, because sometimes you fight the same thing over and over again… That's the thing that gets you depressed as you get older.
It's not that you're still fighting. It's just that you're still fighting the same junk. If I could have a new thing to fight, I could get some stamina, but really? This again? Not only are they fighting the same thing, but they're fighting it at the same time.
They entered every spring. It got me curious about this warfare tactic. If you want to invade somebody's territory, you would want to be unpredictable. But they did it at the same time. every spring.
Why spring? Well, the agricultural system for ancient Israel. revolved around a spring harvest. I'm about to help you. The attack always happens at harvest season. Listen to me. I know you called your sister. That's good. That's a step.
I know you had a moment of breakthrough where God spoke to you about the past. That's a step. Here's the thing. The enemy does not mind you receiving the Word. I told you the first night of this revival. It is responding to the Word that changes your life.
The enemy does not mind. He will not attack you the most during sowing season. Here's what I mean. Coming to revival six nights, seven nights, eight nights. Let's be honest. You might have to stand in line a little bit. You might get off work early. Somebody keep the kids.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. These were some great preachers. You weren't exactly suffering for Jesus. I mean, these are like some of the… People pay money to hear these people, okay? And you came on in, and you heard them, and you like notes anyway.
You like writing notes anyway. It's kind of cool. You like writing notes anyway. And so you're doing that, and the Word is being sown. Jesus used that analogy. He said that the Word of God is sown. He says it's like a sower who goes out to sow seed.
There are four different types of responses that he describes to that seed. Can I teach now? I've been preaching. I want to teach. He said that one falls here, one falls there, one falls there, one falls the other, but they were all sown.
So, the enemy didn't stop the sower from sowing the seed. If he can't stop you from receiving the seed, which represents the Word of God, then he wants to keep you from reaping the harvest. Touch your neighbor and say, don't let it die. Don't let it die.
It said the Raiders would come in at harvest season. So, when the attack comes in your life emotionally, financially, relationally, when it gets harder instead of easier and you thought you got a breakthrough but you wind up having a breakdown, maybe the hardship is a sign that it's harvest time.
Have you ever thought about that? Come on, help me preach. Tell your neighbor, if it's getting harder, that means it's a harvest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I noticed something. I noticed about an hour and a half before I go to preach, I get really discouraged.
Why? Well, because all week I've been sowing, sowing, plowing, plowing, and now I'm right on the verge… I'm going to tell you something, it's kind of vulnerable. I said, I'm upset. I told Holly, I said, I might not even preach tonight.
We'll just do extended worship, prayer, communion. She said, you are preaching tonight. She said, you are preaching close at night. Now, what could make… Come on. What could make a man. that all his life as a little boy wanted to start a church, and now it's night 10 of this amazing revival?
I'm sitting there talking about… Not that I don't want to preach, but I don't know if it's going to make sense. It's a weird Bible story. Delisha died and was buried. You don't want to hear about that. Revival, 10th night.
What if they're tired? The Panthers are on. What if they don't come? Ninety minutes before I preached, maybe the enemy sends the Raiders in. I always taught Danny that the resistance is fiercest on the borderline of breakthrough.
So, the enemy came in at the time of harvest, not the time of sowing. The time of sowing is not going to be the time of greatest struggle. The enemy will let you think of ideas all day long. He doesn't mind that.
He'll let you study in the back of the concordance in your Bible and look up 37 definitions of love. But when you go to bear the fruit of the seed… Let me make this announcement. The success of this revival will not be measured by the quantity of the seed that we received.
It will be measured by the quality of the fruit that is born from the seed that we receive. God says it's harvest time. I want you to be fruitful. You can't do it without a fight. That's why he attacks you.
The enemy doesn't attack you when you applaud the word. He attacks you when you go to a playa. Preach with me, Elevation Church. They would invade at spring, because that's the harvest, and they would plunder their land.
It's a harvest, and the enemy won't attack you if you're not growing anything. So take it as a good sign. I'm not wishing anything on anybody. You hear me, Lord? I'm not wishing anything on myself or these precious people.
I'm just maybe warning them and us that it's not during the season of sowing that the most vicious attacks happen. It's in the season of reaping. The devil couldn't stop you from getting here and receiving the word.
But on the heels of increase, there's always an invasion to snatch the seed before it can produce fruit. Maybe this is why Jesus said in John 15, 16, as he was preparing his disciples for his departure, just like Elisha departed, just like Elijah departed.
As Jesus gets ready to leave his disciples, he tells them, I want your fruit to remain. I chose you and appointed you. Elijah chose Elisha and appointed him. Elisha didn't even ask for it, but he chose him.
Jesus said, you might not have even asked for it, but I've chosen you. You might not even see yourself that way, but I've chosen you and appointed you, and I want you to have fruit that remains the remains of revival.
That's what we're praying for, right? I want the residue of what we've experienced to remain and to be released into the places where God has called us in the realms that he's assigned to us. Fruit that remains.
If you come to church and eat the seed, it never produces anything. It is in the sowing, the watering, and the working of the Word. that it has proven and transformed from potential to power in your life.
We underestimate the power of the Word of God, but we misinterpret the process by which it becomes practical in our life. God says, now it's harvest time. Every time I ever heard harvest time preach, churches shouted.
They weren't farmers. Does there happen to be like one farmer? If I was at Gaston, this would be an easy illustration. Anybody grow up on a farm? Anything like that? Hey, farm girl, she's got all those bracelets.
I know she's hardcore. I know she doesn't mind. Yeah, she's not ashamed. Is harvest hard work? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. The blessing of God will break your back if you're not prepared for the battles that accompany it.
I heard you shouting all week over breakthroughs and stuff. I was preaching to some pastors. I probably shouldn't have said this. I was preaching to some pastors last year, and I said, you want a breakthrough? Oh, breakthrough.
Breakthrough to what? Because all you ever break through to is a bigger battle, bigger blessing, bigger battle. Did we have revival? Well, I believe we did. I want it to remain.
The Final Miracle – Power Still in the Bones
They're carrying this guy. Elisha has been dead a little while. He ministered about 50 years. He did all that stuff I told you about. I know you've got notes on it, and you'll go back and look all that up later.
A huge part of getting the Word engrafted in your heart and your life is reviewing what you wrote down. Don't go put that notebook on a coffee table. Put it on your kitchen table and spend a little time with each word you heard so that it can remain.
We have the rhythm. Now we want the remains. Wow, the Spirit of the Lord is in this place. I don't know if you can sense it, but the Spirit of the Lord is in this place. The Lord anointed me to preach this message to you.
Okay, so he's dead. He's buried. There are these guys doing this funeral procession, and they have this guy, and they're carrying him along. Put the verse back up. It's like 21, isn't it? I got him doing this little funeral procession, and the attack comes.
You know how it hits you at a time where you're not expecting it, so you don't know what to do. It doesn't hit you in church. Maybe in the parking lot at Valentine. But usually you at least get out of the parking lot, and then, whoa, it breaks out, and you don't see it coming.
And so the attack comes. It was at a predictable time, but it seems to have startled them. Okay, so lesson number four. I don't know what number we're on, but another lesson to remember. Don't be surprised. Don't be so shocked.
I mean, you know that you get attacked. Every time you get in an atmosphere like this and you get this spiritual high, like you're 14 at youth camp, and friends are friends forever if the Lord is Lord of them, and a friend will not say never because the welcome will end.
Yes, the welcome will end. Yes, it will. Revival ends, and Elisha dies, and he's buried, and that part is over, and the event is over, but the experience has just begun. Amen. The event called revival is over, but the experience is just beginning.
I could preach more about that. I'm here every week, people. I love you guys. The Moabite Raiders come. Oh, no! Raiders! What do we do? So here's this prophet's tomb. The tombs were dug out of soft rocks for easy access in this day, so they didn't have to do much.
They just threw him in the tomb. Oh, shoot. See, I didn't get much sleep last night. I knew this was going to happen. This is why I told you I had to preach on last night because I'm tired of it, up late, hosting people, shooting videos and hosting it.
All this. I left off, so I have to go back and pick up this. All right, let's go back to the top of the passage. I screwed it up, y'all, and I'm sorry. I know our guest speakers, they were very professional, and their technique was flawless.
I screwed this up. All right, I have to read the whole thing again because it didn't make sense the way I read it. I'm really sorry I've subjected you to this, but I'm going to try again.
Elisha died and was buried. Now, Moabite Raiders used to enter the country every spring because the attack always comes at the time of... Once, while the Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a band of raiders, so they threw the man's body into Elisha's tomb.
Story's not over. When the body touched Elisha's bones. .. Oh, I'm glad I didn't leave that part off. All right? So, Elisha's gone. Revival's over. But guess what? I still got the bones.
I didn't come to play with y'all. I wouldn't have you standing out in line to play around. Come on. I got the bones. So, the event is over, but the experience has just begun. Somebody shout one more miracle.
He parted the Jordan. He threw the salt in the waters of Jericho. They dug the ditches in the valley. The Shunammite woman had a baby, lost a baby. The baby came back to life. Naaman got healed of leprosy. Axan floats to the surface.
But there's one more miracle still in the bones. The bones. That spot where God spoke that word. Come here, man. Where were you sitting when God spoke that to you? Were you sitting right there? Where were you sitting that night?
Do you remember? All right, God. We're about to do this. You were all the way up here. You must have got here late, man. You were all the way up here, and the preacher was all the way down there, and somehow the Word of God hits you right here.
Now, when the raiders come to invade the harvest and take you back to your past. Point back to the bones and tell the Devil there's power in the bones. Come on, touch sin people. Tell them, don't let it die. Don't let it die.
Don't let it die. Don't let it die. Don't let it die. Don't let it die. Don't let it die. Go back to the spot. What God spoke to you still has power. Because Elisha might have died, but his Word lived on.
And the event might be over, but the breakthrough has just begun. And we're not going to let it die. He hit those bones. Those bones. Jeremiah said, your word is like fire. Shut up in my bones.
The bones. The bones. You have to go back to the place. You get tired. Holly's been telling me lately. She said, go back and have some conversations with 20-year-old Stephen Furtick.
She said, tell 20-year-old Stephen Furtick about Code Orange Revival. Because you know I can be whiny sometimes. She said, I don't know if I want to preach. Come on, shove somebody.
She said, go back to the bones. Go back to the bones. Back to the bones. Back to the bones. She said, 20-year-old Stephen Furtick would have stood in line for Code Orange Revival.
Now you're acting like a punk, like you're tired. Go back to the bones. I want to make an announcement. You can relive this revival as many times as you want. As a matter of fact, you don't even have to stop it tonight.
When you come to that place of attack, because you will, do what the men did. They didn't even know what they were doing. But if they wanted to have a funeral, they were standing next to the wrong tomb.
And this would not be the last time that a tomb would be responsible. Stand up, I'm done. Somebody shout. Somebody shout. Somebody shout. Ezekiel got to looking at some dry bones. He said, dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.
Bones came together. Flesh and teeth started to cover them. I feel like this church is breathing the breath of God. Back to the bones. Take the word that God spoke over your life. and cause it to live again.
You can relive anything you decide to relive. You want to relive your pain? You can do that. You want to relive your promise? You can do that too. Go back to the bones.
Come on, come on, come on. When you feel your passion dying Monday around 3 o'clock, throw it on the bones. When you feel yourself getting weak on the inside, your heart starts to get a little deflated, a little discouraged, throw it on the bones.
Come on, touch somebody and say, throw it on the bones". Jesus had to die and he had to be buried. And when he Rose again and he was taken from his disciples, like Elijah was taken from Elisha….
There's so much I want to do with this word. There's so much I want to do with this word. But they were standing there looking at the sky. One of them knew what's next, God. He went up.
A voice from heaven said, What are you looking at? They must have been thinking, I'm looking at a man who just went up into the clouds. Is that all right? Is it okay if I stand here and take this in for a minute?
This is a unique moment. He said, The same Jesus that went up like that is coming back like he came. Now, I need you to receive the Holy Spirit. Touch somebody and say, Don't let it die.
Because the work that was started on the cross is going to continue. through you. You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses.
I hear the Spirit of God say it to Elevation Church over our next 10 years. Don't let it die. Don't let it die. He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.
Don't let it die. Don't let it die. Don't let it die.