Greek guards

Dan 2:21  He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and sets up kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding!

Over the last few weeks, the Spirit began speaking to me about the Elisha chapter as opposed to Elijah's era. Jesus Himself said that John was 'the Elijah to come' in Matthew 11:14. So if that scripture has already been fulfilled, what comes next? Does Malachi 4 not apply to us? Of course it does, because the day that burns like an oven is not only on our doorstep but burning up the 'Welcome' mat! There is appointed a season of judgement on wickedness wherever it finds itself, but this time it is not by water, but by fire - the holy fire of the Lord's righteous anger. So, correspondingly, after the single portion mantle of the Spirit of Elijah, next is the double portion prophetic generation; the Elisha's. They have a different timbre to their sound, a different tone, completely different DNA and assignments - and a double portion of mighty prophetic power to deal with idolatry, a mocking spirit, death assignments and uncleanness in the land.

 

They are also season-changers. It was Elisha who released the anointing for Jehu to be made king and this king brought down Jezebel. Permanently. He didn't just tiptoe around the edges of her corrupt banquet table, wondering who to speak to. He executed the judgements decreed by Heaven. It was Elisha who walked in the time of the fulfillment of what Elijah prophesied.

 

You can read all about the process of the changing of the guard in 2 Kings 2. Elisha receives the double portion mantle. It is exactly what he requested. He doesn't just want the power and anointing of the last season. He is hungry for a double portion. A single portion of this mantle didn't cut it in the battle with Jezebel. She was still making men eunuchs when Elijah and Elisha crossed the Jordan for the changing of the guard ceremony. Elisha knew a greater anointing than Elijah's was necessary to walk through the next season of God. He also knew that two men would be 'dying' in that wilderness. Not only was Elijah removed from the prophetic arena, but Elisha tore his own mantle in half. This rendered it unwearable. The old Elisha was dead. That mantle of servanthood to man, albeit a great prophet of the Lord, was null and void. Kaput. That season was over. Elisha knew that he couldn't have what he asked for and continue to walk in his old identity. The day of the double portion anointing investiture is the day of death to all the old chapter holds. So he kills the old Elisha and takes up the double portion mantle - all this transacting occurring away from the eyes of the current prophetic arena, in the wilderness that would birth many prophets in successive generations.

 

He cuts a path through the Jordan in the sight of the sons of the prophets, expecting them to embrace the fact that the guard has changed, a new season has begun. But sons of the prophets want Elijah, they want the Tishbite, they want the DNA of the message they have heard for years, recognize and respect; they want the man of God whose behavior they can very likely predict, the one they have eaten and drunk with while Elisha was busy with menial tasks. They want the man of power for the hour that has already passed by. They don't want the new wine. The old wine is better. They want Elijah.

 

Even though he may possibly be dead, they want his body. They don't want a servant from a previous season wearing a mantle they last saw on another prophet. They don't know there is a double portion of power imbued in its framework. They just look on the outward appearance. "You are the servant of a prophet. WE are the sons of the prophets. Don't think you are going to elevate yourself to a higher position. WE know who is really anointed. WE don't want to listen to your voice, your sound. WE want Elijah, even if we have to raise him from the dead". So Elisha has to wait 3 days while they traverse the countryside looking for the prophet they knew and idolized. Only after 3 days, do they finally admit, the changing of the guard has really happened. Elijah will never speak for God again.

 

And what is Elisha doing in those 3 days? He is waiting on man to get into sync with the timing of God. He knows he was anointed for this task long ago when Elijah called him to follow. So while they scrabble over the hillsides searching frantically for evidence that the status quo remains, Elisha is probably listening quietly to the Spirit's instruction for 3 whole watches of waiting for the moment of release. They themselves had prophesied that Elijah was going home and yet they can't embrace the reality of the manifestation of what they had spoken by the Spirit of God with their own mouths days before. Meanwhile Elisha is sitting there wearing that double portion mantle, without recognition of man or anyone taking notice of what he says or what he saw with his own eyes. The sons of the prophets are convinced he misunderstood what was happening when he saw Elijah being taken up. It couldn't possibly be the end of that prophetic season...

 

But it was. Elijah had run his race and completed his assignment. He knew it. Elisha knew it. The changing of the guard had taken place. Without them being witnesses to its process. The wilderness transactions of heaven are private. Other men do not understand them, but when those picking up the baton finally step up to their first appointment in the morning watch of a new day in God's prophetic calendar, the authenticity of their message and the power released through their obedience, testifies that God is working with them and affirming they are His appointed servants.

 

There are many Elisha's waiting quietly in the wings, anointed and appointed by Heaven, but the modern prophetic generation, the sons of the prophets are still out seeking Elijah. Where the corpse is, there the eagles are desperately trying to gather... Only problem is, there is no corpse!! God knew they would build a shrine and start worshiping the tomb of Elijah if He left his body on earth, but it is actually Elisha's bones that hold within them such a download of resurrection power that when a dead man connects with his bones many years later, he is resurrected. You see, people can't see your bones, they can't see your saturation level. They can't see the huge transference of the atmosphere of heaven that has permeated your vessel because you sat in His presence for years in obscurity.

 

They can only see the outward appearance, the mantle they recognize as someone else's, and outwardly, it still looks exactly like it did when Elijah wore it. That mantle didn't glow with a green light when Elisha put it on. The kingdom of heaven is within you, remember. You die daily that the resurrection life of Jesus may be experienced in others. And the Elisha company have already gone through the process of dying to their old identities in private on the other side of the Jordan. They know that dead men walk. But in the eyes of the sons of the prophets, Elisha was only good to polish Elijah's shoes or wash his feet and re-fasten his sandals. "There aint no way, that servant boy is gonna show up and claim our man Elijah gave him that mantle. That boy done stole it, I reckon!"

 

John the Baptist spent his whole life 'til age 30 in private Holy Spirit tutelage. He was a refugee from the wrath of men that came to kill his father Zechariah between the sanctuary and the altar (Matt 23:35). People probably assumed John died as a child in the wilderness because he didn't show up to one church meeting. His name wasn't on the Sunday School register as a regular attendee. How could he know anything about spiritual things? Yet God used him to change a season over the people of God and prepare the way for the Man Who walked in the fullness of the stature of God made flesh.

 

Paul was a little man with a hooked nose, no Mr. Universe in the looks department, but when he emerged from His desert-imbuing (which took 3 years, by the way... ~ Gal 1:15-18), the existing church initially didn't place much store by him. They knew his old identity, his old mantle, that of a persecutor of the church. They didn't know that mantle had been torn in two and laid aside and the mantle Paul wore now was that endowed him by Heaven. He was ordained and called far away from the eyes of man. No pulpit released him into his apostolic ministry. He had no track record of great meetings in the local church, no trace of the required 'pedigree' that most modern churches require from servants of God before they release their pulpits to them. Trained by the Spirit of Truth in the wilderness?... that can't possibly be an authentic badge of qualification!

 

Oh, wait..... Didn't John the Baptist go to the same wilderness 'Bible School'? Didn't Elijah vanish into obscurity for 3 years before emerging to challenge the prophets of Baal to a duel? Oh, so you mean God can ordain someone??? "Really? Someone we haven't put through the usual hoops of training in the church system? Well, that just doesn't fit into our training model. We don't endorse lone rangers!"  That's a pity, because God has a track record of doing just that! And with profound success, I might add.... Especially when He is changing the guard in Kingdom purposes; and most particularly, when a new season or era in His plan is at hand. He loves using those which the religious system considers nobodies to release a sound that heralds a new chapter. And the Bride of Christ need a new royal guard.

 

It's no surprise that when the changing of the guard ceremony happens at Buckingham palace, the new guard has a different official song to the old guard. Perhaps God gets tired of hearing the same old song week after week, year after year?.... He loves to release fresh DNA, a new sound straight out of Heaven's recording studio to sound forth over a new planting season in the earth. After all, He has a whole handful of godly seed to scatter; those who have privately laid down their lives in the inner chamber and said, "Here I am, Lord, send me!"

 

But no, if you are not part of the good old boys club, you don't get to open your mouth and deliver the message God gave you in any acclaimed public arena. "I mean, really! Who do you think you are anyway? Do you have a ministry card? A website? How many people watch your YouTube channel? Oh, you don't have one? ... Sorry, fella, then it's highly unlikely that God has sent you. If He had, we would discern it! He would have told us you were coming. We would have seen you in a vision."... No wonder God saw it was time to change the guard!

 

As I said in another post concerning 2020, the church at large is going to be mighty surprised at who gets removed and who gets raised up in this changing of the guard. And predictably, no-one will love the new wine at first. They definitely think the old wine is better. A good percentage of 'those in the know' in church circles will resist the changing of the guard. And the issue is really about control. Who wants to welcome somebody who doesn't walk in the fear of man, who won't stick to the topic you told him to preach on, who won't endorse their flesh-filled doctrine. No wonder John the Baptist chose to have open-air services. No wonder Elijah didn't call the prophets of Baal to task in the temple of the day... those priests would have bundled him off the stage long before his closing prayer. Under an open heaven, that's a great place for a meeting with the power of Heaven. One on one, that's how Jehu took Jezebel down. Face to face in her own breeding ground, with her eunuchs looking on and silently cheering in their hearts that there had been a changing of the guard amongst the ranks of anointed rulers.

 

Ki 19:16  And anoint Jehu son of Nimshi to be king over Israel, and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah to be prophet in your place.

 

Those anointings have already taken place, remnant of God. That chapter is not coming, it is here. The Jehu's are already preparing to fulfill God's first assignment.  Jehu received his military orders straight from Heaven in the inner room. They weren't broadcast on CNN. And he understands why he has to do what he is called to do.(2 Kings 9) And he is about to ride 'furiously' to carry them out.

 

The Hebrew word for 'bread' also means 'war'. We have been a House of Bread for a very long season. We have munched and munched - on some good and some very moldy bread. But now the season has changed. We are to become a House of war. Read psalm 45, the wedding psalm. Heaven is riding to war against unrighteousness and wickedness. For too long, wicked men have tried to call good evil and evil good - in the Church! That's where judgement starts, people of God. Tremble, earth, God has arisen from His holy habitation.

 

Psa 45:3  Gird Your sword upon Your thigh, O mighty One, in Your glory and Your majesty! Psa 45:4  And in Your majesty ride on triumphantly for the cause of truth, humility, and righteousness (uprightness and right standing with God); and let Your right hand guide You to tremendous things.

 

 

Elisha came forth from the loins of man whose name means 'judge'. It is time for the rollout of God's decreed judgements. The Elisha company has already torn their own mantles in two in the wilderness. They have died to their old identities. They know they are appointed as part of the new guard to surround and protect the Bride of Christ with their words of Truth. They know they will cause a sifting amongst the sons of the prophets. They realize they will trigger the release of newly anointed kings who ride to war against principalities ruling and emasculating the people of God. And as a result of their obedience to Heaven, the people of God will walk in the fulfillment of the prophecies given to the Elijah prophets in the last season of the guard.

 

Don't be found amongst those who resist the changing of the guard. These bondservants of Heaven are carrying out God's blueprint for the rollout of Kingdom purposes. And Jezebel's eunuchs in church circles are going to participate in her casting down.

 

Selah