It was a cry of command - Elisha challenged God! He demanded an immediate consciousness of His presence and power and felt he had every right to do so as God was making demands from him. Also, he wanted a definite confirmation of his call. Years before this, Elijah had entered the field where he was ploughing and cast his mantle around him, adopting him as his spiritual heir. Now Elisha was asking the Almighty God for a sign that He, too, had adopted him to carry on Elijah's work. He had a second-hand mantle in his hand, but he wanted a first-hand call in his heart or he wouldn't go on. He told God in reality that he wouldn't go forward in the work laid down by Elijah unless he first received a fresh baptism of power. A mighty man of prayer demands things from God, because God demands the impossible from him. He knows he can't comply with God's commands unless he first receives a mighty anointing.

At the very commencement of his ministry, he put his God to the test. The crossing of the Jordan was the first of the 16 miracles wrought by Elisha. The river Jordan lay in front of him; he was going to challenge Jehovah immediately. His cry really meant, "I have my master's mantle as an outward symbol to denote that I'm his successor, but, oh, God, I'm in desperate need of the 'double portion of the firstborn.' Oh God, baptize me with thy Spirit."

Dare we imagine that there was any special power attached to the mantle? Surely it is blasphemy when we laud and magnify the mighty men and women of the past, as if by their own human power they accomplished their exploits. The God of Savanarola, Tauler, Trudel, Preden and Blumhardt still lives today! Where is the God of these men and women? They are dead, but He is not! We have the mantle of these glorified workers but have we the power of the living God? It seemed audacious of Elisha to think he could do what Elijah had done. There was only one Elijah. Yes, but there is Elijah's God, and He can as easily work through an Elisha as through an Elijah, if that instrument is fully surrendered to Him. Elijah's mantle couldn't divide the water, but Elijah's God could - and did! If we have faith in Elijah's God, the mantle will mean something; otherwise, it will only be a mantle of tradition. Tradition hinders rather than helps, unless those in the line of that tradition have the same spirit as the men who created it. The mighty hands of William Booth, laid upon the head of a Salvation Army officer, would be of no avail, unless God laid His hands upon the young man's heart. All mantles are valueless without this divine touch. God deliver us from our holding on to mere traditions! What glorious traditions our evangelical faith possesses, but we dare not for one moment lean on past blessings.

The danger today is that we're trusting in the mantle of Elijah and not in the God of Elijah. The mantle is all very well as a symbol of the prophet's office, but the Church needs more than a mantle, no matter how much prestige and reverence is attached to it. Elisha didn't go around showing the prophet's mantle as a relic of tradition. Said Spurgeon, "If ever I could feel any great reverence for relics, I should like to have Elijah's mantle. Elisha had it; but what was the use of having the mantle of Elijah unless he could also have his God?"

Here's the prophet's mantle, but where is Jehovah, the God of Elijah? Many in despair wistfully cry, "Oh, that Spurgeon were alive! Oh, that Andrew Murray were here today!" Hallelujah, we need not despair, because we have their God; the Lord God of hosts is with us still.

Substitutes are tried today in the place of God's power, and they are the curse of the Church. Today, even in evangelical circles, the man who believes in the supernatural power of God is pitied or labeled as a fanatic. The church that rejects the sign of the supernatural power is soon rejected by God, and He leaves them to their traditions and worn-out mantles.

It was because Elisha believed in the supernatural God that the unbelievable happened. It was because Micahel Peden and others believed in the almighty power of God that miracles happened. These miracles can happen again, because God isn't dead. No! He lives and waits to be challenged by the audacious faith of His people. "It's not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord." This is the revival we pray and wait for, and it can be experienced now in every place where God's people lay hold upon the promises.

You can do the impossible for God if you will allow God to do the impossible for you. How often we read the autobiographies and biographies of spiritual giants and lay down the books in despair, saying, "How impossible!" Instead of inspiring us, sometimes they discourage us. We say, "But we could never be like them." Oh, my brother and sister, we must get our eyes off the human personality and onto the living God. We must remember that the source of all their power is the living God Himself, and He has lovingly challenged us, "Call unto Me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things which thou knewest not" (Jer. 33:3). God is only hindered by our lack of faith.

The situation today is desperate. We have the message for a lost and dying world. All the world is a whispering gallery, and the Church is the focal point. If the Church is going to meet the challenge of the hour, she must challenge the living God afresh and receive a fresh baptism of power. Dare we look up into the face of the Almighty and challenge Him afresh for victory and power as the prophet Elisha did?

This is copyrighted material from James Stewart's book Come O Breath, available from Revival Literature, PO Box 6068, Asheville, NC 28816.