Wednesday Night Service 7PM - 2 Kings 6:24 - 8 - The Ministry of Elisha pt 3

Hello, everyone. All right, let's start with a word of prayer. Dear God, thank you for giving us this evening with each other to worship you and to be reminded of how amazing and powerful and wonderful you are. I pray for the people who were affected by the recent storms, that you will put your hand around them and give them peace as they're dealing with the aftermath. And I pray that tonight we can just put all that aside for a

little bit and turn our focus back to you and be rejuvenated and encouraged by your word. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. If you guys will stand with me for this first song, thank you again for giving us this time. We are just in awe of you and of everything that you are and everything that you do for us and how much that we just don't deserve what you've given to us. I pray for Pastor Ryan

as he comes up that you are with him and that you give him the words that he needs to teach to the world. I pray that you give him the words that he needs to teach to the world. And I pray for the rest of us as we leave that you will go with us throughout the rest of the week. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Good evening. If you would open up in your Bibles to the book of

2 Kings chapter 6. 2 Kings chapter 6. We'll be picking up in verse 24. We kind of stopped there in the middle of the chapter last week because it sort of starts a whole new story that carries into chapter 7. But we've been looking at the ministry of Elisha, all the powerful things that have taken place with him in an unfortunately very apostate time for the northern kingdom of Israel.

And so with that as a backdrop, Israel living in this sin, we see more of God's work through Elisha and unfortunately his judgment on the northern kingdom. And so the first story that we look at is just a lot of miraculous provision on the part of God announced by the prophet Elisha. So we pick up in verse 24 and it says this. Now it came about after this that Ben-Hadad, king of Aram, gathered all his army and went up and besieged Samaria. And there was a great famine in Samaria. And behold, they besieged it until a

donkey's head was sold for 80 shekels of silver and a fourth of a cab of dove's dung for five shekels of silver. And as the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him saying, help my Lord, O king. And he said, if the Lord does not help you, from where shall I help you? From the threshing floor or from the wine press? The king said, what's the matter? Well, we'll get into that story in

one quick second. So the scene's kind of painted for us. Israel's kind of enemy through this whole time was the Arameans that caused them a great deal of issue, particularly this guy, Ben-Hadad, who was the king at that point in time. And so he wanted to overtake Samaria, which was the capital city of the northern kingdom. And one of the common ways to try to take over a

city, which is what Samaria was, is that the enemy army would surround the walled city and cut off all supplies in hopes of starving out the people so that eventually they would either all die or come out looking for peace because they were starved out of the place. And so what we see is this major issue arise where there's now a famine in the land because all of the supplies have been cut off. And it was so bad that it gives two very unclean things that were being eaten as food, the head of a donkey, a cab of dove's dung that were being sold for exorbitant rates so that the worst of food could only be enjoyed by the most rich of people at that point in time. And so as the king is walking

around and seeing things, there's a woman that cries out to him. And he's like, listen, if God's not going to help you, what am I supposed to do? Well, we go on from here and it says, verse 28, the king said to her, what's the matter with you? And she answered and said, this woman said to me, today, and we will eat my son tomorrow. So we boiled my son and ate him. And I said to her on

the next day, give your son that we may eat him, but she has hidden her son. And when the king heard the words of the woman, he tore his clothes. And as he was passing by on the wall and the people looked and behold, he had sackcloth beneath on his body. And he said, may God do so to me. And more also, if the head of Elisha, the son of Shaphat remains on him today, a horrific scene,

that we see here taking place in the Northern kingdom of Israel. And it's taking place for two main reasons. Number one is taking place because this is exactly what God said would happen. Matter of fact, in the margin of your Bible, you might just write Deuteronomy 28, Deuteronomy 28, because in Deuteronomy chapter 28, God pronounces blessings and cursings on the people. There would

be blessings for obedience. And the blessings for obedience would be that they would always stand against their enemies, that they would never flee from their enemies, that there would always be abundance, that God would always give them abundance. And they would never flee from their enemies, that God would always give them great crops. But if they began to worship idols, if they began to forsake God and pursue idolatry, there would be this listing of things that would happen.

And what you just see here is a part of the listing of what God said would happen in judgment to the people of Israel, if they forsook God and began to pursue idols. So the first reason that we see this horrific scene take place is because God was pouring out his judgment upon the nation of Israel, because they had forsaken him and begun to pursue idols. But there's a second, second reason why I believe that we see this horrific scene taking place. You see, the problem with sin is that sin is never content to just be status quo. Sin is not content until it begins to

absolutely dissolve the very fabric of who you are as a person and who we are as a society. And what had taken place in the northern kingdom of Israel is because they had given themselves over to idolatry, because they had given themselves over to that which was worthless. They themselves began to become worthless. Because that's what happens. You see, we become like that which we worship. We become like that

which we idolize. And what they idolized were gods who required human sacrifices. Therefore, they began to become like the very gods that they worshiped, which is why we have to be careful what has our allegiance. It's why we have to be careful what has our attention. It's why we have to be careful what we idolize in this life. Because if we begin to make idols of the things of this world,

the worthless things of this world, that's eventually what we'll become like. Because that's what happened with the nation of Israel. But if we begin to put God in his proper perspective, then we will begin to develop that godlike character that he wants us to have, that godly character that he wants to produce in our lives. But because they'd given themselves over to idols, they began to become just like the things that they idolized the most. Well, we see the reaction of the king. The first thing he says is, if God can't help you,

I can't help you. Which is kind of interesting because he was someone who, worshiped idols, and yet he knew that truly the only one that could help was God. But quite frankly, he knew God couldn't help at this point in time, or at least he thought that. But we also see that while he put on the proper robes on the outside, on the inside, underneath of those robes were the robes of mourning, which is what sackcloth was. That's what they put on in a place where there's

great mourning that was taking place in their lives. But what we see with this king is that, first of all, he was broken over the condition, but he was not broken over the sin that caused the condition. How many of us can find ourselves in that place? We are broken over a condition that takes place in our lives. Perhaps we're even broken over the consequences of what's

taking place in our lives, but we're not always broken over the thing that led us to that condition or the thing that led us to those consequences. So that's what I see kind of taking place in the country right now, is everybody's really upset with the condition, but nobody wants to deal with the sin that got us in this condition. Everybody's upset with the circumstances. Everybody's upset with the consequences.

But nobody wants to deal with the sin that brought the consequences. And if revival is going to begin in a church, if revival is going to begin in a heart, and if revival is going to begin within a nation, it has to start with mourning over the sin, not just the conditions that the sin produces. Only he's not in a place of truly being repentant and broken. He just hates what he sees in front of him, which is why he tore his clothes and what he saw in front of him. And then the second problem that he has is the problem that many people of the

world have. And that's that when he saw the conditions, he didn't blame the sin, he blamed God. And he blamed God's messenger. Because who was the person that he wanted to punish? He wanted to punish Elisha, who had brought the message of God that ultimately probably brought about the judgment that was coming on them at that point in time. Have you ever noticed that that's how we

tend to be? That's how humanity tends to be, is that when we are confronted with sin, we're usually angry with the person that confronted us, not the sin that they're confronting us about. And that's what goes on with this king here right now, is he hates the condition that he's in. He hates the conditions that the city is in. And quite frankly, he's very angry with God about it.

And he doesn't know what to do other than to try to punish the one who brought the message. And so he says, God do so to me and more also if I don't have the head of Elisha today. And so verse 32, it says,

And while he was still talking with them, behold, the messenger came down to him and he said, Behold, this evil is from the Lord. Why should I wait for the Lord any longer? Man, I just love Elisha. He's always kind of cool as a cucumber, right? Like nothing is phasing this guy. He's hanging out in this house with the elders and they're probably sitting around

talking, maybe even about the very conditions that the nation is in, maybe even mourning over the conditions that the nation is in. And the Lord gives him that little word. Hey, there's a messenger coming for you and he's going to kill you. And he looks at the prophets and he says, Can you believe this guy? This guy that's been killing the nation of Israel, he's coming after me.

He's going to try to take my head. When he gets here, don't let him in. Just hold the door closed. I think Elisha probably giggled just a little bit. That's just me. That's in my own mind. I don't see that in scripture. This is going to be great, right? Hold the door closed. Don't let him in. And the guy's knocking at the door. He's like, I hear you knocking,

but you can't come in. That's a song reference, by the way. So that's what he says to him. And he says, Listen, this judgment's from the Lord. Why should we wait for the Lord any longer? The messenger's kind of angry, but the king is right behind him. Chapter 7, verse 1. And Elisha said, Listen to the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord, Tomorrow about this time, a measure of fine flour will be sold for a shekel,

and two measures of barley for a shekel in the gate of Samaria. And the royal officer on whose hand the king was leaning answered the man of God and said, Behold, if the Lord should make windows in heaven, could this thing be? He said, Behold, you'll see it with your own eyes, but you won't eat of it. Elisha once again makes an incredibly bold proclamation.

Remember, let's remember what the conditions in the city are at this point in time. There's nothing to eat. People are either eating people or they're trying to eat donkey's heads and dove dung, right? Like it's a bad situation up in the city right now. And Elisha says, this is what God says. Tomorrow you'll have more than you can ever imagine to eat. And the messenger, the guy with the king, the right-hand man of the king looks at him and says,

If God made windows in heaven... If God made windows in heaven, that wouldn't be able to happen. Let me put it to you in our language. That's impossible. God could never do that. What in your mind is too big for God? What in your mind is something that God could never make happen? That you just can't fathom how that would take place. That you think there's just no way God could do that. Even if create the

impossible scenario, God could never do that. Now I realize as good Christians, you would never think that, or at least you would never say that you think that. But if God made windows in heaven, you would never think that. But I know deep down all of us, we have that thing, right? We have that thought that that's too big for God. And you know what we like to do? What we like to do in those

situations is either one, we only focus on what God can't do because that seems too big for God, or perhaps even what God won't do because God won't do that in our lives. Or two, we try to start focusing on how to direct God in our prayers. You ever notice that? Like, Lord, this is what I want to see happen. I feel like it lines up with your words. I feel like it lines up with your words.

And so, Lord, if you could just do this, and then you could do this, and then you could do this, I could absolutely see how you could do that. If you could just make some windows in heaven that could absolutely start pouring out all the food down on the ground, then I could totally see how you could do that. And we start telling God how he should do his job. Listen, I hear this a lot, and I know sometimes it's good to pray specific things, but be careful in your specific prayers that you don't give God specific instructions, right? Because sometimes we like to tell God

how he should do things. And God's like, I mean, that's a fun idea. And I'm like, but I have a better idea, and we're going to go with mine. It's better just to say, Lord, this is what I need. Lord, you know what's going on. Do what you want to do. Because, I mean, what's God's word say? It says he's able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we could

ever ask or think, right? And so the things that he has for us are so much better than anything that we could ever imagine. What he wants to do is so much better than we could ever imagine. But we sometimes are so focused on what God can't do, that we tell God what he should do, that we take our focus off of God's word and off of God's power, off of God's promise and off of God's power. This is why it's so important

for you to keep track of the ways that God has shown himself faithful in your life. Because that past faithfulness always reminds us of God's present ability. Lord, I've seen what you've done here. I've seen what you've done here. And Lord, I just want to see you do it again. Do it however you want to. Do it in whatever way you want to. But Lord, just do it again. And start praying and seeing what God wants to do. Start challenging God with

difficult things. Start challenging God with impossible things. Sometimes he'll tell you no, and that's okay. That's part of surrender. Sometimes God will say, that's a great idea. We're not going to do that. I've actually got something way better for you than that. I've shared with you before, before I came down here, that I thought I was going to be a youth

pastor in Nashville. I went there. It was right around this time of year, back in 2008. Aaron was great with child at that time. He was great with child at that time. He was great with child at that point in time. And we drove down to Nashville, and I did this, and everything seemed perfect. I remember sitting on the back of a ski boat, talking to my buddy who lived in Nashville,

who told me about the job. And we were like, this is perfect. We'll get to live in the same town again. That'll be fun. We'll get to hang out with each other. You're a worship guy. I'm a teaching guy. We'll do ministry together. This is the greatest thing ever. It was truly my dream. And I went down there, and God said, no. And I was like, oh, Lord, why is it a no? So I started praying, Lord, do what you want to do. And here we are. See,

that's what God does, is we challenge him with the impossible. As long as we don't give him the instructions, he does what he wants to do. And it's always better than you can ever imagine. But this guy's problem, this guy's problem was unbelief. You see, he didn't believe that God could. He didn't believe that God would. And because of that, we're going to see he's going

to miss out on a whole lot of blessing. And so he said, it's going to happen, but you're not going to see any of it, because unbelief robs us of that blessing. Meanwhile, back in the city, now there were four leprous men at the entrance of the gate. And they said to one another, why do we sit here until we die? If we say we will enter the city, then the famine is in the city, and we will die there. If we sit here, we die

also. Now, let's go over to the camp of the Arameans. If they spare us, we'll live. If they kill us, we'll just die. And they arose at twilight to go to the camp of the Arameans. And when they came to the outskirts of the camp, behold, there was no one there. For the Lord had caused the army of the Arameans to hear a sound of chariots and a sound of horses, even the sound of a great army,

so that they said to one another, behold, the king of Israel has hired against us the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians to come upon us. Therefore, they arose and fled in the twilight, and they left their tents and their horses and their donkeys, even the camp just as it was, and fled for their life. How do you get rid of an army? Well, you have the God who guides the hearts of the kings like the rivers of water, guide the hearts of the army like rivers of water. He made it sound like there was some

huge army about to attack them. Can you imagine? The foolishness of this, they hear what sounds like a group of horses coming at them, and they begin to run because the thought occurs to them, maybe he's hired enemy armies against us. Matter of fact, they've hired a whole multitude of armies, and they're going to destroy us. Let's run. That makes absolutely no sense because that's what God does.

God does things that make absolutely no sense, and he does miraculous things by doing things that make no sense to anyone else. And that's what God did with this army. He defeated this army without a bow being fired, without a sword being used, without a stone being slung. He did it all by guiding the hearts of the kings like the rivers of water. And so the army disappears,

and these four lepers walk in, and they just get to start eating. It says, when these lepers came to the outskirts of the camp, they entered one tent, and they ate, and they drank. And they carried from there the silver and gold and clothes and went and hid them. And they returned into another tent, and they carried from there also, and they went and hid them.

And they said, we're not doing right. This day is a day of good news, but we are keeping silent. If we wait until morning light, punishment will come on us. Now, therefore, let's go and tell the king's household. So they came and called to the gatekeepers of the city and told them, saying, we came to the camp of the Arameans, and behold, there was no one there,

only the horses tied and the donkeys and the tents, just as they were. Now, paint the scene in your mind. Okay? These are four guys with leprosy. They've been completely set apart from everybody else. That's what leprosy meant at that point in time. You had a disease that made it to where you didn't get to talk to anybody. And I love the way that they acted at the beginning of this. They're like,

look, either way, we're dying. No matter what we do right now, we die, right? If we stay here, we die. If we go in the city, we die. Well, let's go talk to the Arameans. They'll either give us food or we'll die. Either way, we're going to die, right? This is our only hope. Everybody's gone. And so they start eating all of the food. Now, I don't know if you've ever seen

somebody that hasn't eaten for a really long time, and they start to eat a whole lot of food. Do you know what happens to their little belly? Can you imagine these guys? Listen, I was a wrestler. I know what it's like to see a bunch of dudes that haven't eaten for a couple of days, and they walk out of McDonald's right after weigh-in, and you're like, oh, all you guys cut weight. I can see

because your gut's sticking out now. It's the first time you've eaten in three days, right? Then that's kind of what it looked like at that point in time. They're just walking around going, that one looks good. And they're eating, and they're like, oh, gold, right? They're picking it all up, and they're like, this is not good. We're keeping all of this good news to ourselves. This is a great day of good news. We got to go tell everybody

else about it. Can we just stop here real quick before we get into the rest of the story and just say, this is the perfect picture of those of us that have found salvation. You see, just like those leprous people, we knew that there was no hope in the world. We knew that there was no hope where we stood. We thought, maybe there's a way out. We knew that there was no hope where we stood.

We knew that there was one thing we could do to find salvation. And that's what we found was salvation. See, they were set apart, or they were separated. They were hopeless, and they were dying. And so they took their one last shot at salvation. And when they had received that salvation that, by the way, came only from God, they said, we just can't keep it.

We have to give it to ourselves. My friends, you are just like these leprous guys. You eventually came to a place where you said, why am I going to sit here and die? I'm going to take a step of faith in hopes that something will save my life. And that step of faith that you took was to come to Jesus. Only when you came to Jesus and you started to enjoy all of the bounty of who Jesus is,

why would you keep it? that to yourself? You have that treasure in an earthen vessel. You have that treasure inside of you, and you have a world around you that's looking for hope. You have a world around you that is starving to death. Why would you keep that to yourself? Well, that's exactly what these guys do. They go into the city, and they tell the gatekeepers what's going on. Can you imagine

these four leprous guys that just look tore up from the floor up, except for their little bellies that are sticking out? And they come, and they say, hey, listen, you're not going to believe this, but they're all gone. You got to come see what's going on. Verse 11, so the gatekeepers called and told it within the king's household. The king arose in the night and said to his servants,

I will now tell you what the Arameans have done. They know we're hungry. Therefore, they have gone from the camp to hide themselves in the field, saying, when they come out, the city will capture them alive and get into the city. And one of the servants said, maybe we just take five horses which remain, which are left in the city. Behold, they will be in any case like

all the multitude of Israel who are left in it, and Israel who have already perished. So let us send and see. And they took, therefore, two chariots with horses, and the king sent after them the army of the Arameans and said, go and see. He's like, hey, listen, it's a trick. It's not going to work. And all the hungry people in the city are like, can we try? Maybe we should just go look. And so

they go and they look. It says, when they went after them to the Jordan, and behold, all the way was full of clothes and equipment which the Arameans had thrown away in their haste. And the messengers returned and told the king. So the people went out and plundered the camp of the Arameans, and a measure of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, according to the word.

Now the king appointed the royal officer on whose hand he leaned to have charge of the gate. But the people trampled on him at the gate, and he died, just as the man of God had said who spoke when the king came down to him. It happened just as the man of God had spoken to the king, saying, two measures of barley for a shekel, and a measure of fine flour for a shekel will be sold tomorrow, about this time at the gate of Samaria. The royal officer answered the man of God and said, now behold, if the Lord should make wind of the king, he will make wind of the king.

He said, behold, you will see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat it. And so it happened to him, for the people trampled him at the gate, and he died. So the report was true, and God kept his word. But the one guy that didn't get to enjoy it was the one guy who heard the message directly from the mouth of the prophet, but he refused to believe. Can we all just sit here and understand

that that's exactly what it's like for someone to get a little bit of a beat up? And that's what the Lord said to him. He said, behold, you will see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat it. And so it what it's like for someone who hears the message of the gospel and refuses to take it in for themselves, oftentimes they can see everyone else enjoying the benefits of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and they themselves are on the outskirts dying in their sin. But God does this miraculous

work of provision. And so after this cool work of provision, we come now to chapter eight, and we see the restoring of the Shunammite woman's land. It says,

Now, do you remember the story of the Shunammite woman? This is the one who Elisha had raised her son from the dead, had given her a son, raised him from the dead. Really, really neat family that he had gotten plugged into. And he knew that this famine was coming. And so he goes to her, and he says, listen, you really just need to get out. You just need to go find somewhere else to

live for the next seven years. And I find this kind of interesting, because God never works the same way twice, a lot of times. God's always doing something. He's always doing something. Something new, right? So when Elijah was prophesying, there was a famine in the land, and God's work of provision was that he just kept providing flour and water to continue making bread

throughout the entire time of the famine with the widow that he ministered to. Do you guys remember that story? That was the way that he provided at that point in time. She stayed in the land, endured the famine, and as she did so, God miraculously provided for her while they were there in the land. This time, it looks a little bit different. This time, there's a famine in the land, and God says, don't stick around, even though I could

miraculously provide for you here. This time, you need to go somewhere else, right? And so God's always working different ways. And I think that there's a little bit of a lesson for us here to remember, and that's that we can't try to formularize God. You ever try to do that? Well, this is the way God's always done it, so this is the way he's always going to do it. That's a really

dangerous place for us to get to, because God's always looking to do things in a new way in our lives. He's always looking to do things in a new way. And so God's always looking to do things in a new way, no matter what, because God never wants us to get to a place where it's always just this stagnant thing, where this is the ritual we always go through. I'll say these words. I'll repeat this

sentence, and once that happens, bada-bing, bada-boom, God will do his thing, right? Well, if I sit in this chair, and I have this coffee cup, and I'm using this Bible, then God's going to speak to me that way. And God's like, hey, listen, it has nothing to do with your location. It has nothing to do with your chair. It has nothing to do with your life. It has nothing to do with your life. It has nothing to do with your

words. It has everything to do with the moving of the Holy Spirit. And he's always going to do things differently. If you follow the ministry of Jesus through the Gospels, you'll find that he healed people so differently all the time, right? Even people with the same diseases, right? Like he healed three different blind people, and he did each one of them a different way, because God's

always looking to do new things, so that we don't ever get to a place where we say, you know, with these five steps, you can always guarantee that God will act on your behalf in these ways. Because God, God likes to keep us believing. And once we formularize God, it's no longer faith in God, it's faith in the formula, right? And so he does something a little bit different this time. He says, this time, I want you to get out. Well, that's a

really big step of faith, too, if you think about it, because she's going to leave behind her inheritance. She's going to leave behind her land, everything that belongs to her. And so she has to believe that God will still take care of her when she can't. And so she's going to leave behind her inheritance, even though she's going to leave everything behind. And so she leaves, and they go,

and they live somewhere else for seven years. And so for seven years, she's gone. I want you to notice what happens. At the end of seven years, the woman returned from the land of the Philistines, and she went out to appeal to the king for her house and for her field. And the king was talking with Gehazi, the servant of the man of God, saying, please relate to me all the great kings, or all the

great things that Elisha and the king of Israel have done for me. And so she leaves, and they go, and they live in heaven. And so she leaves, and they go, and they live in heaven. And so she leaves, and they live in beekeeping. And so she leaves, done. And he was related to the king how he had restored to life the one who was dead. Behold, the woman whose son he had restored to life appealed to the king for her house and for

her field. And Gehazi said, my lord, this is the woman, and this is the son whom Elisha restored to life. When the king asked the woman, she related it to him. So the king appointed for her a certain officer saying, restore all that was hers, and all the produce of the field, from the day that she left, even until now. Now, we're not totally sure which king this was at this point in time.

As a matter of fact, there's a set of chapters here where we really don't know who the king was, although most believe that it was Jehoram, the king of the north at that point in time, who went through a period of time where he was friendly towards the things of the Lord, if not still a little bit following the idolatry of the land, but was willing to hear him out. And you can imagine the scene, right? Like, for some reason, Gehazi was there. Clearly, this is before Gehazi had the whole leprosy incident happen.

Otherwise, he would have never been able to be in the presence of the king with leprosy. But Gehazi's there, and you can just picture it. Gehazi, tell me more stories. I want to hear more stories about what he's done. Oh, you're not going to believe this one, okay? He starts telling the story about the Shunammite woman and how he promises the sun, and then the sun dies,

and he restores the sun back to life. And he's like, it was the craziest thing I ever had seen. I just couldn't even imagine a scene like that. And in she walks, and she's like, king, I just want to know if I can have my land back. And he's like, that's the one. That's the lady. And the king is so moved by what he sees, so moved by what God has done, that he says, don't just give her the land back.

Make sure she has all of the produce of the land. In other words, all the proceeds that she would have earned over the last seven years for that land. Two things I want to tell you about that. Number one is this. When we serve God, God always gets the glory. And that's what happens here. God was glorified through the work that Elisha had done. And because God was glorified, the people were blessed,

including the one who had seen so much of God's work in her life. And it's important to know that, because it's easy for us to want to do good works and be praised for it. But when we really do God's work, God's always glorified, and people are always blessed. But the second thing I'll tell you is this. We've already said it once. We're able to do exceedingly abundantly

above all we can ever ask or think. It's just who God is. It's just what God does. Whether it's on this side of eternity or on the other side of eternity, God will always do more than we can ever imagine. And that's what he does for the Shunammite woman, all because of the work of God and the ministry of Elisha. Well, next we come to a scene with Elisha and Hazael.

It says in verse seven, Then Elisha came to Damascus. Now Ben-Hadad, king of Aram, was sick. And it was told him, saying, The man of God has come here. The king said to Hazael, Take a gift in your hand and go to meet the man of God and inquire of the Lord by him, saying, Will I recover from this sickness? And Hazael went to meet him and took a gift in his hand,

even every kind of good thing of Damascus, 40 camel loads. And he came and he stood before him and he said, Your son, Ben-Hadad, king of Aram, has sent me to you, saying, Will I recover from this sickness? Now I find this to be kind of interesting because this is an enemy king, a king who had at one point in time besieged the city of Samaria. And as he, and even though he's this enemy king, Elisha can come and go in this land as he sees fit.

As a matter of fact, Ben-Hadad refers to him as, or Hazael refers to him as my father, right? Like because of the work of God that he had done, it superseded his nationality at that point in time. And he had that freedom. He had that freedom of movement. And so he has that. So he goes to Damascus and the king gets sick. And so he sends his servant, his right-hand man, Hazael.

He says, I want you to go to Elisha. Go to the man of God because his reputation preceded him for being a man of God. He said, go to him and find out what's going to happen with my sickness. And so he goes with this huge gift, 40 camel loads. That would take a little time, right? To deliver. It comes with 40 camel loads of things. And he says, will I recover from this sickness?

And Elisha said to him, go say to him, you will surely recover. But the Lord has shown me that he will certainly die. He fixed his gaze steadily upon him until he was ashamed. And the man of God wept. And Hazael said, why does my Lord weep? He answered, because I know the evil that you will do to the sons of Israel. Their strongholds you will set on fire. Their young men you will kill with the sword.

And their little ones you will dash. And their little ones you will dash. And their little ones you will dash. And their little ones you will dash. And their women you will rip open. They said, what is your servant who is but a dog that he should do this great thing? And Elisha answered, the Lord has shown me that you will be king over Aram. And so he's able to give him the word.

He says, listen, as far as the sickness goes, he's going to recover from that. But the problem is, he's still going to die. Now, Elisha looks at him for a long time. And I don't know how long you think long is, but long enough that it says he was embarrassed, right? You ever had anybody just stare at you? Listen, that's my problem. I stare at people. I don't mean to.

You ever had anybody just stare at you? And they're just like, and the longer they stare at you, the more you're just like, what is wrong? Like, is it on my face? What's my problem? He stared at him so long that he started to be, that Hazael's kind of going, what are we doing here? Why are you staring? But then Elisha begins to weep. Elisha begins to cry as he,

as he looks at Hazael. The reason why he begins to weep is because he knows what's going to happen to his nation. Now, before we get into that part, I just have a question for you. As you see the things happening in our nation, have you wept over it? And I ask this very seriously. I know not everybody's an emotional person. I know I'm a little bit of an anomaly when it comes to that.

But I'm being very serious when I ask this. We live in a nation that's very fallen right now. We live in a nation that's broken right now. I don't care who the leader is. We live in a nation that's very broken by sin. As you're watching the things take place in LA and in Portland and all over the place, do you ever just weep over those things? Or are you just mad that your political agenda isn't being met?

Because no matter where your politics stands, at the end of the day, the people living in our nation agree with him or disagree with him. We have to remember, they are people created in the image of God. Whether they're going to deal with judgment only on this side of eternity or on this side and the other side of eternity, it still breaks God's heart. And I don't know that we as the church have ever come to a place, especially in the United States of America, where we weep over what's going on in our country.

Because that's exactly what Elisha does. Even though the northern kingdom is compromised, even though the northern kingdom is compromised, even though the northern kingdom is completely lost in idolatry right now, even though the northern kingdom is completely rebellious against God right now, even though they're doing everything that's opposed to God right now, when he looks Hazael in the eye, God gives him the vision of what's about to happen to his people, and it broke him. And I'm here to tell you right now, if we don't start understanding a little bit of brokenness, listen, you can't reach people with the gospel. I just watched a little teaching, I just watched a little teaching today about what is your why.

Why do you do the things that you do? Why do you pursue what you pursue? And I'm here to tell you right now, if our why is not wrapped up in the heart of God, which is broken over sin, then we've missed the point. Then we've missed the mark. Because that's God's why. And that needs to be our why as well. So he, he looks at him square in the eye and he just begins to weep.

And he's like, what's wrong? He goes, I see what you're going to do to my people. And he lists off all these horrific things. And, and Hazael goes, who am I? What do you think? What kind of guy do you think I am to do all of this? He says, well, you're going to become the king. God's shown me that. Well, let's finish the story. He says, so he departed verse 14 from, from Elisha.

And he returned to his master who said to him, what did Elisha say to him? What did he say to you? And he answered, he told me that you would surely recover. On the following day, he took the cover or a blanket. He dipped it in water. He spread it on his face so that he died. And Hazael became king in his place. Now, I hope this raised a disturbing question for you.

I hope you find yourself asking the question, does this mean that Hazael had no choice in this matter? Did he just create a self-fulfilling prophecy in the mind of Hazael? You know why? Because we should wrestle with things like that every now and then. My answer to you is absolutely not. If anything, he created a warning for Hazael. This is what you're capable of,

even though you don't realize it and you have a choice to make. Will you do what you don't realize that you're capable of? Or will you run from that? Because every time a warning from God is given, those are the two choices that we have. Will you heed the warning and run from it? Will you run from it? Will you heed the warning and run from it? Or will you fail to see the warning and dive headlong into it?

Because that's what he creates for Hazael right now, is he creates for him a choice. Of course, we see how he responds. The pressure became too much. The temptation became too much. And he took out his king. And we'll find that later on, he does exactly what God said he would do. But at the end of the day, he still had the choice to make. And so Hazael ends up taking over the Aramean kingdom.

And now we jump down into the last story that we'll cover tonight. Now we'll jump down into the southern kingdom. And we'll talk about that just a little bit. It says, Now in the fifth year of Joram, the son of Ahab, who is Jehoram that we've talked about before, Jehoshaphat being the king of Judah, Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat, that gets confusing, king of Judah became king.

And he was 32 years old when he became king. And he reigned eight years in Jerusalem. He walked in the way of the kings of Israel, just as the house of Ahab had done. For the daughter of Ahab became his wife. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord. Listen, if you're an underlining sort of a person, I want you to underline that verse. Because I think that verse is so vastly important for us.

Because it says, Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat who was one of the great kings of Judah. Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat, An amazing man of God who set up teachers to go into the land to teach the people about what it meant to follow God. His son ends up becoming this evil king who does evil in the sight of the Lord. But did you pay attention to who he married?

He married the daughter of Ahab. Ahab and Jezebel, right? Worst king the northern kingdom had. He marries his daughter. I say that because bad company corrupts good morals, right? That's a message for the teenagers. No, it's not. That's a message for everybody. You know when most people screw up the worst in their lives? When they get old. You know why? Because you get prideful.

Oh, I've never had this problem before. I'm doing great. And you get relaxed and you stop pursuing God. Maybe you let some people into your life that should have never been there. And they create an issue for you. Listen, bad company corrupts good morals. Whether you're a teenager or whether you're not a teenager. You have to be careful who you surround yourself with.

Because the people that you surround yourself with are the people that you become like. And if they're great and they love Jesus and they're pushing you towards God, that's what you're going to become like. But if they're not and they're out doing all of the things of the world, that's what you're going to become like. Because we become like the people that we surround ourselves with.

And so this is what happens to him. But also I want you to take note of verse 19. I actually highlighted this one. I don't highlight very many verses, but I highlighted this one. It says, However, the Lord was not willing to destroy Judah for the sake of David, his servant, since he had promised him to give a lamp to him through his sons always. I love the balance of verse 19.

Unfortunately, Jehoram made his choice. And his choice was to pursue the things of the world. But God, in spite of his faithlessness, always remains faithful to his promises. Because God is always faithful to his promises. Because God is always faithful to his promises. Because God is always faithful to his promises. Because God is always faithful to his promises.

Because God is always faithful to his promises. Listen, even when we are faithless, he remains faithful. And we can rest in the fact that that's who God is. And so it says, In his days, verse 20, Edom revolted from under the hand of Judah and made a king over themselves. And Jehoram crossed over to Zer and all his chariots with him. And he arose by night and he struck the Edomites who had surrounded him and the captains of his chariots.

But his army fled to their tent. And so Edom revolted against Judah to this day. Then Libna revolted at the same time. The rest of the acts of Jehoram and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? And of course, because of a failure morally in his life, it creates a failure politically in his life. And his reign and his rule was very unsuccessful.

So we'll pick up in verse 24 of chapter 8 next week. Because again, it flows directly into chapter 9. So it's just going to work better that way. So we'll stop there for tonight. So, Father, we come to you now. And Lord, I just pray that you would help us to, Lord, first of all, pay attention to the people that we surround ourselves with. But Lord, that we would also just simply believe what you're able to do.

Lord, I'm reminded of the man who brought his son to Jesus. He said, anything's possible to him who believes. And the man said, Lord, I believe. But would you help my unbelief? And so, Lord, I pray that for all of us tonight. Father, we believe. We wouldn't be here if we didn't. But Lord, we still need you to help in our unbelief. Our unbelief that sometimes causes us to walk in sin instead of victory.

Our unbelief that sometimes causes us to walk in fear instead of faith. Our unbelief that sometimes causes us to see the blessings all around us but never experience them in our own lives. Lord, would you help us just to rest? And who you are, in Jesus' name. Amen. Be blessed. Amen.