2 Kings 8, beginning at verse 7. Then Elisha went to Damascus. And Ben-Hadad king of Syria was sick. And it was told him, saying, The man of God has come here. And the king said to Hazael, Take a present in your hand and go to meet the man of God and inquire of the Lord by him, saying, Shall I recover from this disease? So Hazael went to meet him and took a present with him of every good thing of Damascus, forty camel loads. And he came and stood before him and said, Your son Ben-Hadad, king of Syria, has sent me to you, saying, Shall I recover from this disease? And Elisha said to him, Go, say to him, You shall certainly recover. However, the Lord has shown me that he will really die. And he set his countenance in a stare till he was ashamed. And the man of God wept. And Hazael said, Why is my Lord weeping? And he answered, because I know the evil that you will do to the children of Israel. Their strongholds you will set on fire, and their young men you will kill with the sword, and you will dash their children and rip open their women with child. So Hazael said, what is your servant, a dog, that he should do this gross thing? And Elisha answered, the Lord has shown me that you will reign over Syria. Then he departed from Elisha and came to his master who said to him, what did Elisha say to you? And he answered, he told me that you would surely recover. But it happened on the next day that he took a thick cloth and dipped it in water and spread it over his face so that he died. And Hazael reigned in his place. Let's pray. Mighty God, our Father in heaven, we pray that you would help us to understand this text. Show us the ironies here. Show us that you raise up kings and set down kings, but that your heart for your people never changes. Help me to speak boldly and powerfully. Help thou my weak wit and sharpen my dull tongue. free us from distraction, bring us into Your presence, we pray, in Christ's name. And all God's people said, Amen. Well, tonight we come to a companion text to this morning's sermon. This morning we saw that God works all things after the counsel of His own will. Tonight we see tears of God. I could say in a sense that just because God controls everything, just because God is fundamentally in charge and everything that takes place is part of the plan, doesn't mean that God enjoys it all. This analogy may be unholy, it may even be unhinged. I like to think that after Shakespeare wrote the last words of Fortinbras' speech at the end of Act 5 of Hamlet, he could have pushed his manuscript to one side, put his head on his desk, and wept. Now Shakespeare had complete creative control. He was writer, producer, director, and possibly even lead actor. And yet it seems entirely compatible with all of that for him to truly weep over the fate of Hamlet, Gertrude, and the rest of the characters. We've seen over and over in these texts in Kings that the Prophet shows us something of what God is like. The Prophet is the stand-in for God such that To insult the prophet is to insult God. To mock the prophet is to mock God. To listen to the prophet is to listen to God. So tonight when we see the prophet weep, we need to understand something about God's heart for His people. Certainly at the very least the truth that in Christ God weeps. for your sorrow and your pain and your hurt as you are a member of his people. So this passage is about God raising up a king and taking down a king. But we're told about this, this foreign kingdom, Syria, in order to show us God's heart for his people. The first thing we see is that God sets up Elisha's encounter with Hazael. This was God's initiative, if you remember from 1 Kings 19. God told Elijah, here's the answer to Israel's apostasy. Elijah reenacted and reversed Israel's trip to the promised land. Israel had come from Sinai to the Promised Land, the 12 tribes under the leadership of Moses. Elijah reversed that trip. He left, went south into the desert, and then went all the way back to Sinai, as if to say, God, we need to go back to square one. We need to start over. He got to Sinai, and he said, God, you need to judge your people. God's response was, there are three men who will judge my people. One of them is Jehu, the son of Nimshi. We'll get to him in the next chapter. The next one is Elisha, son of Shaphat, who we've been looking at for the last six chapters. And then the third one is Hazael over Syria. So God said back in 1 Kings 19, here's my plan. Here's how I will address my people's wickedness. Here's what I'm going to do to kind of reset with Israel. The one who escapes from the sword of Hazael, Elisha will kill. The one who escapes from the sword of Elisha, Jehu will kill. That was God's promise back in 1 Kings 19. So Elisha has been on the scene for obviously some years now, and he finally wins his way up to Damascus. Elisha went to Damascus. He wasn't invited. He brought himself there. Somehow, again, by the providence of God, Ben-Hadad got wind of it. Now this is the same Ben-Hadad who in previous chapters has been very upset that Elisha was telling the king of Israel the words he spoke in his bedroom. This is the same king who two chapters ago tried to send an army to capture Elisha in Dothan. Now he's changed his tune a little bit. He's on the brink of death. So God makes the first move by sending Elisha into Syrian territory. And it's very ironic at this point, then, that Ben-Hadad says, go inquire of Yahweh. Find out whether I will recover. We saw, right, the first chapter of 2 Kings revolves around Ahaziah, son of Ahab, and his inquiry of the same nature. Will I recover? But Ahaziah was asking Beelzebub. And for that, God killed him. He didn't want to ask Elijah, he asked Beelzebub. Well, here we have a pagan king, manifestly not a worshipper of God in any sense, saying, I want to ask the true God whether I'll recover. The king of Syria has more faith than the king of Israel. What's wrong with this picture? It's almost like suggesting that the Dalai Lama has more theological correctness than the Pope. What? Huh? King of Syria knows God better than the King of Israel. Irony's mount. But what's the second irony? Well, that bin Hadad, by sending Hazael, assures his own demise. God sent Elisha to Damascus, but Ben-Hadad trusted the wrong underling. If Ben-Hadad had sent anybody else, he might have lived out the week. But he sent Hazael. Now, the way Hazael is introduced in the narrative is very odd. Verse 8, he just appears out of nowhere. Not Hazael, son of so-and-so, his attendant, Not one of his officers, named Hazael, happened to be standing there, but we don't know who this guy is. And Assyrian records from this same time refer to him as a son of nobody. He had no social standing. He apparently didn't have any official position. And yet suddenly, here he is in the narrative. And before we know it, he's king of Syria. Why? because that was God's plan all along, as announced years before to Elijah at Mount Sinai. Well, very ironic. A pagan king is trying to do the right thing, is reaching out to the true God, and in so doing, he assures his own demise. This is how subtle the providence of God is. This is how subtle God working all things after the counsel of his own will is. God didn't have to make Hazel a puppet on a string to bring about the events of our passage tonight. He exposed him, right, as our confession of faith said. Exposed him to the objects that would tempt him to sin. And it worked. Well, secondly, Elisha anoints Hazael, so to speak. Hazael brings him this gift, 40 camel loads of the best goods of Damascus, something all of us would probably enjoy receiving. No record of whether Elisha took it or not. What does Elisha say? A riddling answer, verse 10. Go say to him, you shall certainly recover. However, the Lord has shown me that he will really die. Did Elisha lie to Hazael? And there's two ways to say no. One way to say no is, well the text is corrupt at this point. And the Hebrew word for him and the Hebrew word for not sound alike. They're homophones, homonyms. They both sound like lo. So lo might mean to him, or it might say, or it might mean not. So the text might actually read, go say, you shall certainly not recover. And there are some Hebrew manuscripts that say that. But most manuscripts say, go say to him, you shall certainly not recover. So one way to get rid of the alleged lie is textual corruption. The other way to say it's not a lie is a little more subtle. You've got to think like a lawyer for this one. Ben Haydad asked, will I recover from this sickness? Elisha responded, all other things being equal, the sickness is not going to kill you. It won't be the sickness that does you in. Yeah, you'll certainly recover, barring any unforeseen contingencies from this sickness. And so, Elisha could say one and the same time, if nothing else happens, you will recover, and yet, the Lord has shown me, he will certainly die. Now it's true, you would almost need the counterfactual. You would certainly recover. If nobody kills you first, you'll recover. But prophetic oracles are well known for being a little bit of a riddling nature. You shall certainly recover, but the Lord has shown me he shall certainly die. And at that point, Elisha receives this searing vision. It's almost as though his prophetic gift takes him into the future in his mind's eye He witnesses Hazael on the throne of Syria. And he sees cities in flames. He sees young men laying dead on the battlefield, lying dead on the battlefield. He sees women, their bellies torn open. He sees little children gutted there on the battlefield or in their homes, in living rooms all across Israel. This is the prophet's searing vision that results in his blinding tears. The prophet weeps when he sees what Hazael will do. And yet he goes through with it. Right? Elisha was not the one who came to Sinai and said, God, it's time. You must punish your people. God said, Elijah, you're right. I will punish my people. I will send this nasty king of Syria to scourge them. So Elisha fulfills God's commission even though he sees exactly what it entails for his own people. He sees the disaster that's inherent in this act. And yet, even though he didn't apparently, literally pull out a flask of oil and say, I anoint you king over Syria. He dropped enough hints that anyone with half a mind to mount a coup would have been more than willing to do so. And of course, Hazael was so minded. Hazael, on the other hand, verse 11, was so amazed by this word, you're going to be king, that he just kind of lapsed into a trance. Really? What? Me? And what shook him out of it was Elisha's tears. The prophet wept. God is grieved to his heart, not only over the sin of the wicked, but even over the death of the wicked. Do you have this kind of grief over the death of the wicked? And not just the wicked out there, but the wicked who actually hurt you. Someone who does this kind of thing to you and to your family. And Elisha doesn't say, I am the iron minister of justice. I believe that Israel is far gone in idolatry. And they deserve whatever you're going to give them, Hazel. God Himself tells us, I have no pleasure in the death of the one who dies. God says our wickedness grieves Him to His heart. He does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men. Now does this mean that God is anything other than blessed? Holy? Immutable? No. And yet, in whatever sense it's appropriate to understand it, the Bible is very clear. He is grieved, not only by our sin, but even by the punishment our sin deserves. The grief of God is reflected in the tears of Elisha. So Elisha sobs, but he goes through with it. He doesn't say, wait, I see what you're going to do. Never mind. I'm going to go have a little chat with Ben. Hey, Dad. And we're going to get you clapped in irons and hauled off to the slammer right away. He doesn't say that. He knows what's going to happen. He grieves what's going to happen. And then he makes it happen. So Hazael seizes the throne, verse 14, goes back, oh yeah, Ben-Hadad, you're going to be fine in a few days. The prophet was so happy. He thought you would just do great. Then he takes the pillow or something and suffocates him and becomes king in his place. Nice handy little coup. No one needs to know. He must have just choked while he was sleeping. Sad, sad day for Syria. Of course, we'll read over the coming chapters about the kind of evil that Hazael does to Israel. What do we learn from this story? On its face, it doesn't appear to be a very edifying story. Stories of how to commit a coup 101 with prophetic authorization. But it seems very clear that Point number one is that sin is so bad it has to be punished. That's why all these things were happening. That's why Hazael was anointed. It was because of the sin of God's people. The bottom line reality therefore, because we're all sinful, is that God's sovereignty will hurt you. Lord willing, there won't be some kind of ISIS mastermind, some kind of Hazael, king of Syria, who comes into your life and ravages you and the people you know. But at some level, and it may not be this level, hopefully it won't be this level, but we're all going to lose parents, Most of us are going to lose kids, jobs, houses, money. All of us, at some point, unless the Lord comes back, will lose our lives. God's plan will hurt you. God's sovereignty entails and ordains your suffering and mine. That's something we need to be aware of up front. God cared about Israel and yet he sent Hazael, in a sense, right? Gave Hazael enough authorization to do what he did. So after all these sermons on how God provides, you know the way the text is set up, God provides in every chapter from chapter 3 through the beginning of chapter 8, and we saw last week how 8, 1 through 6 is a call to us. How are you going to respond to the God who provides? Is this the bitter punchline of it all? Yeah, God gives, but He's an Indian giver who gives only to yank it back. Yeah, God gives you All kinds of stuff. He's powerful over debt, death, disease, slavery, floating axe heads, and all the rest of it. But that power is not for you. That power is just there to fake you out. Made you trust me for a minute. Is that God's plan? No. That's not what this passage is telling us. God does not take delight in chastising His people, but if you're not chastised, you're not a son. Whom the Lord loves, He chastens and scourges every son whom He receives. Hebrews 12. It's for discipline that you have to endure. Our earthly fathers chastened us for a few days as seemed best to them, but He, for our profit, that we might share His holiness. Why does God's plan include us suffering? Because He wants us to be holy. Now that's not what this passage focuses on. This passage focuses on the reality of suffering and then adds the caveat, sort of, that God weeps, that Christ weeps over your suffering. He is with you in your pain, not as a fellow sufferer, but as Lord over your pain. He wept over Lazarus, even though he knew that in five minutes he was going to undo Lazarus' death. He didn't say, come on people, we're going to have a resurrection party here in about six minutes. The Son of God is with you in the furnace of affliction, as He was with the three young men. So we confess as Christians that God cannot suffer, that He is impassable. He has no passive power because that would mean something greater than Him or other than Him could come in and change Him. But even our God who cannot suffer has a Son who suffered not only more than we ever will, but even more than we ever can. Christ suffered in the flesh once for sins. Christ wept over the sorrow of this world. He wept over the reality of death, just as Elisha wept over the punishment that God would send on his people. Can Shakespeare genuinely weep over Hamlet's fate? Can Christ genuinely weep over Jerusalem? We know not only that he can, but that he did. Our culture is a culture that insists not only that we have a right to the pursuit of happiness, but also that insists that we need to exercise it. And if you don't find enough happiness, that's okay. We have a pill for the people like you that will make you feel relatively happy. But though the Bible tells us to be joyful, it doesn't say you have to be happy all the time. It's better to go to the house of mourning than the house of feasting. Sorrow is better than laughter. Even in laughter, the heart may be hurting, Solomon said. So when you suffer, not if, but when, how will you respond? Will you be incensed? Will you say this is wrong? I'm not mentally prepared for this. I shouldn't be undergoing this. This isn't what I had planned for my life. Will you say, this is what God had planned for my life. And I still trust Him and I know that He rejoices with those who rejoice and weeps with those who weep. Will you remember the tears of Jesus? Will you remember that He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked? That He weeps for you and with you in your sorrow. Put your trust in Him. He is Lord of your life and Lord of your pain. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, You are Lord of our life and Lord of our pain. We ask that You would teach us to know You better, to know Your heart. As the one who raises up kings and puts down kings, who takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, who does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men. Father, show us your character. Show us your many-splendored radiance. Teach us to grieve over the punishment of the wicked. Yes, we cry, how long, O Lord? Faithful and true, But we know that the day is coming when you will wipe away all tears from all faces, and the reproach of your people you will take away from the earth. Bring that day quickly, we beg, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, your suffering Son, our suffering Savior. And all God's people said, Amen.