That's it, so let's open up our Bibles this morning, evening, to the book of 2 Kings. What are we? Morning, evening, what day? I have no idea. So open your Bibles up to 2 Kings, and we're gonna be in 2 Kings, and we're gonna be in chapter 8 this evening. I recently mentioned hell. in church on a Thursday night and someone jokingly said, I can't believe you said hell in church. And I said, well, heck is where you're going to end up if you don't believe in gosh. And so anyway, it's just a joke. All right. So open your Bibles up to two places and We're gonna be here and then I also want you to turn over to, if you will, to Hebrews chapter 12. Because I want to read something there and kind of tie it in with what we're gonna look at this evening. Hebrews chapter 12. Now, the book of Hebrews When you look at the book of Hebrews, and we'll go back to this book someday, we've only gone through it I think once, but the book of Hebrews gives us some wonderful insight to the kind of father that God is, and how God's love works in the lives of his people. Now, we might look sometimes in the Old Testament and go, man, God really dealt harsh with Israel. Or He may be even seeming unloving at times because of how He chastised or disciplined them. But listen to these words in the book of Hebrews, chapter 12, and we're going to read a few verses down. It really gives us some insight into the nature and the character of God, and also how God deals with us as His children. Hebrews 12, beginning at verse 1, it says, Therefore, we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself. lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin. And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as sons, or you might add daughters in there if you want to, as sons and daughters. But he says, my son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord. Do not be discouraged when you are rebuked by him. For whom the Lord loves, he chastens and scourges every son whom he receives. If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom a father does not chasten? And if you are without chastening, of which all become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the father of our spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them. But he, for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful. Nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. So in light of Hebrews chapter 12, and in light of how God has dealt with the nation of Israel, we can safely say that God was doing what he did with Israel because he was displaying his love for them. We've seen that the Lord sent them prophets to speak to them, to teach them, to reveal his will to them, to reason with them, to call them to repentance, to warn them, and even, at times, miraculously deliver them. He's even sent famines and their enemies to overtake them just to gain their attention, all in the hopes that they would turn back to him And so it's true that God does discipline, God does chasten those that he loves. And it says, if you are not being chastened ever, then you are an illegitimate child and you're not really the Lord's. So when you go through chastening as a Christian, that means you're a legitimate son or daughter. Now, does God take pleasure? in having to discipline his children? Not at all. I don't believe that God takes pleasure in that, but even as I, as a father and now as a grandfather, I don't enjoy having to discipline my grandchildren. But I've had to on a few occasions. I remember on a few occasions having to spank my children growing up. That was a form of discipline I chose to use. I spanked my children and a couple of times I've spanked my grandchildren. My beautiful little granddaughter, she is so beautiful. Her name is Baby Blue. I call her Baby Blue because she had these big blue eyes when she was born. And she's just really beautiful. And so she was with us this last week. And the time or two before that that she was with us, I had to spank her. And I asked her, I said, hey, do you remember that time that grandpa spanked you? And she goes, yes. And I said, do you remember why? And she goes, I was just joking. But she was being defiant and I warned her and warned her two or three times that if you don't lay down and go to bed and you get up again, grandpa's gonna spank you. And I warned her and warned her and warned her and then finally I go back in there and she looks right at me and she just stands up. and just stares at me, like defiantly. So I spanked her, and boy was she mad. And boy, but I hated it. Honestly, I didn't like it, you know? And I remember on a few occasions getting spanked by my dad or my mom, and my mom and dad would say, you know, this is gonna hurt me more than it hurts you. And I was like, yeah, right. You know, as a kid, you thought that. But now as a parent and a grandparent, you understand that. And God says in Ezekiel chapter 33, he says, as surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that, so even with the wicked, when he's having to deal with the wicked, I take no pleasure with the death of the wicked, but rather that they would turn from their ways and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways. Why will you die, O house of Israel? Now, as far as discipline goes, you might say, you know, ask me, do you believe in spanking as a pastor? And some people, Christians, don't believe in spanking. We happened to when we were parenting and all that with our children, and it worked for one or two of them, and then sometimes that didn't work. Sometimes doing a timeout and sending one of the kids to the room would be the better way to do it. I remember with Jariah, our son Jariah was real social. And if you sent him to his room, it was torture. Jared, on the other hand, if you sent him to his room, he didn't like people. He didn't like being around anybody. You send him to his room and he was in heaven. So that wasn't a punishment for him. So spanking worked better for Jared and timeouts worked better for Jariah. I remember one time I came home and I heard this big bunch of noise coming from the bedroom and I'm like what's going on and I could hear this yelling and you know all this noise and a ruckus and I'm only going to say that word ruckus there was a ruckus going back in the room back there so I come back there and I see Dia and she's got Jariah and they're wrestling And she's got, I can't remember if she had a belt or something, she's trying to spank him, but he was too big for her and he was out wrestling her. And I walk in, I go, what are you doing? And she goes, I'm trying to spank him, but he's too strong, you know, kind of thing. And so anyway, you know, we had to deal with some rebellious kids a few times, but... You know, if we, as parents, love our children and discipline them, then how much more God will discipline us because He loves us? Now, I do think that there are times where children don't get disciplined, and I think that's probably why we have an epidemic of brats and deviant behavior. in a lot of children and in a lot of school systems today. My mom was a school teacher for 30 years, I think, and I've talked to several teachers that have been through years and years, 15, 20, 30, 35 years of teaching, and you ask them and they'll say, You know, as time has gone on, it's become harder and harder to be a teacher because the children are so unruly and so undisciplined, and that begins at home. And so they have no respect for authority. You talk to police officers, and there's a lot of that same stuff that goes on, that these young people are not afraid at all to disrespect police officers. And all of that comes from no discipline or no teaching about respect for authority and those kinds of things. As a kid, when I was growing up, if I ever disrespected any adult, another adult, or I got in trouble at school, and this was before cell phones, I can remember a couple of times getting in trouble at school, and by the time I got home, my mom and dad already knew, and I got spanked, back then they could do spankings in school, so I got spanked at school, and then I got home, and guess what happened again? Spanky number two, you know, so so yeah, I always knew that I needed to be careful about the way I behaved or how I treated adults and and stuff like that. So, you know, I think parents need to learn how to discipline their children. It's good for them, even though it's not it's not fun to do. But I think as a nation, we bought into psychology more than the word of God. But God disciplines his children and he teaches us how to discipline our children. and you know psychology today will say you shouldn't spank your children blah blah blah and all I can say is God is wiser than man's wisdom and Proverbs chapter 29 verse 15 says the rod of correction imparts wisdom but a child left to itself disgraces his mother Proverbs 29 17 says discipline your son, and he will give you peace. He will bring delight to your soul. Proverbs 23, 13 says, do not withhold discipline from a child. If you punish him with the rod, he will not die. Punish him with the rod and save his soul from death. Back to that story when I disciplined my little beautiful granddaughter, Baby Blue, the defiant one. She was screaming at the top of her lungs after I spanked her. No, Grandpa! No, Grandpa! And she's like five minutes straight screaming, No, Grandpa! No, Grandpa! And I felt really bad that she was crying so much. So I finally just left her there and went to bed. And so I woke up the next morning. And this is really funny. I wake up the next morning and I'm feeling bad about spanking her. And I'm like, man, she's probably not going to talk to me. She's going to be mad at me. Because a couple of my other grandkids, if you do something like that to them, they won't talk to you for a week. They'll just be mad at you. And that's torture for me. So anyway, I'm thinking to myself, baby blue, man, she's going to be so mad at me this morning. I hear a knock on the door and I'm thinking, oh, it's Baby Blue. She's not mad at me. It wasn't Baby Blue. It was Itty Bitty. And Itty Bitty and her are kind of close to the same age. And Itty Bitty comes in and she saw me spank her. And I said, Itty Bitty, I said, I feel bad that I spanked Baby Blue last night. And she goes, it's all right. She's not dead. It was funny. Anyway, she wasn't mad at me or anything, but it says like that, you know, it says, punish him with a rod and he will not die. Punish him with a rod and save his soul from death. Now keep in mind, this does not mean physical abuse, right? That's not what this is talking about. It's discipline that is done in love in order to instruct correct, change a behavior or an attitude. So it's discipline that corrects and imparts and gives the child understanding or a change of heart or direction. And so children as well as ourselves, because we have a fallen sinful nature, that's why we need at times discipline from God. Proverbs 22, 15 says, folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him. Proverbs 19, 18 says, discipline your son, for in that there is hope. Do not be a willing party to his death. And then this one, it's a shocker to many parents, this proverb, Proverbs 13, 24 says, he who spares the rod hates his son. But he who loves Him is careful to discipline Him. So these are the things that God teaches us. And so God Himself disciplines us. He gives us a model of what it means to love a child by disciplining us. And we can see discipline in the nation of Israel. Proverbs Chapter 3, verse 11 says, My son, do not despise the discipline of the Lord Almighty, and do not resent His rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those that He loves. As the Father, the Son, He delights in. And then Proverbs, this one, Proverbs 12, 1 says, Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates Correction is stupid. Proverbs 10, 17. He who heeds discipline shows the way to life, but whoever ignores correction leads others astray. So Kings, when we're looking at these books, 1 and 2 Kings, are a perfect example of how God disciplined and chastised the nation of Israel, but the problem was instead of them heeding the discipline, they ignored it, and they just kept going further and further into their rebellion against God. They were stubborn, they were stiff-necked. Proverbs says that that attitude or that behavior is stupid. Now let's go ahead and jump into chapter eight and see what's happening in our story here in chapter eight as we continue here in 2 Kings. And so let's read the first six verses. Then Elisha, spoke to the woman whose son he had restored to life, saying, arise and go, you and your household, and stay wherever you can, for the Lord has called for a famine. And furthermore, it will come upon the land for seven years. So the woman arose and did according to the saying of the man of God. And she went with her household and dwelt in the land of the Philistines seven years. And it came to pass at the end of the seven years that the woman returned from the land of the Philistines. And when she went to make an appeal to the king for her house and for her land, the king talked with Gehazi, the servant of the man of God, saying, Tell me, please, all the great things Elisha has done. now it happened as he was telling the king how he had restored the dead to life and that there was a woman whose son he had restored to life appealing to the king for her house and for her land and Gehazi said my lord oh king this is the woman And this is her son whom Elisha restored to life. And when the king asked the woman, she told him, so the king appointed a certain officer for her saying, restore all that was hers and all the proceeds of the field from the day that she left the land until now. So let's just kind of summarize the story real quickly here. We remember this lady, she's a Shunammite woman, and we remember her from back in chapter four. Elisha had raised her son from the dead. And they were friends. Elisha was friends with her and the family. And she, according to back in that chapter, was a very well-off woman. She was generous. In fact, that's a kind of a neat quality. When you see someone who's well-off and generous, it's not always common. Sometimes people that are very well-off are greedy. But she was both generous and well-off. and she helped Elisha and she supported Elisha in his ministry. Remember she even asked her husband and had him build a room onto her house so that whenever Elisha and his servant was coming through town he had a place to stay. Now In turn, because of that, I believe the Lord is going to bless this woman for her generosity. And not only did she receive a miracle in her son who had died, she received him back from the dead. You remember Elisha went and laid on top of him and he came back to life. But we see here also God spared her and protects her and delivers her and her family, her son from the famine that God was gonna bring upon Israel for the sake of discipline. He was gonna discipline the nation of Israel and for seven years it was gonna be a famine. And it's really neat how we see these principles that are displayed here, the principles of God's love and mercy and grace in taking care of his children. And God blessing this woman who was very generous, Jesus said this, he said, give and it shall be given unto you a good measure, pressed down and shaken together and running over, will be poured into your life, for with the measure that you use, it'll be measured to you. Psalm 37 25 says, I was young, but now I am old. Yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread. They are generous. and lend freely, and their children will be blessed. And so this principle is coming true for this woman who had been so generous towards Elisha and the work of God. Philippians 4, 19 gives a promise from God to those who would be generous towards him. He says, and my God will meet or supply or fill full all of your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus. And right above that, Paul says, when you give generously, God will take care of you. Ecclesiastes 11 says, cast your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will find it again. So we see this principle coming true in this woman's life. First of all, the Lord warns her and her family to flee from the famine that was coming. She left everything behind in her household and when they come back, someone had either become a squatter or the government had taken over her land or whatever it was. But this was a woman who was blessed by God and God delivered her from his judgment. I had a conversation today with a person about this idea. I watched a video this guy sent me to watch and in the video this Christian guy was saying how the rapture of the church is not going to happen and that the Lord is going to bring the church, we're going to have to go through the tribulation period. And he says that, you know, we who teach the rapture, the pre-trib rapture, are lying to everybody, and that if you go through the pre-tribulation rapture, or it doesn't happen, that all of us are going to fall away because we're just going to think, oh, the Bible's not real, the gospel's not real, or we're going to fall for the Antichrist because we're not going to recognize him, because we were expecting Jesus Christ. All these dumb ideas that he was kind of throwing out there that why the pre-tribulation rapture isn't true. And I said, listen, you look back and you look at God sparing Noah. God's going to judge the earth. He's going to judge the wicked. What does he do? He brings Noah and his family to a place of safety. Right? Then he brings judgment. Lot. Same thing. Lot is in a wicked place. God's going to bring judgment. What does he do first? He removes Lot and his family. And you just see this as a pattern. And so, you know, I kind of sarcastically said, yeah, this is how God is. He's going to send his bride, whom he loves, whom he laid down his life for, to deliver them from sin, to deliver them from the world, to deliver them from Satan, and then just to test to see if they really love him. He's going to let him go to the tribulation and be murdered and slaughtered and beheaded. That's how much he loves us. And I kind of sarcastically said that. And this guy said, you shouldn't talk sarcastically like that about the post-tribulation rapture. And I said, well, it's a bad doctrine. I said to the guy, and then he said, well, you shouldn't be sarcastic, that's not nice. And I said, okay, well, let me just put it this way, that doctrine belongs in the trash. How's that? And so anyway, so I believe that God will spare, you know, He's always done that. And He does that here with this woman and her family. The judgment's gonna come, a famine's gonna come, and he says, get out, I'm gonna protect you. And so I do believe that the Lord will protect us from the wrath that is going to come. So Elisha speaks here to the woman. He forewarns her of a seven-year famine that was going to come upon the land, and that she should leave and flee to safety. He says, arise, go, you and your household, and stay wherever you can, for the Lord has called for a famine. Now notice these words. The famine was directly from God. Why? For the sake of discipline on the sinful nation of Israel in their apostasy and their idolatry. Matthew Henry says this, if less judgments do not prevail to bring men to repentance, he will send greater and longer. This famine continued seven years. And then he says, If men will walk contrary to him, he will heat the furnace yet even hotter. And so this is kind of what's going on and why God's disciplining the nation of Israel for their idolatry. Now, the woman, remember she's a believer, and she believes that the word that was spoken through Elisha is gonna happen. So she abruptly, in faith, as a step of faith, leaves. And what is faith, what is belief? It's simply taking God at His Word and then acting upon it appropriately. So believing and then doing. So she believed. The famine hadn't hit yet, but she believed. Elisha said it was going to happen. He said it's coming. And so in faith, she takes a step of faith, her and her family, and they leave. And that's the kind of thing that pleases the Lord. When we believe and we hear what He says and we act upon it, we apply it, we do it, we're doers of the Word, not hearers only. And so she hears and then she does. Now look at verse 2 and verse 3 as we continue. It says, So the woman arose and did according to the saying of the man of God. And she went with her household and dwelt in the land of the Philistines seven years. And it came to pass at the end of the seven years that the woman returned from the land of the Philistines and she went to make an appeal to the king for her house and for her land. Now, like I said a while ago, when she comes back from seven years, and she waited seven years, And so seven years pass, she comes back to where she had been, to her own land, her own house, and apparently somebody was there, squatters or renters that didn't give her any money for her property or whatever, or if it had been confiscated by the government, we don't know for sure, but I love how God's divine providence works in this situation, and how God's timing worked on her behalf. Notice, this is no coincidence, because notice what's going on right when she shows up. It says, Now this is interesting because this king, he is not a believer. He's a pagan king. He's an idolater. But he is interested to hear about all the amazing things that God had done through Elisha. So he's talking to Gehazi, one of Elisha's servants, and he says, Now it happened as he was telling the king how he had restored the dead to life, that there was a woman whose son he had restored to life appealing to the king for her house and for her land and Gehazi said my lord oh king this is the woman and this is her son whom Elisha restored to life so right when he's telling that story she shows up and there's the the kid that had been raised from the dead from the dead And so, you know, Gehazi had seen many miracles and got to see the amazing things that God had done. But this guy's interesting because he's kind of interested in spiritual things, but what it shows me is that you can come close to salvation Maybe even have an interest in the things of God, maybe a curiosity, and still miss heaven altogether because you never fully respond or submit your heart or your life to the Lord fully. I believe that there's many people today in the United States who have heard the gospel throughout their life. They've gone to church over and over again. and they've heard it but they've never really surrendered their hearts in belief to the Lord and there's a difference and maybe they have all this knowledge up here in their heads you start to talk to them about the Lord and they can maybe even quote scripture or they can talk about a sermon or whatever and they have head belief but not a heart belief and there's a difference between head belief and heart belief and someone said the difference between head belief and heart belief is 12 inches The difference between salvation and hell are 12 inches. You can have it up here, but if you don't have it here, it's not gonna get you to heaven. And I wonder how many people who almost gave their lives to Jesus, who sat in churches, who had an interest or a curiosity in the things of God, but they never quite made the commitment, or who thought, you know what, I'll do it later, I have time. For now, right now, I'm having fun, I'm living my own life, and this has probably happened countless times already. And then, boom, something happens, and they're gone. And in a blink of an eye, they close their eyes, and the next blink they open, if they did, they're in hell. And eternity has begun. And they're separated from God. They're lost for eternity. And they're thinking, man, I meant to get right with God. And then they'll be like, sorry, God. And God says, it's too late. It's too late. And so, you know, I think there's going to be a lot of people in hell who were procrastinators and, you know, they listened to the devil's favorite word, manana, you got time. Don't worry about it. That's a lie. That's one of Satan's best lies, that you got time. Now, this king is curious about Elisha and God and these miracles. And he seems to take an interest in the spectacular or the supernatural. Remember we just read last Sunday when King Herod, he wants to see Jesus. Because he'd heard about all these amazing things that Jesus had done. And he hoped that Jesus would do some miracle in front of him. And so he just wanted the ooh and the ah and the spectacular, right? But his heart was far from the Lord. And many people, they follow Jesus to see the miracles or the excitement or the spectacular. They'll have an interest in that, but they don't have a submitted life. And I just wanna encourage you, man. Make sure your heart and your life is committed to the Lord. So he says, hey Gehazi, tell me about all the cool stuff. all the awesome miracles all the great things Elisha has done and so he's there listening and right then God in his providence brings the lady and the little boy who had been raised from the dead, and there she is standing there right in front of him with this little boy. So Gehazizai says, look, Lord, my Lord the King, she is, and here he is. And this is not coincidence. This is so cool how God does this. This is God's divine timing, his providence, and taking care of this woman and her family, right? It's so neat. And so it's a wonderful thing to know that our lives are in the hands of God, and He's gonna take care of us. And notice what happens here. He moves upon the king's heart. And it's really cool because Gehazi's story prepared the king to favorably respond to the woman and her son in their time of need. And it's neat how God can work in people's hearts and circumstances to move in our favor, even if they're unbelievers. And this guy was an unbeliever. And this is one of those times that you see it fulfilled. Proverbs chapter 21, verse one says, the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, and he directs it like a water course wherever he pleases. So here's this king now, The woman comes to appeal to get her land and all that back. All this stuff had taken place to prepare his heart. And verse 6 says, And when the king asked the woman, she told him. So the king appointed a certain officer for her, saying, Restore all that was hers and all the proceeds of the field from the day that she left the land until now. And I love what happens here, right? The king gives her back her house, he gives her back her land, and then he gives her back pay for seven years that she lost while the Lord took care of her over there in the land of the Philistines. So not only did the Lord deliver her from the famine and the judgment, he blessed her and provided for her abundantly for seven years of back pay. And you know, I just, I want to kind of emphasize this because, you know, obedience, obedience to the Lord, walking with the Lord, is filled with all kinds of benefits and blessings. Jesus said, whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him. So God was showing himself faithful to this woman and her son once again. All right, let's go ahead and go to our next story, because there's a change in the story, and we'll kind of go and finish this chapter off now. It says, then Elisha went to Damascus. Okay, Damascus is Syria, modern-day Syria. He goes to Damascus, and Ben Hadad, the king of Syria, was sick, And it was told him, saying, the man of God has come here. So Elisha's fame had spread way beyond the borders of Israel. So he's there now, we don't even know why he went there, but he's there. I know it was God's providential hand, but it says the man of God has come here. And the king said to Hazael, take a present in your hand and go 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. Now, when we think of a present, we won't read ahead, don't cheat. When you think of a present, what do you think? Oh, I'll send him a little box and some brownies or something. you know, no, no, or I'll send him, you know, a little ring, a gold or something. No, notice what he sends him. He says, take a present to him. And this is crazy because I look at this and it's like, what? And so he says, yeah, let's start at verse nine again. So, Hazael went to meet him and took a present with him of every good thing of Damascus. 40 camel loads. Oh my gosh, 40 camel loads, that's like, you know, 40 diesels or something, I mean, likened to in their day, right? Or 40 truck worths, or whatever you want to say. 40 camel loads, and he came and stood before him, and he 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. So that's good news, right? Yeah, you're gonna recover. However, the Lord has shown me that he will really die. Now, that seems contradictory, right? He's gonna recover from what's made him sick, but he's gonna die. So it's kind of a catch-22, good news, bad news thing. But look what happens. It says, Now, I don't know who was staring at who. At first I thought it was Elisha that was staring. just after he told him what he said, but then maybe it was this guy who was staring at Elisha because he doesn't understand what in the heck is Elisha talking about. You shall certainly recover, however the Lord has shown me that he will really die. What? So someone's staring at someone. I think it's this servant is staring at Elisha. It says, then he said his countenance in a stare until he was ashamed. He just kept staring at him like, I don't get it. Like, what do you mean? And the man of God wept. That's also odd. Elisha tells him, hey, he's gonna live. And then he says, but then he's gonna die. And then he starts crying. And so, and it says, and Hazael said, why is my Lord weeping? And here we see, you know, a man crying. And I will say this, men, God gave us tear ducts too. And there's nothing wrong sometimes with weeping, but we're gonna see why he was weeping. Elisha starts weeping because of what the Lord shows him. Notice, he answered. He goes, why are you weeping? He answered, because I know the evil that you will do to the children of Israel. He's looking right at the guy. And Elisha says, the king's gonna live, he's gonna be okay from the disease, but then he's gonna die. And then Elisha realizes who's standing in front of him, it's the guy that's gonna do all the damage. Says, 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 listen to this horrible thing, and rip open their women with child. This man that Elisha's talking to here, this servant of the king that comes to bring all these gifts to Elisha, Elisha sees that he's gonna be the one to take over power, and notice what happens. Verse 13, so Hazael said, but what is your servant, a dog, that he should do this gross thing? This is the first time I ever see my name almost in the Bible. But this has two S's, so it's bad. I always say, my name is Joseph Gross with one S. This one has two S's. He says, am I a dog that I should do this gross thing? Elisha said, you're gonna do all this horrible stuff to the children of Israel. You're gonna tear down their strongholds, you're gonna set them on fire. They're young men you're gonna kill with a sword. You're gonna dash their children, killing little children, and you're gonna rip open their women that are with child, that are pregnant. And then he's like, wait a minute, am I a dog that you should, that I would do this gross thing? And Elisha answered, the Lord has shown me that you will become king over Syria. Then he departed from Elisha, and he came to his master who said to him, what did Elisha say to you? And he answered, he told me you will surely recover. He brings the good news, but notice there's evil inside of him. 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. I looked at this and you look at history, you look at the history of Israel, you look at the history of power hungry people, you look at the history of our nation, you look at the history of those that have been assassinated like Kennedy and all that. All of these things that have happened, there was a lot of evil going on in politics behind the scenes. Stuff that's been covered and hidden. And when there's power involved, or there's people that don't want to let go of power, or there's money, people will do evil stuff. We just saw a few days ago, some kid that was just kind of a dork in school decided on his own to outsmart the entire Secret Service and murder the ex-president, right? There's a lot more to it than we probably know. And it's this kind of garbage that happens when there's power involved, there's evil. And this man, he realizes, hey, the Lord said I'm gonna be the king. You're gonna recover, he tells him, you're gonna recover, king. And I'm sure the king was all happy that day. And then he comes in the very next day, after he tells him he's gonna recover, he wets a thick cloth, he dips his cloth in water, spreads it over his face, and suffocates him until he dies, and Hazael reigned in his place. Pretty sick, huh? It says, now, in the fifth year of Joram, the son of Ahab, king of Israel, So now we're back to Israel again. That was over there in Syria. Now in the fifth year of Joram, the son of Ahab, king of Israel, Jehoshaphat, having been king of Judah, Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat, began to reign as king of Judah. He was 32 years old when he became king, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem. And he walked in the way of the kings of Israel. Anytime it says he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, all the kings of Israel, the northern kingdom, were all wicked. Every single one of them. There was not one good one out of the whole bunch. So it says he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, just as the house of Ahab had done, for the daughter of Ahab was his wife. So he apparently got influenced by Ahab's daughter who became his wife and he did evil in the sight of the Lord. That's why guys, men and women, it is so, you gotta be careful. If you're single and you're looking for a husband or for a wife, do not unequal yoke yourself with an unbeliever because if you do and you marry an evil person, guess who's gonna get pulled to do evil? Who's gonna get pulled from the Lord? I've seen this happen so many times. And some of you, there's a few people in the church that love Jesus, but they're married to unbelievers and they have a rough go of it all the time. And so anyway, he gets influenced and he did evil in the sight of the Lord. Ahab, anyone that's associated with Ahab was wicked, his kids, everybody. His wife obviously was wicked. Verse 19, I mean his daughter was wicked that married this guy and his wife is now part of this whole wicked family. Verse 19, yet the Lord would not destroy Judah. See, the Lord had promised David that he was gonna keep someone on the throne so the Lord would not destroy Judah for the sake of his servant David as he promised him to give a lamp to him and his sons forever. So God's keeping his covenant with David in spite of this knucklehead king going rogue and becoming evil. Verse 20, in his days, Edom revolted against Judah's authority. and made a king over themselves. So Judah, the southern kingdom, this guy, he's the king now, and he's married to Ahab's daughter, and apparently, because he was evil and wicked, Edom decides, who was under their authority, decides to revolt. And they make themselves their own king. So Joram went to Zahar, and all his chariots with him, Then he rose by night and attacked the Edomites. So since they rebelled against him, he decides, well, we'll just go to war against them. We'll go wipe them out for rebelling. And it says, he arose at night and attacked the Edomites who had surrounded him and the captains of the chariots, and the troops fled to their tents. Thus Edom has been in revolt against Judah's authority to this day. And Libna revolted at that time. So another revolt happens. Now the rest of the acts of Joram and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? So Joram rested with his fathers and was buried with him or with his fathers in the city of David. Then Ahaziah his son reigned in his place. And that's kind of how it went most of the time. The king would die and then his son would take over. and then he would live for however long and then he'd have a bunch of kids and then some kid would take over. That's what happened with David and Solomon, remember? Solomon took over when King David died. So now, this great, great, great, great grandson of David, Ahaziah, he reigns in his place. In the 12th year, Notice how young he is. Verse 26, Ahaziah was 22 years old when he became king. Now, I can remember a little bit when I was 22 years old. I got married, Dee and I got married, I was 21 and she was 30, 31, I can't remember. She came and got me and robbed the cradle. No, not really, that's not what happened. She was only 18 and I was 21 when we got married. But I remember when I was 21, When you're 21 or 22, you think you know lots of stuff, but now I look back and I didn't know nothing, right? And so you're thinking, man, this is a young guy to become the king. So Ahaziah was 22 years old when he became king and he reigned, notice, one year in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Athaliah, the granddaughter of Omri, king of Israel. And he walked in the way of the house of Ahab. So he does evil too. He does evil, and he did evil in the sight of the Lord, like the house of Ahab. For he was the son-in-law of the house of Ahab. So anyone that seemed to be tied with Ahab was just evil. Like there was influence, evil influence in that family. You know I don't ever want to like dog any family but you know sometimes families are notorious for lots of evil stuff in families. In Bernalillo where I lived there was a few families that were notorious and you didn't even go in their block. You didn't even go near their house, right? Because you might get beat up or whatever. And so they were notorious for stuff like that. I remember I was in 6th grade. And one of the guys from one of those families would rob me on my way home and take my coin, my change. If I had a quarter, if I had 50 cents, he would rob me. And so he robbed me a couple times and he threatened if I didn't give him the money he was gonna beat me up. He was a high schooler and I was a sixth grader. And so finally one day I decided I'm sick of this guy robbing me and I see him coming towards me and I take off running. I'm not gonna let him steal my money this time. And I take off running and he's running after me. I'm not bragging, but I used to be really fast, okay? Used to. If I ran now, I'd probably break my ankle or pull a muscle in my leg or something, or fall. But I was pretty fast back then. And I had learned this trick. I called it the flip trick. So I'm running, but I'm letting him catch up to me on purpose, making him feel good about himself, you know? And I'm running along and I'm running along, and right when he's about to get me, I duck. And he flips and I get up a little bit and he just wipes out on the sidewalk and flips over me. And then I took off running again. And I just remember the last words I heard from him. I wanna kill you. So I spent the next several years running for my life from that guy. But anyway, his family was notorious for doing awful stuff, you know? And anyway, so this is Ahab's family, right? The whole household. Verse 28. Now he went with Joram, the king of Ahab, to a war against Hazael, the king of Syria. This wicked, evil king, right? So now he ties up, he hooks up the southern kingdom of Judah, the northern kingdom, they're all kind of part of the same family. They hook up, they were all Jews, they were all from the 12 tribes of Israel, but literally they're in the same family, from the same household, Ahab's family. So now he went with Joram, the son of Ahab, to war against Hazael, the king of Syria, that brutal king. at Ramath Gilead, and the Syrians wounded Joram. Then King Joram went back to Jezreel to recover from the wounds which the Syrians had inflicted on him at Ramah, when he fought against Hazael, king of Syria. Now we don't know how he got wounded, we don't know if he got wounded. Mostly back then they fought, they shot arrows at each other, threw spears at each other, but they did a lot of hand-to-hand combat. I mean, they fought with swords and shields and stuff like that. So he gets wounded in the battle and he comes back to recover. So when he had fought against Hazael, king of Syria. And Ahaziah, the son of Jehoram, king of Judah, went down to see Joram, the son of Ahab in Jezreel, because he was sick. And we'll pick it up there next time. But so that's kind of where we end off. And so there was a battle. One of the kings gets wounded. You know, you see this whole series of battles and wars and stuff. But most of the time when this was going on, it was because God's hand of blessing was removed and his hand of protection was removed from them. And so he allowed this kind of turmoil. And I don't know what's going on in the United States except for we need to humble ourselves Turn from our wicked ways, and we need to pray. And I heard a Christian guy talk about this today. He said, you know, we always read that verse in Chronicles, and if my people who are called by my name would turn from their wicked ways and seek me and pray, then I'll heal their land. You know that verse? And he was pointing out that we always talk about that verse in the context of the United States and there being so much wickedness that goes on here. But in the context of that verse, it was talking about God's people repenting. And God's people turning back to Him. So the guy was saying, the church needs to repent. The church needs to get right with the Lord. You know, and I don't know what's gonna happen with the United States, but man, if God removes his hand from us, we are done for. You know, everything that happened to Israel is an example of what can happen to a nation or a people that forsakes God, and then the aftermath of that forsaking is never good. And it won't turn out good for the United States either. So who knows what's going to happen in the next, this next election. I just got a note and you'll probably see it too. I just got a note sent to me and it's official. I guess Joe Biden is stepping out of the presidency on Sunday. He's quitting. His party talked him out of it. I guess, or they said, you need to get out, so he's quitting, so who knows what's gonna happen next, so. Our country's in a lot of turmoil right now, so be praying for it, and be praying for us, the church, that our hearts will be right with the Lord, and that we can shine the light of Jesus wherever we go, because this world is in a mess, and lots of people are still lost, amen? And we're the evangelists, we are the ambassadors for Christ in this world today. Let's pray, Father, we thank you, For the things you teach us in your word, we thank you for all the lessons that we learn in your word. The things that happened in the past that were written down for admonition and for our instruction, and also they were written down as warnings for us, not to do what they did, lest what happened to them happen to us. So I pray, Father, that we would just, and our hearts would be yielded to you, that we would serve you, that we would honor you, Give us strength, Lord, and as you taught us, Jesus, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one, Lord. We need you, Lord, in your protection. In Jesus' name. Amen. Kevin, do we have the song? I forgot to tell you ahead of time. Ah, yes. Let's all stand and sing this last song, the Aaronic Blessing that was given to the nation of Israel to bless them in their meetings, or at the end of their meetings. So let's go ahead and sing it. ♪ The Lord bless thee ♪ ♪ The Lord bless thee ♪ ♪ And keep thee ♪ ♪ The Lord make his face to shine upon thee ♪ ♪ And be gracious unto thee ♪ ♪ And be gracious unto thee ♪ ♪ The Lord lift up ♪ ♪ The Lord lift up ♪ ♪ His countenance ♪ ♪ His countenance ♪ ♪ Upon thee and give thee peace ♪ God bless you guys. Have a great rest of the week.