So I can get figured out what
I'm looking for here. Well, checking to make sure there's
a stream coming through for any that are with us online. You can tell we're in a different
place. We've got a different setup. We're meeting in my home
right now. We've worked on getting the setup
right, and we assume that things are coming through okay. But
if you're not able to get video or audio, type something in that
chat thing, and I should be able to see that. I'm just checking
one other thing here. I don't know where, you know, it
tells you that we're on live. I was looking to see if that
came through. Oh, yeah, it did. I refreshed
our page. So, that should take care of
that. All right, if you want to open
your Bibles to 2 Kings chapter 8. 2 Kings chapter 8. reading verses 7-14. But before we begin let's ask
the Lord's blessing. Heavenly Father we thank You
for this evening, for the opportunity to look into Your Word. We pray
that You'll bless it to our hearts. We pray that You'll give us insight
and understanding into the truth that You intend for us to learn
from this. In Christ's name we pray it, amen. So, let's begin
with We'll just read this, and beginning verse seven, Elisha
went to Damascus, and Ben-Hadad, or Ben-Hadad, king of Aram, was
ill. When the king was told, the man
of God has come all the way up here, he said to Hazal, take
a gift with you and go to meet the man of God. Consult the Lord
through him. ask him, will he recover? And I'm wondering, I'm not seeing
the picture coming through anymore. Hang on just a minute. I want
to check that before we go any farther. And let's see. Yeah, OK, it looks like it is
still working. Well, I don't know why the picture
disappeared from the thing that, oh, there you go. That was what
it was. Yeah, OK, it looks like it is still working. I don't
know why the picture disappeared from the thing that, oh, there you go. That was what
it was. Yeah, OK, it looks like it is still working. I don't know why the picture disappeared
from the thing that, oh, there you go. That was what it was. Yeah, OK,
it looks like it is still working. I don't know why the picture disappeared from the thing that,
oh, there you go. That was what it was. Yeah, OK, it looks like it is still working. I don't
know why the picture disappeared from the thing that, oh, there you go. That was what it was. Yeah, OK, it looks like it is
still working. I don't know why the picture
disappeared from the thing that, oh, there you go. That was what it
was. I had accidentally slid a bar over
it and it just made the picture go out of the screen. So we'll
start with reading the scripture again. Elisha went to Damascus,
and Ben-Hadad, king of Aram, was ill. When the king was told,
the man of God has come all the way up here, he said to Hazael,
take a gift with you and go to meet the man of God. Consult
the Lord through him. Ask him, will I recover from
this illness? Hazael went to meet Elisha, taking
with him as a gift 40 camel loads of all the finest wares of Damascus. He went in and stood before him
and said, your son, Ben-Hadad, king of Aram, has sent me to
ask, will I recover from this illness? Elisha answered, go
and say to him, you will certainly recover, but the Lord has revealed
to me that he will in fact die. He, that is Elisha, stared at
him, Hazael, with fixed gaze until Hazael felt ashamed. Then the man of God began to
weep. Why is my Lord weeping? Asked Hazael, because I know
the harm you will do to the Israelites, he answered. You will set fire
to their fortified places, kill their young men with a sword,
dash their little children to the ground, and rip open their
pregnant women. Hazael said, how could your servant,
a mere dog, accomplish such a feat? The Lord has shown me that you
will become king of Aram, answered Elisha. Then Hazael left Elisha
and returned to his master. When Ben-Hadad asked, what did
Elisha say to you? Hazael replied, he told me that
you would certainly recover. But the next day, he took a thick
cloth, soaked it in water, and spread it over the king's face
so that he died. Then Hazael succeeded him as
king. Now, I've entitled this, The
Word of God Searches the Heart of Hazal. Now, bin Hadad is the
king of Aram, which is modern-day Syria. We've run into him in this series
already, because Syria is just to the north of Israel, and that
they were constantly pestering Israel. Naaman, the leper, who
was healed by Elisha, came from Aram, or Syria, and Ben-Hadad
was the king there. Now Ben-Hadad likely remembered
Naaman's trip to Elisha, and how that Elisha had been able
to heal him of his leprosy. Now it's common among men that
when natural troubles arise, they'll get religious, they'll
seek help from the Lord. All at once they're interested,
or seem to be interested in spiritual things. And that's the way it
was with Ben-Hadad. He wasn't interested, or never showed any
interest in God before this. He was content with the gods
that he had. But now he's got a disease that he has no control
over, and so he sins to the prophet of Jehovah, the prophet of the
Lord. Now, we'll not deny that God has sometimes gotten people's
attention with illness or other kinds of catastrophe, but spiritual
life doesn't come from catastrophe. Spiritual life comes from the
new birth, and spiritual life excuse me, catastrophes and things
like that might get a person's attention, but it's still going
to take the preaching of the gospel and the work of the Holy
Spirit in the heart before a person will actually believe to the
saving of their soul. More often than not, when you
hear that someone got sick and they called for the preacher
and they made a profession of faith, what you're going to discover
is that when it's sickness that begets an interest in God, that
interest is gone almost as soon as the sickness is, or whatever
trouble may have gained some interest in the first place. The same can be true with us.
God disciplines his children when they are stepping too far
out of line. He does it for their own good.
He does it for their growth. And of course, this will come
by way of some kind of hardship. And in times of hardship, we
will become more committed. We'll seek the Lord more thoroughly. But whatever work the Spirit
of God does by these things will last, and that which is merely
born of the flesh will go away. It will leave. That which, you
know, our interest, which is only fleshly, is only gonna produce
a fleshly result. Now, Hazael went to meet Elisha,
we read that, and he took a gift with him. Now, that was a gift
that Ben-Hadad, the king, had given him. So, it seems that
Ben-Hadad had not learned the lesson from Naaman's experience.
Now, when Naaman, Naaman was the leader of Ben-Hadad's military,
and so Ben-Hadad knew him well, and he knew all the circumstances
of his leprosy, and I'm sure heard all about the trip. But
it seems as though Naaman is no longer the chief military
officer in Ben-Hadad's court. It's this Hazael fellow. But Ben-Hadad no doubt remembered
Naaman, and he would have known that Naaman took lots of gold
and silver with him and changes of clothes and all this to go
to Elisha to give it to him so that Elisha would, in return,
heal him. But Elisha refused all of it.
You see, the mercies and blessings of God cannot be bought. And
Elisha here, of course, is a picture of Christ. His name means God
is salvation. And that is the name of the Lord
Jesus. The name Jesus means Jehovah
is salvation. So, Elisha is a good picture
of Christ. People come to Christ and they'll offer Him things.
They'll offer Him, you know, well, if you'll just, you know,
heal my child, or heal me, or get us through this rough patch,
I'll serve you for the rest of my life, or something like that.
God's not gonna make bargains like that. Everything we receive
from God's gonna come to us purely by His grace and mercy, or it's
not gonna come to us at all. But these were pagans. These
were men, Ben-Hadad and his military chief, Hazel. They were pagans. They didn't understand God. They
had no real knowledge. And so Ben-Hadad had sent along
40 camels loaded with, we don't know what, it doesn't say, but
it says the best that Damascus had to offer. Now, no doubt, Had Ben-Hadad's
heart been broken with the need for God's goodness, he would
have gone to Elisha himself and not sent Hazal. You see here
the lack of spirituality in what Ben-Hadad is pursuing. It's nothing about his heart
that he's interested in. It's nothing about the life hereafter,
nothing about sin and righteousness. He's sick. He wants to know if
he's going to recover. And he has so little respect
for God and for the prophet of God, he won't even so much as
go to him, and they're in the same city. I mean, Damascus is
the capital of Aram or Syria. So the king's there, Elisha's
in town, but he won't stir himself up so much as to go himself. He sends one of his, actually
it's in a sense a servant. and appeals, makes his appeal
to Elisha. You know, no one can go to God
for us. And we must go to him ourselves
through the Lord Jesus Christ. Not only that, when we try to
approach the Lord through someone else's energies, and a lot of
people see their pastors, their priests and all this, You know,
that's their connection to God. And they go to them, and that's
somebody that they pay to do the work of approaching God for
them. Well, you approach God that way.
You're not going to find him. The scriptures say, you shall
seek me, and you will find me when you seek me with all your
heart. As sick as Ben-Hadad might have been, he was still too high
and mighty in his own perception. to stir himself up to seek the
Lord personally and with all his heart. Of course, in doing so, he seals
his own fate. Who does he send to Elisha? The man who will come back and
kill him. And will do so because of what Elisha tells him. And
so had Ben-Hadad gone himself, He probably would have recovered
from his illness. And who knows, the Lord may have
done something spiritual for him. And he may have stayed on
the throne for a good many years after that. But he sends somebody
else, and lo and behold, the very person he sends becomes
the source of his destruction. Not every approach to God results
in blessing. To approach him for blessings
in the flesh while ignoring the weightier matters of the heart.
Well, that'll often result in disaster. Now, we who have come
to Him and found forgiveness of our sins, we're allowed to
come into the throne of grace to find mercy to help us in our
time of need, no matter what that need may be. He is our Father,
and like children, we approach Him for everything. But we should
take note if our prayers always seem to be concerned with the
things of this life. You know, make me well. You know,
get me through this thin patch in our finances. Give me this,
take care of me that. And yet, we're not seeking from
the Lord to learn from him, to be more closely united to him,
at least in the experience of that union. So let us approach
God seeking Him with all our hearts, and seeking Him for those
spiritual things which are eternal. Now, Elisha's answer, of course,
was to Hazael, was to go and say to him, you will certainly
recover, but the Lord has revealed to me that he will, in fact,
die. Strictly, Elisha said, go say
to him, living you shall live. He didn't use the words recover. On the one hand, it appears that
Elisha is telling Hazael to lie to the king. But Elisha gave
him an answer according to the spirit of the question that was
asked. After all, Ben-Hadad wanted to
know if that disease was gonna kill him. And the answer was
no. This disease is not going to kill you. That didn't mean
he wasn't gonna die. Quite often, people fall into
some sin or some trouble or whatever moves them to approach God, and
they go to God about that and that alone, not realizing that
their whole person is the trouble. And I've had people come to me,
not that often, But, you know, they get themselves in trouble,
and so they come and, you know, and I have been up front with
them, you know, that most of the troubles in our life, we
brought them on ourselves, and the Lord may relieve us in our
troubles, and then he may just let us suffer the consequences.
But our real problem is the fact that we're not simply a sinner
because we did this particular bad thing, which seems worse
than the other things we've done. Everything we've done is a sufficient
cause of death. You know, when the Lord was hanging
on the cross, he prayed to his father, forgive them, they do
not know what they're doing. And, you know, that generation
did not suffer the consequences of rejecting Messiah. it'd be
almost another 40 years before God destroyed Jerusalem and essentially
the entire Israelite nation. But that was, you know, it dealt
with one thing that Israel had done, but not the entirety of
it. And when we approach God simply
because we've fallen to some grievous sin, And we think that's
the only thing that got us in trouble. Well, the Lord said,
okay, you're forgiven of that. But there's this whole other
list of things we've done, what we are, all of that that needs
to be taken care of. Ben-Hadad never considered that
he might die quickly, soon, of something other than that disease. Well then, Elisha stared at Hazal,
and you know, think of this in your mind. I mean, just picture
it. And, you know, Hazal has made
his appeal in behalf of Ben-Hadad, and Elisha gave him that answer,
and then Elisha just kept looking at him. As Elisha looked at him, Hazael
became uncomfortable, unnerving. For one thing, we're not accustomed
to people just staring at us in the eyes and not saying anything. And so you don't know what to
do. I mean, that's just a natural reaction. But I believe there's a picture
of something here. You know, Elisha is picturing
Christ, the living word of God. And the scriptures tell us in
Hebrews chapter four, verse 12, for the word of God is living
and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. It's able
to discern the thoughts and the intentions of the heart. And
so Elisha standing there is the living word of God, the embodiment,
as it were, of the word of God. He's just looking as though he's
looking right into Ben-Hadad's soul. Now, of course, God had
already told, you know, Elisha knew what was going to happen.
But we have this picture of the Word of God penetrating Hazael's
heart, and it made him uncomfortable. And, you know, one of the things
that I won't say surprises me. It's
happened enough that, you know, it's not a surprise, but it amazes
me about the word of God and preaching the word of God that
I will preach about things or preach a message, the gospel.
And, you know, Peter tells us that when we say, when the Bible
says word of God, what it means is the gospel. And so you're
preaching the gospel. You haven't pointed out or singled out any
particular sin to pounce on. But somebody gets upset thinking
you picked on them. Well, it wasn't me. I didn't know what
was going on in their hearts, but God did and his word penetrated
their hearts and revealed it to them. And just like Hazael,
they get real uncomfortable. The gospel, when preached consistently
and clearly, accomplishes virtually everything that has to be done
for the welfare of the church without having to engage in this
thing called church discipline and all that. Pretty much, if
you preach the gospel, somebody who doesn't believe it is going
to become very uncomfortable. They aren't going to like it.
Now, it's true that some people could sit there for a very long
time, and maybe other circumstances out them for what they really
are. But the word of God is powerful. It is able to seek, find, and
save the sheep of God, keep them, and then also drive away the
goats. And that's why, generally speaking,
a consistent loving ministry of the gospel creates peace within
a church, and all you have to do is meet and preach. And so
there, Elisha is shown by this stare. He didn't give a glance. You know, the gospel's not just
something you preach it. Okay, this is our evangelistic
Sunday. You know, we have family Sunday here, and then we're gonna
have, you know, how to have financial peace on this Sunday, and then
we're gonna have this on this, and here's our evangelistic Sunday,
and we have a glance of the gospel at people. No, Elisha stared
at him. And we stare at people with the
gospel. Now, here's the thing. Here's
the beauty of the gospel. You stare at a child of God with
the gospel, It doesn't make him uncomfortable. It brings peace
to his heart. Now, if he's in a kind of a state
of rebellion, it might make him a little bit uncomfortable for
a bit, but it'll reconcile him. It'll bring him back. And then
he'll be at peace. But the others, eventually, it'll
get under their skin and they'll just, they'll have to leave.
Well, it said, as Elisha looked at him, you know, and he was
staring there, then he began to weep. Therefore, as Al said,
why is my Lord weeping? Now, the word of God is not only
able to reveal a person's heart to the person himself, it will
reveal a person's heart to others in time. Eventually, As I said,
someone who isn't a believer, no matter what they said, no
matter what they've professed and all this, eventually, they
won't be able to stay under the preaching of the gospel. And
what's happened is it's revealed what the thoughts and intentions
of their heart is. Now, Elisha, staring at Hazael,
and the Lord told him what was on Hazael's heart and what was
in his future. And so Elisha answered him, because
I know the harm you will do to the Israelites. He answered,
you will set fire to their fortified places, kill their young men
with a sword, dash their little children to the ground, and rip
open their pregnant women. Now, it's hard to read things
like that. You know, such barbaric, warfare. You know, we have this Western
concept of warfare, at least the one that's fed to us, you
know, in the movies and things like that. We recently watched a series,
a public broadcasting network series about World War II. It was produced back in 2007,
I believe. And the interesting thing to
note is, contrary to the movie version of World War II, a lot
of barbarism, and some on our side. I mean, of treating people
like dogs. Now, you know, in that war, we
weren't the initial aggressors, but when men get in war, there's
no telling what they'll do. And the way of waging warfare
back then, you went in and you just, you killed everybody. You
had mercy on no one, men, women, children. And you made it horrifying
so that they'd think twice about standing up to you again. And
so Elisha said, this is what you're going to do. Now notice
how Hazael responds. How could your servant, a mere
dog, accomplish such a thing? Our translation says such a feat.
The word means such a gross thing. That shows us the nature of the
heart of man that has not been regenerated by the grace of God.
Now, his plan to kill Ben-Hadad hadn't gotten into his mind yet.
And that he would go out and slaughter in the cities of Israel
had not entered his mind yet. And he thought it couldn't. He
said, how do you think I'd ever do a thing like that? And you
know, you tell people, you describe their sinfulness in the terms
of scriptures. I'm not that bad. What makes you think I'd ever
do anything like that? What do you mean I hate God?
I don't hate God. I've told people the only reason
you don't hate God is you've not met him yet. you know, and
that's a generalization, but it holds pretty true. People
that, you know, when God begins to confront them, their first
response is rebellion. They don't hate the God of their
imagination. They don't hate the God that their preacher tells
them about that's more like a grandfather who dotes on his grandchildren.
They don't hate that God, but they do hate the God of scriptures. Now, it may not be that kind
of visceral hatred. It may be the hatred expressed in, I simply
don't even bother to worship him. I'm unthankful for all that
he's given to me. But they stand opposed to God,
but they don't like it. They reject it when they're told
how sinful the scriptures say they are. And so Hazael is a picture of
a man that has not been born of the Spirit of God. He's confronted
with his sinfulness and he simply cannot believe that he could
be that bad. Now, there's a couple of lessons
for us in this. Number one, don't ever say there's
something you wouldn't do. Do you remember Peter? Lord, I'll never. I'll go to
the death for you." The Lord said, really? Before the rooster
crows announcing tomorrow's dawn, you will deny me three times.
And that's exactly what happened. And we might say, I would never
do this. I would never do that. The only thing that a believer
will not do is not believe. Believers always believe. though their flesh sometimes
covers that faith up, but it's there. But there is not a sin
known to man that you will not find some believer somewhere
committing. The most violent sin, the most
perverse sins, and so let's not be boasting about what we would
never do. And then secondly, Let's be very
merciful to those who fall. Maybe it's the Lord's lesson
to them. They're truly a child of God,
but they got it in their mind, well, I'd never do that. The
Lord says, well, watch. Because you know, the only thing
that would be required for us to fall in some horrible sin
like that is for the Lord simply to back up. have to do anything. He just has to leave us to ourselves.
You know people talk about, you know, the devil made me do it,
and the devil tempted me to do that. We can sin perfectly fine without
Him. You know? We're as sinful as Him, we're
just not as powerful as Him. Well, Hazal can't believe he'd ever
do that, says, how could you accuse me of such a thing? And
Elisha answers this way, the Lord has shown me that you will
become king of Aram, or Syria. Now, there is a phrase, power
corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And that's
not really exactly the way it works. The corruption's already
there. Power just reveals it. You know,
one of the benefits of not being a big shot in the world, not
being wealthy, not being powerful and all that, is there's a lot
of trouble you can't get in. Or you can't be deceived or so
easily deceived that you'd get away with it. You know, when
we read about politicians falling into such scandal, It's not that
they're worse than us, but the level of power they have gave
them the idea they could get away with it. And that's essentially
what he's saying to Hazael. You think you wouldn't do it?
The Lord's gonna make you king. And if you're king and the Lord
leads you to your own devices, you will be a monster. Well, Hazael left Elisha and
returned to his master, returned to King Ben-Hadad. And when Ben-Hadad
asked him, what did Elisha say to you? Hazael replied, he told
me that you would certainly recover. And I'm assuming that it's the
same phrase there, that living you will live. And so Ben-Hadad
thinks everything's well. But the next day, See, it didn't
take very long for Hazael's corruption to come to the top. He had the
word of the prophet of God that he was gonna be king. And he didn't even, even though
he believed that was true, he did not, he was not willing to
wait on the Lord to make it so. You remember how David, he was
anointed king. Saul was still king, and yet
he never would raise his hand against Saul. He said, that's
the Lord's anointed, you don't touch him. Even though Saul was
pursuing him, trying to kill him, he would not do anything
to bring an end to the reign of Saul, even though he had the
prophet's word that he was the next king. He waited for the
Lord's time, not Hazael. He said, well, I'm going to be
king, may as well be tomorrow. So the next day, he takes a thick
cloth, soaked it in water, and spread it over the king's face.
I read that. That's essentially waterboarding is what he did
to this guy. Of course, you take a thick cloth,
fill it with water. They can't breathe through it. If they do,
they're going to breathe in water. And so the king died. Looking at it from an entirely
fleshly standpoint, from Hazael's viewpoint, it was a rather ingenious
method of getting rid of the king and making yourself king.
First of all, he's very sick. Everybody expects he's going
to die. Well, you kill him this way, then dry him off. Nobody
knows. Not going to leave any marks.
Nothing. They just assume the king died.
And so, in the eyes of the world, he's innocent and he's king. And those who approach God in
the flesh, think they are above certain levels of sinfulness,
will eventually prove they're not above it. And indeed, as we read on through
2 Kings, Hazael was going, well, it just said troubling. In fact,
I don't even think it used the word, the name of Hazael, just
that the armies of Syria were slaughtering their way through
Israel. So the word of God penetrated
his heart, knew what was on his heart, revealed his heart to
him, he denied it, and then went out and did exactly what the
word of God said he would do. listen to preaching let's make
sure that what we're listening to is the Word of God. It is
the Gospel. Expose our hearts to it willingly
and gladly that our hearts might be revealed. Because I don't
want to be ignorant about my heart until I stand before Him
and suddenly realize I have a heart in rebellion against God. I'd
rather find out now. And stay under the preaching
of God so that at all times you will know the state of your heart.
And it will not only reveal what is in you, it will keep you and
preserve you. All right, that's it for that
lesson.