Remember those who requested
prayer, especially Mary Cochran Ingalls. She's in the emergency
room. She has a large growth tumor
on one kidney, and it seems to be pressuring other parts of
her body. She's in pain. She got a stream of demon in
one leg, and they think it might be a blood clot. So remember
her in your prayers. Seek the Lord's help for them.
Remember those others who requested prayer. Also, seek the Lord's
help. Let's begin our worship service
this morning with hymn number 266, Fade, Fade, Each Earthly
Joy. Fade, fade each earthly joy. Jesus is mine. Break every tender tie. Jesus is mine. Dark is the wilderness. Earth has no rest. can bless. Jesus is mine. Tempt not my soul away. Jesus is mine. Here would I ever stay. Jesus is mine. Perishing things of clay, born
but for one brief day. Passed from my heart away, Jesus
is mine. Farewell, ye dreams of night,
Jesus is mine. Lost in this dawning bright,
Jesus is mine. All that my soul has tried, left
but a dismal voice. Jesus has satisfied, Jesus is
mine. Farewell mortality, Jesus is
mine. Welcome eternity, Jesus is mine. Welcome, O loved and blessed. Welcome, sweet scenes of rest. Welcome, my Savior's breast. Jesus is mine. After scripture reading and prayer,
we'll sing hymn number 52. Majestic sweetness sits upon,
enthroned upon my Savior's breast. you have your Bibles turning
me to 2nd Kings chapter 8 read verses 7 through 15 and Elisha came from Damascus
and Ben-Hadad the king of Syria was sick and it was told him
saying the man of God has come hither The king said to Hazael,
take a present in thy hand and go meet the man of God and inquire
of the Lord, saying, Shall I recover of this disease? So Hazael went
to meet him and took a present with him, even a good, every
good thing of Damascus, 40 camels burdened, and came and stood
before him and said, Thy son Ben-Hadad, king of Syria, has
sent me to thee, saying, Shall I recover of this disease? And
Elisha said unto him, Go, saying to him, Thou mayest certainly
recover, albeit the Lord has showed me that he shall surely
die. And he settled his countenance
steadfastly until he was ashamed. And the man of God wept. And
Eziel said, Why weepest thou, my lord? And he answered, Because
I know the evil that thou wilt do unto the children of Israel.
strongholds without set on fire young men without slay with the
sword and will dash their children and rip up their women with child
and Hazel said but what is thy servant a dog and he should do
this great thing and Elisha said the Lord has showed me that thou
shalt be king over Syria so he departed from Elisha and came
to his master who said to him what said Elisha to thee And
he answered, he told me that thou shouldst surely recover. It came to pass on the morrow
that he took a thick cloth and dipped it in water and spread
it on his face so that he died and his hell reigned in his stead. Let us pray. Our Father, we bless
you and thank you for your word. We know, Father, that this is
what we have while here we reside on this earth. And in need, everything
else fades away. There's nothing here that we
can see that will last. But we have this blessed word,
which liveth and abideth forever, will be the word that is in eternal
heaven. The word made flesh dwelling
there, sitting upon the throne, is the Lamb of God. and the eternal word for us is
the angels so go about preaching and singing the gospel of Jesus
Christ we thank you that we have it
for in an unsteady world there's something we can count on that
will not change we know you don't change for you have said I'm
the Lord I change not therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed
We pray for those who are sick, especially Miss Ingle as she's
suffering with this cancer and doctors trying to figure out
exactly what to do for her. We pray you'd be with them. Pray
for Brother Marvin as he's recovering, Brother Larry Brown, the others
who requested prayer. Lord, we ask your help for them.
We ask for ourselves this morning. Fathers, we've gathered here
that you might cause us in our hearts to consider him who's
worthy of all praise and honor. and worship Him in spirit and
in truth. Thou knowest our hearts. We don't
know them. But we know, Father, that You
can cause us, if You're so pleased, to bow our face in the dust and
worship Him who is altogether lovely, the chiefest among ten
thousand. help us now honor Christ him
number 52 Majestic sweetness sits enthroned
upon the Savior's brow. His head with radiant glory is
crowned. His lips with grace are flow. His lips with grace are flow. mortal can with him compare among
the sons of men. Fairer is he than all the fair
who fill the heavenly drain, who fill the heavenly drain. saw me plunged in deep distress
and flew to my relief. For me he bore the shameful cross
and carried all my grief, and carried all my grief. To him I owe my life and breath
and all the joys I have. makes me triumph over death and
saves me from the grave and saves me from the grave. Let's pray. Father, again we approach
in the blessed name and perfect character and in the merit of
Jesus Christ alone. For we know that you have given
him for your people. We know his sacrifice was offered
unto you so that his people might never suffer the sin debt they
owe to thee. We thank you that you've paid
it all. As we return unto thee that which you've given us, let
us do it with joy and thanksgiving. we have received at your good
hand. Help us now we pray in Christ's
name. Amen. I invite your attention back
to 2 Kings chapter 8. I preached on this text in 2005. And then we used it again in
2012 when we did our Bible study on 2 Kings. And if you want a
pretty close transcript of it, you can look at page 219 in that
book, The Exposition of 2 Kings, to find out. You might ask, why
am I preaching it again? Well, it's been on my mind. I
don't know exactly what caused it. I was reading about the King
of England having sickness this week and his daughter-in-law
also being sick. I guess I was thinking about
royalty and sickness and this came to my mind and I couldn't
seem to get it off. As old A.D. Mews used to say,
I'm going to take one more lick at it and see how it comes out.
The title of my message is Utterly Depraved. utterly depraved. I am convinced and have been
since the Lord taught me the gospel that the single place
where men err and the reason they cannot receive and refuse
to receive the truth of predestination, election, and particular redemption
is found in their inability to recognize themselves for what
they are. This is the cardinal doctrine
total depravity. If you ever see this to be true
about yourself, nothing else will be a problem in Scripture
about what God does and how He saves sinners. When a man truly
grasps the fact of his own vileness, even though he cannot and is
not willing to plumb the depths of that vileness, he will embrace
the fact that if anything of eternal value, anything good
comes his way, it must be at the hand of free and sovereign
grace. That's how it's got to come.
If He sees what He is, He'll understand that. He'll understand
that. The reason men refuse the gospel
on a personal level is because they do not believe and yet They
cannot believe that they are as bad off as the Bible depicts
them to be. And the Bible pulls no punches
on how rotten and vile we are by nature. There is none good,
no not one. Men by nature love and embrace
the false notion of free will because in their mind and heart
it is proof that they are able to rise above what the scriptures
say about themselves. they think to rise above what
the scriptures declare their station to be. Likewise, their
refusal of the truth about themselves governed their manifold errors
concerning God. You don't know who you are, you'll
never even know who God is. Because the first thing God teaches
you when He teaches you the gospel is what you are. Men presume to exchange attributes
with God. They sort of just switch off,
give themselves the attributes that belong to God and make Him
the subject of their will rather than the other way around. I heard a preacher on the radio
one time try to explain away the fact that God hardened Pharaoh's
heart by saying that this hardening took place because God offered
Pharaoh His word. But Pharaoh refused and thus
his heart was hardened. This preacher thought that he
was protecting God's goodness, but all he was doing was making
Pharaoh the actor rather than God when Romans 9 said plainly,
He will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he
will he hardeneth. And the example he gives is before
I raised up Pharaoh just to put him down. This preacher was erroneously
stating that a man is not depraved unless he refuses the kindness
of God. That's stupid. Man is depraved.
He's born depraved. He is what he is as he comes
forth from the womb. Scripture says speaking lies
as soon as he's born. What this man thought is a revelation
of the ignorance of humanity. The truth is that man refuses
the kindness of God because he is depraved, not the other way
around. The depravity is not a choice, it is the terrible
and incurable condition of the human heart. Ripture declares
that the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked,
or desperately sick, Jeremiah 17. Desperately wicked, and the
Lord goes on to say, Who can know it? People say, Well, I
know my heart. No, you don't. There's a great
deceiver in your bosom, and it's your heart. It will direct you
wrong every time. Scripture declares that a man
can no more change his depravity or control it than an Ethiopian
can change his skin or a leopard change his spots. The primary
deception of the heart, the primary deception, is that it's not as
bad as you think it is, or as God
says it is. In this passage we see the deception
of the human heart, man's unwillingness to believe that he is truly to
pray. We see that in Hazael. Elisha has traveled to Damascus
to accomplish what God has ordained. Back in 1 Corinthians 19.15 the
Lord said, Go to Damascus and anoint Hazael as the king. Ben-Hadad was the king at the
time. There was no news at that time or no reported news that
Ben-Hadad was sick. what God had purposed we know
must come to pass for he's the Lord and he is sovereign ruling
over all things. Elijah this time is in the presence
of the Lord but he who was appointed in his stead has come to fulfill
the word of God. Elijah's gone to glory in a chariot
of fire. Elisha has borne the mantle.
The manner of Elisha's anointing will be this thing here. This anointing will take place
by murder. The wrath of man shall praise
God. The rest he will restrain. Ben-Hadad
is the king of Syria. The first thing we learn here
is how easily the unbowed are made to bow and how willing a
person is to change his view of God and his prophet when infirmity
visits his house. I speak from experience. I've
received a great number of calls from folks who have no interest
in the gospel whatsoever who suddenly become believers when
sickness comes to the door. I'm glad to pray for anyone who
asks, but I'm amazed when folks who despise what I preach ask
me to pray for them. I never have figured that out.
When they get in trouble, they call me to pray for them and
they won't have anything to do with what I preach. Power and riches or not a bulwark against sickness. The king, not just anybody, the
king is sick. When Ben-Hadad was well, he bowed
and worshipped at the house of Rimmon. He was an idol worshipper,
but now sickness has made him lose confidence in the power
of his hand-carved deity. No, men exalt their will in times
of health. They do not speak or seek the
help of their will when they are sick. I found this to be
true. When they get sick, they don't say, I'm gonna pray to
my will. Won't you pray to my will? No, they don't say that. They might even say, I'm willing
to be better, but that don't change anything. Pray to God
for me, preacher. What happened last night on the
TV, every senator, every Republican, every Democrat, the President
of the United States, all said, pray, pray, pray. Why? Because they can't do nothing.
They know something has happened totally outside their control. Ben-Hadad sends the Chief of
Staff, Hazel, to fetch Elijah. He refers to Elisha as the man
of God. Go get the man of God. These are not Ben-Hadad sentiments
toward Elijah before he was sick. In 2 Kings, he said, I want to
kill Elijah. 2 Kings 6, verses 8-14, he plots
to put an end to Elijah. He refers to Elijah as his father. He says, go tell Elijah his son
is sick. Often the Israelites called the
prophet's father He even honors the prophet by intimating that
Elijah knows the future for the secret things of heaven. He says,
Ask him, Shall I recover? Because he knows. Elijah's answer
to Ezekiel's inquiry is that the king may recover indeed from
the sickness, but he's going to die. And what follows is quite amazing.
I've often thought of this encounter. I think about it, and when I
was reading it again, I thought, what this must have been like.
Here's Hazel. He says, will the king recover?
Elijah says, go tell him he may recover, but he's going to die.
And then Elijah starts looking at him. Just looks straight in
his eyes. And don't turn his eyes to the
left or right. Look straight in Hazel's eyes
and just kept staring. looking at him. And Hazel begins
to get embarrassed. Begins to feel guilty and hasn't
even done anything yet. And then Elijah begins to weep. And Hazel, shaken by this, stirred
within and asked the prophet, why, how come you're crying?
Elijah tells him that he's going to do all manner of evil. In
verse 12 he says, when you become king, he didn't say when you
become king, he says you can do all manner of evil and if
you read the history of hazel as king syria you'll find he
did all manner of evil he did not do that was right in the
eyes of god verse 12 chapter 8, this is how he describes it.
He said, and Hazel said, Why weepest thou? And he answered,
Because I know the evil that thou wilt do unto the children
of Israel. Their strongholds wilt thou set
on fire, their young men wilt thou slay with a sword, and wilt
dash their children, and rip up their women with child. This
is what you're going to do. And then he said, and you're
going to murder Ben-Hadad and take his place. He's the servant of the king. He's come to Elisha for help
on behalf of the king, on behest of the king. He's a servant and been a good
servant. And now the prophet looks at him and says, you're
going to kill the king. You're going to kill the king. And Hazel's
response is a classic example of depravity's response. He says,
am I a dog? Am I a dog? Now he's not talking
about an AKC-registered German shepherd. He's talking about
a filthy, mangy, flea-bitten, cur, carrion-eating dog that
roams the streets all skinny and rail-like trying to find
something to eat and eating anything he can find to eat. Am I a filthy,
wretched cur that I would do this thing? He said, only a dog
would act this way. You tell me I'm gonna do all
this? Only a dog would do that. Hazel cannot fathom that he would
stoop so low as to kill the king. He cannot imagine that murder
resides in his bosom. He can't imagine that. That's
because he don't know it's high. If you ever discover what's in
your heart, You'll know that you could murder as easy as you
could breathe. He doesn't know that he's already
a murderer, though he hasn't murdered anybody from Mark 7.
It says that you're a murderer in your heart. Out of the heart proceeds things
that defile a man, evil eye, murderers, adulterers, blasphemies. These corrupt the man, not what
enters into his body. This is the dilemma of depravity.
Depravity prevents the heart from knowing only its own condition.
Depravity accounts that a lack of evil behavior flows from personal
goodness. Unable to realize that lack of
evil behavior is solely the result of God's sovereign restraint. What God keeps you from doing
is being yourself. There is an unrighteous scripture
that says, says that in Psalm 14, then repeats it again in
Romans chapter 3. There is none righteous, and
just in case you wondered if there might be one, he said,
No, not one. There's none that doeth good.
No, not one. Haziel could not perceive that
such a murderous heart abode in him. Am I a dog? Am I a dog? He attributed such
evil to a beast and not a man. His slam on the animal population
was actually an exaltation of himself. It is the nature of
depravity to think we are capable of guarding against that which
overcomes us. We can't. We can't. Over Matthew chapter 26. Peter, and I'm so glad he's in
scripture because I'm so much like him Matthew chapter 26 verse 35 the
Lord said I'm gonna be captured and put in jail y'all gonna betray me and Peter
nah that can't be verse 35 says Peter said though I should die
with thee yet will I not deny thee and likewise all the disciples
said no sir we're with you for good and they scattered like
flies when he was put on the cross and Peter who said I'll
not deny you denied him three times denied him three times I'll not
deny you we don't know what we are we make all kind of bold
statements that don't mean anything the prayer makes a lot of bold
statements about self A man once told me that grace is the separation
of the opportunity to do evil and the inclination to do evil.
I think he was right. If opportunity arises, grace
removes the inclination. When the inclination or inclination
arises, grace removes the opportunity. That's grace because if both
of them come together, God suffers both to arrive at the same time.
Men are doomed to act on what is naturally in their hearts. Grace keeps us. keeps Liza was so much as saying
his you could not believe he would do these things exercise
the power of evil in his present position when he was made king
there was no one to withhold he would act according to the
dictates of his newfound authority as king conditions we have the
lower echelon dignity power may look upon those who are above
us shake our heads at their you'll be You may disdain David taking
Uriah's wife and having him killed, but we know nothing of the intoxicating
influence of being in a position where no one can tell us what
to do. Once the seed has been planted
and the possibility was in Hazel's heart, there's no stretch to
murder the king. I'm sure that when Hazel went
to the king's chamber to tell him of Eliza's report that he
may recover, the furthest thing from his mind was to smother
the king. He wasn't thinking about that. He still felt that he was not
a dog, felt that he wasn't a beast to do such a thing. But the next
morning, as the king lay there in sickness, an opportunity was
presented at the same time as the incantation. what he was truly capable of
came to the front, took a wet cloth, covered the king's face
and murdered the king, smothered him while he was only six feet. What
a dog. To think that he had a choice
and the matter was to deny what was in his heart and what was
in ours. he was anointed as king. And
king he would be because of his depraved heart and God's predestinated
purpose. Go to Damascus, he told Elijah,
and make Hazel king of Syria. Such is the case of everyone
born of woman into this world. If you harbor in your mind the
delusion that you are somehow above certain sin or certain
behavior, You deceive yourself. One time a lady sitting beside
Jay Wimberly who used to be assistant pastor at 13th Street. She said,
Brother Jay, what will a Christian do? He says, anything a lost
man will do except by the grace of God. That's true. That's true. We're sinners. we're
sinners. God don't keep us from what we
are. No telling what manner of evil we'll come up with. The older I get, the whiter my
hair, the wrinklier my skin, the weakness of my back, I realize
the darkness of my heart. I'm embarrassed. I'm like old
Scott Richardson. Hope y'all don't ever find out
what a fraud I am. What goes through my mind? Thoughts
are awful. Why? Because by nature I'm depraved.
Thank God for his grace. Left to ourselves the true you
will emerge and you cannot imagine how vile the manifestation might
be. the believer knows this about himself and constantly seeks
the Lord to prevent him from doing what he's both capable
of and oft inclined to do. The only remedy is the heart
replacement. Ezekiel 36 says, I'll give them
a new heart. Not a heart of stone, but a heart
of flesh. A heart that can be touched,
that can be manipulated, that can be bruised. Believers have not risen above
depravity. their depravity is sovereignly
subdued by the Spirit of God. They differ from another, it's
not by nature, but by the grace of God. Who maketh thee to differ?
And what hast thou that thou hast not received? And if thou
have received it, why do thou boast as if thou not received
it? The principle of this depravity colors and informs everything
we are and everything we do. Read Romans 7. Paul said, what
I would do, what I want to do, what I ought to do, I don't do.
And what I don't want to do, what I shouldn't do, that's what
I do. And he said this as an apostle
of Jesus Christ. He said, I see in me a law, a
principle, dark. that when I would do good, evil
is present with me. He said, who shall deliver me
from this body of death? This is what I have, a body of
death. I thank God through Jesus Christ, but this will be the
fact with my mind, my desire, I will serve the law of God. I'll think about doing right
and try. He said, but with my flesh I will serve the law of
sin and death. These two are contrary to one
another always and it will not change. Am I a dog? Indeed I am. Even worse. May God be merciful to me, the
sinner. May he shed his grace on me.
May he in sovereign grace restrain me from being me. Lord, Peter
said, save me. or I'll perish. May He make me
a new creature in Jesus Christ. Father bless us to understand
and pray in Christ's name. Amen. I thought that was a cat. I thought
that was a cat. Questioner 2.