Well, good evening. Good afternoon. Good morning. Hope you all are. I certainly am. We just made it through the end of the world. The apocalypse came and went. We came, we saw, we conquered. I know some folks are still waiting to see it. I think, I think, pretty cool though. I'll say that it was pretty, I thought it was pretty interesting to see the eclipse and then everyone did what we were, what we weren't supposed to do, what we had to do, which to take your glasses off so you can see it. And I don't know about you, but I saw something. The reason why I'm bringing this up is because I saw something. And if you're like me, hopefully you are. I just thought of God. I just thought like, you know what? God is pretty dog on cool. God is pretty dog on cool. I know you don't say it just to see his, his creation and that's, and that, that's nothing. That's nothing. That's, that's there for God. That's whatever. You know, it's just what he does. I would love for him to give us a tour at the end just to show us all this stuff. Just just show us, you know what? Let me just show you all what I did over here with Jupiter. And then I don't know, some, some deep space and some far, far, far galaxy, which is just God is cool. And we're going to see God on display today. The problem is, though, how many people, and the reason why I'm bringing this up is how many people, how many people didn't, it didn't even get dark here, just overcast. Well, you need to move Dutch, move to a different place. I don't know where you live at, but it ain't in Indiana and ain't in Texas. So therefore you need to move. How about that? I'm kidding. But how many people, how many people got a chance to see this all throughout the country and will even see it on TV and won't think nothing about God? How many people will live, will look at this and see and will see it and won't think nothing of God. You can see God's handiwork on display and don't think anything about it. Now I'm sitting there and I'm looking at it and I've got two different glasses. I'm trying to see which the best one, one made a little darker, one made a little brighter and I'm worried. Man, I hope none of these rays are messed with my eyeballs or anything like that. Just how powerful, think about how powerful the sun is.  It's just amazing what God has given us to see. But how many people will see that and not think nothing about God? To see the rays coming off and so forth. God shows himself all the time. God is yet always demonstrating just something that's just so easy for him. Doesn't take much of anything. If there was a such thing as God lifting a finger, he doesn't have to lift much of a finger to do anything to show how awesome and amazing he is and we look at it and we're like, whatever. Or we think, wow, that's cool. That's great. That's amazing. But we don't think about where it comes from. And we're going to see that really in what we're seeing today. We are looking, we're going to look at one of one of the greatest prophets in terms of just his handiwork, the things that God does at his hand, the things that are displayed at his hand. And the reason for these displays, these awesome displays that we'll see, it's not because of Elijah, SH, it's not because of Elijah, but it's all because of God. And so to see, and the reason why you see these happening is to show off God. The problem is people see this and they don't think much about it, unfortunately, to their own detriment. So let's go know Elijah, not not J, not not EJ, not Elijah, Elijah with the S. I'm sorry if I'm, if my pronunciation doesn't kind of carry that across, but Elijah with the S. And so let's start off. We'll be in 2 Kings 4. And there's a reason why we're going through this. I want to, I want to show you guys something, but there's a reason why. So in 2 Kings 4, we're not going to read all of this, but we're going to, we're going to do a lot of bit of traveling. We're going to do a good bit of traveling. So here we go. 2 Kings 4 1.  And you know that your servant feared the Lord and the creditor has come to take my two children to be in his slaves. So here we have an instance where this particular prophet loved the Lord, but he also ran up his American Express or I'm sorry, his Sumerian Express, his visa, his master charge. He left some debts from AT&T bills unpaid and so forth, the chariot note unpaid for. And so they came to take, as was accustomed, if you owed a debt. I think I covered this when we talked about the letter to Philemon about Anismas and how slaves became slaves. There are a lot of different ways. And one of the ways that a person became a slave was because a debt being owed. And so here's a debt being owed and they can't pay it well. Listen, you can't pay it. We'll take care of it for you. You got some kids. Okay. And so he says the creditors are coming to take his, her two children. I don't know how much he owed. I don't know how much this guy owed, but both of his kids are being taken. Elijah said to her, what shall I do for you? Tell me what do you have in the house? And she said your maid servant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil. Again, I don't know what you were borrowing money for, what you're in debt for, but you should have left the woman with a little bit more jar of oil. That's just me saying. Then he said go borrow vessels at a large, I'm sorry, borrow vessels at large for yourself from all your neighbors. Even empty vessels do not get a few. So in other words, get a bunch of them as many as you can get. And you all know the story.  So she went from him and shut the door behind her and her sons, and they were bringing from best, bringing to her, bringing the vessels to her. And she poured when the vessels were full, she said to her son, bring another vessel. She kept pouring and pouring and pouring and pouring and pouring. Then she came verse seven and told the man of God. And he said, go sell the oil and pay your debt. And you and your sons can live on the rest. Again, remember we're seeing these miracles at the hand of Elijah. Now let's go back. I want to put this back on the screen because we covered this before. I want to do this again. Here is our Old Testament timeline. And so as we look at our Old Testament timeline, look at all the things, all the years, all the books that we've gone through, and I'll ask this question again. How many people had these miraculous signs at their hand since Genesis? Let's put it back on the screen. Just think about the people, think about the books, think about the men of God, think about the prophets who we saw miracles at their hand. Well, thus far we can only, we can count that high. We can count all the people that have had miracles at their hand. We can count on one hand, starting off with Moses. And then as it's waning, as Moses finishes off, I mean, as Joshua finishes off Moses' ministry, he too, because remember he stretches his hand and parts the river. Then we see Elijah and now we see Elijah with the S. And so think about how long it's been, how much time has passed. And you can just, let's put it back on the screen, and we can sit and think, this is not a regular occurrence. This is not the norm. It is not normative for men to have signs and wonders at their hand. Think about all the years that have passed. We are literally, how many years have passed? We are in Second Kings. So at this point, we are about 500, 600 years or so before the birth of Christ. So we're talking over almost, almost a 4,000 year span, three and a half, 4,000, give or take a few 500 years, who's counting, but over that period of span, that time, we only have four people who are having these miracles, these signs and ones at their hand, and they were back to back. So it's not like the four word spread out over time, up to Moses and Joshua. That's it. That's one little small portion of time. And then here with Elijah and Elijah, back to back. So it's not normal and the people know so. Now, obviously God doing something, God showing signs and wonders, that's separate than it being done at the hand of a man. And so if it's shown at the hand of a man and under Elijah, under Elijah or Elijah or Joshua or Moses, when someone brings about something that has never been done and you know God is behind it and they have a message with that, shouldn't you listen? Shouldn't you listen at the message behind the signs and wonders? Well, obviously you should, but that's not always happening. And you'd be surprised at the people who don't listen, who should be listening. Now, there's a few folks who should be listening, who aren't listening thus far. Now, we've seen what happened with this woman. Then in verse eight, now there came a day when Elijah passed over to Shunam, where there was a prominent woman and she persuaded him to eat food. And it was as often as he passed by. So as he went by, she would take care of him, lodging and so forth. You know, just good old fashioned Southern hospitality. I'm pretty sure if this was America, which is not, but if this was America, Elijah would have been passing by somewhere in the south, somewhere down in Texas or Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, definitely not up north. He definitely would not have passed through New York. He couldn't have found any kind of free lodging.   I'm kidding. I'm kidding. But there is essentially a Southern hospitality down here. It really is. It guys are even as bad as it's gotten. It really is different. It just is. And I'm from Indiana and we have what's called Hoosier hospitality and it's just not the same. Just not the same. So sorry. Got to tell the truth. Shame on them. Anyway, folks up the Midwest and in the north and the East Coast and West are upset, but they're upset because it's true. Anyway, she would give him food. She would feed him. And so she wanted, he asked her, what do you want? Matter of fact, she makes a place for him to stay. Verse 11, one day he came there and turned into the upper chamber and rested. Then he said to Gahazi, now she's not making a space just for him. He's got his servant and I want you all to remember his servant. Ladies and gentlemen, his servant's name is Gahazi. Okay. Or Gahazi. Yeah, Gahazi. I say Gahazi. I used to say Gahazi, but Gahazi, either way, said to Gahazi, called this shooting might and when he had called her, she stood before him and say, say now to her, behold, you have been careful for us with all this care. What can I do for you? Would you, would you be spoken for to the King or to the captain of the army? And she answered, I live among my own people. So he said, what then is to be done for her? So she's like, I don't, I'm fine. I don't know. Oh, sweetie, I don't need anything. She, again, she was a Southern lady and she says, no, sweetheart, baby, because you know, old ladies in the South, not old, not too old, but she was being, she was being just a respectable woman. She was showing great care and deference to this, to this man of God, taking care of it. And she didn't ask for anything in return. She didn't do it for any gain. And then when she was asked, she didn't want anything. How many people would do that? How many, not many folks, you know what? I could use some money. I could use, no, she didn't want anything. So he said, what is to be done for her?  So she married an old man, or me, she herself might be old. Who knows. But we've got a lot of these stories where there are women whose, whose womb is barren. Even up to the New Testament, we get to, to, to Simeon, not Simeon, I'm sorry, Zacharias. And so this is kind of a theme that's happening. And what does God tend to do? He tends to show that he's got, I'm a guy that can close wounds and open them. And so then he said, at this time, verse 16, at this time, at this season next year, you will embrace a son. And she said, no, my Lord, oh man of God, do not lie to your maid servant, please, please, please. Apparently, she's probably wanted one and hadn't gotten one. Then the woman conceived and bore a son at that season. The next year, as Elijah said to her, no, here we see some, again, at the hand of this man, God is working. Then when the child was grown, the day came, the when he went up to his father to the reapers, he said, father, or to his father, my head, my head. And he said to his servant, carry him to his mother. When he has taken him and brought in a young story, he dies with nipple room and he's out. She went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God and shut the door behind him. Then she called her husband and said, please send me one of the servants and one of the donkeys that I may go, that I may run to the man of God and return. He said, why will you go to him today? It is neither new moon nor Sabbath. And she said, it will be well.  So she goes to the man of God. Why? Because she knows he's the man of God that at his hand, miracles have happened at his hand, at his word, she has this son. And so what, you know, the story, she brings him to the, brings Elijah to the boy, takes him upstairs. Doesn't really weird. It's weird. If we were to see it, most of us would probably restrain Elijah for what he's doing, lays on top of the boy, prostrate and so forth. And the boy comes back to life. Again, these miracles are happening at his hand. And so we see the people that are hearing about it and seeing it. Kahazi, namely, is one of them as well. And so let's see, do I want to keep, I'm trying to think, do I want to read all of this? Let's drop down to verse, yeah, verse 38, to verse 38. Then we see, then we see, when Elijah returned to Gilgoth, there was a famine in the land. This is important, guys. There was a famine in the land as the sons of the prophets were sitting before him. He said to the servant, put on a large pot. Now there's this stew. They say that there's death in the stew, six in the stew. And so what does he do? He heals the stew. Elijah, this bald prophet, I might add, who's known as a prophet, but also known for being bald, had to throw that in there. These miracles are happening one after another after another. And they're not just happening just because it's not as though that these, that these things are happening just because God wants to show, hey, watch this. No, there is a reason and people should take notice of the reason of what's happening.  Now, naming Captain of the army of the king of Aaron was a great man with his master, highly respected because of him by the Lord. By him, the Lord had given great, given victory to Aaron. Isn't that interesting? The Lord had given the enemy of his people, Aaron, victory by this man, Naaman. Notice what it says though. The man was also a valiant warrior, but, but, and that's a huge but, but he was a leper. Now the rules of being a leper were different with other nations other than Israel. But the rules of, of the Jews and Elijah as a Jew, he didn't need to be around this man.  And so I want you to notice what's happening. Verse two, now the Arameans had gone out in the bands and had taken captive a little girl from the land of Israel and she waited on Naaman's wife. She said to her mistress, I wish that my master were in the prophet who was in Samaria. Then he would cure him of his leprosy. Naaman went in and told his master, saying thus and thus spoke the girl who is from the land of Israel. Then the king of Aaron said, go now and I will send a letter to the king of Israel. He departed and took with him 10 talents of silver, 6,000 shekels of gold and 10 changes of clothing. By the way, this is weird because the king of Aaron and the king of Israel, not buddies, they're not best friends. There, as a matter of fact, Aaron is getting ready to besiege the city in just a little bit. So they're not friends, they're not buddies. But here, take this. So there was still some sort of decorum, what have you going on? Take this, take this money, take this talent and so forth and have that man of God heal you. Understand that they understand there's a man of God because what did the little girl say? She says that my master would know that there is in the land of Israel, there is a man who can kill. In other words, that there's a prophet. Now, if you say there's a prophet in the land, that indicates that the prophet is of God. Another thing that we should take, take a cue from. If a person is going to say that there is a prophet or you are a prophet, that is serious. It's so serious that the people who, whose people you are, they understand that and they take heed, but even the people who are not your people. In other words, you've got these are means. There's a, there's a prophet in the land. That means there's a prophet of God. That means God has a representation in the land. That means God is watching. They take that very seriously. Now remember, just a few verses before there was a showdown with the prophet of God and the, not Elijah, but Elijah and Baal and his 450, I'm sorry, 800 plus different prophets of Baal and Asherith were thoroughly defeated and embarrassed and killed. So when there's a true prophet, that's, that's to be understood that there's the true God is there. So whoever this true prophet is, represents the true God. The issue is who the true prophet. But at this point in time, ladies and gentlemen, there is no doubt as to who the true prophet is. Okay. One second. There is no doubt as to who the true prophet is. And so therefore, they didn't have a doubt about it. As a matter of fact, we are going to send money. We're going to pay for this, but we're going to pay our way. We are not going to have you go. We want you healed because you have leprosy and no one, no matter what the, what the nation is, leprosy was not an okay thing. It was just that at his hand, the Lord was giving this man victory. So we're going to keep naming on as our commander. So he goes and he takes his money. Verse six, he says, he brought the letter to the king of Israel saying, and now as this letter comes to you, behold, I have sent naming. When the king of Israel, verse seven read the letter, he says, am I God to kill and to make life? So in other words, we understand, we understand, excuse me, what God does that he is, that he gives life, he takes life, he heals. And if there's a true prophet, the same thing will be there because what happens, he says, that this man is sending me a word to me to cure a man of leprosy, but consider now and see how he is seeking a quarrel against me. In other words, he said, the reason why he's sending him to me is because he wants to find fault with me, but he knows good and what I can't do this. It happened when Elisha, the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, that he sent word to the king saying, why have you torn your clothes? Now let him come to me and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel. That's the whole point. There's a prophet in Israel. In other words, God is going to be on display. As long as you know there's a prophet in Israel, then the representation, the speaker for God is here. Amen. And so Elijah goes to naming, tells him, you'll know the story, to go and wash yourself seven times and your flesh will be restored. So what does naming do? Naming is upset because that's just, that's too much. That's too much. But naming was furious and went away. Behold, I thought he was surely going to come to me and do what prophets in America do. He was going to come to me and do what prophets and folks who want to be slain in the spirit do. Going to come and wave your hand over you and say some words and touch you and you're going to fall out. How come he didn't do that? No, something simple, something basic, because guess what? Simple in the hands of the Lord, that's just, it works. You don't need to do all this other stuff, all of this showmanship and so forth. That's not required, necessary or needed. So his master said, if he would ask you, I mean his servant said, if he'd asked you to do something difficult, you would have done it. You would have done it. He says, my father had the prophet verse 13, told you to do something, some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more then when he says to you, wash and be clean? In other words, why do you, let me just pause for a second. Ladies and gentlemen, let me just pause for a second. I need to, I need to say something. By the way, and I see, thank you so much, appreciate you. We look for something out of the ordinary, something different, something strange from God. Why? We want something that looks like it's something special. Like today, if we bring this forward to today, we, the word of God is too simple, too basic. We want something more. We want a new thing.  We want something.  We want someone to knock us down, but something simple, something basic, no, no, you don't want that. You don't want that. Again, an evil and adulterous generation, what do they want? They want a sign. We want, we want to see something. Are you going to see something if you do the right thing? You will see something if you do the right thing. And so the man gave him a word to do, and he didn't want to do it, but eventually he does. And so he went and dipped himself seven times in Jordan according to the word of the man of God, and his flesh was restored like the flesh of little child and he was clean. No blemishes, no nothing. I'm pretty sure, I'm pretty sure, Naaman got up and no hair, nothing. No hair, nothing. Someone asking was Abraham, I guess the people in the chat are having a conversation, was Abraham a Gentile or a Jew? He was, the entire world was Gentile, was nations, was going, going. Now, which is fine. Abraham has a sign to signify the covenant that God has made with him. The sign of the covenant that Abraham has is circumcision. And every person there after that, that is adhering to that covenant that is of the lineage of Abraham, adheres to that circumcision. Then the law comes, and you must have this circumcision. Okay. And you must be circumcised on the eighth day. So was Abraham a Jew? Well, no, Jews weren't. He is the father of the Jews. This term comes about later than being called the Jews. But as far as his people, he is the father of the ethnically of these people. And so through Abraham, Genesis 12, 2, and 3, he is going to be the father of these, not just the Jews, but also of many nations, of the father of these many nations is spiritually speaking through faith. But in terms of physically and ethnic, if a person wants to say that Abraham was a Jew, I don't have a problem with that. If he wants to, he's the first Jew. He wasn't called that. But if you want to call him a Jew, fine. The reason why it's okay to say that is because Jews are also called Hebrew. And he is certainly of that lineage of a bear, which is where the name Hebrew a bear comes from. It comes from his lineage. And so technically he's not a Jew because there were no Jews at the time, but technically also he's the first you is who they come from. So it's not really a big deal.  And so he had to be circumcised. The sign of the covenant was of the new covenant of the Abrahamic covenant was circumcision. His children had to be and so forth. So that's where that came from. Amen. Amen. Good question. Good question. We're always allowed to ask questions going back to every book that we've covered. And so that's fine. That's fine. I don't want that to be too distracting, but I saw enough comments in the chats to warrant actually answering that particular question. So anyway, let's go back to it. Then he actually heals Naaman. By the way, if you have any questions regarding this stuff, go ahead and put a Q or a big giant question or question mark and I will get to them as we go. No, not circumcision of the heart. Abraham was not circumcised of the heart yet. As a matter of fact, we know that because God tells them that he is going to circumcise their hearts later. Now in terms of the Holy Spirit being a pawn man, that could happen. But in terms of circumcision of the heart, that has not yet happened. And the reason why we could say that, there's a couple of reasons why we could say that. And a buddy of mine brought up a pastor in the New Testament and said, yes, see the prophets had the Holy Spirit in them. No, they had the Holy Spirit in them or upon them, this Greek word, and could be in or upon. But we know that they weren't circumcised in the heart. Why do we say that? Because having the Holy Spirit cannot mean that having the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament upon you cannot be the same as being circumcised of the heart. The reason why we say so is because we've seen other people that have had the Holy Spirit upon them used by God. And we could not say that they were circumcised in the heart. For example, when God has is commissioning these men who are fine workers of iron and gold and so forth artists, the Spirit is upon them. But they weren't circumcised in the heart. Also, the same Spirit that was upon Saul left Saul and goes upon David. Are we going to say that Saul was circumcised in the heart? No, he was not. And so your comrades said, Corey is circumcised in the scalp. That is okay. You know, I shouldn't have put that up. I should not have put that up. That is funny though. That is funny. So therefore, the circumcision of the heart has not happened yet. That's going to happen later on. Now, can the Holy Spirit come upon people in the Old Testament? Well, sure. Absolutely. As a matter of fact, the Holy Spirit can come upon anyone for the express purpose of carrying out God's will. How do I know? Well, ask again as Saul and then also ask David. So that being the case. And so again, if you have any questions that we're going, go ahead and be sure to ask those questions. Yeah, you saw that. I thought it's one of those things. I pushed the button and then thought about it afterwards. Anyway, let's continue. So here we've got Gahazi. Gahazi going and wanting to come after naming after what was done.  This is Gahazi. This is Gahazi saying this. Gahazi has seen some things. Gahazi has seen some things. As a matter of fact, let me go back to chapter four. Let me go back to chapter four. Now, you know what? I'm sorry. I won't go back to chapter four because I want to move through this. I want to move through this pretty quickly. So in chapter five, I want you to see what's happening. When he returned, the man out to the man of God with all his company and came and said before him and said, Behold, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel. Think about this for a second. There is no God in all the earth, but in Israel. That's the whole point. That's the whole point of all these things happening so that you could know not about how great Elijah is. But as he says, I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel. So please, please take a present from your servant now. But he said, as look what he says, but as the Lord lives before whom I stand, I will take nothing. And he urged him to take it, but he refused. Naaman said, if not, please let your servant at least be given two mules load of earth for your servant will no longer offer burnt offering, nor will he sacrifice other guys, but to the Lord. And so what is he going to do? He is going to take that earth, that dirt from Israel, take it back to him, keep with him. And so he is going to, whatever offerings he's going to do is going to be in accord with what the Jews are doing and no longer offer to to bail or any other foreign guys. So he understands, he gets it. Now he's still working on behalf of the Arameans, but he gets it. He knows who God is. Now what happens after that? We're not totally sure. But he says, in this matter, may the Lord pardon your servant when my master goes into the house of Remon to worship there and he leans on my hand. In other words, I have to be there. I don't want to do it, but I have to because it's my, it's my job. Would you ask the Lord to please forgive me when my master does this thing in my sight? That's basically what he's asking of. And so he says, when I bowed myself in the house of Remon, the Lord pardoned your servant in this matter. He said, go in peace. So he departed from him some distance. But Gahazi, now by the way, a lot of this is introduction to what we're at now. But Gahazi, the servant of Elijah, the man of God thought, behold, my master has spared this name, the Aramean, but not by not receiving from his hands what he brought. As the Lord lives, I will run after him and take something. Now, this is one of my favorite stories because to me it's something that I can kind of relate to. As the Lord lives, so we have two people invoking the name of the Lord, but only one means it. We do that sometimes. We invoke the name of the Lord, but do we mean it like we say we mean it? Obviously Elijah means it. Gahazi wants to use the name of the Lord for his own benefit. And so what does he do? He runs after him and concocts a lie.  And it could be almost anything, something we would consider to be small or something large. And so, and just kind of speed it up, he is giving. Matter of fact, we need I can't speed this up. I can't. He said, verse 22, he says, all as well, my master has sent me lying on the man of God, sent me saying, behold, just now two young men of the sons of the prophet have come to me from the hill country of Ephraim. Please. Now I want you to pay attention. You need to pay attention to what he's asking for. Finally important. Please, excuse me, please give them a talent of silver and two changes of clothes, a talent of silver and two changes of clothes. Moderate or somebody mark that down, a talent of silver and two changes of clothes, name and said, be pleased to take two talents. And he urged him and he bound two talents of silver in two bags with two changes of clothes. So what's your ask when we give you double with two changes of clothes? And he gave them to two of his servants and they carried them. So he needed help and they and they help they're helping them to carry it back. When he came to the hill, he took them from their hand and deposited them in the house and he sent them in a way and they departed. Looks like he's gotten away with it, but verse 25, but he went in and stood before his master and Elisha said to him, where have you been, Gahazi? And he said, your servant went nowhere. I ain't gone nowhere. I've been right here all this time. What do you mean? I've been, I've been sitting here just doing what, what Gahazis do, just nothing, doing nothing. And so now, I don't know why you were a lot of the man of God. I don't know why you would do so, but let's look and see. Then he said to him, did not my heart go with you when the man turned from his chariot to meet you? Is it a time to receive money and to receive clothes and olive groves and vineyards and sheep and oxen and male and female servants? All right. Now let's stop for a second. Moderators, did you all write down what I told you to write down? Did you all, because I need you to remind me, not just remind me, I need you to remind the people in the chat. What did I tell you to write down? Two changes of clothes and silver, right? Some silver and some clothes. He asked for silver, a change of silver and a change of clothes, a talent of silver and a change of clothes. But instead he got, he got two talents and two changes of clothes. So remember that. He said two talents and two changes of clothes. That's what he got. So we got a problem here. We have a problem. Wait a second, your honor, that is Elijah. There's a bit of discrepancy in what you're accusing me. Look what he says. He says, is it time to receive money? Well, that's talents. Uh, to receive clothes. Okay. But then he said olive groves and vineyards and sheep and oxen and male and female servants. Wait a second. I didn't ask for all that and didn't get all that. What are you talking about? Well, because sometimes God knows where you're headed. He can just look at the trajectory that you're on. And yet right now it's one talent of silver and one change of clothes, but you end up getting two talents and two changes of clothes. And you got away with it. And then if you can get away with that, you'll want to get some more and some more. And right now it's two talents of silver and two chains of clothes, but tomorrow it's going to be what? It's going to be olive groves. You're going to snook or somebody out of olive groves and vineyards and sheep and oxen and male and female servants. Yeah, right now it's this, but tomorrow it's going to be something greater. Right now you're just, you know, selling some candy on your way out the door. Tomorrow you're going to do something even more. Today you got them and no harm, no foul. Today you're not paying your bills. Tomorrow you're in prison. You can see where this is going. And so what was the punishment? Uh oh, we got to, we got to do this. Therefore the leprosy of Naaman shall cling to you and your descendants for about a week. No, forever. So he went out from his presence, a leper as white as snow. So it'd be one thing if you had this punishment and the punishment was temporary, but this punishment is forever. And the hard part is it's on your descendants. It'd be one thing if only you suffered, but it's quite the difference if not just your suffering, but your family is suffering. One of the things that every inmate will tell you, especially those that love their family, it's not just you doing time. It's your family doing time.  It's your children. The same thing if you're suffering less in the hospital. You're not the only one that's suffering in the hospital.  It's your spouse. It's your children. Yeah. How many of you have done something? Maybe you lost your job or what have you. And it's not just you that lost your job. It's your spouse that lost the job. It's your children that lost the job.  And when sin, the ramifications of sin come, it affects you as well. And in this case, he says forever, wait a second, Elijah, I'm your man. You didn't have to be so harsh. Now let's pause there for a second. We'll come back to him. Verse 6, verse 100 to 6. Now, the Son of the Prophet said, Elijah, Behold, now the place before you where we are living is too limited. Please let us go to the Jordan and each of us take from there a beam and let us make a place for it.  He says, fine, go. And then you ask them to go with them. So they're there. They're making a place for themselves. And as one of them was working, a beam fell and the axe head fell into the water. Axe is made of iron and he's, he's, he's distraught because I borrowed that axe. That's not, man, that's not even my axe. First of all, it was my accident. It'd be bad enough if it was just my axe, but it's someone else's axe. So what does he do? And the man of God said, where did it fall? And he, and he showed the place. He cut off a stick and threw it in it and the axe head floated. Again, all of these things happening at the hand of, at the hand of this man of God, again to show everyone that just like, just like Naaman said, now I know that there is no God except the God that lives or the God that is in Israel. Now let's drop it a little further. Now the king of Aaron was warring against Israel and he counseled with his servant saying, in such and such a place shall be my camp. The man of God sent word to Israel saying, beware that you shall not pass this place. In other words, they were, they were setting a trap for the Israelites for their army and Elijah warns them. And because Elijah warns them, the king is upset. You know what? I need you guys to go and take Elijah. I need you to go after Elijah. Now I'm going to fast forward. You all can go ahead and read in chapter six, but the king decides to go and get Elijah, Elijah, attack him or bring him captive, bring him back. So what happens as they come and besiege him, then Elijah and his servant, a different servant is there and he's worried and what happens? Elijah says, Lord, show him, show my servant what's really happening. And he opens his servant's eyes and he sees all of these, these, this angelic force with these, with their chariots of fire there to show them that there's more of us against them. And so what does he do? Causes these men to be blind. He pray, make them blind and then make them follow me. I want you to get a picture of this. Make them blind and then make the army follow me. They're blind and they're following Elijah back to the camp of the Israelites, to the Jews, brings them inside the wall and then their blindness goes away. Can you imagine this? Their blindness goes away and then they end up open in their eyes and they see, uh-oh, wait a minute, wait a minute, we're surrounded. The king says, well, shall we kill them? He says, no, no, don't kill them. This, remember what we were talking about, the, the eclipse today, talking about the eclipse and saying, look at God. God is awesome. Bring the, you bring the enemy into the camp. And by the way, they're fierce warriors. Bring them into the camp. They're blind. Now they're not blind. They show up and they're like, wow, we're surrounded. We're in trouble. We are in trouble. And so what does he do? No, we're not going to kill them. Nope. Feed them. Give them, I'm making this part up, but give them some steak and shrimp. They can't eat shrimp, but give them, give them a kosher meal, something to drink. Feed them, take care of them. And let's march their little hindies back to the king of Aaron. What a display. Think about that. What a display. And so what does the king of Aaron want to do? Nothing. He still, he still, wait a second, you know, this is God. You know, for a fact, this is God, and he still wants to fight. He still wants to fight. The man still wants to fight. And so it makes you wonder, why do people do what they do? When you see something happening, you still don't want to relent. You still don't want to accept what's a fact. Now your man, the leader of your army, Naaman understands it. You don't get, you got it enough to send Naaman there to be healed and you still don't get it. You see that, that God is still working things. That's man, he's letting, he's letting Israel know everything that you're going to do. And then you do something foolish to try to take him by surprise. And he takes your entire the army, the company that you sent after him. He could have killed him. He killed, he's made the enemy Chick-fil-A. Amen. Oh, I want some Chick-fil-A. Now I'm hungry. Now I'm hungry. Thank you, Layla. I am hungry. Now I want you to listen to this part. Now it came about after this that Ben Haddad, king of Aaron, by the way, who is responsible for Ben Haddad being the king? God is. God puts him there. And he knows that. That's the other problem. Ben Haddad, king of Aaron, gathered all his army and went up and besieged Samaria. So they're surrounding the city. They get ready to fight. They're not surrounding, but they're there close to the city. Look what it says. There was a great famine in Samaria and behold, they seized it until a donkey's head was sold for 80 shekels of silver and a fourth of a cab of doves dung. People buying and eating dove poop. Not dove the soap, but yeah. As the king of Israel was passing by on a wall, look how bad it is. Passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him saying, help my lord. He's like, what's going on? Well, let me tell you, king. I need your help. What happened? Well, me and another woman had an idea fair exchange. This woman said to me, give your son that we may eat him today and we shall eat my son tomorrow. This is pretty first. This is bad.   And now you're eating babies. That's how bad this famine is. Okay. Now I'm painting a picture. I'm putting, I'm putting all the pieces together so we can see the goodness of the Lord and really see how this relates to us. Those of us who've been in trouble and are probably going to get in trouble again who are being punished and so forth. We're coming to that. But this is how bad it is. We're eating, we're eating our own babies now. So she tricked me.  Well, one lady was deceptive. Both of them were deceptive. Both of them were horrible. Yeah. Let's eat my baby. We'll eat yours with the one that held back. She apparently she loved her baby more than the other. Now the king is bothered. Wait a sec. Is this what we're doing? Is this what has come to now? Is this where we are? Yeah. Unfortunately, this is where we are. It's pretty bad out here. It's pretty bad out here. I want to jump forward to something. I want to jump forward to something. Let's go further. Now, we see all of this happening. This famine. We see Gehazi, Gehazi. He's gone because he's got leprosy because of his greed. Naaman has been healed of his leprosy. The king of Aram, the, the, uh, they want to fight the Jews. There's this big famine. Oh, by the way, oh, by the way, Elijah has just been on full display. The power of God in his hand has been on full display. All this is happening. All this is happening and there's a famine. What we didn't talk about is the fact that there, that even since Elijah is a prophet, wouldn't be, wouldn't it have been helpful if Elijah would have told everyone about this famine ahead of time? How do y'all think that Elijah should have told the people about the famine? I'm thinking about it. He's a prophet. Shouldn't prophets prophesy about what God is going to do about a famine? It actually makes sense. It makes sense if, if, if the prophet of God you could have helped us out, Elijah, you could have told us. Y'all think that Elijah should have told everyone about the famine that it was going to happen? Well, ladies and gentlemen, he did. It's not told to us at the time, but we're told later that he actually did in second Kings. Let's fast forward to chapter eight, verse one. Now Elijah spoke to the woman whose son he had restored to life saying, arise and go with your household and sojourn wherever you can sojourn for the Lord has called for a famine. So he does tell, now we don't know then, but we find out later that he does and it will even come on the land for seven years. So now this has happened for how long? How long has this been taking place? All of this taking place over a period of seven years at the beginning of seven years. This happens with this woman. He tells her to leave naming is healed. Ghaazi has done his treachery. And in the midst of that, they've been trying to, the Arameans have been trying to get Elijah to know if they have, but all this happening over a period of seven years, a good amount of time has passed. So the woman arose and did according to the word of the man of God, and she went with her household and sojourn in the land of the Philistines seven years. At the end of seven years, the woman returned from the land of the Philistines and she went out to appeal to the king for her house and for her field. Now, now she comes back and there are squatters, something that we're having here in America, squatters, but I want you to notice something. By the way, all of this, all of this, ladies and gentlemen, was just the introduction. That was just the introduction. Now, I had to just set this up because I want to get to the point. What's the point of the conversation? The point of the conversation, the topic is the purpose of punishment. When, by the way, there's good news to the title as well, when forever isn't forever. Because I don't want forever to be forever. Someone has a forever promise of a curse against them. But there's a purpose of the punishment. I said before, I'll say it again. When you're punished and if God is the one doing the punishing, there's for two reasons. There's two reasons why God wants to punish you.  That's no bueno. Two, to correct you.  Either or. Well, in this case, what's God's purpose of the punishment? Well, let's see. Look at verse four. Now, the king was talking with Gehazi, the servant of the man of God, saying, please relate to me all the great thing that Elijah has done. And he's referring it related to the king, how he had restored to life the one who was dead. Behold, the woman whose son he had restored to life appeared to the king for her house and for her field. Now, I've covered this before. So what's the issue here? What's the wow? Bam. Look at God. What's happening here? Something's, hold up. Something's just happened here. Something is amazing here. What is it, ladies and gentlemen? You all know. I think I've covered this probably two times before. Maybe two times before. But something interesting for those who haven't seen this herds before. Absolutely right, Dutch. Gehazi don't have leprosy. How do we know? Because he just says Gehazi is talking to the king. Leprosy men can't do that. Leprosy men are not allowed to be in the presence of really any Jews, let alone the king. But I thought he had a punishment on him and his family. He's a sentence forever. Forever. Well, let's do like the man and find out what the rest of the story is. What if we do that? So there's his famine that is happening. Okay. And let's drop down to chapter, I think it's seven. Yeah, let's go to chapter seven, verse three. Now there's this great famine happening. We saw how bad the famine was happening. The famine was, thank you, CG. CG remembers. The matter of fact, I actually did a sermon that's on the, on the channel, a sermon, a sermon of me preaching said church, bringing this actual passage about passing the test. So stop getting ahead of me, CG, so I can preach this part a little bit. Anyway, we see how bad the famine is. Famine is horrible. Famine is bad. Donkey's head being sold, pigeon poop, and baby's being eaten. That's how bad it is. Where do lepros eat? Lepros have to wait on the garbage, the, the excess by the people that's thrown out to the garbage heap. Lepros people, they can't, they can't be in the city. They're at the wall, they're at the gate, they're at where the trash is stored or collected or put out. That's where they get their food or the generosity of someone to bring it to them. But there's a famine. So if they're starving inside, what are the lepros people doing? They're starving also. Now let's get to the story. There were four lepros men at the entrance of the gate and they said to one another, why do we sit here until we're dying? We're gonna die, y'all. We gotta do something. If we say we will enter the city, then the famine is in the city, and we will die there.  Now therefore come, let us go over to the camp of the Arameans. If they spare us, we will live.  Remember, the Arameans deal with leprosy different than the Jews do. How do we know? Because of Naaman. Naaman had leprosy and so they deal with him different. Now then again, Naaman is useful. Naaman, he is the commander of their army.  If we die, we die. Fine.  So let's go there. What's the difference between dying in the city, right here, or with the Arameans?   They rose at twilight to go to the camp of the Arameans. When they came to the outskirts, the camp of the Arameans, behold, there was no one there. Why? For the Lord, again, God is just always there, isn't he? For the Lord had caused the army of the Arameans to hear the sound of the chariots and the sound of horses, even the sound of a great army, so that they said to one another, behold, the king of Israel has hired against us kings of the Hittites and kings of the Egyptians to come upon us. This sound is so great, it can't be just the Jews. There's some more people coming. Therefore they arose and fled in the twilight and left their tents. How great was that sound? That must have been an awesome sound for them to hear.  When the lepers came to the outskirts of the camp, they entered one tent and ate and drank and carried from their silver and gold and clothes and went and hid them and they returned. Now, wait a second, is Cheshamp still there? Is Cheshamp still there?  I asked you guys to write down what it was that Gahazi was stealing. What was Gahazi stealing? Y'all remember, vitally important. I asked my awesome, the greatest moderators in the history of YouTube them, moderates for the greatest chat family in the history of YouTube them also. I asked them to write down what it was that Gahazi stole. That thief Gahazi, what did he do? Dutch, got it, he says, two talents of silver and two chains of clothes. So, but Elijah says, is it time for you to have silver and clothes and olive groves and vineyards and male and female servants? But all I was to tell you, all I took was some silver and some clothes. It's all I took. And you making a federal case out of this, and I know a thing or two about federal cases, having a name all up in your business, having a name all up in what you do, shame in bringing shame to the name of the Lord. I know what that's like. I know what that's like and being out when the world is going to, yeah, I know what I know what that's like. I know what that's like. And what we see here is these leprous men who I believe is Gahazi and his sons. What do they get? Would you look at here? Let's look and see what they took and carried away. They ended the 10 and eight and drank and carried from there silver and gold and clothes. What was it that Gahazi took in the first place? Some money. Now, in this case, there's gold added to it, but some money, silver and some money and some clothes, money and clothes. Never got the chance to get the olive groves and the vineyards and the servants and so forth. But what he did take was some money and some clothes and a lot about it. And so what is he, what is he faced with getting now? Money and clothes, silver, gold and clothes. And then look what happens. They took and hid them, came back and we're going to do the same thing again. Then they said to one another, somebody said, uh-oh, wait a second, what we are doing is not right. This day is a day of good news, but we are keeping silent. If we wait until morning light, punishment will overtake. We're going to get it. One thing I know for a fact, I know a thing or two about thinking you got away with something and you didn't. I know a thing or two about thinking, doing something, thinking you got away with it and then getting caught. Here we are taking stuff, hiding it. Why are we hiding? Because we know what I'm supposed to do. I think I'm going to get away with it, doing it again. Somebody's going to find out. We are going to get in trouble. So they came and called to the gatekeepers of the city and they told them saying, we came to the camp of the Arameans and behold, there was no one there. In other words, great day in the world. Victory is ours. Look what happens. So ladies and gentlemen, as I said before, and this is where CG was speaking about, this has been seven years, seven year period of time. And when God gives you an opportunity to make amends, or in other words, to take a test that you failed in the past, when something comes before you, you get a chance to do the right thing or the wrong thing. You do the right thing, you move forward. You do the wrong thing, there's going to be consequences. There's going to be a punishment. And so I did relate this in the past to a test. You failed the test seven years later. What happens? Seven years later, you get a chance to pass a test or maybe in the middle of the test. I'm not sure if exactly seven years in the middle of the test, if it was seven years or the middle of the seven year famine, but you get a chance to take the test over. And just like in school, you take your test when you take your test, you don't get to raise your hand, teacher, I got a question. I got a question. No, no, don't be surprised when in the middle of the test, you ask the teacher and the teacher is quiet. Don't be surprised in the middle of the test, you ask God and it seems though God might be silent, perhaps you are supposed to do something. Now, whether you do the right thing or the wrong thing is going to depend upon the outcome because if you fail the test, what can you expect? Well, punishment. What can you expect? Well, you're going to take the test again at some point. If you're lucky, if you're not lucky, I don't mean we're not involved in luck, but you get my point. If you're fortunate, you'll get the test again. When? Well, we don't know. Maybe next week, maybe next month, maybe next year, maybe in seven years. God is not in a rush to give it to you because what he wants to do is see if you've got the adequate training behind you. One, if you learned your lesson, but then also you've learned, you've paid attention because the time to ask questions of the teacher is not at the time of taking the test. The time of asking questions is previously, is in preparation, is your study. And so when you're confronted with someone who wants to slap you or call you all sorts of name or give you a way to where you can make some quick money or gives you something that you know the right thing to do, but doing the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing will benefit you. Yeah. At that moment in time, when you're confronted with it, man, don't be surprised when the Lord is silent because you've been given all you needed. Or I should say, hopefully you have been asking questions.  And so we see what happens that forever pronouncement on Gahazi, he's back in the good graces. It's just a few chapters later. Well, what happened? Well, we've got one story, one story that relates to a person who has leprosy and is confronted with keeping money and clothes that are not his to keep. So it seems to me that this is who this is. So I'm going to relate it that way.  Let me prove. And by the way, the Bible is full of people who have proven themselves after messing up, who have demonstrated proven themselves that they can, I'll get it right next time. A lot of folks, let's just, let's just throw some names out there. How about Jonah proven himself, didn't he, the second time? How about Peter? Matter of fact, not just Peter, the other side, Peter wasn't the only one that left Jesus. They all did. Let me answer this question. And that says, is there a difference between being punished and being chastened? Not really. Not really. No, it's not. Now, how I grew up, we didn't call it being chasing. We didn't, that was not the term that we use, but it's basically the same thing. It's basically the same thing now. Now, chastised is different than being chastened. The Bible says that Jesus was chastened for us. That's not a good thing. Punished. Now, chastised. Mama, I've messed up. Can you just give me a good talking to? Can you just scold me? Scold me. Yeah, I wasn't in my, yeah. Scolding was what she did. Chastising was what she did in preparation for the chasening of the whooping. Yeah. That's what she was doing before. Talking any of our parents talk trash, even before you got a spanking. Any appearance kind of diagrammed what was going to happen? I can't wait to get you home. I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do to you. Let me tell you what I'm going to do to you. And then I don't, I don't need you to tell me how you're going to beat me. Just surprise me.  And I don't want, I certainly don't want you talking to me. As someone said in syllables, why are you spanking? I don't want that. Just can we, can we get this done with? Can you, but I want you to learn just like your parents would beat, spank, whatever you want to call if there were any kind of good parents, they were doing it to correct you. They weren't trying to get it. As a matter of fact, the Bible says, if you beat them, they shall not die. Now, if you don't beat them, they will.   And if you feel like the punishment is too great to severe and the consequences are just too long, they're not too long. They won't last forever. As a matter of fact, our, Paul calls it our light and momentary affliction. And so you must look at it that way. God knows what he's doing. But remember, the one thing that Gehazi had was the same thing that Benadiah, the king of Arameans had the same thing that everyone else had. They had the benefit to see the awesome, handy work of God and to take notice. And they did not in many cases. Well, I take it back. Naaman did. The king of Aram did not, but Gehazi, he did. So therefore, make sure I did whoever got hit with a fly swatter. I did. I don't know. I just saw that. So, and I learned. I learned. Gehazi learned. Naaman learned. Benadiah did not. But you can't. So, I just wanted to put that out there with that was just one of the, I know covered it before, but we just happened to be going through that in these, in these few passages. So now we're going to move forward a little further on next week. But remember guys, if you don't do anything else, make sure, make certain that you do your very best to pass the test. Amen. Amen.