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Well, good evening. It's good to see everyone here for our Bible study tonight. If you're visiting, my name is Andy. I'm a pastor on staff here and I'm going to be continuing our Wednesday night study through Second Kings. So if you turn in your Bibles to Second Kings, chapter eight. Before we get started, I'm going to look at a slide from last week. If you were here last Wednesday, Pastor Tyler was sharing from second Kings seven. And so just to recap, he talked about two different points here at the end of seven before we get to the eight. Number one, share the good news, don't stay silent. And then number two, never underestimate the power of the Lord. So these are the two points. If you remember, we finished up with seven. Where? The northern kingdom of Israel. Their capital is Samaria. They were under siege from Aram or otherwise called Syria. So Ben Hadad, the king of Aram, was coming in to conquer the northern kingdom. And so there was a famine in the land. And Elisha the prophet prophesied and said, hey, the famine's going to be over. And the captain with the king scoffed and mocked at Elisha's words. And then we find out that there were four lepers who basically said, hey, this siege is killing us. We're going to die anyways. We have leprosy. Let's just go and ask for mercy from the Syrian army that's outside the walls. Let's go outside the walls, just beg them for mercy and maybe, maybe they'll have mercy on us and give us some food because we're anyways, what do we have to lose? So the lepers go out and they find out that the people of Syria, the armies of Syria had left. They had fled, and they had fled so quickly they left all their provisions. So that's what we read in the last at the end of 2nd Kings 7, the Syrian army fled. God had made them believe that the Israelites were attacking them and that they had either asked the Egyptians or the Hittites or some army to come. They had paid some army off to come and help them. And they believed that they were under attack and they fled. They went back up north and to their country and they left all their provisions. And the lepers are eating the provisions that are there and stealing the gold. And they're basically thinking, this is our best life. This is awesome. We went out here, we're four of us out here with everything that the army has and we can have it all to ourselves. And then their conscience started to kick in. And they're like, we should probably tell somebody. Our people are back inside the walls, starving to death, and we're out here eating as much as we can and we should go and tell them. So they go and tell them. The king doesn't believe them at first, sends out some people to check it out. When the word spreads that it was true, the people rushed out the gates, trampled the captain of the guard, killing him, and went and ate the food and took all the provisions. And so we read this in 2nd Kings 7. And Tyler said, hey, share the good news. Don't stay silent. Let's take this from the lepers to say, hey, let's not keep God's blessing to ourselves. God has blessed us so that we can be a blessing. And then he said, never underestimate the power of the Lord. Basically, the idea that Elisha, the prophet, said, hey, the famine's going to end. You're going to be able to buy bread tomorrow. Don't worry about it. And he was scoffed and mocked. And the idea is you underestimate the power of the Lord and you're going to be in trouble, just like the captain was. So that was Second Kings seven. So tonight we're going to look in Second Kings eight, we're going to continue. And so before we do, I have a map. Trying to understand just a little bit. If you look at the map, you can see Shunam, because we're going to read about a Shunammite woman. So I guess if you're from Shunam, you're a Shunammite, just like if you're from Israel, you're an Israelite or an Israeli. I'm from Virginia. I'm a Virginian. My wife and my daughter and my mom and my sister were all born in Michigan. The. So they're Michiganders. I. I don't know who comes up with this. If you from New York, you're a New Yorker. If you're from Greece, you're a Greek. I. I wonder what the rule is. There had to have been a rule that they figured out. Here's what you call someone. If you're from Maryland, you're a Marylander, West Virginian. So. But. But I don't know what the rule is. I can't figure it out. If you're from Indiana, you're a Hoosier. So I'm not sure there is a rule. But when you read the Shunammite woman, she's from Shuna. Shunam's an actual town in northern Israel, just south of the Sea of Galilee. And so we're going to read about this woman. Now, before we get to this, because the chapter, and Second Kings in general, because this is not all chronological, I'm going to go back and forth quite a bit, and that can be frustrating. It was frustrating to me when I read it. I read it four times trying to prepare, trying to understand where is all of this, Trying to figure out, why are they talking about the Shunammite woman right here in Second Kings chapter? Because you have to go back to two Kings five. Pastor Gary was teaching us on a Wednesday night. He introduced us to this Shunammite woman, basically said, here's a woman and she's from Shunam. And she was wanting to be hospitable to the prophet Elisha. So the story was, if you remember, Elisha would come through Shunam every once in a while. He's going to warn the people and share the good news and be a prophet of God. And he's going through Shunam. And she says, hey, we're going to build you an Airbnb basically, on our house. And then you can stay whenever you come through town, you come through town, you stay for free, and you can live here as long as you can stay here as long as you want as you're traveling through. So Elisha took her up on it and then basically said, hey, how can I repay your hospitality? This is really good. I really appreciate this. What can I do for you? And she said, no, I'm good. I'm content. He asked again, and she basically said, well, to be honest, my husband is old. Probably almost as old as Pastor Gary, who celebrated her birthday last week. She said, my husband's old and I don't have a son who's going to be able to take care of me. And Elisha said, okay, I will grant you a son. And she's like, don't joke around with me. And he's like, no, I'm serious. You'll have a son. And so we find out a year later she had a son. And it was a miracle. And it came true. And Elisha, the Prophet, said it would, and it did. So she has this son, she raises this son, and then we find out that the son gets sick. He has a headache, a brain aneurysm, maybe Gary. Pastor Gary said, maybe heat stroke. And he runs to his mom, just says, my head's hurting. And then he dies. And so she has to lay her son, who. Who is dead on his bed. The Bible says she gets on a donkey and rides 20 plus miles to Mount Carmel to find Elisha and said, hey, you remember the son that you promised me? He's back home. He died. He's back home. He's lying on the bed. Come with me. You gotta come heal him. The Bible says Elisha went back with the woman and healed her son. So that's this woman that we're trying to understand. And because at some time in this story, the son was healed. Then we also find out at some point in the story, Elisha tells the woman, hey, there's going to be a famine. So just go away for seven years and then come back and you'll be spared the siege. You'll be spared the famine. And so she does. And so that's when we pick up the story. She's returning after seven years because Elisha told her to flee to another land during the famine. And. And now we can start. In Second Kings, chapter 8, verse 1, it says now Elisha had said to the woman whose son he had restored to life, go away with your family and stay a while, wherever you can, because the Lord has decreed a famine in the land that will last seven years. The woman proceeded to do so, as the man of God said. She and her family went away and stayed in the land of Philistines seven years. At the end of the seven years, she came back from the land of the Philistines and went to appeal to the king for her house and land. The king was talking to Gehazi, a servant of the man of God, and had said, tell me about all the great things Elisha had done. Just as Gehazi was telling the king how Elisha had restored the dead to life, the woman whose son Elisha had brought back to life came to appeal to the king for her house and land. Gehazi said, this is the woman, my lord the king, and this is her son who Elisha restored to life. And the king asked the woman about it, and she told him. Then he assigned an official to her case and said to him, give back everything that belonged to her, including all the income from her land from the day she left the country until now. And so that's the first section in Second Kings, chapter eight. And the principle that I wanted to share from that section is just, simply this, God is faithful to his people. The principle for us to understand, whether we understand the story about the Shunammite woman or not, whether we get all the details, the idea is God is faithful to his people. Jesus says this in Luke chapter 12. He says, Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap, which have neither storehouse nor barn, and God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds? You know, the problem is trying to understand God's faithfulness. We just can't base everything off our current circumstances when we're trying to understand God's faithfulness. You see, we have to understand God is faithful, even though our current circumstances may not say so. It doesn't matter if we're having a good day, doesn't matter if we're having a good week, doesn't matter. Maybe we're having a bad month. The reality is God is still faithful. And we can understand through the Shunammite woman. As little as we know about her. There's three different times that she could have doubted God's faithfulness. I mean, think about it. The first time, she's childless. So if you're a woman in Israel and your husband is old and you don't have any children to take care of you, she literally, honestly could have doubted God's faithfulness. She could have said, I don't know that God's real. I don't know that God loves me. I don't know that God's taken care of me. I don't have any children. I haven't borne any children. I'm barren. Does God care? Is he faithful? Is he true to his word? I see the other women around me, they have children. God must love them. He must care for them. And so obviously she had a chance then to doubt that God was faithful. The second time is she had to flee her own country, her own land, her own home for seven years. Think about it. Seven years is a long time to be away from home. We go home for. We go away for a week or two and we're ready to get back home. She's gone away for seven years, wondering, is God true? Is God faithful? God told me to go away to this country for seven years. And so I have. And what do I have to show for it? After year one, year two, year five, year seven, she could have doubted God's faithfulness. And then the third time, think about when her son dies. She's like God, you gave me a son and now he's dead. Why would you do that to me? Are you good? Are you faithful? Are your promises true? Are you faithful to your people? She definitely could have doubted. But her faith carried her when her experiences left her room for doubt. And so that's the reason we're here tonight. If you're wondering, why am I here tonight, it's no surprise that you're here tonight. You're here tonight. I'm here tonight to read God's word, to pray, to worship him, to fellowship with other believers so that God can strengthen our faith, so that our strong faith can carry us when we doubt. Because it's going to happen. You're going to have a bad day, a bad week, a bad month, a bad seven years. And we need our faith to be strengthened, to believe that God is good and faithful even when our circumstances say otherwise. Now, because the book, like I said, is not in chronological order, this storyline does get confusing. We've already gone back and forth from two different stories already. And so when I read through this four different times, one of the things I decided to do was I decided to kind of zoom out on Second Kings, zoom out on the book of first and second Kings and just try to look at the Old Testament. Where is this in the Old Testament in terms of history? Because I'm trying to understand when you come, maybe you haven't been following with us every time, every week through this and you're coming in, jumping into Second Kings for the first time, you're kind of like, where are we in terms of history? And so I created this slide to try to help us understand, starting with creation. So Book of Genesis starts with creation. And I promise this will take about three minutes. This quick summary. We're going to be looking through this. You think about it. The book of Genesis starts with creation. And then we have the fall of garden, the fall out of the garden with Adam and Eve. And then we're on to Noah and the flood. And then after Noah and the flood, we've got the covenant that God creates with Abraham and he creates the Israelite people with Abraham. And then the book of Exodus talks about Abraham's descendants become a great nation. And then they fall into slavery. And then we read about Moses and Moses brings them out of slavery because God raised up Moses as a deliverer and then onto the promised land. So Joshua leads them into the promised land, but that at that time they split up into tribes. All the sons and the tribes take over the land. And so we think of Joshua and the battle of Jericho, and they go in through Jericho to take the land and then they split up the tribes and. And the tribes are to take over the land, the promised land. But that didn't go so well. And they start to sin and the Canaanites start to overwhelm some of the tribes, just sometimes in terms of culture, sometimes in terms of battle and they. They fail to overtake it. And we. We go to the Book of Judges. And the Book of Judges ends with basically saying that everyone did in their eyes, what they saw fit. It was just that idea that Israel had no king. Everyone did as they saw fit. And then the Book of Samuel starts off where Samuel anoints Saul as the first king of Israel. You remember Saul. So Saul the Benjamite becomes the first king of Israel. And then David was anointed by Samuel as well. And so first and second Samuel, take us through King Saul and King David. And then David was the king that Moses most aligned the most aligned with the principles from Moses that Moses wrote about in Deuteronomy, because Moses wrote in Deuteronomy in the first five books of the Bible, hey, if you're gonna have a king, the king should look like this. And David most closely aligned to that king that God had set up through the Book of Deuteronomy. And so God made a covenant with David, and he said, hey, David, you'll never not have someone on the throne. I'm making a covenant with you. And because he was the king that closely resembled what a king of Israel was supposed to look like. And so we have King David. Now King David had a son, Solomon, Wise king Solomon wrote the Proverbs, so David wrote the Psalms. Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes and Proverbs. And because of Solomon's wives, because of his sin, the. The kingdom's divided. So kingdom of Israel divides. And then we have the kingdom of the north and the kingdom of the south. And so we have the divided kingdom. And that's where we are in the Old Testament right now. We are studying first and second kings, trying to understand the divided kingdom. And you've got. In the divided kingdom, you have ultimately ends up with 20 kings to the north and 20 kings of the south. All the 20 kings to the north are evil. The 20 kings of the south, there's about eight good kings out of those 20 kings to the south. So we are in the period of the divided kingdom. Then what we basically learn in the divided kingdom is Israelites are doing their own thing. They're not following God, despite the fact that God sent all these prophets to warn and remind them. And so the north goes into exile into Assyria, the south goes into exile into Babylon. And so we read about that. And you read about. When you read about Daniel in the lion's den, and you read about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, you read about. Those are stories that happen in Babylon. And then the Bible talks about how they come back and they've got Nehemiah and Ezra and they rebuild the walls. And then we're getting closer to the New Testament with the birth of Jesus. So that's the Old Testament. Sometimes it's helpful to zoom out and just say, okay, what are these? Because the Old Testament's not chronological. So we're going to be reading through, and we're going to be going through first and second Kings. And then there's going to be times when we're going to go into the Psalms and we're like, well, the Psalms. David wrote the Psalms back here in First Samuel. Like, yeah, that's. It's not chronological. And so sometimes it's helpful to look back and be like, okay, where are we? Okay, right now, we're in the divided kingdom. And so Pastor Gary has a slide. And we look at this slide and be like, okay, here's all the 20 kings up top to the north. Here's all the 20 kings down to the south. We've got the prophets to the north, Elijah and Elisha that we're talking about, and we've got Saul and David and Solomon that go here all the way leading up into captivity. And you look at this and you say, this is so confusing. All I'm saying right now is saying, that's okay. It's confusing to me, too. That's why the idea is I'm trying to understand in my own mind, okay. What I'm reading right now is basically telling me, despite the names that are on the screens right now, the people of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, did not listen to his promises, did not listen to his prophets that came through, did not listen to his Word. And it ended them into exile into either Assyria or into Babylon. They didn't get to stay in the promised land. And so that's what we're trying to understand. The idea here is, is that we are about 800 years before Jesus in the history of the Old Testament. And Elijah and Elisha are not listened to. And if you get confused by the names of the kings, so do most people. But the people did evil in the eyes of the Lord. They worshiped their idols. They continued to worship golden calves in the Northern Kingdom. And then one more note before we start back in 2 Kings, because we have to go back again because there's another story that hits. And Pastor Gary talked about this story as well. You remember Elijah, who was frustrated with God, and he went to Mount Horeb And God basically, he basically was asking for God's help. He was calling out to the Lord. And the Bible said that a strong wind came through and God wasn't in the wind. And then the Bible says there was an earthquake. And Elijah thought, oh, God's gonna speak to me through the earthquake. And the Bible says God wasn't in the earthquake. And then there was a fire, and God wasn't in the fire. And the Bible says that God spoke to Elijah through a still, small voice. And he asked Elijah, why are you on this mountain seeking me? And Elijah complains to God. He's struggling. So Elijah the prophet, he's basically saying, hey, no one's listening to me. They're killing all the prophets. I'm the only one left, and I'm done. And Pastor Gary said. He said, hey, God didn't rebuke Elijah in that moment. He also didn't try to comfort Elijah in that moment. What did he do? He gave him things to do. He said, elijah, here's three tasks that I want you to focus on. I want you to go and anoint the new king, Aram. I want you to anoint the next king of the northern Israel. And then I want you to anoint Elisha the prophet as your successor. And so here's what First Kings 19:19 says. After God told him this, the Bible says, so Elijah departed from there and went to find Elisha. And why is that interesting? Because God said, hey, first I want you to go north to Damascus, anoint the next king of Aram. Then I want you to go and anoint the king of northern Israel. And then I want you to go and find Elisha and anoint him as your successor. And what did Elijah do? He went straight to number three. Do we understand why? In that moment, as defeated as he was, I mean, this was Elijah. Think of Elijah, the man who was so bold, so confident. Think of him as going again up against all the prophets of BAAL on Mount Carmel. And the prophets of BAAL are. Are making fun of him. And Elijah brings fire down on all the. The logs that had all the water on them. This is Elijah. We knew that he was confident. We knew that he was bold. We knew he could follow instructions. And yet there are three things, basically that God asked him to do. And here's the three things he says. Leave from here, go north to Damascus, and anoint Hazael king of Syria. Then anoint Jehu king of Israel. Jehu was a commander in Ahab's army. And then anoint Elisha to succeed you as prophet. And then he says, jehu will put to death anyone who Hazael doesn't, and Elisha will put to death anyone who escapes the sword of Jehu. But Elijah starts with a third assignment, which I can't say for sure was God's intention. But it seems like there was an order on purpose. It seems like God had an order in specific instructions. But instead, Elijah goes south to the Sea of Galilee, anoints Elisha the next prophet, and then Elisha ends up anointing Hazael and Jehu. So Elisha ended up doing number one and number two. So God's purposes were still accomplished, but not by Elijah. And so that's where we are in First Kings, chapter eight. This covers the commission number one. So if you look in verse seven, Elisha is doing what God had asked Elijah to do. Second Kings, chapter 8, verse 7, through verse 15, says this. 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 meet the man of God. Consult the Lord through him and ask him, will I recover from this illness? Hazael went to meet Elisha, taking with him a gift 40 camel loads of all the finest wares of Damascus. He went in and stood before him and said, you, 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, meaning you can recover from this illness. But nevertheless, the Lord has revealed to me that he in fact will die. He stared at him with a fixed gaze until Hazael, the messenger, was embarrassed and the man of God began to weep. Hazael said, why, Elisha? Why are you weeping? He said, because I know the harm you will do to the Israelites. He answered, you will set fire to their fortified places. You will kill their young men with a sword, dash their children to the ground, rip open their pregnant woman. And Hazael said, how could your servant, a mere dog, accomplish such a feat? And Elisha said, the Lord has shown me you will become the king of Aram. Then Hazael left. Elisha returned to his master. When Benhadad asked, what did Elisha say? Hazael replied, he told me you would certainly recover. But the next day, Hazael took a thick cloth, soaked it in water, spread it over the king's face so that he died, and Hazael succeeded him as king. So here's what happened. Just a quick summary. Ben Haddad was the king of Aram, and he's sick and he calls for Elisha's help. So think about that. Ben Hadad, the prophet, or the king of Aram, asked for a prophet's help. Aram was a foreign nation that didn't follow God. And he's saying, hey, can. Can the prophet of God come and try to heal me? The only thing I can think of is it's possible that Naaman, who was the commander of Ben Hadad's army, told Benhadad what Elisha had done. You remember the story of Naaman and how God healed Naaman? It's possible that Naaman went back and told the king what had happened. Because when the king got sick, he's like, hey, where's Elisha? He wanted to know where Elisha was. So maybe Naaman told him about what had happened. Elisha predicted Ben Hadad could recover from his illness, but he wouldn't live that long to see that. True, his illness didn't kill him. Hazael the messenger killed him. So Hazael is the king of Aram, and Hazael stays the king of Aram, which is Syria, for the next 41 years. 841-801 BC despite the fact that as he claimed himself a mere dog, history records him as the son of a nobody. No one can understand why Hazael took the throne. He wasn't the king's son. He wasn't royalty. He was a servant. He was a mere dog. He was recorded as the son of a nobody. But that's all for hazy hell now until the end of the chapter. So I'm telling you, we're jumping around now. We're going to focus back on the southern king of Israel. And I've tried to simplify the timeline for us. We're right here in the middle. And if you look at Second Kings, chapter 8, verse 16, it says this. So we're back. Now, in the fifth year of Joram, son of Ahab, king of Israel, when Jehoshaphat was king of Judah, Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat, began to reign as king of Judah. All right, so we're already confused. Okay, so here's where we are. Ahab, king of Israel, has a son, Joram. And so now Joram's the king of the northern kingdom of Israel. Jehoshaphat was the king of Judah, of the south, during the fifth year of Joram's reign. Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat began to reign as king of Judah. He was 32 years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years. He followed the ways of the kings of Israel to the north, as the house of Ahab had done, for he married a daughter of Ahab. He did evil in the eyes of the Lord. Nevertheless, for the sake of David, the Lord was not willing to destroy Judah. He had promised to maintain a lamp for David and his descendant forever. So think about this. Jehoshaphat, a good king in the south, arranged for his son Jehoram to marry Ahab's daughter. He made an alliance. See, he was more concerned with an alliance with the northern king than he was an alliance with God. And so Jehoram, Jehoshaphat's son, marries Ahab and Jezebel's daughter Athaliah. So in verse 20, it says this. In the time of Jehorah, Edom rebelled against Judah and set up its own king. So Jehoram went to Zaire with his chariots. The Edomites surrounded him and his chariot commanders. But he rose up and broke through the night by his. By night. His army, however, fled back home. To this day, Edom has been in rebellion against Judah. Libnah revolted at the same time. As for the other events in Jehoram's reign and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah? Jehoram rested with his ancestors and was buried with them in the city of David. And Ahaziah, his son, succeeded him as king. So here's the next principle. Bad company corrupts good character. This verse is actually found in a letter that Paul wrote to the Corinthians. But Paul didn't make this up. This was a Greek philosopher, a Greek poet wrote this. And Paul knew. The Greeks knew this saying. And so Paul used this in second Corinthians. And he said, bad company corrupts good character. And. And it definitely applies to this story. If you read through the life of Jehoshaphat, he started so well. He was a good king. He had so many things that the Bible talked about how many good things that he did in his life. And then he. To try to keep the north and the south at peace, he arranges his son to marry the king Ahab and Jezebel's daughter. And it did not go well. He reigned with his father Jehoshaphat for five years. And then he reigned on his own for eight years. And here's what we read in Second Chronicles 21 about Jehoram. Because a lot of times you can read, you can go back and forth between the kings and the Chronicles to get more of the story. It said Jehoram, Jehoshaphat's son, succeeded him as king. Jehoram had six brothers who were the sons of Jehoshaphat. Their father had given his sons many gifts of silver and gold and articles of value, as well as fortified cities throughout Judah. But he had given the kingdom to Jehoram because Jehoram was Jehoshaphat's firstborn son. When Jehoram established himself firmly over his father's kingdom, he put all his brothers to the sword, along with some of the other officials of Israel. He followed the ways of the kings of the north, as the house of Ahab had done, for he married a daughter of Ahab and. And he did evil in the eyes of the Lord. Nevertheless, because of the covenant the Lord had made with David, the Lord was not willing to destroy the house of David. He had promised to maintain a lamp for David and his descendants forever. Verse 12. It says, Jehoram received a letter from Elijah the prophet, which said, this is what the Lord, the God of your father David said. You have not followed the ways of your father, Jehoshaphat, but you have followed the ways of the north kings. And you have led Judah and the people of Jerusalem to prostitute themselves. And just as the house of Ahab did, you've murdered your own brothers, members of your own family, men who were better than you. So now the Lord is about to strike your people, your son, your wives and everything that is yours with a heavy blow. You yourself will be very ill with a lingering disease until your death. The Lord aroused against Jehoram the hostility of the Philistines and the Arabs who lived near the Cushites. They attacked Judah, invaded it, carried off all the goods found in the king's palace, and together with his sons and his wives, not a son was left to him, except Ahaziah, the youngest. After all this, the Lord afflicted Jehoram with an incurable disease and he died in great pain. Listen to this. It says his people made no funeral fire in his honor, as they had for his predecessors. He passed away to no one's regret and was buried in the city of David, but not buried in the tombs of the kings. His character was corrupted by the alliance with the kings of the north, and he literally ended with no legacy. The people of the kingdom, they said they buried him with no regret. They didn't honor him in his burial. His 13 years of reign because of all the evil that he had done. All right. Five verses left in the chapter. Chapter eight. In the 12th year of Joram, son of Ahab, king of Israel, to the north, Ahaziah, son of Jehoram, king of the south, began to reign. Ahaziah was 22 years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem one year. His mother's name was Athaliah, a granddaughter of Omri, king of Israel. He followed in the ways of the house of Ahab and did evil in the eyes of the Lord, as the house of Ahab had done, for he was related by marriage to Israel. Ahab's family. Ahaziah went with Joram, son of Ahab, to war against Hazael, king of Aram. At Ramoth Gilead, the Arameans wounded Joram. So King Joram returned to Jezreel to recover from the wounds that the Arameans had inflicted upon him in the battle with Hazael, king of Aram. Then Ahaziah, son of Joram, king of Judah, went down to Jezreel to see his uncle Joram, son of Ahab, because he had been wounded. All right, so now we're going to turn into chapter nine, turning back to the northern kingdom in Israel. And remember, God gave Elijah three tasks. I want you to go anoint Hazael, the next king of Aram. Then I want you to go anoint Jehu. Elijah did neither of those, but Elisha did the first. And now we're going to find out what happens with the second commission or task that God gave to Elijah. So 2 Kings 9. Elisha the prophet called one of the sons of the prophets and said to him, get ready yourself. Get yourself ready. Take the flask of oil. Go to Ramoth, Gilead. When you arrive at that place, look there for Jehu son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi, and go in and make him rise from among his associates. Take him to an inner room. Then take the flask of oil, pour it on his head, and say, thus says the Lord, I have anointed you king over Israel. Then open the door and flee. Do not delay. So basically, Elisha's calling one of the sons of the prophets. It's almost like one of the interns. So he's like a student. And Elisha has students in the school of prophets. And so he basically says to one of the interns, hey, I'm going to send you on a mission. Here's what I want you to go do. I want you to go anoint Jehu's head. And then I want you to leave. So verse four, it says, the young man a servant of the prophet. So the intern basically went to Ramoth, Gilead. When he arrived, there were captains of the army sitting. And he said, I have a messenger for you, the commander. Because Jehu was the commander of the army. And Jehu said, for which one of us? And he said, for you, the commander. Then he arose and went into the house, and he poured the oil on his head, and he said to you thus, the Lord of God of Israel, I have anointed you king over the people of Israel. You shall strike down the house of Ahab, your master, that I may avenge the blood of my servants, the prophet, and the blood of all the servants of the Lord. Lord, at the hand of Jezebel. For the whole house of Ahab shall perish. And I will cut off from Ahab all the males in Israel, both bond and free. And I will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nabat, and like the house of Bashar the son of Ahijah. The dog shall eat Jezebel on the plot of ground at Jezreel, and there shall be no one to bury her. And he opened the door and he fled. Then Jehu came out to the servants of his master. And one said to him, is all well? Why did this madman come to you? And he said to him, you know, the man in his Babel. And they said a lie. Tell us now. This is funny. It's almost like he's like, yeah, you know, yada, yada. That's just a bunch of things that he just wanted to say, and he didn't want to tell them. For some reason, he didn't want to say, here's what happened. And they said, you're lying. Tell us what this man said. And so he said, thus. And thus he spoke to me, saying, thus says the Lord, I have anointed you king over Israel. Then each man hastened to take off his garment, put it under him on top of the steps, and they blew the trumpet and said, jehu is king. We're going to stop here for the night. Jehu is going to be king of the northern armies of Israel. So he's already the commander. And now he's going to be king, anointed by Elisha's intern. And we learn as we come back next week. Jehu, a former commander in Ahab's army, goes on a killing spree, just as a commander would. But our Last principle as we go through tonight is this. God is faithful to his Word. So God shared the word with Elijah. He said, elijah, I have three things for you to do. And Elijah did the third, and then Elisha did the first. And then Elisha had an intern do the second. But regardless, God's Word was true and God was faithful to his word. Now, I don't honestly know, was Elijah too scared to go and do this? And so he went first to Elisha and said, hey, Elisha, you do these for me. And Elisha did the first. And he's like, well, I'm not going to the commander of the army. He'll kill me. But also, I'll get an intern to do it. I don't know if it was fear. I don't know if it was a training mission like Elisha said, well, I've done this before. I'm going to give this chance to somebody else. I can't say what it was. But what we do know, regardless of the details, is that God is faithful to his Word. His word is going to come true whether we understand it or not, whether it even comes true in our lifetime or not. God is faithful to his Word. His words are true. He will fulfill his promises. And on this last point, the question for us is, are we going to get in on what he's doing? Are we going to be like Elijah? Are we going to be like Elisha? Are we going to be like the intern when God gives us something to do? Are we going to be obedient and do it? A lot of times we wake up in the morning and we basically say, hey, God, can you bless this and bless me and bless this task and bless my adventures that I'm going to, my adventures that I'm gonna take throughout the day? I need your blessing for all these things that I wanna do. And a lot of times we miss the point. Instead, on mornings we wake up and say, hey, God, what are you doing? What are you up to? What is your will for my life today? How can I get in on that? How's your spirit moving? I wanna be a part of what you're doing because your word is true, your promises are true, and I wanna be a part of it. I want to join in. For whatever reason Elijah got out. And then we just read Elisha got out. But the idea is, God, I want to be a part of what your word says. I want to be a part of your spirit. I want to be a part of your move. But instead, a lot of times it's just God, I just want your blessing to do what I want to do. Can you just help me with what I want? Here's my tasks, here's what I need done. Can you just bless this? And I'm asking tonight, can we just reverse that? Sometimes we wake up in the morning and say, God, what are you up to? What is in your word? How can I be a part of this? How can you use me today? How can my eyes be open to what you have for me today so that I can be a part of what your spirit is doing? Because I don't want to miss it. I don't want to miss your blessing. Because his promises are true, they're eternal and they matter. Most of the things that we have on our list, they just don't. So let's pray. Let's remember these things. God is faithful. He's faithful to his people whether we know it or not. Bad company corrupts good character and God is faithful to his Word. Let's pray. God, we recognize tonight that you are faithful even when we don't acknowledge it, even when we don't understand it, even when we can't see it, when it's not in our circumstances, when it doesn't make sense. So God, we recognize that you are faithful. You're faithful to your people, you're faithful to your Word. And so we want to read it, we want to understand it, we want to learn more about it. We want to be a part of what you're doing. So God, I pray that you can use us, use this church to be a part of what you're doing throughout this community, throughout this state, throughout this country. God, how do you want us to move? How do you want us to minister and to impact our neighbors, our co workers, our friends? You're speaking to us. I just pray that we could get quiet enough sometimes just to hear you. And when we hear you, we could obey so we can get in on what you're doing. Thank you for your faithfulness. Thank you for your goodness. Thank you for these lessons that we've learned tonight. In your name we pray. Amen.