In this sermon, Pastor Chuck Smith discusses the story of Elisha and his prediction of evil. When Elisha first began his ministry, a woman recognized him as a man of God and provided him with hospitality. Elisha then prophesied that the woman's husband would die, which initially caused confusion. Later, Elisha stared intently at Haziel and wept, revealing that he knew the evil Haziel would bring upon the children of Israel. The sermon emphasizes the importance of having a present work of God in one's life and not relying solely on past experiences.

Oh, let the Son of God enfold you With His Spirit and His love Let Him fill your heart and satisfy your soul Oh, let Him have the things that mold you And His Spirit like a dove Will descend upon your life and make you whole Welcome to The Word for Today Featuring the Bible teaching of Pastor Chuck Smith Of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, California Pastor Chuck is currently leading us on a verse-by-verse venture Through the entire Bible And on today's edition of The Word for Today We'll be continuing with Elisha's prediction of evil As we pick up today's lesson in 2 Kings 8, verse 1 And now, here's Pastor Chuck Smith with today's message When Elisha first began his ministry There was a woman who recognized that he was a man of God And so she provided hospitality In fact, even had her husband build him a little room So that whenever he passed by that way He could stop and refresh himself And could sleep there And she just provided for him In time, he wanted to return the favor to her And he asked what he could do for her And he said, shall I talk to the king? She said, no, I'm satisfied, I dwell peaceably And his servant, Gehazi, said she doesn't have any child And so he called her in And he said, next year about this time you'll be nursing a baby And she said, oh, don't put me on And he said, no, you'll have a child So she did have a son Her husband was an older man They had not been able to have children But God gave to her a son One day the little boy was out in the field with his father And he evidently had a heat stroke He said, my head, my head And so the father had the servants rush him back to his mother Where he laid on her lap and died And so she laid him in the prophet's chamber And she ordered the servant to saddle the donkey And she said, don't slow down unless I tell you And so she came riding furiously to Mount Carmel Where the prophet Elisha was staying at that time And when he saw her coming He realized the haste and all by which she was coming Something was evidently wrong He sent Gehazi, his servant, out to ask her if everything was okay And she said, everything is okay But she continued driving on And as she came to Elisha She grabbed hold of his feet And Gehazi said, shall I cast her away? And he said, no, there's something troubling her And the Lord hasn't shown me So she said, why didn't I tell you don't deceive me When you said that I was going to have a child And Elisha said to Gehazi, take my staff and put it upon the child, hurry And she said, you're going with me So she took Elisha back And he laid down upon the child And God restored her son to life An outstanding miracle But this relationship had developed Between Elisha and the family of this Shunammite woman So that when the Lord showed Elisha That the land was going to experience seven years of drought He came to this woman, chapter 8 Whose son he had restored to life And he said, arise And with your household Go and sojourn wherever you can For the Lord hath called for a famine And it's going to be on the land for seven years So don't stay in the land of Israel God is going to bring judgment By reason or by way of a famine It's going to last for seven years And so it came to pass At the end of the seven years That the woman came back from the land of the Philistines Where she had gone to dwell during the time of the famine And someone had taken over her house and her property And so she came to the king for the restoration Of her house and of her land Now Gehazi, who was the servant of Elisha Was talking with the king For the king had asked him to tell me about this man of God Gehazi had, of course, you remember, gotten in trouble When Naaman, the Syrian captain Had come to Elisha to be healed of his leprosy And Elisha sent Gehazi out to him With a message, go down to the Jordan River Dip yourself in the water seven times And you'll be recovered from your leprosy And he headed back to Syria Angry as could be Angry at the prophet of God For not even having the courtesy To come out and tell him himself Sent the servant out We've got better rivers in Damascus, you know And he was determined that He wasn't going to follow the advice of the prophet But his servant said to him, look If he had asked you to do some terribly difficult thing You would have been glad to do it How much more than that? He just says a simple thing, dip yourself Why don't you? And see what would happen And so he dipped himself in the Jordan River seven times And he came up, his flesh was like that of a little child He was cured completely of the leprosy Well, he came back to Elisha and wanted to reward him Wanted to lay a lot of loot on him, actually Gold and silver and changes of apparel And Elisha, unlike the modern evangelist today Said, no, you keep it I don't need anything from your hand, you know You keep it, I don't want it And so, the servant Gehazi, this servant Gehazi As Naaman went away, he thought, man If I just had a part of that loot I could buy vineyards I could buy olive orchards I could hire servants Man, I could be set up And so he slipped away And he went chasing down the road after Naaman And so they saw him coming and they stopped And they said, is everything okay? He said, oh yes, everything is okay Except that, just after you left My master had a couple of young prophets come in Who needed help And so if you could just give a couple of the bars of gold And a couple of changes of raiment, you know It would help them out And my master would appreciate it And the prophet said, oh, here, take four, you know And he loaded the gifts on Gehazi Who came back and hid them And came in to Elisha And Elisha said, where have you been? I've been anywhere He said, oh, as you went, did not my spirit go with you? Is this a time to receive rewards? Is this a time to buy vineyards and orchards And to hire servants? And he began to read the intentions of Gehazi What he intended to do with this money He said, the leprosy that was upon Naaman will cling to you And he turned a leper, went out from the presence of Elisha No longer a servant of Elisha He now is talking with the king He's become sort of an entertainer for the king of sorts No longer is he able to actually participate in the work of God But now he is rehearsing what God did It's always a sign of a sad state of spiritual affairs When you have to talk about the work of God in the past tense When there isn't that present work of God within your life That you're excited about Things that God is doing this day or this past week The Lord has been so good But when you have to say, well, I can remember back in the days of the tent Oh, those were exciting days When you have to go back to find excitement in the work of the Lord It should be something that is fresh day by day The discovery of God's grace unto us And so Gehazi is now entertaining the king with the stories Tell me what this guy Elisha did Tell me some of the stories And so he's become an entertainer As he relates to the king the stories of the past Well, it just so happened in one of those coincidental things If you believe in coincidences That as he was telling the king how Elisha had raised this boy And brought the dead body back to life That just as he was telling this story Here came in the woman with her son Because she is wanting to get a judgment from the king That will cause the people who appropriated her property to give it back So she came in at that very time He's telling this marvelous story of the raising of the son She comes in and Gehazi says Hey, there's the woman right there and that's her boy That's the one I'm telling you about And so the king asks her concerning the story And so she related to him the same story Of how God had brought her son back to life So the king appointed an officer To see that she got back all of her property And all of the fruit of the property During the seven years that she was gone Now, in a typology for those that are interested in typology And it is an interesting subject This woman becomes the type of the nation of Israel That will be restored by God And when restored by God will receive All of the fruit that it was deprived of During the years that others had appropriated her property But Israel even as the woman will receive this grace and benefit Because of the resurrection of the dead son So the son of course being raised from the dead Becomes a type of Jesus Christ And Israel's blessings that will come to her As the result of the resurrection of the dead son And so you have an interesting type from the Old Testament Now Elisha, meanwhile, we come back to Elisha now Has gone up to the capital of Syria, Damascus And Ben-Hadad, who was the king of Syria Was told, he was sick, and he was told That the man of God, that is Elisha, has come here He was very familiar with Elisha He was the one who sent his captain Naaman down For the curing of his leprosy Elisha had been revealing all of his plans Of attacks against Samaria to the king of Samaria And he thought that one of his generals was a spy And he found out that there was a man of God in Israel Who knew everything he said And so he sent his army to capture Elisha But instead Elisha captured his army And delivered his army to the king of Samaria And so he was familiar with Elisha And they said, hey that man of God is here And so he sent Haziel To take a present in his hand And to go and to meet the man of God And inquire of Jehovah by him Saying, shall I recover of this disease Is this fatal? You know it's an interesting thing Whenever we've been sick for a while It's crazy the way our minds work A week of sickness and we think we're dead So he was wondering, am I going to recover from this disease So Haziel went to meet him And he took the present with him Of all of the good things of Damascus Actually 40 camels were loaded down With presents for the prophet And he said, your son Benhadad, the king of Syria Has sent me to thee saying Shall I recover of this disease And Elisha said unto him, go and say to him You may certainly recover How be it? The Lord has shown me That he shall surely die An interesting answer That leaves a little confusion Until you read the rest of the story And so he settled, Elisha settled his countenance steadfastly That is he began to stare intently at Haziel And as he began to stare intently at him Until actually it was sort of embarrassing He then began to weep And Haziel said, why are you weeping? And Elisha said, because I know the evil That you will do to the children of Israel Their strongholds you're going to set on fire Their young men you will slay with a sword Their children you will dash in the streets And you will rip up the pregnant girls And Haziel said, but what is thy servant, a dog? That he should do these horrible things And Elisha answered, the Lord has shown me That you shall be the king over Syria Now if you remember back in 1 Kings One of the duties that God appointed Elijah Remember when Elijah had fled to Mount Horeb From the wrath of Jezebel And while he was there in Mount Horeb The Lord came to him as he was standing in the cave And said, what are you doing here Elijah? And he said, I've been jealous for God They've slain all your prophets, I'm the only one left And they're trying to kill me And so the Lord finally said, look Go on up to Syria and anoint Haziel To be the king over Syria And God commissioned him on two or three little tasks That he was to perform We don't know, the scripture doesn't say That he ever got to Syria to anoint Haziel But this is the same Haziel Now Elisha is saying to him, the Lord has shown me That you are going to be the king over Syria But the interesting part of this story is that He did not know the evil that was in his own heart And it is difficult for us to know The evil that is in our own hearts Given the right circumstances, given the right situation The evil things that we are capable of doing Though we might swear I would never do that And if someone would tell us the things that we are capable of doing We would be insulted We would be as Haziel who said Am I a dog that I would do such things? What do you think I am man? He did not know the potential for evil That was in his own heart And we do not realize the potential for evil That is in the unregenerate heart of man Jesus said that out of the heart proceeds The murders, the adulteries, the fornications The thefts and all of these things And it is possible for a person to find himself involved In situations that he would at one time in his life Considered abhorrent Things that you have condemned others for doing And yet you find yourself guilty of doing those very same things That was in your heart also So much of what is done is done for the impression of others Because we do want people to think well of us We want people to like us We want people to respect and admire us And so much of what we do is done just for the sake of impressing others But the sad thing about that is that we impress ourselves And we begin to think more highly of ourselves than we ought Though the scripture warns us not to Therefore let no man think more highly of himself than he ought But rather think soberly and diligently Realizing that whatever you have that's of good or worth Has been given to you If it was given to you then why should you boast as though it wasn't given to you If you have any talent, capacity or ability It's because God has given it to you Any goodness that is there it's come to you as a gift of God Then if it is a gift of God why should you boast about what you've done If it was something that God has done So in deceiving others we deceive ourselves And we develop this self-image Of the wonderful me The sweet and the kind and the generous me We'll return with more of our verse-by-verse study through the Bible In our next lesson As we continue with The Evil of Haseo And we do hope you'll make plans to join us But right now I'd like to remind you That if you missed any part of today's message Or perhaps you'd like to order a copy for that special friend or loved one You can do so by simply contacting one of our customer service representatives And they'd be more than happy to assist you with the ordering details Simply call 1-800-272-WORD And phone orders can be taken Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific Time Once again our toll-free number is 1-800-272-9673 And for your added convenience You can order online anytime When you go to the wordfortoday.org And while you're there Be sure to browse through the additional resources That include Bible studies, commentaries, CDs, DVDs And so much more Once again that's the word for today online At the wordfortoday.org And for those of you who still prefer to write You can use our mailing address Which is the word for today P.O. Box 8000 Costa Mesa, California 92628 And be sure to include the call letters of this station With your correspondence And now on behalf of the word for today We'd like to thank all of you Who share in supporting this ministry With your prayers and financial support And be sure to join us again next time As Pastor Chuck Smith Continues his verse-by-verse study Through the book of 2 Kings That's right here On the next edition of The word for today Now once again Here's Pastor Chuck Smith May the Lord be with you And strengthen you and bless you And keep you in all your ways As you walk in fellowship with Him May your life be enriched in the fullness Of that mercy and grace That He has extended towards us Through Jesus our Lord God bless you and give you a beautiful week Strengthened by the Lord May you abound in all things in Christ In the glory and the praise And the honor of our God Our Savior and our Lord In Jesus' name The word for today is pleased to present A brand new DVD entitled Christmas History, Traditions, and Myths Hosted by Pastor Chuck Smith and Dawn Stewart This Christmas join Pastor Chuck and Dawn As they answer why Christians celebrate The birth of Jesus on December 25th every year And discussing the American traditions Associated with Christmas Including the history and myths Surrounding mistletoe, Christmas trees, and Santa Claus Also as a bonus feature You'll be delighted to gather your family together To watch and listen to Pastor Chuck As he reads to you the true Christmas story Found in the Gospel of Luke And right now for our radio listeners The Word for Today and Pastor Chuck Would like to introduce a very special offer This Christmas season for any order over $25 We would like to give you this new Christmas DVD free With any order over $25 So call our customer service department today To find out about this exciting new offer You can reach us by calling toll free 1-800-272-9673 Or by visiting our website at thewordfortoday.org This program has been sponsored by The Word for Today In Costa Mesa, California