Dr. Tony Evans is the founder and senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, founder and president of The Urban Alternative and author of over 100 books, booklets and Bible studies. The first African American to earn a doctorate of theology from Dallas Theological Seminary, he has been named one of the 12 Most Effective Preachers in the English-Speaking World by Baylor University. Dr. Evans holds the honor of writing and publishing the first full-Bible commentary and study Bible by an African American. His radio broadcast, The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, can be heard on over 1,400 radio outlets daily and in more than 130 countries. Dr. Evans’ sermons are also streamed and downloaded over 20,000,000 times annually.
god knows what you like he knows our
propensity
and he has compassion when we come home
come back home as quickly as possible
though your sins being scarlet
they shall be white as snow though they
be red like crimson they shall be his
will
so whatever inheritance whatever god
still wants to do for you
to you through you in you don’t lose
anymore
jesus christ broke the curse so don’t
ever talk about you being cursed again
if you know jesus christ
the curse the consequence of the law is
broken
the greatest miracle of all is when you
dip yourself in the blood of jesus
christ
for the forgiveness of sins and the gift
of eternal life
how many of you like puzzles anybody
like putting together puzzles okay
well today we’re going to have a puzzle
and we’re going to see
the protrusions and the indentations
of this puzzle come together
to address the issue of irreversible
consequences
can they be reversed is there the
possibility
that things could be different although
they look like they can’t be
gehesa is elijah’s servant
elijah has just instructed
naaman how to be healed seven times into
joy
naaman dips down seven times
comes up totally healed and then turns
and
offers elijah money
clothes silver gold
well worth in today’s dollars over a
million dollars
naaman says elijah because you gave me
the secret to this healing
i’m going to make you a millionaire
in verse 16 elijah
turns him down i can’t take your money i
can’t take your clothes it’s not about
that
and he turns down the money
gaheza sees him turn down the money
to which gajesa says you got to be out
of your mind
you didn’t heal this man you offered him
well over a million dollars
and you’re going to turn it down
so when naaman leaves
gaheza goes after him when gaheza
catches up with
naaman he says to him
my master sent me
and he told me to catch up with you
because we got two seminary students
he calls them sons of the prophets we
got two students
who need who need a scholarship to get
through school
who needs some clothes because they poor
seminary students and so
he sent me to get a little something
something from you let me have a talent
and some of the clothes
so before i get any further let me tell
you what’s going on now
the bible calls it the sin of
covetousness
covetousness is desiring
and plotting to take something that is
not yours to have
that’s covetousness ascending forward is
greed
going after something that is not
legitimate for you to have
in an illegitimate way
colossians 3 5 calls covetousness
idolatry it is the worship of another
god
because you don’t believe your god is
the source so you go to an illegitimate
means to get it
covetousness
jesus said in luke chapter 12
about the covetous man you don’t have to
turn there
he said be aware of every form of greed
it comes in different shapes and
different forms and you know you’re a
covetous person
when you plot to get something you’re
not authorized
to have in an illegitimate way through
deception
he says elijah sent me elijah didn’t
send him anywhere
not only that but there was a
fundamental
mistake that gaheza made
he said elijah sent me he uses elisha’s
name
he uses god’s name
but he leaves out a phrase that
elisha said when he was offered the
stuff
because in chapter 5 verse 16 elijah
said as the lord lives
before who i stand
before who i stand it means to whom i’m
accountable
in other words elijah knew he was not
just accountable
to other folk he was accountable to god
and god would see what he was doing
even if no man saw it so gaheza
says elijah sent me and as god lives
but not before whom i stand
he lost sight of a divine accountability
so he comes and he says
show me the money i got some seminary
students here elijah sent me to help
naaman is glad to oblige
so naaman goes and naaman
uh and hands it to giza
two talents some clothes he’s the ghost
takes it to his house and hides it
he then goes to elijah and elijah says
where you been
jesus says i ain’t been nowhere
elijah says did not my heart go with you
when you went to naaman
and when you connive to get this how you
know
this elijah
has scoped him out
and this is what elijah tells him
therefore verse 27
the leprosy of naaman shall cling to you
and to your descendants forever
so he went out of his presence
a leper as white
as snow let’s look at the consequences
of his decision consequence number one
a personal curse leprosy
and it was incurable
and unreversible
according to leviticus chapter 13 verses
45 and 46
when you got leprosy you now had to move
outside the camp because it was
contagious so you would
you would you could you could give
somebody else leprosy
and there was no way to fix it it was
irreversible as we saw last week
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uncurable
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the kingdom
anytime anywhere
perhaps there’s somebody here today who
feels like you’re living under a curse
this thing won’t go away it’s affected
every area of your life
there’s no cure
you are a leper
no solution but not only that
he says you shall be a leper and your
descendants
not only that
he tells them it’ll never change forever
let’s fast forward to chapter 8
verse 1. 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
and it will even come on the land for
seven years
so the woman arose and did according to
the word of the man of god and she went
with her household
and sojourned in the land of the
philistine 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 the king was talking with gegiza
the servant of the man of god saying
please relate to me
all the great things that elisha has
done
as he was relating 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
and yehiza said my lord o king
this is the woman and this is her son
whom elijah restored to life when the
king
asked the woman she related to him so
the king
appointed for her a certain officer
saying restore
all that was hers and all the produce
of the field from the day that she left
the land
even until now i got a question what in
the world
is gaheza doing in the palace
what is he doing in the past this boy is
a leper
leviticus chapter 13 verse 44 and 45
says lepers have to be segregated from
the congregation
but now he’s talking
to the king and if you’re going to
protect anybody
it’s going to be the king now only
is he talking to the king he is a
liaison between elijah and the king
because he now has a job
he’s still called the servant of elijah
so he is standing between elijah and the
king
when he’s been condemned to be outside
due to leprosy
come on now i need some more pieces to
this puzzle because
chapter 5 and chapter 8 don’t make sense
enter a woman
a woman whose son had been raised from
the dead
we’re told in those first few verses of
chapter 8 that this woman the
shunammite’s
son was raised from the dead by elisha
in the first three verses of chapter
eight
you see the phrase seven years seven
years seven years
and seven is the number of completion
over a seven year period
the woman is first meets elijah and gets
a miracle the raising of her son
seven years later she comes to the king
what happened in the seven years oh
another piece of the puzzle
there’s a famine in chapter 6 verses 25
and following there was a great famine
in samaria while he’s talking about her
okay wait a minute i gotta put this
puzzle together i got a leper
who appears no longer to be a leper i
got a woman
i got a prophet and i got a famine
how do these pieces hook up how do these
pieces
come together how is he talking to the
king like nothing is wrong
how does the woman show up while he’s
talking about the woman
why does this seven year gap show up
chapter seven
verse 3
now there were four leperous men
at the entrance of the gate
and they said to one another why do we
sit here until we die
in other words we’re in a hopeless
situation and we’re just sitting here
waiting to die
if we say we will enter the city then
the famine
is in the city and we will die there so
we go there there’s nothing to eat there
so we’re gonna die there but if we sit
here
we’re gonna die here so we are
dead men regardless
now therefore since we’re going to die
anyway why don’t we go
to the camp of the arameans
if they spare us and we live if they
kill us
we’re going to die so we’re going to die
anyway so let’s go over there to that
army that’s against israel
and let’s ask them if they’ll give us
some food they may kill us
but we’re going to die anyway we’re in a
catch-22
that’s unfixable so they’ll arise at
twilight
and they go into the camp because the
camp has food this is the enemy of
israel and they’re keeping food from
israel
verse six for the lord had caused
the army of the airmen to hear a sound
of chariots
and a sound of horses even the sound of
a great army
so 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 against us therefore they arose
and fled
in the twilight when they
took a chance they discovered
god had already gotten rid of the
problem
if they would have stayed outside and
done nothing they would have never
discovered
what god had already done he had already
scared the aramean army so that they
fled
and when they fled well i said stay with
me now
stay with me now when they fled they
left all that stuff behind
because when they fled the lepers come
verse 8 they entered the tent
and they ate and drank and carried from
their silver
and gold and clothes and went and hid
them
and they returned and entered another
tent and carried from there also
and went and hid them verse 9
then they said to one another stay with
me here
we are not doing right
this day is a day of good news
but we are keeping silent
if we wait until morning light
punishment will overtake us
now therefore come let us go
tell the king
household rewind
when e giza took
that which was not his to take
elijah says to him just before he
sentences him
is it time
for you to have silver gold clothes this
that and the other he said it’s not
wrong that you wanted it
it’s wrong that you wanted it in this
time
he said it’s not time whenever you have
to connive to get something
god has not given you it’s not because
it’s necessarily wrong to have it
it’s not your time
when you have to be illegitimate to get
it that means you run into
maybe a content problem but definitely a
timing issue because when
the bible says god gives something he
gives no sorrow with it
so if you got to be if you got to be be
manipulating
to make it happen then what you have
done is that you have misused
the time but now
this table has been laid out because god
had gone before them
and cleared it up so that now there’s
all this stuff
but they they they say well
let’s get this for ourselves let’s take
this for ourselves
and then one remembers and says to the
other
three no no no no no
been there done that
i’m telling you is that these four
lepers are gaheza and his sons
go back you’re going to be a leper
and so will your descendants
you got to connect chapter five with
chapter eight and somebody’s got to
explain
how he’s now in the king’s court with no
issues
and contagious and how does
these four characters the king elijah
the woman
gaheza and then this central event the
famine
hook up so that he’s now in the king’s
court
it’s comparing scripture with scripture
the reason that the names are not given
is because he’s living under a curse
what’s the point what is the point
over and over again in chapter eight
seven years seven years seven years
seven years seven years
the time of completion oh let me give
you another word for it
it’s called retest
a retest is when god creates
the exact same situation or a similar
situation to it to see whether you
learned your lesson
called the retest you know the one thing
i loved in school about retest
that means the teacher was giving me
another chance
it does not change my previous grade
but it gives me hope for a better
tomorrow
because it’s a retest notice it’s the
exact same situation
with the exact same stuff silver gold
money closed he says the problem gehesa
is
it’s not time meaning another time
it will be time but it’s not time now
he gives him a retest if you are in an
un or irreversible situation
you ask god for a retest
lord give me another opportunity to take
the exam again and god
we’ll test and retest and retest again
then retest on top of the retest
until you get the message till i get the
message
till we get the message while
elijah prophesies at the end of the
seven years that the drought is getting
ready to end
the drought’s getting ready to be over
he prophesies that
that it’s coming to a conclusion
but the officer of the king
says that ain’t gonna happen that ain’t
gonna happen
this this this drought not gonna come
near the end like you’re talking about
preacher
so elijah tells him in chapter seven he
said look
now only is gonna come to an end you’re
going to see it
but you’re not going to benefit from it
now look at the end of chapter 7
verse 17. now the king appointed the
royal officer
on whose hands he leaned to have charge
of the gate
but the people trampled on him at the
gate and he died
just as the man of god had said who
spoke when the king came down to him
verse 20 and it happened to him
for the people trampled on him at the
gate
and he died wait a minute when we come
to chapter eight
geezer is talking to the king
wait a minute he’s now the liaison
he not only get his job back because
he’s called the servant of elijah
he’s now the one that the king is
leading on
for information the same thing that the
royal
officer got to use well wait a minute
when the royal officer got trampled
that opened up a job opportunity
and so now the king is leaning on the
former leper
to get information he now has two jobs
he’s the servant of the elijah and he’s
the information center
for the king because if god’s
sovereignty allows it
not only can he reverse your leprosy
he can give you opportunities that you
never thought
could be in your life in your world
and in your future so god
is a god of retest
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have you ever felt like you’ve run out
of options
you get up and go has gotten up and gone
and
you know you you look through the tunnel
and it’s all dark except for the
oncoming train coming your way
hope is gone throwing in the towel
you resigned it’ll never get better
i’ve got good news in spite of how bad
it looks
in spite of how bad you were
to bring it to the point it’s at now
the sins the mistakes the failures the
rebellion
and you don’t even know how to spell the
word hope anymore
you’ve really set yourself up for god to
do
um a reversal
he has a boomerang principle
that he loves to operate with his
children
when he looks like you’ve gone way out
of the way
he knows how to turn that thing around
and bring it back
and change your situation
i know it right now looks like there’s
no way out
i know it looks like right now for many
that you’ve been consigned
to a life of rejection
of failure and it’s unrecoverable
that’s where god does some of his best
work
that’s where god literally changes his
mind
when we change our direction so
even though it looks like it is
impossible
and it is as far as you are concerned
and as far as people are concerned
but since there’s nothing impossible
with god
if you’re still here you’re still alive
you’re still breathing
then you go for that return
because god is able to uh how shall we
say it
make dry bones rise again
he can take the grave and bring life out
of it
he can take yesterday’s
disasters and turn them into tomorrow’s
blessing
you don’t give up on god because guess
what
he has not yet given up on you
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[Applause]
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you