Reversing Irreversible Consequences

I hate to hear this phrase. That's how I was raised. What in the world has that got to do with what God can do if you move from where you are? Dr. Tony Evans says nothing in our past should hold us back from God's plans for our future. So if you just gonna stay where you are, you will never discover what God may have already set up for you for a new opportunity. Celebrating 40 years of faithfulness, this is the alternative with Dr. Tony Evans. Author, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of the Urban Alternative. Even when the consequences of your mistakes seem irreversible, it's still not time to give up hope. But it may be time to give up something else, and Dr. Evans will tell us what it is in today's lesson.

Let's join him. How many of you like puzzles? Anybody like putting together puzzles? Well, today we're going to have a puzzle.

We're going to see the protrusions and the indentations of this puzzle come together to address the issue of irreversible consequences. Gehiza is Elijah's servant. Elijah has just instructed Naaman how to be healed seven times in the Jordan. 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, to which Gehiza says, you got to be out of your mind. You done healed this man.

You're offering him well over a million dollars, and you're going to turn it down. So when Naaman leaves, Gehiza goes after him. 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 a scholarship to get through school, who need 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. The Bible calls it the sin of covetousness. 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.

Leprosy was where the skin became white, diseased, all kind of breakouts on it, and it was incurable and unreversible. All we can do for Gehiza right now is feel sorry for the boy, because he's in an incurable, irreversible, unfixable, undeniable mess because of his sin. Let's fast forward to chapter 8. 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 8, you see the phrase seven years, 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? Another piece of the puzzle. There's a famine.

There is a seven-year famine. While Gehiza is talking to the king, the king says, tell me some of the great things Elijah has done. He says, well, let me tell you one thing. There was back there, there was this lady with the son, and the son died, and Elijah came in and laid on the son, and the son came back to life. That's one of the things he did.

While he's talking to the king about the lady, the lady comes in. Oh, coincidence, luck, chance. None of those are Christian words. You cannot have a sovereign God who oversees providence and have luck.

You cannot have both in the same sense. No such thing as luck. It's called providence. When God arranges his things, that you wonder, how did that happen right now?

So she shows up while he's talking about her. Okay, wait a minute. I got to 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 7, verse 3, Now there were four leprous 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 going to die there. But if we sit here, we're going to 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.

So we're in a Catch-22 that's unfixable. So they 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 26, For the Lord had caused the army of the Arameans 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. Stay with me here. They said, We're stuck. We're going to die here. If we go there, there's no food. The only food is with that enemy army, so we might as well take a chance.

Because they might kill us, but let's take a chance. 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, they left all that stuff behind. Because when they fled, the lepers come, verse 8, they enter 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. This is called the lottery. These folks hit the lotto.

I mean, they are, whoo, how lucky can you get? But wait a minute, 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's household. Okay, they up there eating the food and drinking the juice, and they up there getting the silver, getting the gold, getting the clothes. They go hiding them, and one of them said, wait a minute, been there, done that.

Getting stuff, hiding stuff, misusing stuff. And he says, and if we do this, somebody's going to find out about it, because been there, done that. So instead of that, they change their minds, rewind. When Gehizah 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've got to be manipulating to make it happen, then what you have done is that you have misused the time. Dr. Evans will continue this story, and let us in on a surprising twist when he returns in a moment. First, today's message is part of his powerful series, U-turn Reversing Spiritual Consequences. This series has already helped thousands of individuals overcome the bad choices they've made in their past, which is why Tony's written and just released a new book on the matter.

It's called U-Turns Reversing the Consequences in Your Life, and it's the perfect complement to what we've been learning about today. The book and 12-message series focus on parts of your life where you may have taken wrong turns, areas like fear and anxiety, financial challenges, addiction issues, sins that pass down through generations, and more. Regardless of where you've been and where you're currently heading, these powerful lessons can get you moving in God's direction, so we're offering them as our gift to you when you make a donation to help us keep Tony's teaching on the air. Give us a call at 1-800-800-3222, or visit tonyevans.org today to make your contribution and request. And if you want to learn even more or equip yourself to lead others in these life-changing truths, check out the U-Turns Bible Study Kit and DVD lessons Dr. Evans has put together.

Again, you can get all the details when you call us at 1-800-800-3222, or visit tonyevans.org. I'll have our contact information for you again after Part 2 of today's lesson and this. and explore the kingdom anytime, anywhere. 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 then they say, well, no, 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. What I'm telling you is that these four lepers are Gehiza and his sons.

Go back. You're going to be a leper, and so will your descendants. You've got to connect Chapter 5 with Chapter 8, 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, Gehiza, 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? Over and over again in Chapter 8, 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. It's called a retest. You know the one thing I loved in school about retests? That means the teacher would give me another chance. 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. It is an opportunity. Now, notice, they could have sat there at the gate and kept feeling sorry for themselves. Going to die, not going to get any better. This is the way it is, shouldn't have done it, you know? But they came to the place where they said, I don't want to go out like this. I don't want to die like this. I don't want to die never having tried. God determines whether there's a retest and what the retest is, but I'm sure going to find out, and I'm going to take the risk to find out.

Those Arameans may kill us, but we're going to take the risk. And when they took the risk, they found out God had already gone before them waiting for them to move. So if you're just going to stay still, stay where you are, and accept things as they are, you will never discover what God may have already set up for you for a retest, a new opportunity. Now, I hate to hear this phrase. That's how I was raised.

That may have been how your mama was and your daddy was. What in the world has that got to do with what God can do if you move from where you are? They got up and moved with their leprosy, and they discovered God had already made a move.

They also had to finish the test until you decide you don't want to go out like this. You don't know what God's going to do, but I'm going to find out if He's going to do something. I may be in a forever feeling. I may be in a situation that looks like it'll never get better, but I'm at least going to find out. If you don't finish the test, it doesn't matter how much you go to church.

Serve, give, sing. All that's irrelevant, because if you got leprosy, only the supernatural can cure you. And so all that stuff is meaningless if you refuse to pass the exam. And God will test and retest and retest again, retest on top of the retest, until you get the message, until I get the message, until we get the message. One final piece of the puzzle. While Elijah prophesies at the end of the seven years that the drought's getting ready to end, but the officer of the king says, that ain't going to happen.

That ain't going to happen. This drought's not going to come to an end like you're talking about, preacher. So Elijah tells him in chapter 7, he said, look, not only it's going to 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. This is three times in one chapter we get about this royal officer dying at the gate because he didn't believe what the prophet said.

Why we got to hear that three times? He's the servant of 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. What I'm trying to tell you today is that God is a God of retesting.

If you allow him that he's sovereign, he does it when he wants, as he wants, how he wants, to whom he wants, but you at least have to take the risk to find out. He is a God of retesting, and the Bible is full of retests. He retested Moses. When Moses was a murderer, but yet he got a retest at the burning bush, and then he got to lead sheep to develop his character for 40 years, then he got called back in the service to tell Pharaoh, let my people go. Abraham got a retest. Abraham and Sarah concocted up a way of the flesh to give birth to Ishmael. God is saying, you're operating outside of my will.

That's not my plan. Years later, he gave him a retest. That's when Isaac was born, and the nation of Israel and the promises of God were realized. Jonah got a retest. He went to Joppa. He then left, went away from the will of God. God sent the whale a gram, swallowed him up, brought him back to Joppa, where he could change his mind on the decision he made.

He changed his mind, and when he did, God used him to bring a revival. Esther got a retest. She's now before the king. She says, I can't help y'all Jews, because it will mess me up. But then he says, listen, girlfriend, if you don't do it, God will raise up somebody else. She went into prayer and said, if I perish, I perish. She passed the retest and saved the people of God.

Peter got a retest. He says, I'm never gonna leave you. Jesus said, cock-a-doodle-doo, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times. He denied the Lord over a charcoal fire. At the end of John, Jesus is cooking over a charcoal fire. And Jesus says, do you still love me more than everybody else? He said, I ain't going that way no more. That's when Jesus said, now I can use you.

You didn't pass the test. And he opened up on the day of Pentecost. So God is a God of retest. I believe somebody here wants a retest. I believe somebody here wants a new opportunity. I believe somebody here wants God to do something fresh and new in their life. Stand to your feet and give God the glory that he's a God of retest and can create a new opportunity for things to turn around. If you're one of those somebodies Dr. Evans was talking about, stay with us.

He'll come back in a moment with a prayer of encouragement just for you. If you want to do some deeper study on what it means to turn your life in a whole new direction, don't forget to request your copy of that special package I mentioned earlier, Tony's brand-new U-turns book and current 12-message teaching series on CD and digital download. They're yours as our thank you gift when you make a donation to help support Tony's ministry. Just visit tonyevans.org before this special limited time offer runs out or call our 24-hour resource center at 1-800-800-3222 and let one of our team members help you. And don't forget, Dr. Evans has also put together a companion U-turns Bible study kit complete with custom video sessions on two DVD discs.

You can find out more from one of our resource team members at 1-800-800-3222 or go online to tonyevans.org. You may have your father's chin or your mother's nose. Maybe they left you property or cash.

Or maybe they stuck you with a legacy they never managed to get rid of themselves. That's the kind Dr. Evans will deal with on Monday when he talks about reversing generational consequences. Right now, he's back to finish up our time together for today. I want to take a moment and pray for those struggling right now, listeners who are going through difficult times and who need God's special grace, mercy, or comfort in light of the challenges you're facing. Let's pray. Father, right now I want to pray for my brothers and sisters who are hurting in some way right now, who are going through something in their personal life or family life, or just struggling with life in general and who need the comfort of God, the provision of God, the grace of God, the mercy of God, to sustain them during this time of trial or difficulty. May you comfort them with comfort that blows their mind. Will you show that grace is all sufficient for wherever they are and for whatever they need? And may the encouragement that comes from the Holy Spirit ease their pain, lower their stress, give them the ability to get up and keep going until their change comes. And we pray their change will come sooner than later and that they will experience you and be able to say like Job, they've heard about you with the hearing of the ear, but now they've seen you with their own eyes. And we pray this in the name of the risen Christ, Jesus our Lord. Amen. The alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by The Urban Alternative and is celebrating 40 years of faithfulness thanks to the generous contributions