If you will, open your Bibles
with me to 2 Kings chapter 5. 2 Kings chapter 5. This is the
story of Naaman the leper. Naaman the leper. If you've never
heard this story, I'm thrilled I could be the first person to
tell you about it. That would excite me so much. Someone would
say, who are you talking about? What's a leper? Who is Naaman?
Oh, what I'd give to tell somebody that's never heard this. And
if you know this story, I pray tonight you could hear it like
you've never heard it before. If we could hear it for the first
time. Lord has saved his people. He is saving his people, and
he shall save his people. I hope we can hear it tonight
for the first time. It says in 2 Kings 5, verse 1. Now Naaman, captain of the host
of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and honorable
because by him the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria. He was
also a mighty man in valor, but he was a leper. And the Syrians
had gone out by companies and brought away captive out of the
land of Israel a little maid. And she waited on Naaman's wife.
She was a servant to her. And she said unto her mistress,
Would God, my Lord, were with the prophet that is in Samaria?
For he would recover him of his leprosy. And one went in and
told his lord, saying, Thus and thus. The Lord will teach us
thus and thus. Thus and thus said the maid,
that is of the land of Israel. And the king of Syria said, go
to, go, I will send a letter unto the king of Israel. And
he departed and took with him 10 talents of silver, 6,000 pieces
of gold, and 10 changes of raiment. And he brought the letter to
the king of Israel saying, now when this letter has come unto
thee, behold, I have therewith sent Naaman my servant to thee,
that thou mayest recover him of his leprosy. And it came to
pass, when the king of Israel had read the letter, that he
rent his clothes, he tore them off of him, and said, Am I God? That king knew something, didn't
he? To kill and to make alive, that this man doth send me unto
me to recover a man of leprosy? Wherefore, consider, I pray you,
think about this, and see how he seeketh a quarrel against
me. This is a setup. That king of
Assyria is doing this knowing I can't fulfill his request and
he's going to attack me. A child would know better than
this. Certainly a king. He has advisors. I can't do that. I can't heal
a man of his leprosy. This is a ruse. It says in verse
8, And it was so, when Elisha the man of God had heard that
the king of Israel had rent his clothes, that he sent to the
king, saying, Wherefore hast thou rent thy clothes? Why are
you upset? Let him come now to me, and he shall know that there
is a prophet in Israel. So Naaman came with his horses
and with his chariot, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha.
And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, and washing the
Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and
thou shalt be clean. But Naaman was wroth. That wouldn't
do. And he went away and said, Behold,
I thought, I thought he will surely come out to me and stand
and call in the name of the Lord his God and strike his hand over
the place and recover the leper. Are not Abana and far par rivers
of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash
in them and be clean? So he turned and went away in
rage, and his servants came near and spake unto him and said,
My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing,
wouldst thou not have done it? How much rather then, when he
saith thee, Wash, and be clean, something you do every day. Then he went down and dipped
himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the saying of the
man of God. And his flesh came again like into the flesh of
a little child, and he was clean. And he returned to the man of
God, he and all his company, and came and stood before him.
And he said, Behold, now I know that there is no God in all the
earth but in Israel, but in his people. Now, therefore, I pray
thee, take a blessing of thy servant. Let me give you something.
I want to give you an offering. We know that this story is true. So many people, they walk around,
they have the Scriptures in their hands, they carry the Word of
God, they put it in their cars so other people can see it. They
think they know God. And they say, boy, look what
a story. What a story. Oh, what a good moral lesson
about humility. That's not the case. This is
a true story. This physically happened. This isn't something
they told their children not to entertain them. This isn't
entertainment. This physically happened. Brother Tom just read
there in Luke 4. Right before Christ went down
to Nazareth to preach, He was going to define the sovereign
mercy of God to those people. He said to all those that were
keeping Sabbaths, all those legalistic ceremonial Israelites, all those
who assumed, because they had the Scriptures and they read
it themselves, and the way that seemed right to man was, my heritage,
because of who my mommy and daddy are, I'm God's child. And he said to them, there were
so many widows in the land of Israel in the days of the prophets,
and God did not feed one of them. except for that Gentile woman.
Oh, they got mad. That goes against me, my birthright. And he said, there's many lepers
in that land of Israel in the days of Elisha, and God didn't
heal any of them. He healed Naaman, a Gentile.
The Lord Jesus used this message right here to tell them, God
will save anybody. I'm a nobody telling everybody
about a God that can save anybody. We talked about this this morning,
didn't we? What hope? That's a Gentile's hope. I've
been trying to tell our brethren that in San Diego. We here, we
have a high priest. To us, that means nothing. We
don't know what that means. Boy, that's something. We don't
even have the form and the type and the picture to look at. We
don't have that tabernacle out here pinched. So we can go be
reminded of how the Lord can be just and justify sinners.
how a sinner can be just before God. All the pictures are there,
all of it pointing to the same person, not the same thought,
not the same idea, not the same systematic theology, to a person. A person. I know this story is
true because our Lord spoke of it. And secondly, they knew that
was true too. All those Israelites, that's why they got mad. They
knew that Hamel was Russian. They wouldn't have gotten mad
on a lie. Secondly, I know that this story, it's not to teach
lepers to go physically get in the River Jordan to be healed
of their leprosy. That River Jordan won't do a
thing for physical leprosy. I know that. You know that. A
leper can't be healed by dipping seven times in some river. It
has no power to cure leprosy, none whatsoever. There's nothing
physically a man can do to heal himself of leprosy. That's the
picture. Ain't nothing we can do. Someone
must do this for us, huh? But I know this. Naaman could
never have been healed of leprosy if he didn't go down into that
River Jordan. Who was Naaman? Who was Naomi? This was a vessel of honor to
the Lord, declared before this world was ever made. He was a
child of God, just as all his children were. This was declared
beforehand, but he had not been used of the Lord yet to bow to
Christ. He hadn't been humbled before
the feet of Christ, but of his Savior. And he wasn't even a
Jew. He was a Gentile. But God had used this pagan Gentile
general to deliver, bring deliverance to Syria. It says there in verse
1, Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was
a great man with his master and honorable, because by him the
Lord had given deliverance unto Syria. He was also a mighty man
and valour, a leper. Boy, that's a whole lot of good
things and one bad, isn't it? Look at this great man. Brought
so much honor to our country. So much goods and riches to our
country. Oh, he's a good fellow. Now he happens to be, he's got
a little bit of leprosy. That's what it's saying. He was
a great man. He had all these accolades. Boy,
isn't that every one of us. I wasn't a general. I had a lot
to brag on myself about. Other people bragged about me.
I got some awards and things when I was in the military. I
said, I wasn't in the military, Kevin. I wasn't like Naaman.
I wasn't like you. Well, you know, so and so, he's
a good father. Oh, she's such a good mother. They're good children, aren't
they? Oh, he's a hard worker. I'm proud of him. He's got a
good work ethic. Proud of him. That's us. Every one of us. And we all have a disease. We
all have pride in this flesh and a disease in this flesh and
it's called sin. That's what leprosy always typifies. It's
incurable. It runs throughout and it gets
worse and it gets worse and it smells bad and it looks bad and
we try our best to cover it up, to do anything we can. But something's
going to have to change for Naaman and for us. We're going to have
to be made to see, made to see that we're a leper who happens
to be mighty and honorable and all these other things. I'm a
leper that happens to be a dad. I'm a leper that happens to be
a brother or a sister or a child or a son. I'm a leper who happens
to be a preacher. We've been made to see that,
what this disease is. And that disease is in every
one of us, isn't it? We can't fix ourselves, we can't
do nothing for it, and the scriptures tell us there is none good. No! That's stopping that thought
that's in her head. Nobody's good. What about grandma? No! Not one. None is good. No, not
one. There's none that understandeth.
Nobody's got a good handle on this. There's none that seeketh
after God. We all, like sheep, have gone astray. We've everyone
turned to our own way that we think's right, what seems good
to us. And our sins have separated us from a holy God. That's the
only person we ever sin against. I can offend you. I could physically
hurt you. I could do damage to your property.
And ain't a lick of sin towards you. It's to the holy God I offended.
That's what David said, wouldn't it? Against thee and thee only
have I sinned. Done this evil in your sight. What did the prodigal
say? Daddy, I'm sorry. I sinned against you. He said,
I've sinned against the Lord and I've done it in your presence.
That breaks my heart. There's been times in some of
you all's presences, I've sinned against the Lord, but I did it
against him. That's who I sinned against. But God's able. We can't. I hope I brought you down when
you ain't got no hope in yourself whatsoever or nobody else around
you. But God's able. How is it this mighty man who
happens to be a leper, how is he going to be made whole? How
is he going to see what he is and see who his hope is? He's
going to have to go down. People say, I want to grow in
faith. It's going to go this way. I want to grow in grace.
You're going to grow down, ain't you? He's going to have to be
humbled and he's going to have to willingly repent. Willfully
and earnestly beg for mercy. This proud man is going to have
to beg. He's going to have to become a mercy beggar. Nebuchadnezzar
said that. King Nebuchadnezzar said, God
is able to abase the proud. That's an experiential message
he had. He had experienced that. He had
lived that because the Lord made him walk around on all fours.
Every one of us. Ain't nobody in their right mind
that wants to go to hell. No sane person. They say, I want
to go to heaven. Well, there in Genesis, heaven's
capitalized, ain't it? That's capital H. I want to go
to a person. I want to see him. That's who I want to be with.
How are we going to be made willing in that day? He's going to have
to make us willing in the day of his power. How will Naaman
learn these things? How is he going to learn about
all this? Is he going to come to his own? I'm going to lock myself
in a basement for six months. I'm going to get me a bunch of
commentaries. I'm going to figure this out. No. A preacher is going to have
to come to him. Somebody is going to have to
tell him about this. Tell him the Lord is preached
in truth and who that truth is. Naaman and any other sinner saved
by God's grace is going to have to be pointed to Christ. Someone
is going to have to do it. Our Lord said Well, if we could
chew on that word for a couple of days. He spoke. He's going
to preach to his people. Someone's going to tell someone.
Now, is that a fancy job? Am I envied for me standing up
here and you all sitting down there? By distinguished believers, is
that what it is? Once you've matured enough, then you can
tell somebody about Jesus. About the man who saves his people
from their sins. God used an unnamed servant girl.
Right here, look in verse 2. And the Syrians had gone out
by companies and brought away captive out of the land of Israel
a little maid. And she waited on Naaman's wife. She carried
her shoes around, cleaned them. And she said unto her mistress,
Would God, my Lord, were with the prophet that is in Samaria,
For he would recover him of his leprosy." Now she didn't know
Elisha, but she knew of him. She knew where Christ was preached.
And she told her mistress, that fellow servant, if it pleases
God, Naaman could be recovered. You know what they're probably
doing with his head? They're probably out there washing
clothes. And I said, you know Naaman, that leprosy is growing
today, isn't it? If he could meet Elisha, that's
what he needs. He will have to be under the
gospel and the Lord will have to be pleased to do it, but that's
his only hope. And it's a sure hope. It says
there, for he would. For he would. Verse 3 says, and
she said unto her mistresses, Would God, my Lord, were with
the prophet that is in Samaria, for he would recover him of his
leprosy. And one went in, somebody heard
this, and told his lord, told him his name and said, Thus and
thus said the maid, that is of the land of Israel." This little
servant girl told me this, I thought I'd tell you. Word traveled to
Naaman. He was with his king, maybe they
was planning their next battle. Going to organize some training
for those soldiers. And his servant comes in with
this news. Good news was published. Good news was told, wasn't it?
Hope was given. Look in verse five. And the king
of Syria said, go to go, go to, go. And I will send a letter
unto the king of Israel. And he departed and took with
him 10 talents of silver and 6,000 pieces of gold and 10 changes
of rain. That's a lot. How much is that? How much is that worth in our
day? A lot. That's how much it's worth. They started out wrong,
didn't they? He's taking all this silver,
this gold, these fine clothes, these fine linens. You can't
buy the remission of sins. You can't buy God's preacher.
He can't go down there and get Elisha and Elisha says, I'm busy.
I'm going to give you a bunch of silver and gold. I'm going
to take you out of what you're doing and the Lord's work and
you're going to work for me this week. That ain't going to happen.
That ain't going to happen. They can't stop it. And that's
the same with all the Lord's sheep. You know that. He hedges
his people about. When he says, my sheep hear my
voice and they follow me, they follow him. They might turn a
little bit, but they're going to follow him. He's going to
hedge them about. You know how long they're going to follow
him? For eternity. That's how long it's going to be. Peter
told us, for inasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with
corruptible things of silver and gold, from your vain conversations
received by tradition of your fathers, that's our ideas, the
ways that seem right, that's what a king told him, but with
the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish
and without spot. Naaman wanted to be healed. He
wanted to be healed. He knew he was a leper. He looked
in the mirror every day. He saw himself. He looked down
at his hands. But he brought the wrong payment, and he went
to the wrong person. Look here in verse 6. And he
brought the letter to the king of Israel, saying, Now, when
this letter is come unto thee, behold, I have therewith sent
Naaman my servant to thee, that thou mayest recover him of his
leprosy. And it came to pass, when the
king of Israel had read the letter, that he ran his clothes, and
said, Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man doth
sin unto me, to recover him of his leprosy? Going to the king
will not help. He had to go to the prophet.
Now Elisha was not the prophet. He wasn't the prophet. He was
the Lord's prophet in that day at that time. Moses said, God
will raise up that prophet and him you shall hear. That's a
promise. Every knee will bow. Every tongue
confess that he's Lord. They're going to hear him either
in this life or after. He shall speak my words and everyone
that hears my prophet will be blessed and those that hear not
my prophet, I will require of them. Who is that prophet? Christ Jesus is our prophet.
God spoke to our fathers by the prophets he hath in these last
days spoken to us by his son. That's his prophet. Naaman went
to the wrong place. He didn't go to the prophet.
And today, men and women throughout this nation, throughout this
continent, throughout this whole world, they go to the wrong place.
Nothing was said to Naaman about going to the king of Israel.
Did you know that? He said, I'm going to send a letter to him.
He didn't say, you take it and go over there. This was his good
idea. And nothing is said to us in these scriptures about
going to the front of the church, about going to the altar, about
going to Mary. About going to the law. You've
got to do something. You've got to clean your life
up. About going to the baptismal pool, or going to the sacraments,
or going to the preacher. Confessing yourself to another
man. Nothing said about that. It says go to Christ. Go to the
prophet. Come unto me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. He said, come
unto me. I am the way, I am the truth,
and I am the life. Those are definite articles.
He's not a way. He's not a truth, he's the truth. He's the way. Word got to Elijah,
didn't it? Some of the Lord's preachers
have an ear to the ground and around their local assemblies
and things that go on. I've got a good idea of that
paddock the Lord put them in and what kind of wolves walking
around the edges of it. You start learning those things. It says
in verse 8, And it was so, when Elijah the man of God had heard
that the king of Israel had rent his clothes, that he sent to
the king, saying, Wherefore hast thou rent thy clothes? Let him
come now to me. Don't trouble yourself, this
man. I'll handle it. And he shall know that there is a prophet
in Israel. So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot
and stood at the door of the house of Elijah. Finally, finally,
Naaman, he's in the right place. Finally, he's right in front
of the right person. Oh boy, that's good, isn't it?
Oh, I'm in the right place. I'm in front of the right person.
I'm good now. Everything's fine. Don't need nothing else. Oh,
buddy, his attitude was wrong. He stood at the door. He rode
in there like chariots. That's like somebody showed up
in limos today and background music. I'm here now. Y'all ready? Where's this prophet? Wrong attitude.
This general stood in a doorway and he wanted to be treated like
a great warrior who happened to be a leper. Reality was he
was a leper who happened to be a great warrior and Elijah knew
it. Elijah knew his pride. He knew
his arrogance and he wouldn't come out to meet him. He wouldn't
chase him out in the parking lot. He wouldn't come to him.
He wouldn't cater to him. He sent his servant out to him.
And it probably wasn't that big of a building. This ain't that
big of a building. I can make it to that door pretty
easy and do my own talking, can't I? It's probably smaller than
here. And he was like, you walk from
there over there and go tell this general from another nation
that might be at war with us tomorrow, you go tell him what
I got to tell him. He knew his problem. He knew
that Naaman had to be broken. He had to be humbled and mercies
at the feet of Christ. That's where that adulterous
woman fell, wasn't it? She didn't go to a door and stand,
she fell at His feet. Kissed His feet, bathed Him in His tears,
dried His feet with her hair. Mercies are found at the feet
of Christ. And that's where humble sinners
fall. That's where they congregate. And this proud, arrogant general
had to be brought down. And you and I have to be brought
down all the way to the feet of Christ so He gets all the
glory. or you ain't got no hope. The Lord hadn't worked fully
in you. Salvation hadn't come. Look at
verse 10, And Elias sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash
in the Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to
thee, and thou shalt be clean. Not maybe, you've got a 90% chance
of survival. You shalt be clean. But Naaman
was wroth, oh, how mad he was, and went away and said, Behold,
I thought, you notice those commas there? Boy, that's our problem.
I think, I think, that's my problem most of the time. Behold, I thought,
he will surely come out to me. He's gonna come out to me, and
he's gonna stand, he's gonna call on the name of the Lord,
his God. The work hadn't been done yet.
The Lordship of Christ hadn't come upon that man. and say,
that's your God. I just want something from Him.
I just want some fishes and some loaves. I want some benefit in
this world. I want my wounds to go away.
All those will go pray to His God and strike His hand over
the place and recover the leprosy. All those will do a great miracle
to me. Are not Abana and Farpar rivers of Damascus better than
all the waters of Israel? Where I'm from, there's so much
cleaner water. Here, y'all, we've been shocked.
We were in a drought in Southern California. We walked around
today and I thought I saw smoke. We're worried about wildfires.
Y'all worry about floods. And I thought I saw smoke. I
said, babe, is that smoke? I said, I forget the moisture
hangs in the air in this place. Humidity, wasn't it? Here, there's
just water running all over. Back in Syria, we got clean rivers. A lot better than this river. I'll go get in one of them, not
in this dirty Jordan. May I not wash in them and be clean? Can
I get clean over there? So he turned and went away in
rage. He was even madder now. The Lord is going to have to
use another unnamed servant to reason with Naaman. Isn't that
something? The Lord says, come let us reason
together. I've been stuck on that for weeks
now. You can't reason with the Lord. What am I going to do?
I'm going to tell him something? No, he's going to speak to us.
And that's the humility he has when he comes to his children.
That's the condescension of being made a man. He comes to our level
and deals with us directly and tenderly just as a father does
a child. Isn't that right? Just as an
elder brother does to a young child. His younger brother. Go
to verse 13. And his servants came near and
spake unto him and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee to
do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it? How much
rather then when he saith to thee, Wash and be clean. Look and live. Don't look to
yourself. Look to Christ and live. That's
what I tell you. One, I would love to find needy
sinners. I can't help a Pharisee. I can't
help some theologian, some armchair theologian that wants to nitpick
me. I ain't got nothing for you. But if somebody's like, I'm a
dying person. I've sinned against God. My sins
are before me. And He's right to kill me. I've
got some good news for somebody like that. I got some good news
for them. If I told that person, if they
were a mercy beggar, said, I need mercy from the Lord. And I said,
all you have to do is go outside and rotate the tires of my car. If people are on death's doorstep
and you're about to meet your maker, I turn and it is right
in front of you and I said, all you have to do is go cut the
grass outside. Would you go cut the grass? You'd cut the grass,
you'd weed eat, you'd edge, you'd take a backflip blower, you'd
comb it, make sure all the grass blades were up, wouldn't we?
Go wash in the Jordan seven times. Look to Christ and not to yourself. That's it. Look and live. Well, the Lord made him willing.
His power had come upon him. In verse 14, And he went down
and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the
saying of the man of God. He heeded his word. And his flesh
came again like unto the flesh of a little child. He was born
again, not from going into the river, but from obeying God.
Hearing his voice, his power coming into him. And he was clean. God saved that leper. That leper
was physically healed. Leprosy left his body. He had
brand new skin, soft to the touch. That physically happened. Spiritually,
God saved a sinner. That's what happened. He saved
him from his sin. And where did he go? What did
he do after? Did he run for Congress? He went
to the closest believer he could find. He went to another sinner
saved by grace. That's the first place he ran
to. Look here in verse 15. And he returned to the man of
God. He and all his company came and stood before him. And he
said, Behold, now I know that there is no God in all the earth
but in Israel. Your God is my God. You know
what Ruth told Naomi? Your God's my God. Your people's
my people. Wherever you're going to be buried,
that's where I'm going to be buried. I'm with you now. Now therefore
I pray thee, take a blessing of thy servant. He's going to
support the furtherance of the gospel in that place. He had
all this raiment, all these nice changes of clothes. He had ten
Armani suits. I guess that's the closest thing
in our day. All this gold, all this silver, and at that moment,
that meant nothing. I have Christ today. I need nothing
else. That's just, that might as well
be a barrel full of rocks. Take all you need. Is that what
you need to buy food? You go get some. Take that with you.
And he brought all his brethren with him, or all his company
with him to this man of God. I mean, Tom was talking about
that today. First service they had in this
church. I've never told nobody this. First service they had
in this church, it was packed to the gills, standing room only.
My dad told everybody that worked for him, he said, I'll pay you
eight hours of labor if you come here to church. And that first
week, buddy, it was packed. I mean, I get paid eight hours,
I'm gonna listen to some man talk for 30 minutes, I'll do that
right now. Fool wouldn't do that. Well, a couple weeks later, maybe
half of them showed up. By the end of a couple months,
none would come. I'll put you on the payroll.
He told his company, you're going with me. I'm the general, you'll
go where I go, where I tell you, you're on the payroll. You can't
buy it, can you? And you can't pay for somebody
else. So that man must have been a
great man to do such a thing, to put his money where his mouth
was. That money didn't mean nothing. His mouth was busy praising his
God. He said, you need it, you take it. Verse 16 says, but he
said, as the Lord liveth, before whom I stand, I receive none.
And he urged him to take it, but he refused. Elijah said,
I don't need your money. I don't want your offering. I'm
just thankful that our Lord worked in you. That's my payment. Paul
said, you are our epistles. That's my benefit. I want nothing
from you. Verse 19, and he said unto him,
go in peace. You are at peace now. You had
a reason. There is peace. He's not crying peace, peace
where there is no peace. Comfort you, comfort you, my
people, saith the Lord. Your warfare is accomplished. You
go in peace, General. And so he departed from him a
little way. How far did he go? A little way. He ain't going far from him,
is he? That's my family. I'm going to stick, I'm going
to hug up right next to him. That's got to take place. The
proud general is going to know God. And it has to take place
in every sinner whom God redeems. Because you see, God resisteth
the proud. And He gives grace to the humble.
And He's going to have to do it. He said in Isaiah, I swore
by myself, the word has gone out from my mouth in righteousness.
And it shall not return unto me void. Every knee shall bow
and every tongue shall confess that Christ is Lord, that He
is Lord. It has to take place. You see,
if you miss that conviction, when the Spirit comes to convict
men of a sin, then you miss repentance. If you miss repentance, you miss
faith. Faith in knowing that Christ is our righteousness.
He is our sanctification. He is our wisdom. He is our redemption.
He is our resurrection. It's a person. You miss that.
And if you miss faith, you miss Christ, the object of our faith. And if you miss Him, you ain't
got no life. And the worst hindrance you could have is breathing oxygen
in and out of your lungs and you think you're alive because
your eyes blink and you sleep and you wake up and you eat. This has to happen. We must be
brought from our lofty pride to the feet of Christ. bowing
to Him, worshipping Him, casting all of our crowns, all of our
rewards and awards and everything to Him. Here is your silver and
gold. Take what you want. It doesn't
matter. I need Him. That's who we need. I pray the
Lord will do that for His people.