Let's take our Bibles and turn
with me to the book of 2 Kings chapter 5. 2 Kings chapter 5. Just hold your place right there. And let me just kind of summarize. chapter 4 for us. The Lord, in Luke chapter 4,
you can go back and read the chapter if you'd like, I'd advise
you to do so. But I'm going to tell you what
happened in Luke chapter 4. The Lord was led into the wilderness
to be tempted of the devil. And after he returned out of
the wilderness by the power of the Spirit into Galilee. The
scripture says that he taught in the synagogues there in Galilee
and then afterwards he came to a place called Nazareth where
he'd been brought up and he stood up one Sabbath day to read And
finding a particular passage of scripture in the book of Isaiah,
he read this passage, and I'll read it for you, Isaiah 61, 1
and 2. He read this, and he said, The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to
preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to preach deliverance to the captives, recovering of sight
to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach
the acceptable year of the Lord. And then, after he read that,
according to Luke 4, he closed the book, gave it back to the
minister, and he sat down. And the scripture said that everyone
there were earnestly gazing upon him. And then he said to them,
he said, this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. Scripture
says that they wondered at the gracious words which came from
His mouth. That is, they admired the graciousness
with which He spoke. And they admitted something that
the Lord knew, but they were not aware. They didn't know Him. He grew up. in their midst and
they began to say after he had read that scripture and he said
basically this is what he said I'm the one of whom the Spirit
of God spoke out of Isaiah 62 and they said Is this not Joseph's
son?" And he told him, he said, I'm
telling you that eventually you're going to say to me, and he was
talking about when he would be on the cross, the crucifixion. He said, you're going to say
to me, Physician, heal thyself. Whatsoever we've heard done in
Capernaum, do also here in thy country. And then he rebuked
them in Luke 4. And he told them, he said, Verily
I say unto you, no prophet is accepted in his own country. And then he began to set forth
his sovereignty. And he told them, there in Luke
4, he said, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah,
when the heavens were shut up three years and six months. When great famine was throughout
all the land, but unto none of them was Elijah sent, save unto
Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And
many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha, a prophet,
and none of them was cleansed, saying, Naaman the Syrian. Now they had been gazing upon
him, saying how gracious he is, and how wonderful were his words,
and when he came out and told them, he said, no prophet is
without honor except where he comes from, in his own country.
Then he started telling them, he said, there was a lot of widows
here, but God didn't send a prophet to any of them but this one widow
woman over in Sidon. And he said there were a lot
of lepers in Israel, but God didn't heal any of them in the
days of Elisha except one, a man named Naaman. And when they heard
of God's sovereign grace, of God's right to do what He will,
with whom He will, when He will, the truth of God to show mercy
and compassion to whomsoever, the scripture says they were
filled with wrath. and rose up and thrust him out
of the city, led him under the brow of a hill whereon their
city was built, that they might cast him headlong, but he passing
through the midst of them went away." Now what I'd like for
us to do for just a few minutes this morning is I want us to
take the account in 2 Kings chapter 5 concerning One that He spoke,
of whom He spoke there, and it was about that man, Naaman. And in this story, I want to
look at the first 14 verses of 2 Kings 5. And this is how God
saves a sinner. Now, here's the fact of the matter. We're sinners. We're sinners. All of us are sinners. We're
all cut out of the same lump. There's none good. No, not one. All of us are rebels by nature
against God. We've all been born in Adam.
We're lost being born in Adam. And if God is pleased to save
anybody, this is how He's going to save them, right here. This
is it. So what I'd like for us to do is just look at what happened. The Lord brought this up. And
I'd like for us to just consider for a few minutes what happened
concerning this man, Naaman. What happened? The scripture
says in 2 Kings 5 verse 1, Now Naaman, captain of a 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. Here is a man, now this man is
a heathen idolater. He's a man that possessed a lot
of wonderful qualities. And listen now, there's a lot
of people that I know you know, here in town, other places, you
know. Man, I'm telling you, I remember
from the time I was in the sixth grade until I was second semester
in college, I never went to the same school two years in a row. Glenda tells me she went to school
with the same people everybody graduated with. I told her, I
said, man, I'm like that guy who wrote that song. I've been
everywhere, man. And I just, I thought, you know, I've met
a lot of people, a lot of people that are good. I mean, humanly
speaking. I mean, honorable. This is the
way this guy was. He had some wonderful qualities. He was the highest ranking officer
in the army of Syria. He was a great man with his master. He had a lot of power. He probably
had a lot of money. He had great favor with the king
and just highly esteemed for his success. I don't doubt that
he was a fair man. But the thing is, he was a walking
dead man. Nobody, not the lowest man on
the totem pole, I'm telling you Mitch in Syria, nobody would
have changed places with him. He had leprosy. And there's no cure. There's
no cure for leprosy. There's no cure. I mean, you
got leprosy, let me tell you something, you're gonna die.
You're gonna die. Here's man by nature, from the
crown of his head, sole of his foot, putrefying, oozing, odious
sores. Eventually, with leprosy, your
flesh just falls off. It's just horrible. Horrible. All of these good qualities. But this man was a leper. Everything
you can say about anybody. But the only problem is, Mark,
they're sinners. They're sinners. And the soul
that sinneth is going to die. It's going to die. And here,
this man, he was great with his master, honorable, but listen,
even the victories that he had had, he couldn't even lay claim
to that. It says in the latter part of
verse one, because by him the Lord had given deliverance unto
Syria. God Almighty, this heathen idolater,
Fair, good, I mean, humanly speaking, but the only thing is he's got
leprosy. Nobody wants to be around him.
But in the midst of these wonderful, marvelous accomplishments, in
the midst of that stench of death that was upon him, being an object
of terror to everybody that crossed his path, of all the good things,
that could be said about this man, everything else kind of
canceled out. You know, it just, you do everything you were, you've
got a lot of things, you know, somebody, a doctor tells you,
but you've got, you know, you've got cancer. You know, it kind
of just overrides everything. It just, all of a sudden it just
nullifies everything else, you know, especially if he'd tell
you, say, Incurable, you know, it's fatal. But according to the indescribable
grace of God, now remember, this is us by nature, this is us.
You say, well that's Naaman. No, this is us. This is all,
everything good that can be said about us, but we're sinners and
rebels against God. But when God was pleased in overruling,
distinguishing providence in this man's life, God Almighty
did something for this man that no one could do. No one could
have known. Look at verse two. The Syrians
and the Syrians had gone out by companies, by bands, you know,
and had brought away captive out of the land of Israel a little
maid, and she waited on Naaman's wife. Now, here's a marvelous
thing. God was gonna show mercy, to
this heathen idolater, this man with leprosy. So he blessed Naaman
and gave Naaman victory. Because that's what it said,
verse 1, because by the Lord. But the Lord had given deliverance
unto Syria. God allowed this man, Naaman,
to go over into Israel and have some victory over Israel. God's people, and brought back
some folks, one of which was a little maid. And God put that
little maid in Naaman's house. She was a maid to Naaman's wife. And so here's that little maid,
and she's held captive and placed as a servant. in Naaman's house
to his wife. And Naaman meant it for evil. God meant it for good. And you
know, I've said so many times, you know, Romans 8.28 is always
Romans 8.28. All things. work together for good to them
that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.
Who would have ever thought whenever that band of Syrian soldiers
came in there and took that little girl, don't you know that little
girl's mom and daddy or who, I don't even know her name. Doesn't
say what her name was. But took that little girl, oh
no, no, no. This is the most horrible thing
that could have ever happened. God meant it for good. and took
that little girl back, oh, he worketh all things after the
counsel of his own will. If we could see the end from
the beginning, we'd know, we'd know. And we think, oh, how merciful
the Lord was to do, something happens like that, I just fall
to pieces. You know, I'm thinking, oh, this
is the end. Nothing could be worse than this.
Almighty God, God is ordering, But then the scripture says in
verses 3 and 4, 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 said the maid that is of the land
of Israel. Now let me ask you this. Do we
not see the hand of God that would lead and direct this little
maid in the accomplishment of God's purpose? How the Lord who
orders all the steps of everybody and works everything, the steps
of a good man, you just read that, steps of a good man, ordered,
ordered by the Lord. and how God takes and moves in
all of these instances and nothing is happening outside of the absolute
direction and providence of God. The Lord's doing everything.
He's doing all of this. People drive up and down the
road and stuff like that and I think to myself, I don't know
where they're going or what they're doing, but I can tell you I know
why they're going. Because that's where the Lord
directs everything. And here's this little girl,
and she knows the plight of, you know, her, Naaman's wife,
you know, she knows that Naaman's got leprosy. And she tells Naaman's
wife, oh, that he'd be back where I come from. There's a prophet,
there's a preacher, as a preacher there. And he'd heal him. This little girl, I don't know
what she'd been taught, but I tell you this, I thought to myself,
oh, the benefit of teaching our children. That little girl's
parents had taught her something. She'd seen and heard some things. And she knew that there was a
prophet. But in the midst of all of this adversity, look at
the mercy of Almighty God. And then look in verses 5 and
6, And the king of Syria said, Go, too, go, and I will send
a letter unto the king of Israel. And he departed, and took with
him ten talents of silver, six thousand pieces of gold, and
ten changes of raiment, and 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. Now let me ask you, is that what
the little maid said? You know, get you some money
and get you a bunch of, you know, get all your clothing, get your
camels and get all the stuff, you know. Get up, no. Oh, she
said that God would cause my Lord to be back where I come
from. There's a prophet there. There's
a preacher there. But what do we see? Here we are,
here we are. This is a picture of us. lost,
trespassing, sin, God causes the gospel to be sent unto us
and so here they put us where we needed to be here. But what
do we do by nature? Naaman's king tells him, I'm
going to send a letter. I know somebody. I got some contacts. I got this guy. I'm going to
send him a letter. You get some money, and I'm going
to send him a letter. I'll handle this. I'll handle
this. I can take care of this. And
man, by nature, born in Adam, finds himself in trouble. He
turns to religion. He turns to his own will. He
turns to his own thinking. And he does what he thinks is
the natural thing. I'm going to pay. What's it going
to cost? I got a little setback. Don't
worry about it. I got enough. I know sacrifice has got to be
made on man's part. So he sends this letter explaining
what he wanted in exchange for the king to obviously command
or do himself, tell Elisha, I'm going to send this letter to
the king and I want the king who has authority over there,
you go tell the prophet that I want my servant healed. I know
you can take care of it. Now, whether he meant the king
do it, or Elisha do it, but anyway, he's appealing to what he thinks
is authority. And you do what I say, and I'll
handsomely make sure that everybody's rewarded. There's gonna be, you
know, oh, the arrogance of man to think that his will, his ability,
has got a hold upon God. And the scripture says in verse
70, it came to pass when the king of Israel had read the letter
that he rent his clothes and said, am I God to kill and to
make alive? That this man doth sent unto
me to recover a man of his leprosy? Wherefore consider, I pray you,
and see how he seeketh a quarrel against me." Now whether the
king of Israel knew the true and living God, I don't know. But I know this, what he said
truly bears our attention. He said, am I God to kill and
to make alive? And I read one writer and he
said this, whether the king said those words out of fear, and
terror for the king of Syria, or whether he considered the
king's words to be totally blasphemous against God. They were sound
words. You know, man can kill. That's what he said. Am I God
to kill and make alive? A man can kill, but a man can't
make another man alive. And this man had leprosy. How are you going to heal something
that is incurable? that it's got a 100% death rate. 100% if left to itself, unless
God intervenes. And so here's the king, and he
said, are you picking a fight with me? What's he doing? Here's the providence of God. I think of the long suffering
of God with all of us, all in the midst, Before God calls us
out of darkness in all of our ignorance and stupidity, I think
of man by nature saying, all you've got to do to be saved
is do A, B, C, D. I don't have sense enough to
get out of the rain, much less how to satisfy God. How can this
spiritually impotent sinner, any sinner, How are we going
to satisfy the justice of God by our own ability and create a righteousness that will
be answered before God with God's acceptance by our own free will? You don't even have a free will.
We're dead. That man was dead. He was dead. What's he going to do? Will himself,
you know, without leprosy? Man, if anybody do that, they'd
all do that. But you can't do it. This is
how God saves a sinner. He put him under the sound of
the gospel. He's going to send him to a preacher.
And that's how all of us got here. God sent a preacher that
told him the truth. that preach what the world considers
foolishness. The preaching of the cross. That's
what Paul said. It's to us. You know, it's life. Life unto life. Now to the world
it's foolishness. Who ever heard of God showing
mercy to one and passing by another one? That's foolishness. Man's
got a free will. All he's got to do is exercise.
I watch this guy on TV. You know who he is. I'm not even
going to say it. You know, he said, if anybody wants to be
saved today, just do it. Done. Here's Naaman, and he's gone,
and there's a letter sent to the king, verse 8, And it was
so, when Elisha, the man of God, had heard that the king of Israel
had rent his clothes, he sent to the king, saying, Wherefore
hast thou rent thy clothes? Let him come now to me. He shall
know that there's a prophet in Israel. Here's Elisha now, a
picture of Christ. What does the Lord say? Come
unto me. Come unto me. Buy of me. Without money, without price.
Eat, drink, milk, honey. You come to me. And here's all
the mercy of God. That God would raise up a prophet
that would speak of the prophet, the Lord Himself. And here's
the will and purpose of God that is overruling all of the ignorance
of Naaman, his king. And here's Elisha. God calls Elisha to be there. The glory of God that sets forth
that Elisha tells the king to send the leper To me, this is
what I want to tell you as I'm just a messenger. Come to Him. Come to the Prophet
Himself. Come to Him. Christ gives life
to sinners. Call upon Him. And if the Lord
is pleased to give a man or woman a heart to do so, they will.
Elisha, and he tells him, he said, come to me, and there Elisha,
that beautiful picture of Christ, needy, helpless sinner, you come
to him. Come unto me, all you that labor,
heavy laden, trying to work out your own salvation, you know,
with your works. That's what man does by nature. Naaman's got his money, he's
got his change of clothes, he's got all the stuff that he might
need. And the scripture says in verse
9, Naaman came with his horses, chariot, and stood at the door
of the house of Elisha. Now, I want you to notice something. That spiritually unawakened leper
is still coming to purchase his healing. Until God gives a man
a new heart, he will not change his mind. He cannot change his
mind. He thinks he can. And he can't. He can't. He's
coming and thinking that he can purchase his salvation. He comes
in the finest of everything he's got. and thinking that the prophet
now is going to accept him on his own merit. Back in verse
1, I'm the captain of the king of Syria, a great man, with master
I'm honorable, and all that kind of good stuff. You're a leper. You're a leper. That's all you
are. That's all we are by nature.
And this is how God is bringing His people. to himself, he crosses
their path with the gospel. Do we have any? We don't. But
any recollection, the mercy of God that you ever heard? There is no telling how many
people leave this world that never hear the gospel, that never
hear it. And if somebody is sitting here
right now and you've heard the truth, buddy, you talk about
a blessing beyond compare. No blessing, no blessing. Blessed
are your ears. That's what the Lord said. They
hear. What if the Lord would have left me down in South Louisiana,
just nobody from nowhere, and let me die? Here's this man,
he's coming and the Spirit of God moved upon Elisha. Elisha came out there and he
was gonna, you know, he was gonna, you know, all right, I'm here. I'm here, you know, standing
at the door. Verse 10, Elisha sent a messenger
unto him saying, go and wash in Jordan seven times and thy
flesh shall come again to thee and thou shalt be clean. Evidently, in the mind of Naaman,
Elisha don't know who I am. Elisha sent a messenger, like
God sends messengers to preach the gospel and tell men this
is life eternal in Him. Why the Lord was pleased to do
it? I don't know, but I can tell you this. I'm sure that he showed
Naaman that faith is going to be in God, not in man. You're
going to come to Elisha. And Elisha didn't even come out
there. He said, you go out and wash
in Jordan seven times. And in the washing of the Jordan
River, there is no doubt a picture of being washed in the precious
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing else. is going to do,
nothing else, nothing more, nothing less. You wash where I tell you
to wash. Washed in His blood, when God
sees the blood, I'll pass over you. Here's the Jordan River,
the descender, that's what he's talking about. He who has humbled
himself, made himself of no reputation, the Jordan River, picture of
Christ Himself. But Nahum in verse 11 and 12
was wroth. and went away and said, Behold,
I thought, I thought he will surely come out to me and stand
and call on the name of the Lord his God and strike his hand over
the place and recover the leper or not Abana and Farpar 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
a rage. Wash in the Jordan River? That to him was like the preaching
of the cross. Foolishness. That is absolutely
ridiculous. That filthy river Man by nature is angry at God
because of God's grace and God's mercy. Man by nature is angry because
God Almighty does not consider his self-righteousness anything
but filthy rags. Go wash in Jordan seven times I've read what men said, seven
is the number of perfection, and it is. The reason that Elisha
told him seven times, that is the number of perfection, and
it could be that was it. But whether or not he was going
to show, you're going to obey by faith. Go wash in Jordan seven
times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt
be clean. Now, don't you think, I got to
reading that and I thought, now here's a man with leprosy and if somebody tells him, you
go wash in the Jordan River seven times and you will be clean,
you will be clean, you would think, why not do it? This man thought that that was
just as much foolishness as men hear this scripture and they
go away. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
Acts 16.31. What shall I do to be saved?
What must I do to be saved? That's what that Philippian jailer
asked Paul at Silas. What must I do to be saved? What
must I do to be cleansed of leprosy? What must I do? Go wash in the
Jordan River seven times. and you'll be clean. Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. That scripture right there, apart
from regeneration, is as much foolishness to the carnal man
as washing in the Jordan River was foolishness to Naaman. Foolishness,
that is ridiculous. I thought that this prophet,
that this maid told me about, I thought he'd come out to me,
a man worthy of his audience, and that he would come out and
wave his hand over the place, over the infected area, whatever,
which was his old body, I'm sure, call on the name of the Lord
his God. This man still doesn't know God.
You talk about grace. This is the way all of us are.
For by grace, in spite of us, in spite of our rebellion, in
spite of our arguing, I told you before, my thoughts of the
gospel before the Lord opened my heart, this is the most ridiculous. I have never heard anything so
ridiculous. I thought he'd call on the name
of the Lord, his God, and strike his hand. wave it over him, recover
him. That's what I thought he was
going to do. And I have a great story of healing. Besides that,
how about rivers back home? A lot cleaner than that. But
that shows the same thing that Paul the apostle under the spirit
of God said in the book of Romans, being ignorant of God's righteousness,
and going about to establish their own righteousness have
not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God. Why should
I dip in the Jordan River? Because that's what the prophet
said to do. That's with a picture of Christ. I've got better rivers
than this. Man by nature thinks that his
way to God is better than God's. That's what he thinks. That ain't good. You mean to
tell me I'm not going to get any credit? Any credit? Nope. I'll tell you what, that preacher
over there says that, well, but for the grace of God you're going
to die. And Scripture says in verse 13,
and his servants, verse 12, so he turned and went away in a
rage. And if God lets a man leave,
that's where he's gonna leave, bear. That's where he's gonna
go, right there. He's gonna leave in a rage. Angry, angry at God,
angry, and he'll die in his sin. He's gonna die. He's gonna die. He had leprosy, and unless God
pleases to do something for him, and let me tell you what's gonna
happen, he's gonna die. Now you listen to me, unless God does
something for him. 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 said to thee, Wash and be clean. This is what he
said. Go dip in Jordan River seven
times. Wash and be clean, be clean. And according to the mighty working
of God's Spirit, and this is the way it is with every man
and every woman spiritually, Naaman was made willing in the
day of God's power. Verse 14, Then went he down and
dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the
saying of the man of God. And his flesh came again like
unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. He was clean. The only way that a man or a
woman is going to obey is if God makes them willing in the
day of His power and gives them a heart to do spiritually, believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ like this man went and dipped in the
Jordan River and came out clean. And He knew He was clean. And
here we can truthfully say, we thank our God and Savior for
His long suffering and mercy to draw us in spite of us to
Himself. Oh, how many times has He so
ordered, directed, ordained to bring us to himself. The times
that we would argue, fuss, and gripe, and complain. How many
times, kids, has your mom, dad, brought you to hear the gospel?
You think, oh. Go hear him, that guy, one more
time. I mean, ugh. Oh, but if God is pleased, to
draw a sinner, a spiritual leper to himself and cause that spiritual
leper to dip himself by faith in the Jordan River, by faith
to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Say, Lord, be like that thief
on the cross. Lord, when you enter into your
kingdom, would you remember me? Lord, would you have mercy on
me? a sinner, like that old publican. Pharisee bragging and that sinner,
that publican wouldn't even lift up his eyes. And Almighty God
was pleased to save him. Who knows? The Lord may be pleased
to save a naaman, a spiritual naaman today. I pray so. I pray that God would teach us
all this is how He saves. This is how He saves His people.
And may He bless it to His glory and our good.