Let's turn in our Bibles to 2
Kings 5. We saw in Luke 4, our Lord said,
Many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet,
and none of them was cleansed save Naaman the Syrian. God passed by many lepers in
Israel. There were many lepers in Israel.
He passed them by and He cleansed Naaman. God is not obligated
to save any of us. He's under no obligation to save
any of His sinful creation. But here's good news, by His
grace He does save some. That's the good news, He does
save some multitudes. multitude, but He saves by free,
electing, sovereign grace. Why? Why does He save this way? Everything about God's way of
salvation is to humble the proud sinner on whom He has mercy.
Everything God chose and the way to salvation, the way who is
salvation, everything about the way is to humble proud sinners,
is to humble us. He hates pride, he resists pride,
he saves lepers who can't even lift up their eyes to heaven,
but smite upon their breast and say, Lord, have mercy on me,
the sinner. And it's only when we're brought
there to see ourselves as leprous sinners and continue to see this,
that we're thankful that God, by grace, chose to save some
out of this leper colony we live in called mankind. He did choose
to save some. And this makes you rejoice when
you really see what a sinner you are. Those to whom our Lord
spoke that word, they were greatly offended. They were good religious
folks. They were folks from His hometown.
They were Israelites. They were in the synagogue every
Saturday. And they expected Him to work miracles for them. He's
the hometown boy. He said to them, You're going
to say to me, Physician, heal! Do the wonderful works here that
you did in Capernaum. And then our Lord said to them,
there was many widows in Israel and He saved one in Sarepta. There's many lepers in Israel.
He cleansed one who was a Syrian. And then these fine folks who
were so pious rose up and wanted to kill Christ the Lord. take him to a brow of the hill
and cast him off the hill. That's what all men are by nature,
is pride. Pride. Pride is sin and sin is
pride. It is what our sin nature is.
pride's why the devil was cast out of heaven, pride's the essence
of the sin nature, and only Christ can cleanse his people from this
leprosy. You know when the scripture says,
only by pride cometh contention, first and foremost, that is toward
God for God's way of saving his people. And when I mean saving
His people, I mean everything He's working in this world, because
it's all being worked exactly by God for the saving of His
people. And it's by His grace, and it's
by Christ, and it's by the Spirit of God, and it's all of God A
to Z. And this causes contention in
men's heart toward God due to pride. due to pride. That's what we have to be cleansed
from. Now let's see this in Naaman the leper. 2 Kings 5 and verse
1. It says, 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. Naaman was somebody. He was captain
of the host of the king of Syria, of his army, of Benadad's army.
The king regarded him a great man, an honorable man, because
he was leading the army whenever they were delivered from Israel,
from King Ahab. Now man's proud by nature, but
esteem for man made Naaman more proud than he was. Naaman had nothing to be proud
of, though the Lord had delivered Syria, that's what it says there,
the Lord had delivered him, he was just an instrument used.
And then notice the italicized words added by the translators.
The word says, take those words out, the word says, he was also
a mighty man in valor, a leper. In other words, a leper is who
he was. The same as he was a mighty man
of valor, he was only a leper. No matter how station a man achieves
in this world before God, we're only sinners. We're only sinners. That's what leprosy represents.
It covered a man and most died from it. Most died from it. It pictures our sin. Isaiah said,
the whole head is sick. The Lord said this through Isaiah.
The whole head is sick and the whole heart faint from the sole
of the foot, the very bottom of the foot, to the top of the
head. No soundness in it. But wounds
and bruises and putrefying sores, they've not been closed, neither
bound up, neither mollified with ointment. Christ said in Luke
4, there were many lepers. Naaman was one of many, many
lepers all over Israel. There were many lepers in Syria.
What made the difference for Naaman? Here he is, a proud man
who is a leper. What made the difference? The
grace of God. Chosen from before the foundation
of the world freely by God's grace. So Naaman here, he's a
picture of a sinner. He's proud. He's proud. He refuses God and His way of
cleansing at first because of pride. But we see here that the
way the Lord saves humbles His child. And that's why He saves
this way. Everything the Lord's going to
use, everything He's going to do is to humble us. We're not
going to have our way. He's going to humble us. And
we're going to have to submit to God's way. Every step of the
way. Now first, salvation is by God
ruling all providence. He said in verse 2, The Syrians
had gone out by companies, and had brought away captive out
of the land of Israel a little maid. And she waited on Naaman's
wife. 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 you think of this. The Lord used this act here of the armies going
out and they were going out and when they would find people in
enemy lands, this was either a little girl or a young maiden. And they'd take her from her
mother and her father and they'd bring her out of Samaria and
they'd bring her into the land of Syria and probably sold her
to a Naaman's, to him, to be his wife's maid. to minister to his wife. But
God has chosen the foolish things and the weak things and the things
that are not and the things that are despised to confound the
mighty. No one else in Syria had what
this young maid had. She had good news. She had good
news. She had a word that was going
to be good news for Naaman. This maiden knew a prophet of
the Lord. She knew a prophet of the Lord.
Her desire was that Naaman would go see that prophet. That's what
she wanted to see happen. For he would recover him of his
leprosy, she said. Now who's the prophet? Christ
Jesus is the prophet. That's who's pictured here. And
Elisha is the prophet, Christ Jesus. He's the only one whose
blood can cleanse away our sin. Remember in Mark 1.40, there
came a leopard to him, beseeching him, kneeling down to him, saying
unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. Jesus moved
with compassion. And this always gets me. And
here's a leper who had to announce, unclean, unclean. And people
stood back, they put him in a leper colony out there so nobody had
anything to do with him because leprosy was so contagious. And
he comes to Christ saying, if you will, you can make me clean.
And Christ said, I will. And reached out and touched him. Touched him. and said to him,
Be thou clean. And as soon as he spoke, immediately
the leprosy departed from him and he was cleansed." But you
see here, God rules all things. What seemed like this wicked
thing, this poor little girl taken from her family, brought
out and brought into her enemy land and made to be a maid for
her mistress, It just appeared to be like a criminal act, but
God was working that to bring the Gospel to Naaman, that there
is a prophet in Israel, to cause this chosen child to go down
to Israel to the prophet. Our Lord is working everything
in this world to save His people, and those things we see and think
that are only tragedies, He is working those things together
too to bring His people. under the gospel to save His
people. Now secondly, we see salvation is not by anything
of us. It's not of our money, it's not
of our works, it's not by anything of us. It says in verse 4, And
one went in and told his lord, told the king of Syria, Ben-Hadad,
saying, 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 ten talents of silver, six thousand pieces of gold, and
ten changes of raiment. 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 rent
his clothes, and he said, Am I God to kill and to make alive
that this man descend unto me to recover a man of his leprosy?
Wherefore, consider, I pray you, and see how he seeketh a quarrel
against me. And the king of Syria heard this
word, and he sends Naaman down there to the king of Israel.
He doesn't send him to the prophet, he sends him to the king of Israel.
And he sends him with all this money and with these ten changes
of raiment, he's going to purchase this healing. But the king of
Israel replies correctly. The king of Israel said, am I
God? Am I God to kill and to make
alive that this man descend unto me to recover a man of his leprosy?
At that time, no man could heal of leprosy. No mere man could
cure anybody of leprosy. And there's certainly no cure
by any man, any mere man of our sin. Who can bring a clean thing
out of an unclean? Not one. We're not God. We're
not God. We can't kill and we can't make
alive. And that's got to happen. That's
got to happen. Only God can kill the proud,
self-righteous old man of sin in us and keep slaying him with
this sword of the gospel. Only God can do that. And this
gospel is a two-edged sword. Only God can make alive the new
man with the sword of this gospel and keep us bowing to Christ
and keep us looking only to Him. And only Christ can cleanse us
of our sin and make us the righteousness of God. And this salvation, this
purging of our sin, cannot be bought with money or any amount
of good works. It can't be. Redemption is by
the precious blood of Christ alone. You know you were not redeemed
with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation
received by tradition from your fathers. There's people in this
world, you know, you know this. Just like Peter's writing and
he says, you know, you know this. There's people in this world
that don't know this. There's people in this world who are trying
to purchase absolution of their sins. There are people who are
trying to pay their way into heaven. There are people who
are trying to do things in all areas of religious life, trying
to work their way to heaven and buy their way to heaven. It can't
be purchased. It's by the precious blood of
Christ as a lamb without blemish and without spot who was foreordained
before the foundation of the world but manifest in these last
times for you and it's by Him. that we believe God. He raised Him from the dead and
gave Him the glory so that your faith might be in God and He's
going to keep our faith in God. What is faith in the Lord? What
is that? It's trusting Him for everything
and trusting ourselves for nothing. It's looking to Him for all and
not looking to our hands for anything. It's trusting the Lord.
All things are by the law purged with blood and without the shedding
of blood is no remission. Righteousness, justification
from our sin is by that bloody, bloody cross and that offends
men. That offends the proud of men.
Because when you come to Christ confessing that you need to be
saved by Christ, you confessing that they are hanging on that
cross is what you deserve. Nothing but the wrath of God.
And it took Christ, God coming down in human flesh and going
to the cross and laying down His life in the womb instead
of His people. It took Him to put away sin.
And that's what we're confessing. We're confessing there's absolutely
no way I can come to God but by Christ, by His righteousness,
because I am such a sinner. And that message and that blood
offends proud sinners. But it's Christ alone that heals. It's Christ alone that heals.
That's the third thing we see here, verse 8. And it was so
when Elisha, the man of God, had heard that the king of Israel
had rent his clothes. Elisha sent to the king. He heard
this was going on. Who do you think made Elisha
hear this was happening? The Lord is going to have this
Naaman brought to Elisha. So Elisha sent to the king of
Israel and he said, Wherefore hast thou rent thy clothes? Let
him come now to me. He shall know that there is a
prophet in Israel. And so Naaman came with his horses
and with his chariot, stood at the door of the house of Elisha.
Now, Elisha typifies Christ, first of all. Christ alone is
the Lord that healeth thee. He alone is the great physician.
That's who Christ is. And Christ is going to heal through
His prophet. He's going to heal through His
messenger preaching His Word. He's going to heal through the
preaching of the gospel through earthen vessels that are nobody's,
that are unappealing, that are unimpressive, and He's going
to make certain they're not impressive to stain the pride of men. God's
just not going to do it the way we thought He was going to do
it. God chose to save using foolish things to bring men down from
their pride, so that no flesh shall glory in His presence,
so that God alone might get all the glory for cleansing and healing
and saving beginning to end. And He's going to get the glory. Look at this passage. God used
a maiden, an Israelite maiden in Syria. That's who God used
to start this whole thing off. He didn't use the king of Syria.
He didn't use the king of Israel. He didn't use Naaman. Naaman
couldn't do anything. He used Elisha, an unimpressive
man. And Elisha is going to offend
Naaman's pride even more. See what God is doing? God is
using foolish things to bring us down, down, down, down. That's what he's going to keep
doing. He's going to keep bringing his people down so Christ gets
all the glory. Now here stands Naaman outside
Elisha's door. You just picture him. You know
he's got his horses and his chariots. He's got his entourage. He's
got a host of folks pulled up there. He's an important man. He's got bodyguards. He's got,
I mean, this is like the president coming along, you know. He's
the captain of the army. And he's standing out here and
he's got these gifts to pay for this healing. He came ready. Verse 10, And Elisha sent a messenger
unto him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and our
flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean. Now
he's come all this way. He's come all the way from Syria. to the king, and then the king
said, I can't do anything for you. And then he hears about
this prophet, he goes to this prophet, and he's thinking, this
man, he must be somebody. He must be, he's going to do
something impressive. And a message comes out by a
messenger. Elisha didn't come out to him.
Elisha sent a messenger to him. And here's the message. Go strip
off all your honor. Take off your crown. Take off
your royal attire. Take off all your weapons. All
your works. All your self-saving value. All
your esteem from men. Strip it all off down to your
loathsome, leprous, naked self. and then dip seven times in this
muddy Jordan River. And thy flesh shall come again
to thee and shall be clean. What can wash away my sin? Nothing
but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Everything about this was offensive
to Naaman. everything about this. He was
proud. And so is Christ to proud sinners. We are like Naaman at the very
first, and so many times he has to keep humbling us from our
pride. But sinners must come to Christ
as nothing but naked sinful lepers. In my hand, no price I bring.
We must plunge into Christ the fountain. We must believe on
Christ alone. And then we'll come away healed,
made righteous by God's own righteousness, cleansed by the blood of Christ,
having our conscience purged anew by His blood. You ever get
sorrowful over your sin and weighted down because of providence and
trouble and you just have no peace in your heart and no peace
in your conscience and you just can't find any? How is all that
defilement purged? How is that put away so that
you have the joy of His salvation and know He's got it? He's got
you. You're in His hand. He's not
going to let you go. How does that happen? You come to Him.
Come to Him in His Word. Come to Him through the preaching
of the Gospel. Come hear Him preach. Go to Him. Get along with Him. Pour out
your heart to Him. He's the only one that can heal.
He's the only one that can cleanse. He's the only one that can strengthen.
He's the only one that can renew. He's the only one that heals
lepers like us. But we're used to be too proud
for this way. Remember how the proud religious
folks tried to kill Christ when He declared Naaman alone was
cleansed and the others were passed by? Remember? They want
to take him up, throw him off a mountain. Well, that's exactly what Naaman's
reaction was to first. It says here in verse 11, But
Naaman was wroth and went away. And he said, Behold, I thought. I thought he'll surely come out
to me and stand. Naaman thought Elisha knew he
was somebody. He thought he knew how esteemed
he was by the people. He's going to come out to me.
I deserve this. And he's going to stand. He's
not going to make me bow. He's going to stand before me
as I stand. And I thought he'd call on the
name of the Lord his God. This is Elisha's God. It ain't
Naaman's God. I thought he'd call on the name
of his God. And I thought he'd strike his hand over the place
and recover the leper. Notice there, he doesn't say,
recover me the leper. He's too proud to even say he's
the leper. He said, I thought he'd recover the leper. And I thought he'd just strike
his hand on the place. He talks like the leprosy was
just one little spot. We have to be made to see our
sins, not one or two misdeeds. Our sin is what we are. Head
to foot. Not a good thing in us. We must confess to God, to all
our own selves, in totality, to be the leper. And that's all. And if we get beyond that, we've
got to be cleansed of our leprosy all over again. Christ doesn't
come forth Himself. He uses His messenger. He uses
His Word. Oh, He comes forth in power through
the Spirit. But religion is wanting a great
show. They want some scraping and bowing
because after all, look who we are. That's not how he's going
to do it. He's going to do it in a way
that totally goes against anything we thought he'd do. That Jordan River typifies Christ. Listen to Nahum in verse 12,
"...are not Abner and Pappi rivers of Damascus better than all the
waters of Israel? May I not wash in them and be
clean?" And so he turned and went away in a rage. Men are
willing to do any other thing than submit to Christ, trust
Him to do the saving. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. That's all. What does your preacher preach?
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Well,
there's more to it than that. That's exactly what Naaman was
saying. Elisha said, go dip in the water
and you'll come away clean. And Naaman said, I thought there
was going to be more to it than that. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
you shall be saved. Well, preacher, I need help at
my job. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you'll be saved. I need
help. We need saving from our sins
is what we need. We need saving from this thought
that now we've reached some plateau where we've got some goodness
about us now. Now we're somebody. No, we're
not. We're sinners saved by grace,
that's all. And that's all we're going to
be. And we've got to be kept there, brought down and kept
there. God says our ways and our thoughts
are wicked and unrighteous. That's what they are. If our
way is any way but Christ, at any point we're looking anywhere
but to Christ, it's an unrighteous and wicked way. And God says, forsake it, forsake
our thoughts, forsake our ways, come to Christ and he'll have
mercy and he'll abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your
thoughts, neither your ways my ways, saith the Lord. As the
heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your
ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. Somebody said, total
depravity offends man's dignity. If we get angry and upset, you
know, people do this, well, you're preaching to me and you're saying
I'm a sinner and you're saying I'm self-righteous. If that's
how we feel, we just prove we are. Honestly. Are we anything but that? I've
never said anything but that's what we are. That's all I've
ever preached. That's what we are. The total depravity offends man's
dignity, the necessity of divine revelation offends man's wisdom,
and the blood of the cross offends man's pride. Ain't that right? I thought, I thought, I thought. God's going to bring every thought
of ours into captivity to Christ. Down to one. If He has to hedge
us about, paint us in a corner where we can't do one thing,
but believe Christ, that's what He'll do. In fact, that's what
He will do. That's what He keeps doing. What about our thoughts? I thought,
I thought, I thought. God saw the thoughts of the imagination
of men's hearts that they're only evil continually. But that's
people that aren't saved. That's not us saved people. That's
not us. You want to stand before God
on that? You want to come before God trusting that? I don't. I don't. Well, His servants came near
and they spake to Him. And they said, Don't you know they said this
with some humility? This man is mad and he can take
their head off. But they know there's no way
he's going to be cleansed going the way he's going. They know
he's not going to do anything but go on being a leper if he
keeps going the way he's going. And they know that. This prophet
and the word he spoke is the only hope they have of seeing
him healed of his leprosy. And they come to him humbled
down and they said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do
some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? How much rather then, when he
said to thee, Wash and be clean. Go to Christ. and wash and be
clean. Then went He down. That's where God's going to bring.
God's not going to fail to do that in every one of His people.
Then went He down. Zacchaeus, come down. Humble yourselves unto the mighty
hand of God. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Wash in His blood. And he dipped himself seven times
in 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. I tell you every problem we have,
every single problem we have is pride. Just think about it. Next time any problem you have
at work or home or out, wherever you're at, any kind of issue,
just really think about it. See if it's not pride. Either
in somebody else, but usually in us. And the second problem is this. Not humbling ourselves at Christ's
feet and just trusting Him. Just trusting Him. We have to trust Him for righteousness,
holiness, purification, preservation, everything. That means everything
is coming to pass. Everything. We have to trust
Him. It's not going to be like we
thought. It's going to be like He purposed to stain our pride,
keep us at Christ's feet. And listen to this, he returned
to the man of God in all his company and he came and stood
before him and he said, Behold, now I know there is no God in
all the earth but in Israel. And verse 17 said, He said, Thy
servant will henceforth offer neither burnt offering nor sacrifice
unto other gods but unto the Lord. Listen, the Pharisees saw
all these publicans and sinners. I mean, we're talking about folks,
folks, religious folks would have nothing to do with, nothing
to do with them. And here they come and they sat
down and they're eating with our Lord Jesus Christ. And they asked His disciples,
why does your master eat with publicans and sinners? Why? And he said, they that be whole
need not a physician. If you ever get whole, if you
ever get whole, so that you're whole on your own, you won't
need Christ anymore. Those that be whole need not
a physician, but they that are sick. But go, ye, and learn what
that means. I will have mercy and not sacrifice. For I'm not come to call the
righteous, but sinners to repentance." That's what he did for Naaman.
And that's what he keeps doing for his people. Peter had to
learn this all over again. I won't forsake you, Lord. I'm
whole now, don't you know? I'm whole now. Look how strong
I am. Now, they might. They're kind of sickly. I won't. Peter, you're going to have to
find out. I'm your physician all the time. I'm your cleansing
all the time, from beginning to end. Every step you take,
you're getting dirty and getting sick. You need me to be your
cleansing the whole way through. your physician the whole way.
Yes, he makes you whole, you complete in him and he makes
you whole in the new man. But he never lets us cease knowing
he is the great physician that heals. But he came and healed him again.
And in his old age, Peter said, oh, he resists pride. And He says, humble yourselves
under His mighty hand. He'll raise you up in due time.
After you've suffered a while, He'll strengthen you. He'll raise
you up. But He's going to make you stay low to know it's all
of Him. And He's doing it. Amen.