Thank you, Mr. Coffey. Once again,
it's an honor to be here. And at my age, it's an honor
to be anywhere. But it's an honor to be here,
and I have just taken back to our folks back in Rescue California
some blessings of my being here, me and my wife Judy being here
last September. What a joy that was, and it's
good to be back. She can't remember anybody's
names, you'll forgive her. and me as well. But at our age,
to remember anything is a good thing. But it won't be long,
I don't believe, till our appointed time of departure or the return
of our Lord. It looks like that's getting
close too, but who knows. But it's coming, and thank God
for the promise from our Savior, absent from the bodies, present
with the Lord. I'd like you to turn to Romans
chapter 9. I have some scriptures I'd like
to share with you before we turn to 2 Kings chapter 5. I was jumping through the channels
here, oh maybe two weeks ago now, those religious section
of the channels. I don't, I don't do that very
often. Once in a while, just to get
some ammunition. And there was a preacher that
caught my attention, saying that God is in control of all things. And I said, let me hear what
this guy has to say. Well, that's not what he was
saying. He was mocking the sovereignty of God. I missed the first word,
if. And he was saying, if God is
in control of all things, we can't punish child molesters.
And the crowd just laughed in agreement with him, mocking the
sovereignty of God. You see, if God is in control
of all things, we can't send murderers to prison. And it didn't take me long to
get away from that. But anyway, that's the way the
world of religious people look upon the absolute sovereignty
of God. Like he has to apologize for
the things that are going on in the world. God doesn't apologize
for anything. All he has to do is just withdraw
his restraining hand just a little bit, and all unregenerate people
are going to do what's in their heart. That's why they crucified
the Lord of Glory. It was by the determinate counsel
and foreknowledge of God, but it was still by wicked and cruel
hands. God just withdrew his restraining hand. And I see that
in society now. The restraining hand of God is
being withdrawn and people are just showing the evil nature
of man over and over and over again. Well, I brought you here
to Romans chapter 9 to point something out that is as true
as God Himself. God has mercy on whom He will
have mercy. And we read that in verse 15,
He said to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
So then, it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth,
but of God that showeth mercy. And the Holy Scriptures Tell
us a little bit about Pharaoh, that God raised him up for the
purpose to destroy him, that he might show his power in Pharaoh,
in verse 17, and that God's name might be declared throughout
all the earth. Therefore, it says in verse 18, hath he mercy
on whom he will have mercy and whom he will, he hardeneth. Now,
verse 19 is what I want you to see. Thou wilt say then unto
me, why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Is not what that TV preacher
was saying. If God's in control of everything, why does he find
fault with murderers? Why does he find fault with child
molesters? Paul answers that, writing under
divine inspiration in verse 20 by saying, Nay, but, O man, who
art thou that replies against God? Shall a thing formed say
to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? So there's
an answer, and I used that when I was witnessing to a man Oh,
40 some years ago, he called me and he's still steeped in
free will religion. And he said, why will there be
a judgment day if man doesn't have a will? Well, that's just
I read this to him. And he said, oh, huh, just a
minute, I'll call you back. And he called his pastor. And
his pastor said something to him, and when he called me back,
here's what he said, we believe that's already happened. And
I've scratched my head ever since, and I don't know what he meant
by that. I do know this, God doesn't give an answer for everything
that takes place, He doesn't have to. He does what pleases Him, He's
in control, He works all things after the counsel of His own
will, And no finite sinful man or woman
is going to bring him into question for doing what he is determined
to do before this world was created. Now let me take you over to Luke
chapter 4. Back to Luke chapter 4. And I
want to read some scripture that has to do with our Lord's sovereign
distinguishing grace. Our Lord Jesus was hated without
a cause. not only because he claimed to
be God, and they just would not accept
that, that infuriated those self-righteous unbelieving Jews, but also because
he taught some truths that just did not agree with the doctrine
of those Jewish people who were Teaching for doctrine, the commandments
of men, had nothing to do with the true doctrine of God's grace.
And we have an account of that right here in Luke chapter 4,
and starting at... Well, let me jump down to... to verse 22. He just read some
scripture and told them it was fulfilled in their ears and all
bear him witness and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded
out of his mouth. And they said, is not this Joseph's
son? So they were just amazed at the gracious words that our
Lord Jesus had been speaking. And he said unto them, you will
surely say unto me, verse 23, you will surely say unto me this
proverb, physician, heal thyself. Whatsoever we have heard done
in Capernaum, do also here in thy country. And he said, verily
I say unto you, no prophet is accepted in his own country.
But I tell you of a truth. Many widows were in Israel in
the days of Elisha when The heaven was shut up three years and six
months when great famine was throughout all the land. But
unto none of them was Elisha sent, save unto Sarepta, a city
of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. Verse 27, our Lord Jesus
said, and many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha
the prophet, and none of them was clean, saving Nahum and Assyrian.
And all day in the synagogue, and folks, these are the same
people who just were amazed at the gracious words that came
from his lips just a few minutes ago, a few minutes before this. They in the synagogue, when they
heard these things, were filled with wrath, and rose up and thrust
him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill
whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down
headlong, but he passing through the midst of them went his way."
Now let me tell you what our Lord was teaching. He was teaching
the absolute sovereign choice of God and having compassion
on a Gentile widow and passing over others during that time
when Elisha was sent to that widow. He was teaching that God
had mercy on a Gentile leper and cleansed that leper while
he passed over all the other lepers in the land during that
time, in the nation of Israel as well. They didn't like that. And so they tried to kill him.
They hated him without a cause. Now I want to take you to 2 Kings
chapter 5. I want to walk us through this
account of Naaman the leper being cleansed
and draw your attention to some things that have to do with our
being cleansed by our Savior from all of our sins as well.
God has mercy on whom he will have mercy. O man, who art thou? He's speaking to the old man.
Not just the unregenerate man, but the old man that's still
part of us. We still have that old nature to deal with. We still
do things we shouldn't do. We still have thoughts we shouldn't
have. And we thank God We thank our
Lord Jesus that not one thing can be laid to our charge because
he paid it all. All to him I owe. Sin had left
a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow. Now,
God's in control of all things. If he is in control of all things,
how can all things be working together for our good? But I
know they are. The Bible says to do all things
without murmuring. You know why? God's in control
of all things. Now, I know that's easier said
than done, but that's what the Word of God says. And as His
children, we shouldn't murmur. We should recognize that God
is guiding us and directing us. And if we're doing 45 miles an
hour in a 30 mile an hour zone trying to beat that light and
we have to stop, we should stop and say, thank you, Lord. He
might be saving us from a raccoon down the road. We don't know
why God does the things that he does, and we don't have to
know. We just know that he does them. Now, Naaman, he was a mighty
man. He was a man of valor. He was
well known. in the Syrian army because he
was a captain of the host of the king of Syria. So we read
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 in valor, but he was a leper. Now all of this would not make
any sense to the subject of God's sovereignty. If the Lord had
not moved the writer to put these words in that first verse, by
him the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria. Naaman was a mighty
man, there's no doubt. He was recognized as a mighty
man. He had many things going for
him. He was a man of valor, but he was still a leper. And I'm
going to say this because I know it's true. He was a leper because
God struck him with leprosy. So that this story of Naaman
could be used for the glory of our Savior, who heals whom he
pleases and bypasses whom he pleases. He was a leper for the
glory of our Savior Jesus Christ our Lord. Now I don't care what
men or what women attain in this life. I don't care how outstanding they might appear
in the eyes of the people around them. They're still sinners. And people want to be recognized. Naaman wanted to be recognized. He was like any other unregenerate
man. He wanted people to think well
of him. And these people who are in office, God put them there.
He puts them where they are and he takes them down when he's
through with them. He raised them up, he puts them down. He's
in control of all of that. He put Hitler in office, and
he took care of him. And he put every president in
office throughout the history of the United States. I know
we're a democracy. I know we have the right to vote,
and we do and we should. But the outcome of the vote is
in the hands of God Almighty. And these people who are in office
today, boy don't they think they're something. But they're still
sinners in need of a Savior. So Naaman, he was a mighty man. Look at 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. Isn't that interesting? Now we
just read in verse 1 where God gave Naaman and the Syrian army
victory over many battles and this was no exception. The Syrians
had gone into battle against the Israelites and they won the
battle and they took a little maid captive. I don't know, I don't know exactly what happened
during that battle, whether that little maid's parents were killed
or if they grieved over the loss of their daughter. I do know
this little maid had lost company with her loved ones, been taken
captive. Can you just imagine what had
been going through her mind? But the Lord did that, and he
put that little captive maid right there where he wanted her,
waiting on Naaman's wife to get a message to Naaman. Now, this
applies to all of us. Somewhere along the line, our
Lord used somebody to plant the seed of gospel truths that got
us under the preaching of the gospel. He's in control of that. And he might use somebody that's
not even one of his chosen. He'll use anything that pleases
him. We have a man in rescue that I dearly love. He's the
pastor of the church now. When he came to church the first
time, he needed some advice. from his
brother, who was one of our deacons. Services had started, so his
brother said, I can't talk to you right now. He said, but I'm
having a problem. It's a real serious marital problem. He said, well, after the services,
I want to hear the message. So he was forced. because he
wanted to talk to his brother, to sit there and listen to the
gospel message that was being preached. I don't think he missed
a Sunday after that. The Lord spoke to his heart.
And he told me later, he said, what's happening to me? And I
just told him, I said, maybe the Lord's speaking to you. He
talked to one of our elders, what's happening to me? And he
gave him basically the same answer. Well, the Lord spoke to his heart
one Sunday and delivered him from darkness. But he was still
married to an unbelieving woman who had a Watchtower people background. I refuse to call them Jehovah's
Witnesses or not. And she said, that man up there
at rescue has you brainwashed. He said, I believe what he's
preaching. And for five years, she just
absolutely hated me. But it was Christ she hated.
And one Sunday, she was talking with her husband. And the subject
was the deity of Christ, which the Watchtower people have a
problem with. That's not their only problem.
But anyway, as I walked by, she got my attention. And I knew
that was the subject that she was discussing. And I mistook
her. I said, Kathy, Jesus Christ is
God Almighty. You can't read the Bible without
knowing that. And she said, I know. He revealed that to me this morning. This is just an example of the
providential hand of God using whomsoever he will. He, her husband,
John Reeves, is the pastor now, and his wife, is his right-hand
woman. I almost said man. She takes
care of the bulletins, the incoming and outgoing, all of those menial
tasks that he doesn't have time to do. She's just a trooper.
This is God doing what pleases God, putting people in his kingdom. God adds to the church daily,
such as should be saved. And so there's testimonies all
over the world, all over this country of people who will be
able to tell you, I was in darkness and somebody said this and it
just got me interested. Brethren, God hasn't changed.
He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. And this account
of Naaman draws our attention to some things that We can apply
to our own conversion to Christ. Things that just were not coincidental,
these were purposed by God Himself to get our attention to His darling
Son, Jesus Christ. Look at verse 3. This little
captive maid 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 might be a captive maid
and she might be in misery because she can't be with her loved ones,
but she knows there's a prophet in Israel that had the power
of God working through him. So when she said that, One went
in," it says in verse 4, "'and told his lord, saying, Thus and
thus said the maid that is of the land of Israel.' And then
the king got the word," you see in verse 5, "'the king of Assyria
said, Go to, go, and I will send a letter unto the king of Israel.'
And he departed," Naaman 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." Now, Naaman went with the wrong attitude. He went with the thought that
he could buy his cleansing. And he went to the wrong person.
He went to the king. He didn't go to the prophet.
This is typical of natural man, natural woman. They'll go anywhere
but to Christ. They'll do anything. but to obey
the words of our Lord Jesus. Look unto me and be ye saved,
all the ends of the earth, for I am God and there's none else.
Come to me, ye that labor and heavy laden, I will give you
rest. People that come to the front of a church, they'll repeat
words after a goat barn, whatever he is. They'll do anything but
do what Christ says. And they'll try to buy their
way. They'll try to give money to earn their salvation. They'll
try to work their way to glory. They'll come up with something,
even if it's their free will. One lady said, for God's sake,
don't take away my free will. I wish God would, because we
don't have a free will. Did you know that? We don't.
Man's will, woman's will, is bound by his nature or her nature.
And if we don't understand that, We'll think that we've done something
that's pleasing in the sight of God when there's nothing in
this body of flesh that God is pleased with. Nothing. Absolutely
nothing. Those who are in the flesh cannot
please God. That's in Romans chapter 8. But
this man, Naaman, he preferred going to the king because he
was a prominent man and he thought he could really gained favor
with the king, that the king had heard about his reputation,
how he was a man of valor. Well, the king thought he was
trying to pick a war with him. Look at verse 8. Verse 7. 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
send unto me to recover a man of his leprosy? Wherefore, consider,
I pray you, and see how he seeketh a quarrel against me. So the
king thought the king of Syria was picking a fight with him,
trying to get him to do something he couldn't do, and he knew that
he couldn't do that. And so he says, the king says, he's trying
to plot war against us. Well, Elisha heard about it,
and we read in verse 8, 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? Let
him come now to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet
in Israel. Send him to me. sending me. So Naaman came with his horses
and his chariot and stood at the door of the house of Elisha."
Now look what Elisha does. He knows Naaman is a proud, arrogant
man and needs to be brought low. He knows that. So 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."
Now, Pastor Henry Mahan, who's gone on to be with the Lord,
from his book, Pictures of Christ in the Old Testament with New
Testament Eyes, he wrote these words. Naaman, like any son of
Adam, must be emptied, humbled, and brought to understand and
acknowledge that salvation and mercy is the gift of God which
is neither deserved nor bought. Human thought, human pride, human
ways, and human works must be destroyed, and the sinners submit
to the will and way of God." End of quote. And that's true.
That's true. God has to do that. He has to
bring the sinner to the place where the sinner is just absolutely
stripped, bankrupt, sees himself or herself before God without
anything to offer, without anything to contribute, bowing down before
the true and living God, crying out for mercy. Well, Naaman,
He still comes with his horses and his chariot and his gold,
and he's standing at the door of the house of Elisha, and Elisha
sends a messenger and tells him, here's what you have to do. Go
and wash in Jordan. Now Jordan was a muddy river.
We have one flowing right by our place. Call it Ohio, it's
muddy. I've never seen it anything but
muddy. And I've crossed a few other
rivers, they're muddy. And Jordan was muddy. But this
was the message that came to Naaman through a messenger. Naaman was brought, it says in
verse 11, and went away and said, Behold, I thought, and that was
his problem. He was full of thoughts of his
greatness and what he could contribute and what he could do. He said,
he will surely come out to me and stand and call on the name
of the Lord as God and strike his hand over the place and recover
the lever. He said, I'm an important man
and he knows that and he expected Elisha to come out and wave some
magic wand and lightning start flashing and thunders crashing
and he would just say, behold be clean and his leprosy would
leave him. He's just full of himself. But
this was not God's way and folks that's the same between us and
our God. He has a way and only one way
and that way is Christ. I am the way, the truth, and
the life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me, came from
the lips of our Master. And that's the way we have to
come. And if we don't come that way, we'll go out into eternity,
dying in our sins, and spend the rest of eternity in eternal
torment. Well, my name is Roth. And we read in verse 12 where
he says, Now, Elisha is a type of Christ. And he had sent a messenger to
give the message to Naaman. And he's turning away from that.
And how many people do that when they hear the true message of
Jesus Christ? Folks, listen. When Christ our
Savior went to the cross, He didn't go there to try and save the world. He went
there to save his people from their sins. He went to the cross
to reconcile us to God. He was delivered for our offenses. He was raised again for our justification. He reconciled us to God by his
death. I'm quoting scripture. He by
himself purged our sins. That's in Hebrews chapter 1 verse
3. He obtained eternal redemption for us. That's in Hebrews chapter
7, I believe it is. He, the Lord Jesus, took care
of the sin debt of his people by his substitutionary death. and by the life He lives. We
live because He lives. If we come to God the way that
we are told to come to Him through the perfect redeeming work of
Jesus Christ, bowing down to Him as Lord of all, God promises
us eternal life. But people don't want to do that.
They want to come their own way. Naaman is a type of the unregenerate
man who tries to approach God some other way than the message
he received from God's prophet. But look what his servants do.
Verse 13 says, 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 to thee, wash and be clean? That's just logical reasoning.
And I know we can't put human reasoning or human logic into
this plan of God's salvation. I know that. But the servants
of Naaman didn't know that. All he said for you is to go
down into the river and dip seven times. Prove him. Do it. We tell the people we
preach to. I have never witnessed, and folks,
I'm telling you the truth. I was a pastor there at Rescue
for 37 years. I have never witnessed God turning
away a genuine hell-deserving sinner who's seeking mercy from
God himself through the merits of Christ Jesus our Lord. God
will never turn away a sinful person who is sincere in their
heart, crying out, God, be merciful to me, the sinner, and coming
by faith, believing on the Lord Jesus Christ as he is put on
the pages of Holy Scripture. This salvation This is not something
that's obscure. It's not obscure. It's there,
plain as plain can be. We just don't want it God's way,
we want it our way until God does the work in our heart. So
his servants, name and servants, are getting his attention to
something. All he said was go down and dip
seven times. Why don't you do it? If he told
you to do something hard, you'd do that. And that's typical of
today's unregenerate people. If they could earn their salvation
by doing something, they'd jump in right now and do it. And when
you tell them that they can't, when you tell them that it's
God's way or no way, then they go into a rage. Well, we read
in verse 14 that Naaman finally got the message. Then went he
down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to
the saying of the men of God. And his flesh came again like
unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean." Can you just
imagine, just imagine what Naaman, what excitement that must have
been for him, how he must have just was lost in amazement. I don't have to imagine. Because
I've been there. I know just exactly how he must
have felt when I heard that nothing can be laid to my charge because
Jesus paid it all. When I heard it, that just thrilled
me from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. And look,
I'm standing on my tiptoes now. This message never grows old.
If you know Christ and you know that he has taken care of your
sin, you'll never quit looking to him. I bet Naaman come up
out of that river looking at his hands. I bet he just couldn't
believe it. Look at this. And then his attitude
changed. We read in verse 15, he returned
to the man of God He, in all his company, and Kema stood before
him, and he said, Behold, now I know that there is no God in
all the earth but in Israel. Now, therefore, I pray thee,
take a blessing of thy servant." But Elisha wouldn't do it for
fear that he would think that he bought his cleansing. He wouldn't
take a penny from him. But this man knew something now.
Nehemiah knew. He knew there's one God, only
one God. And I don't know how much he
knew about the coming Messiah. I don't know, it's not recorded.
But I know he knew just exactly what God revealed to him. And
he knew that even when he went in to his master's house of worship,
and he had to do that, and that was a false god, and he begged
Elisha to pardon him for doing that, and Elisha told him to
go. He knew this, he knew that there was no other god but the
God of Israel. We're God's spiritual Israel,
did you know that? God's church, made up of his
chosen people, from every kindred and tongue and tribe and nation,
we're God's spiritual Israel. And there's no other God in the
whole world but the one who tells us, you're
my people and I'm your God. And his name is Jesus Christ
the Lord. He's not the man upstairs. He's
not Jesus Christ Superstar. He's Jesus Christ the Lord. All
things are under his feet. God has given him power over
all flesh. He's on his throne of glory right
now, doing what only God can do. enlightening the minds of
his chosen people with the precious truths concerning his gospel,
and bringing them into a living union with himself, and promising
us, promising us, I will never leave you nor forsake you. And
as we travel through this pilgrimage journey, he's with us every step
of the way, and he'll never, ever let us forget that it's
Jesus Christ himself who dug us out of that horrible pit that
we were wallowing in and actually loving that darkness we were
in, making a difference. And as his chosen people, we
have this testimony. Jesus Christ, redeem me with
his precious blood. He's my Lord and my God. And I don't care what the world
says about this. By his grace and his mercy and
his spirit working in me, I'll keep looking to Jesus Christ,
the author and the finisher of my faith, until he takes me home. Though he slays me, yet I will
trust him. I hope that was a blessing to
you. God bless you and thank you for allowing me to be a part
of this worship service and to preach the gospel in your hearing. Brother, if you would please
thank you.