Doug, lead us in prayer. Our Father, we thank you, Lord,
for the privilege of being able to assemble in this prayer. And
Lord, we pray this morning by Holy Spirit to be pleased to
meet you. And Lord, bless your precious
and holy word Lord, help us to bow to it. Lord, we're so thankful that
you are God, that your hands have created
everything. Lord, help us this one day to
truly worship you. Lord, forgive us where we've
been, forgive us of our sins, We have our pastor this morning,
Lord, to bring your word to us. Lord, you've been so good and
kind and merciful to us. We praise you and thank you, Lord. Lord, we ask these things this
morning. In the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Turn to 2 Kings chapter
five. 2 Kings chapter five. We will look
at the first 14 verses. The title of this lesson, but
he was a leper, but he was a leper. We had before us this morning
another beautiful story, another beautiful example of God saving
a sinner, a Gentile at that. You know, this is the one example
that the Lord Jesus Christ used in the Gospel of Luke when he
was speaking of God's sovereignty and salvation. There were many
lepers in Israel. But God only healed this one
Assyrian, Naaman. And he used it in the Gospel
of Luke. And after he had given this example,
they tried to kill him. They wanted to stone him because
they hated God's sovereignty. They didn't hate God's sovereignty.
Let me rephrase this. They hated the sovereign God.
They hated God who's sovereign. That's who they hated, God. But we have this story, and this
story is for our encouragement. You know, we can go through the
Word of God, and we can find all types of sinners saved by
the grace of God. Rich, poor, young, old, the Ethiopian
black, white, it don't matter. God has given us examples. And
any sinner that has an interest in being saved in the Lord Jesus
Christ, he can find or she can find an example of a sinner just
like themselves being saved. And here we have a great man,
a great man, a general here in this story. But one of the things
that I thought about, though there are many things commendable
about Naaman. At the end of the day, he was
a leper. I thought of this. At the end
of the day, everyone is a sinner. Everyone. Everyone has sinned
and come short of the glory of God. The military general, when
he goes home and he takes off all that military garb, The CEO,
he goes home, he takes off his suit. The teacher goes home and
lays down her books. When they go home and they strip
off their garments, everyone is the same. Sinners, none good. No, not one, not one. That's what God said. And this
is how God sees every human being. No matter their standing in society,
no matter their ancestry, they're just sinners. They're just sinners. Now, Naaman here was an important
man. And what we're going to see in
this, we're going to see how God saved sinners. But we're
going to see here a vessel that was full. being made empty. You remember the last lesson?
They had to get nothing but empty vessels. She was told by Elisha
to get empty vessels. She sent her sons out and they
brought back all these empty vessels that they borrowed from
their neighbors. Well, now here's a vessel that's
full and God's going to empty it because he's going to empty
us if he's going to save us. Now Naaman, it says, Captain
of the host of the king of Syria. He's captain. He was a great man with his master. Honorable over my margin says
gracious. You know, later on in this chapter,
his servants, when he got mad, you know, he was mad because
of what Elisha told him to do. And his servants came to him
and said, Master, if he would have asked you to do something
great, would you have not done it? I never really thought about
it until this morning, I was reading this again. And I looked
at when it says honorable over in the margin, it says gracious. This man was a man that he was
approachable by his servants. He had a kind spirit. Now God
didn't save him because he had a kind spirit, but it's evident
he had a kindness about him, a personality about him that
he was approachable even by his servants. He wasn't this standoff
person. But it says here, he was honorable
because by him the Lord had given deliverance unto Assyria. He didn't know that, did he?
You know all victories of God. You know this country takes a
lot of pride in her military and in her victories over the
years. Victories of the Lord. God could
take a little nation and whip us all over the place if he so
willed to do it. He could do it. It always scares me when I do
hear talk about our great military might, how we're such a great
nation. We're the leader of the world. And God gets none of that
glory. Nobody says anything about God.
They're not saying, thank you, Lord. Thank you for these deliverances. Thank you for your mercy. Thank
you for this abundance that we have. It's like, we do this. We're great. We're proud. We're
going to be in trouble is what we're going to be. That kind
of attitude sooner or later is gonna bring down God's wrath
on us. I thank God that we have the
country we have and had the victories we've had, but I tell you this,
I thank God. Look at this again. He was a
great man with his master. He was honorable because by him,
the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria. Naaman didn't know the Lord at
that time. He was also a mighty man in valor. He was very brave in battle.
That's basically what that has reference to. He's a very brave
man. He'd lead the charge. He didn't stand back and watch
his men go fight. He would lead the charge. He
was a man of valor. But here's a problem, and it's
the same problem we all have, because we know that leprosy
in the scripture represents sin. He was a leper. Now, if he'd
have been in Israel, he would have been an outcast. If he'd
have been an Israelite, he would have been unclean, pronounced
unclean, and not allowed among the public. He would have been
in a leper colony. And I know that here, I'm convinced
that his leprosy was from head to toe. He was full of leprosy
because it was an urgent need, which is evidenced by the king
sending a letter trying to get him healed. He heard he could
be healed, so he tried to... You know, I read a little while
ago that what he took, listen here, he departed, that's verse
five, and took with him 10 talents of silver and 6,000 pieces of
gold. You know, in today's economy, someone, I read this, said that
was 1.2 million dollars. That's what Naaman was worth
to the king of Syria. That's how great a man he was.
That's what the king thought of him. 1.2 million dollars he
sent to the king of Israel to get him healed. And we'll see
he went to the wrong one to start with. And we usually do. You know, most of the people
I know came out of false religion. We end up in the wrong place
first, then the Lord... And it seems to be the providence
of God that He lets us do that in order that we might be able
to really see when He does save us, and we do see Christ, we
really have something to measure it up against. You know, we've
experienced the wrong first. And then when the Lord makes
Himself known to us, it's like, then you can see it. Then you
can see it. And then we see here in verse
2, the providence of God. This one always jumps out at
me in verse 2, listen. And the Assyrians had gone out
by companies. These are bands of robbers. Bands
of robbers going out from Syria. And they brought away captive
out of the land of Israel a little maid, a young girl. And she waited
on Naaman's wife. It was, I guess, a gift to Naaman's
wife. She's gonna be the servant to
Naaman's wife. They took her captive. And this
is God's providence, but you think she saw that? You think
her parents saw that? This girl scared to death. She's
taken by the enemy out of her home, out of her comfortable
home, and she is taken to the house of an enemy and she's made
a servant but this is God's providence because God has a child in Syria
named Naaman and he takes a little maid a little maid and it's evident
that she had been taught well in her home because she told
her mistress of this prophet in Israel that, and she believed
this, this maid believed that Elisha would heal him. She said,
oh, if he could get to Elisha, God's man, God's man, he'd be
healed. But I think how terrifying it
had to be to her, but yet God took what was evil and turned
it into good. This goes along with God making
all things work together for our good. Naaman had no idea,
I don't know whether the robbers brought her back or if Naaman
was involved in that and he captured her, brought her back and gave
her as a present to his wife, but Naaman had no idea that the Lord had purpose to
save him. And this little maid, This little,
it all starts with this little maid. You ever feel like you're
just so totally insignificant? You know, you say, I don't preach,
I don't do that. Just, you don't know, but what a word that you
will say somewhere sometime to someone, and God will use that
to bring that soul to Christ. Just like he did this little
maid, and then she fades out of the picture. But what an important
role she played in this. She's put in the right place
at the right time, even though it seems tragic. God's hand is in this. God's
hand is in this. Then she tells about God's prophet
in Israel in verse three, which is interesting to me because
you would think she'd say, I just hope you die. I mean, we have
no idea what enemies Syria and Israel were to each other. But she tells of the prophet. And she said to her mistress,
would God, my Lord, were with the prophet that's in Samaria,
for he would recover him of his leprosy. There's faith. She said
he would recover him of his leprosy. There is a prophet. I thought
of this this morning. I wrote this completely out this
morning. I wrote it a couple days ago, wrote it yesterday,
threw it all away, and wrote it again this morning. But there's
a prophet in Israel that can heal, that can save from sin. That prophet is Jesus Christ.
He's our prophet, priest, and king. And she said, would God,
my Lord, were with the prophet that's in Samaria. But he would
recover him of his leprosy. You know, the Lord Jesus Christ
can save us from our sins, no matter how deep they are. He
can wash them away. There's one who can save. There's
one prophet who can tell us who God is, who can save us, who
can heal us. And this good news in verse four,
the good news spread to Naaman, And one went in, see God's at
this, the Lord is orchestrating this whole thing. He's orchestrating
it. The little maid is captured.
She's taken to Naaman's house. She tells of the prophet and
the story spreads to Naaman. God sees to it that Naaman hears
the good news. God saw to it that all you who
believe, God saw to it that you heard the good news of the gospel.
You didn't just happen to hear it. You may not even realize it at
the time, I didn't, but God crossed your path on purpose. When it was a time of life, spiritual
life, time to be born, time to die. When it's time to be born
again, God will cross your path. And one went in and told his
Lord saying, thus and thus said the maid that it is of the land
of Israel. This is what she said, here's
the good news. There's a prophet in Israel that
can heal. Can heal you, Naaman. There's a prophet there and it's
a little maid. And you know what? They believe
that word. They believe the word of the little maid. This is God
at work. Because normally a man that great's
not gonna believe a little maid, especially one that's an enemy. But God'll see to it that his
sheep hear the good news of the gospel. But as I said, so often we get
it wrong first. Help is sought from the wrong
person. In 2 Kings 5-7, And the king
of Syria said, Go to, go, and I'll 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. See, he's going to the wrong person. I
tell you what, if you're gonna learn about God, if you're gonna
hear from God, you're gonna hear from God's man. That's what you're
gonna hear. You're gonna hear from God's
man. So he brought a 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. And this is interesting because
they're enemies. They're enemies. Syria and Israel are enemies. The tension may have been a little
lower at this time, but they're enemies. And yet He's sending
His greatest general to the King of Israel. Only God can do this. Only God can do this. Only God
can have a two mortal enemies and then he sends his general
to the king of israel to be healed like you're gonna heal your enemy 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 said, am I God to kill and make alive? This
is above my pay grade. But I can't do this. He said, what is he doing? He's trying to find a quarrel
with me. He's trying to find a reason
to go to war with me. It's what he's doing, it's trickery.
No, it's God at work. Mysterious are the ways of God
when it comes to saving His sheep. Then the king of Israel knew,
we see there in verse 7, he knew he couldn't do anything for Naaman.
Now we have God's prophet in verse 8, now God's prophet enters
the scene. You see, everything's got to
be removed out of the way that we would have even a glimmer
of hope in. Everything's got to be removed.
The king of Israel is removed. Now God's prophet comes on the
scene. God has his man for the hour when he's going to save
a sinner. When he's going to save a sinner, it's going to
be God's man standing, preaching the gospel, which is exactly
what it's going to be. Well, now in verse 9, I wrote up by
this verse, showtime, it's showtime. So Naaman, he left the king of
Israel. He came with his horses, with
his chariot, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha.
He came in pomp and display. He came, listen, he came as a
captain of the host of the king of Syria, that's Syria, that's
how he came, Elisha. He came as a man of importance,
not as a wiggly maggot in need of mercy, which is exactly what
we are. We're just nothing but wiggly
maggots in need of God's mercy. There's very few people really
see that. And I mean people who even confess that they believe.
It's very few people who really see who and what they are before
God. He came with his horses. Couldn't
just ride up on a horse. He came with his horses. I bet
you they were beautiful, beautiful horses, strong. He's in his chariot. I bet that chariot was decorated.
This is the captain's chariot. And he stood at the door of Elijah,
and I imagine he's standing there like a general, and he's expecting
Elijah to come to the door and Elijah do his bidding. Boy, is he gonna get the tables
turned on him. See, he's used to saying, go and one goes, come
and one comes. But he's out of his league now.
He's out of his league. He's standing before God. He's
standing before God as a leper. In Elisha, in verse 10, Elisha
humbles Naaman by sending a messenger. Isn't that something? You see, God's hand is in this.
God's hand is in this from bringing that little maid from wherever
they went over there and robbed and looted and took this little
maid and brought her back, put her in Naaman's house for Naaman. He gave her as a present. He
gave her as a present to his wife. I don't know if I can say
it this way, but it's like God gave her as a present to Naaman.
Because she's going to be the one who's going to say, there's
a prophet in Israel who can heal you. And Elisha sent a messenger unto
him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thou shalt be
clean. That's all you've got to do. This was done I believe this
was done so that Naaman would know that salvation is of the
Lord and not of man, not of Elisha. He would have praised Elisha
if Elisha would have come out and done, if Elisha had come
out and done what he thought he was going to do, as you see
here in a minute, what he thought he was going to do, guess who
would get the praise and the glory? Elisha. But here is also God's
man. God's man is not seeking glory
for himself. He's not seeking the praise of
men for himself. He's not seeking the riches of
men for himself. He's not after your pocketbook.
He's after God's glory. So Naaman sent a messenger to
him that he would know that when he's healed, salvation is of
the Lord. And it was also to avoid, and this is something
that we have to be careful with, to avoid preacher worship. We have a tendency to, if we're
not careful, to start to worship the preacher instead of the Lord
Jesus Christ whom the preacher preaches. Now Nabum in verse
10 was given a command to obey. He was told what to do. You see,
God's going to meet him at his point of rebellion. God will
meet every sinner whom He saves at their point of rebellion.
And He knows exactly where it is. He's gonna meet him in his pride.
He's a captain of the host of the king of Syria. He's a mighty
man, he's a man of valor, and he believes every bit of it.
He believes every bit of it. He's a leper, as Henry said in
one of his, in that commentary, he said he's a, let's see, I
didn't write it down, but he's a, he saw himself as a great, man
who happened to be a leper, when in fact he was a leper who happened
to be a great man. But he's a leper. But he was
commanded to do something. He'd go to Jordan, not just any
river, Jordan. You're going to go down to Jordan
and you're going to dip yourself seven times. Here's what's going to happen.
He's going to be cleansed and he's going to be healed God's
way. Who is God's way? Christ said,
I'm the way we are going to be saved by Christ and Christ alone
with nothing in our hands. We bring, he is going to be our
full salvation and he only, he only. Now here's Naaman's greatest
problem. It's our greatest problem when
the Lord first begins to work with us, I thought. Verse 11, but Naaman was wroth,
he was angry. His pride, listen, his pride
was offended. God met him right there. His
pride was offended. Who does he think he is? I'm
the general, I can call my army, I can call up the army of Syria
and I can whip this man. Don't even need an army. Who does he think he is? Just
send a messenger out there to me. And he was angry and he went
away and said, behold, I thought You know the best thing you can
do this morning, best thing I can do, quit thinking and listen. Just listen. Well, I thought
it was like this. Well, I thought it was like that. I thought he will surely come
out to me. He'd come to me and be glad and
just be humbled that I'm here. I'm gonna let him do something
for me. I'm going to let Him do something
for me. I thought He'd surely come out to me and stand and
call on the name of the Lord, His God. Oh, what mercy, because His gods
are going to become His God also. Isn't that something? I thought
He'd call on the name of His God. You see, my God's not able
to do it. My gods are not able to do it.
So let's see if His God can do it. I thought he would come out in
his stand and call on the name of the Lord, his God, strike
his hand over the place and recover the leprosy. This is the way
I thought. This is how I think salvation is. This is how I think
healing is. This is how I think cleansing
is. Well, you're wrong. You're dead wrong. God tells us how it is. It's
in his son. You bow down to the Lord Jesus
Christ. You bow down to him. I thought he would come out to
me, I'm somebody, that he would perform some ceremony, some hocus-pocus
and take his hand, he says, strike his hand, that word strike means
move his hand up and down like this. You know, Catholics. I thought they'd do something
like that. Strike his hand over the place,
go up and down with his hand. He saw Elijah or Elisha as some
kind of witch doctor. He would perform some kind of
ceremonial hocus-pocus But when this is over he's gonna know
Elijah had nothing to do with it. I Have nothing to do with
saving you. That's all of God. I Preach here. I don't put pressure on any of
you all to to make a decision to do to be baptized if the Lord
ever saved you you'll be baptized I'm telling you will You'll be
glad to do it. You'll be glad to identify yourself
with the Lord Jesus Christ. But until He saves you, you're
not. You don't want nothing to do
with it. Nothing at all. But he says in verse 12, he told
him to go down to the River Jordan and he said, now wait a minute.
Really? He said, well, wait a minute.
See, God's going to humble this man. If God's going to save anyone,
He's going to humble them. He's going to bring them down.
Are not Abana and Farfar rivers of Damascus better than all the
rivers of Israel? Well, yeah, they may be. They
may be a little cleaner, but that's not going to do anything
for you. The waters of baptism won't save you. The Lord commanded
us to be baptized, but the water doesn't do it. It doesn't wash
away my sins. The blood of Christ washes away
my sins. The power is not in the water,
But what's gonna happen here, faith is gonna have to be exercised.
When all the arguments are said and done, when all the I-thoughts
are done, he's just gonna have to do what God said and believe
it. I think it's evident that when
he dipped himself seven times and he was made clean, he believed
it. He believed if he did it seven times, as Elisha said,
he would be clean. One day I heard this, BELIEVE
ON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST AND THOU SHALT BE SAVED. And I believed
it. And I still believe it. You can be baptized in the purest
water and still be filthy rich. He said, MAY I NOT WASH IN THEM
AND BE CLEAN? NO YOU MAY NOT! There's the answer. No, you may not. You may wash
in the Jordan, just as God said, because whatever Elisha is saying
to him, God's saying to him through Elisha. No, you may not. You see, here's his point of
rebellion. His point of rebellion is his pride. His point of rebellion
is this, I'm the captain of the host of the king of Syria, and you are telling me by a messenger,
Not even coming at yourself, you're sending a messenger to
tell me to do that? So he turned and he went away
in a RAGE! Usually God makes us mad before
He makes us glad. That happens to a lot of people,
they get mad. Mad at God's sovereignty, mad at the way of salvation.
And then when God finally breaks them, they're glad. I've never
seen anybody mad because God saved them. I've seen them get
mad before they experienced salvation. I've seen them get mad before,
but not after. But here's, listen, Providence,
again, Providence is at work through all this, as it is in
our lives. And his servants came near to
him and spake to him and said, My father, if the prophet had
bid thee to do some great thing, what if he had told you to offer
a thousand bullocks, would you have done it? Why, absolutely.
If he had told me to do some great thing, because I could
have gotten some glory out of it. But he told me to go dip
seven times in a river. So simple. Nothing great, nothing
extraordinary. Just go dip seven times in the
river. Then he went down. That's what the whole thing has
been about. Then he went down. You know,
there's some who don't believe. Those who don't believe, here's
the reason why. You've never went down. You've never been
brought down. If God ever brings you down,
you'll believe. Then when he down and dipped
himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the
man of God, he did exactly what God said to do. And his flesh
came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was
clean. There's got to be a coming down.
There has to be a stripping. You know, when he went into the
Jordan, you know what he had to do? He had to take it off. He had
to take that military coat off, that military armor, all that
garb he had on, he had to take it off. He had to go down into
that water, stripped. Stripped. He had to undress and
expose his leprosy. You see, he could hide a lot
of it with his clothes. But boy, when you take it all
off, you can't hide anything, can you? He had to be humbled, he had
to give God all the glory for his healing. You know the interesting
thing here? Naaman the Gentile Syrian went
away whole, and Gehazi a Jew went away cursed. And you know
at the end of that it says that the leprosy that was on, and
this is how I know, how I believe that the leprosy, he was covered
in it when it was a dire case, because the leprosy that he had,
it says, fell on Gehazi. And he was white as snow from
top to bottom. That's how bad it was on Naaman. And it was transferred to Gehazi. Gentile goes away blessed and
saved a Jew goes away cursed and lost and that the man that's
the mystery of God the mystery of God