Sin, people with leprosy are
the greatest types of sinners. And we're all in that category. We've all sinned and come short
of the glory of God. My soul, anybody that needs to
be reminded of that must be living in a cloud or a fog. But this chapter is one of the
most beautiful representations of God's grace and mercy in this
case. to a Gentile and not to a Jew. So before we start to read, and
I'll comment as briefly as I can while we're reading, and then
we'll conclude with some notes that I've scribbled out here
on a piece of paper. Let us pray. We are here this morning by divine
appointment. It is only your grace and your
mercy in Christ that preserves us at this very second. And every person alive on this
entire globe Whether we know it or not, we are in Christ's
hands, whether to save or to destroy. He must be able to save without
injury to your decrees, to your truthfulness,
to your character as set forth in this book. Lord, we pray this
morning, like you did this old Syrian general, Naaman, you would
come in the power of your Holy Spirit and speak life to dead
sinners. And cause those whom you have
saved to rejoice one more time in how this transpired, how it
worked out, how it was accomplished. Who gets the praise and the glory
but our Lord Jesus Christ. Help us, we pray. Amen. Alright, in 2 Kings 5, verse
1. I should have given you that
chapter to look it up. I'm sorry about that. 2 Kings
5, verse 1. Captain of the host, the armies
of Syria, was a great man with his master, who is the king of
Syria, and honorable because by him,
by Naaman, the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria. Deliverance from whom? From Israel. They were constantly fighting
each other, and whoever won had the others as their captives
until the next time came around. So this man has been the one
to lead that revolt against Israel's captivity of them, And it says, he was also a mighty
man in valor, he was a brave man, but he was a leper. And all of us, and all of mankind,
except the God-man, Christ Jesus, all of mankind is born with this
leprosy of soul. It is automatically ours. It
does not await us to do some great wrong in order to be condemned
with this. It belongs to us all. We're every
one dead in trespasses and sins. And the Syrians had gone out
by companies and had brought away captive out of the land
of Israel a young girl, a little maid as she's called. I'm sure
there must have been others that were taken captive, but this
is the one that pertains to Naaman and his leprosy. And she was
assigned, this girl that had been captured from Israel, is
sent to be the servant of Naaman's wife. And she said to her mistress,
to Naaman's wife, 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, I take this lord to be Naaman himself, saying, Thus
and thus said the maid that is of the land of Israel. And so
now it goes to the king of Syria, and the king of Syria said, Go
to, go and I'll send the letter unto the king of Israel. And
he departed, Naaman departed, took with him ten talents of
silver and six thousand pieces of gold, Ten changes of garments. Now why would he do that? Because
we are born believing that we can buy the favor of God. And you can't do it. There ain't
enough money in the whole world to interest God to change His
purpose or His plan. So the king of Syria sent this
note to the king of Israel. And Naaman departed and took
with him all these things. And he brought the letter to
the king of Israel, saying, Now when this letter is come unto
you, behold, these are the words of the king of Syria, I have
therewith sent Naaman my servant to you, that you may recover
him of his leprosy. And it came to pass when the
king of Israel had read the letter that he tore his clothes in anger
and frustration. He tore his clothes and said,
Am I God to kill and to make alive? That this man does sin
unto me to recover a man of his leprosy? Wherefore, consider,
I pray you, and see how the king of Syria is trying to pick an
argument with me so we can go back to war again. I added that. That's not in your Bibles. Verse
8, And it was so, when Elisha, the man of God, God's prophet
in Israel, had heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes,
that he sent to the king, saying, Why have you torn your clothes?
Let this man come now to me, and he shall know that there
is a prophet in Israel." Now the king, had he been at all understanding or believing
in God, would have certainly been aware that God's prophet
could do whatever God determined for him to do. But this man's
surprise and shock and grief and not applying to that prophet
reveals to us his religion. His religion is himself. So Naaman, verse 9, came with
his horses and with his chariot and stood at the door of the
house of Elisha. And Elisha sent a message unto
him, saying, Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your
flesh shall come again to you, and you shall be clean." But
Naaman was wroth. He's offended. He's angry. And went away and said, Behold,
I thought. There's our problem. We think. We think. Isaiah 55 says, My
thoughts are not your thoughts, and my ways are not your ways,
saith the Lord. He will surely come out to me.
This is what he imagined the prophet would do. 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. Are not Abana and Farpar rivers
of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them and be
clean? And what is the answer to that
question? Absolutely not. You can wash in all the rivers
in all the countries of this world and still have sin clinging
to us. And he turned and went away in
a rage. Now, if this prophet had come
out and recognized this man's high standing as the commander-in-chief
of the armies of Syria, and given him some highfalutin way of speaking
of God and something to convince this man that this is the true
God of heaven and earth, So in verse 13, Naaman's servants are
smarter than their boss. And his servants came near and
spoke unto him and said, My father, if the prophet had bidden you
do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much rather then, when he
says to you, wash and be clean. Now, I've got a little test for
you. I'm going to stop right there just momentarily. In about 99% of all the churches
in America, and the world for that matter, are telling people
what to do so God will do something for them. And that's putting it totally
backwards. We can't do anything for God. If we ever do have a good work,
it's because He gave it to us. But I'm telling you, preachers
are telling people lies. All they want out of you is a
decision, church membership, and money. And there's plenty of people
dumb enough to believe it. Hey, and it's only a miracle
of God's grace that you and I don't subscribe to the same junk. Yeah, I've been there and done
that. Stupid, stupid, stupid me. I lost my place. Y'all have to
help me. Fourteen. Alright, that looks right. Then
went Naaman down. His servants won him over. That's what it says. Well, who
did win him over? God. When God comes to us on purpose
to save us, you couldn't change His mind. You can't speed it up. You can't
slow it down. He does as He pleases in the
armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of men, and none
can question Him and say, what are you doing? What are you up
to? He's doing whatever He pleases. That's what He's doing. He always
has, and He always will, in time as well as eternity. So Naaman went down and bathed
in that river, and his flesh came again like unto the flesh
of a little child, and he was clean. So now he goes back to
Elisha's house. This is a different meeting than
the first one. And he returned to the man of God, he and all
his company, and he came and stood before him, and he said,
Laman said, Behold, now I know that there is no God in all the
earth but the God of Israel. I mean, I don't care what country
it is in this world. I don't care what their language
is called or how they've been brought up and how they've been
taught to believe in idols. Those things are meaningless.
Totally meaningless. This man, the moment God washes
him of his sin, and in doing so, gives him deliverance from
the physical disease of leprosy, which is deadly. At least in
that day there was no cure. He said there is no God in all
the earth. But Jehovah, the Lord Jesus, now he said, I pray thee, take
a blessing, the gold, the silver, and the clothes. And look what
he calls himself, of your servant. This highfalutin general is calling
himself a servant to God's prophet. And Elisha said in verse 16,
as the Lord lives before whom I stand, I will receive none. You cannot buy God's favor. It ain't for sale. And Naaman urged him. to take it. And Elisha refused. And Naaman said, now look carefully what's taking
place. This man has just met God for
the first time in Jesus Christ. Naaman said, shall there not
then, I pray you, be given to your servant Now this is a phrase
that measures things, in this case, dirt. Give your servant two mules'
burden of earth. He wants as much dirt as two
mules can handle and get back to Syria with it. For your servant will henceforth
offer neither burnt offering nor sacrifice unto other gods
but unto the Lord." He goes that quick, just the snap of a finger,
from being an idolater to a worshiper of the true God in Christ. And verse 18, no, I didn't finish 17, did I? I don't think I did. Anyway,
I'm going to read it again. "'For your servant will henceforth
offer neither burnt offering nor sacrifice unto other gods
but unto the Lord.'" And then this statement is somewhat beyond
my ability to understand. I was going to mark the verb,
and I must have forgotten to do it, because it's not marked.
It looks just like all the other words on the page. Let me read
you verse 18. In this thing the Lord pardoned
your servant, that when my master goes into the house of Rehman,
that's the idol god of Syria, to worship there, and he leans
on my hand, and I bow myself, in the house of Rimmon, when
I bow down myself in the house of Rimmon, the Lord pardon your
servant in this thing." Now, it's kind of hard to imagine
that a man would, the moment he's converted, he's already
asking God to forgive a sin that he's going to commit. And some
writers, Mr. Pink being one that somewhat
subscribed to this. There's a particular verb in
this verse, and I'll find it out if you'll give me some time. I can't do it right now. I've
got to finish this. But I will find it and I'll give
it to you, which verb that is, if I can find exactly which it
is, that has no present tense. Whenever
it's used. In the Hebrew, whenever it's
used, it's either past tense or future tense. Now how that
bears out in resolving this issue, I'm not at all certain. So the
prophet said to Naaman in verse 19, go in peace. So Naaman departed
from him a little way, just a short distance. And this servant, by
the name of Gehazi, who had taken the message in the first place
to tell Naaman to go wash in the Jordan seven times, when he sees this man driving
off with all these garments that he's bought and silver and gold, and this is Elisha's servant. He starts running after that
chariot. And Naaman stops the chariot and gets off the chariot.
And the man concocts some story that two of the sons of the prophets
have come to Elisha seeking some help, and they can use some money
and some clothes. And so he gives them whatever
he wanted and then some. And he brings them back to some
building that's not far from Elisha's house and stores these
things, and then Elisha and his servants go on to Syria. So he
goes inside the house, and Elisha, let me just read that part to
you if I can, in verse 25. So Gehazi went in and stood before
his master, And Elisha said, Where have you been? Oh, he said,
Your servant hasn't been anywhere. And he said unto him, Elisha
said to Gehazi, Went not my heart with you? When the man turned again from
his chariot to meet you, Is it a time to receive money, and
to receive garments, and olive yards, and vineyards, and sheep,
and oxen, and menservants, and maidservants? The leprosy therefore
of Naaman shall cleave unto you, and since it is It can be inherited
and to your seed forever. If there are any of those people
alive today, they are lepers. And so Gehazi went out from Elisha's
presence, a leper as white as snow. Try as we might, we cannot rid
ourselves of a single sin. Not one. Now let's take our subject
of leprosy as being the greatest type of sin in the scriptures,
or at least seems that way to me. And so this chapter is in our
Bibles, at least in part, to tell us what we are. How desperate we are for God
to intervene. We can't bribe him. We can't
change him. Whatever is, is. And we must be awake to this. Without Christ, we'll perish. Almost unnoticeable. Just one
little spot. So where did the leprosy of sin
begin? When our first parents ate the
fruit from the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden. How could
something so small and seemingly insignificant condemn an entire
world, generation after generation after generation. That's what
it says. This is spiritual leprosy. And we're all born in that state. Secondly, it's not only inherited,
But it can be communicated from person to person. Therefore, well, it's really just one time,
but three gospels are covering the same person that had leprosy. And when our Lord healed that
leper in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Luke chapter 5, I'm sure of the
others, I can't remember right at the moment. It says, our Lord
touched him. That's unthinkable. They can't
live among regular society, they have to be isolated. I can't let you go by without
turning a little bit. And I'm fudging because I'm supposed
to have Mark, but I might find otherwise when I get there. Romans
chapter 5 is probably one of the simplest and easy to understand usage of this imputation of sin. Romans chapter 5 and verse 12. Romans 5, 12. Wherefore, as by one man Sin entered into the world, and before sin entered the world
through Adam, there was no death, no blood shedding. It was a perfect
world. By one man, sin entered into
the world. and death by sin. And so death
passed upon all men, for that all have sinned in Adam." Alright,
one more verse in this same chapter. That would be verse 19. For as by one man's disobedience,
many were made sinners. So by the obedience of one shall
many be made righteous. Now what do these two verses
have to do with each other? God is so just, so righteous,
and so holy that if he condemns us in a substitute, then he can
declare us free. from our sin in another substitute,
namely the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, one of the key words
of the gospel in our Bibles is substitution. We need a substitute. And God
has provided one in Christ. Yet we hear it with deaf ears
until God puts it in our soul Never to be lost again. This is serious business. Serious business. As by one man's
disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall
many be made righteous. All right, the third thing about
leprosy and sin. Insidiously, almost unnoticed,
it begins to spread through the body. It spreads with deadly speed. Now remember, we're not just
talking about leprosy, we're talking about sin. As far as
I know, none of us have got leprosy. I hope not. There may be some
hope today with advances in medicine and so forth. This disease spreads with deadly
speed. Sin is in every part of our being. Every part. heart, mind, will,
conscience, spirit, soul, and body. This is spiritual leprosy,
pictured and typified by literal physical leprosy. Number five,
it is very infectious. It's inherited inwardly and it
is contagious outwardly. Number six, it is especially
loathsome. It is an awful disease to see
where people's flesh is rotting off their freedom. They lose
their fingers, they lose their ears, their nose. You talk about
a grotesque sight. That's what sin is. That's what
sin is. I think we just sung these words
this morning, Alas, and did my Savior bleed? And did my Sovereign
die? Would he devote that sacred head
for such a worm as I? That's Isaac Watts, the hymn
writer. Oh my. Number seven, it is a state of
living death. Leprosy is physically a state
of living death. Spiritual leprosy is a state
of spiritual death. In Ephesians 2.1 we are told
that we were dead. Paul writing in that chapter
to believers in Ephesus, we were dead in trespasses and in sins. And every other way you can be
a sinner for that matter. Number seven, it is a state of
living death. So sin is a state of spiritual
death. Number eight, I think I said
that one twice. Dealt with. Do you know how lepers
were treated in the Bible? banishment, separation. If you're walking down a street
and somebody's approaching you, the leper has to step off that
street and go some distance so the others can pass without any
close association with the leprosy. You and I can't imagine what
this is because we don't see it. in our generation. There are two characters in the
Old Testament that the Lord smote with leprosy. Moses had a brother by the name
of Aaron, and Moses and Aaron had a sister
by the name of Miriam. And Miriam and Aaron weren't
too happy with the fact that when God would communicate with
Israel, it was always through Moses. So they began to complain,
and they'd tell people about it, and you know how it spreads.
And finally, they had a showdown at the door of the tabernacle.
And God said, Moses is my servant. When I talk to anybody else,
I talk to them in parables and in all kinds of ways, but not
face to face and mouth to mouth. But he said, Moses, I speak directly
to him. And I put him in charge. And Miriam, You'll have leprosy
for seven days." And she became leprous. And so the children
of Israel could not move until the seven days were expired so
she could come back among the people. This is not a small matter. Lord, I bet you she didn't have
any trouble complaining about Moses for the rest of her days.
And the other one is found in Isaiah chapter 6, which is where
we find the prophet when he is called of God to be a prophet.
And Isaiah 6-1 begins with this phrase, In the year that King
Uzziah died, Isaiah said, I saw also the Lord."
Until Uzziah died, Isaiah was just overwhelmed with his thoughts
about King Uzziah and admiring him and enjoying him. But now that he's done this terrible
deed of intruding into the temple, Basically what he said was, you
know, being king is just not enough. I think I'll be a priest
too. So he went to the tabernacle. And the priests that were there
tried to stop him, but he wouldn't hear it. He got him a censer
and he put some incense in it and some fire in it. And he started
waving that thing all over the inside, you know, not the outside
of the tabernacle where the people were, but where the priests were
on the inside. And in that very moment, God
gave him leprosy. And it didn't start real small.
It was full-blown. So no wonder Isaiah said, in
the year that King Uzziah died, I found out who God is. Number nine. I've only got ten
of these. Oh yeah, we're going to make
it. Leprosy makes its victim an object
of shame. And sin does the very same thing. It is incurable. Leprosy, literal
leprosy, and spiritual leprosy is incurable. a miracle from
God. Naaman sure didn't earn his deliverance
from leprosy, and neither do sinners. We are, the remainder of our
days, servants of our Lord Jesus Christ. Sin is beyond human cure. You cannot cure sin by legislation. It's popular in our day, in many
churches, especially in the South. I ain't been up North recently,
so I can't tell you what's going on up there. People are being told, if you'll
keep the Ten Commandments, God will bless you. Oh, if you can do that, I'm telling
you, you don't even need God. But the problem is, you can't
keep one of them, and neither can I. We're all rebels by nature and
by practice. Now, I do want you to turn once
more. Luke chapter 5. I forgot I wrote that down. I
want you to see that in respect to this leper. Luke chapter 5 and verse 12. Luke 5.12, and it came to pass,
when he, the Lord Jesus, was in a certain city, behold, a
man full of leprosy. He's a leper from head to foot. Who, seeing Jesus, fell on his
face and besaw her, begged him, saying, Lord, if you will, not
if you can't. Oh, heavens no. Lord, if you
will, you can make me whole. You can make me clean. And our Lord put forth his hand
and touched him, and here's what he said to him. I will be you
clean. That's so simple, but so profound. The Lord speaks, and it's done. And immediately, the leprosy
departed from him. That is how God deals with sin
and the sinner.