as an introduction. The message in 2 Kings 5 is one
of my favorites, truly. If someone is listening to this,
is going to hear this for the first time, I envy you. I'll never forget the first time
I heard this message. But then I hope I hear it this
morning for the first time, like I've never heard it before. Luke
24, our Lord confronted two fellows walking on the road. In verse 27, He said to them,
He began to talk to them and says, Beginning at Moses and
all the prophets, He expounded unto them, in all
the Scriptures, the things concerning himself. Look over at verse 44 and 45.
He said unto them. Now, he left them for a while,
and that's when they Oh, they were so filled, it said
their hearts burned, and he left. He came back, verse 44, and he
said, These are the words which I spake unto you while I was
yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were
written in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the Psalms concerning me, he said. It's
all concerning me. What's he talking about? The
Old Testament, right? Isn't that all the Old Testament? All right, now you can turn over
to II Kings 5. One time our Lord was speaking
through some religious fellows, Pharisees. And he said, you search the Scriptures. I know you do. You read the Bible.
In our language, he would have said, you read the Bible. And he said, in them, in the
Scriptures, in the Bible, you think you have life. In other words, they were reading
the Scriptures so that they could see how to live as a rule of life. But Christ said, they. Those
scriptures you read are they which testify of man. Life. It's in a person. It's in who he is and what he
did for persons. Not what we do for him. Not the life we live for Christ.
He said, they testify of me, the life I had to live for you. Here in Exodus, we might as well
turn to Exodus. I could go there anywhere and
show you Christ. Anywhere. Well, they're written to testify
of Christ. Here in 2 Kings 5, Elisha is
the prophet. Elisha. And like everything and
everyone, he represents Christ. Elisha represented Jesus Christ.
John, I have heard this many times, this message, preached
it myself, but I've never really seen Elisha as a picture of Christ. But he is. He has to be. There's
a fellow named Naaman in this story. And he represents every
single person God saves. Every single person God saves
is going to be saved like Naaman. The same way. Yes, sir. Yes,
ma'am. All right, let's read it. 2 Kings
5, verse 1. Now Naaman, captain of the host
of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master, that is,
with some earthly fellow he worked for and an honorable, because
by him, the Lord. You notice the Lord did all this. But by him, the Lord had given
deliverance unto Syria. He was a mighty man. Okay. Naaman. Captain. Captain. Great. Honorable. The word honorable there says
gracious. That means he was moral, he was
upright, mighty, a man of prestige and honor and esteem. But he was a leper. He was a leper. Leprosy is all but eradicated
now, but back then leprosy was a fatal disease in every case. Leprosy, like all diseases, all
diseases start on the inside. All diseases start on the inside. Leprosy in the beginning stages
It started on the inside, a germ, bacteria, whatever, and began
to show up only in little ways, small signs. A person might have
some scaly skin on their hand or a small sore on their leg,
but if it's leprosy, it would always kill you. There
was no cure. I showed up in little signs and
a person could have a little sore there and they'd think,
well, I'm okay, it's just a little sore. No, you've got leprosy. You're dead. Leprosy is a picture of sin. Every time in the scriptures
it speaks of leprosy, it's speaking of sin. Mankind is born with
leprosy called sin, and it's always fatal. Now, it begins
on the inside. Did not our Lord say, It's not
what you put in your mouth that makes you a sinner? Didn't He
say that? If I could just quit this and quit
that, I wouldn't be a sinner. That's not right. Our Lord said it's what comes
from the heart. Sin's in the heart. Scripture
says we're born dead in trespasses and sin. Does it not? That's
what Scripture says. All right? And it's significant what God
said to Adam the day that mankind died in sin. He said, dying,
you'll die. You remember that, Jenny? Dying,
you'll die. You'll be dead, but you'll just
get worse. How can that be? You'll be dead in trespasses
and sin, but it'll just get worse if you keep rotting. As good
as dead. A man is born in sin, and he
gets worse as he gets older. And like I said in the beginning
in Sages of Leprosy, the beginning of sin where born, David said,
I was brought forth from the womb speaking lies. Didn't David say that? In other
words, when I was a little child, I began, sin began to reveal
itself in little ways. Children exhibit this disease
in little ways. When they're babes-in-arms before
they learn to speak, they cry unnecessarily at times. Now, I understand that their
diaper's wet and there's legitimate needs, and they cannot express
them. They must cry. But then there
are times when they cry. Why? They're not getting their
way. They're just crying. And then it begins to exhibit
itself a little more in tantrums, throwing little tantrums, you
know, anger, wrath, that if that little two-year-old child weighed
220 pounds, he'd pound you in the ground, wouldn't he? Selfishness. What's the first—one
of the first words that a child learns is what? You don't teach that to children,
do you? You spend the rest of your life
trying to un-teach that. It's called sin. It's called
leprosy. And if something's not done about
it, you just waste away doing nothing. Everything we do now, we get
older and older we get, this really starts manifesting itself,
doesn't it, adults? Until you say with David in Psalm
38, my loins are filled with a loathsome disease. Didn't David
say that? What are you talking about, David? Leprosy. Did David have leprosy? Consider. Anger comes first. Selfishness
comes first. Wrath, envy, jealousy, malice,
lust, it's there. You can't control it. Right? The worst of all now is self-righteousness.
I hadn't mentioned that. But old Naaman, the scripture
says Naaman was an honorable man, captain, big man, big dude,
tough dude. He was somebody. Everybody thought
he was somebody. Great man. Honorable. Esteemed. He was somebody in this world.
Victorious. He's a leper. All of that was
nothing. That didn't count for nothing.
He was a leper. He's good as dead. It doesn't
matter how many armies he defeated. There's one that's going to defeat
him. Himself. Well, in our story here, there
was a young girl, servant to Naaman's wife, a young girl who
told Naaman about a prophet. There was just one. Deborah,
there was just one. This young girl told Naaman about
a prophet. She didn't say, You've got to
go see something. You've got to go see some kind of prophet
somewhere. No, it was one. And he's in Israel. That's where
he is. No, he's in Samaria, she said
in verse 3. She said, Would God, my Lord, verse 3. She said unto
her mistress in private, Would God that my Lord, Naaman, were
with the prophet. The prophet. That's in Samaria. He'd recover him from his leprosy.
Oh, if he could just get to the prophet. You see how this has got to represent
Christ. Well, if he could just get to
that prophet. Well, Naaman's employer, the
king of Israel, or king of Syria, I'm sorry, His master, the king
of Syria, heard about this, and verse 5, he sent him to the king
of Israel. Verse 5. Go to and go. I'll send
a letter unto the king of Israel. And he sent Naaman with ten talents
of silver, six thousand pieces of gold, and ten three-piece
suits or whatever they wore back then. Three, ten robes. You take all this money, you
take all these suits, and everything, and you go to the king of Israel
and see if he can't get rid of that leprosy for you. Here's
all the money that you can take. Now what's this picture of? Huh? Well, this pagan king said,
well, this is what you're going to have to do. You're going to
have to give all your tithes, you know. You have to do something. You've got to start working.
You've got to do your best. You've got to turn over a new
leaf and try this, try that. This is a picture of how man
thinks he can buy God's favor. Peter called it this. He said,
We're not redeemed with corruptible things such as silver and gold
with our vain lives, he said, or conversation, tradition. Works
of piety, good works, acts of charity, right living. He said,
not one of them will redeem us. They won't redeem us. Peter said, we're redeemed with
one thing. Naaman's going to find out about it. There's one
place he's going to find cleansing. And in case a bomb drops, I'll
tell you right now, it's blood. Well, the king of Israel, I believe
here, that Naaman was sent to, I believe this represents a true
preacher. I've never looked at it like this, but I believe it
does. He represents a true gospel preacher that when Naaman came
to him, look at verse 6, Naaman came to the king of Israel and
he read the letter The other king wanted him to get rid of
Naaman's leprosy, and he ripped his clothes. He said, I'm not
God. You can't buy this. It's not
something you can buy. I can't get it. I can't do it.
Look at that. Am I God to kill and make alive
that this man must send up to me to recover a man's leprosy?
I'm not sufficient for this. Don't come to me. You see that? If any man's a
true preacher, if somebody comes, I've got questions, I need answers
and all that. Don't come to me. I'm not God. I've had people jokingly say
to me, if you can get anybody saved, I'm not God. I've had
people jokingly say to me, preacher, pray for rain. I ain't God. God
brings rain, God saves, don't come to me, go to God. Well, it says that the prophet
Elijah, Elisha heard that. Prophet Elisha heard the name
and he come. And he said to the king, now
look at this, he said to the king, this is why I know this
represents Christ. Verse eight, Elisha, the man
of God, heard the king of Israel rent his clothes and he sent
to the king and said, don't rip your clothes, let him come to
me. Let him come to me. Send him to me. If he comes to me, he'll know
there's a prophet in Israel. There's one. There's one, only
one. Come unto me, Christ said. Come
unto me, Christ said. Come unto me, Christ said. Not
the church. I'm looking for a church. Then
keep looking. You're not going to find salvation. I'm looking for a church. That's
not what you look for. Look unto me, God said, and be
ye saved. Brother Marvin Stoniker told
me about a woman that he met recently, said something, I've
never heard this out of the mouth of a human being. I've heard, I've heard, I seem
like I've heard it all from people, you know, come to church and
come to preachers and all that, with all sorts of questions.
This woman said to Brother Stoniker, she said, I want to know the truth. Steve has about six months ago.
She's been there every service. Now she has a smile on her face.
She knows the truth. Seek the truth. Christ said,
come unto me. I'll give you rest. Preacher
can't give you rest. Church can't give you peace.
Can't give you answers. I'm looking for a church family.
You don't look for children until you get married. Do you? You marry Christ, you have a
family. Come unto me. Send him to me,
Elisha said. He'll know. If he comes to me,
he'll know. He'll know. Well, old Abraham came. He came
to Elisha. Look at verse 9. Oh, I love this
story. My favorite story. Are you with me? May God make
it so with you right now. Verse 9, Naaman came, verse 9,
and said, with his horses and his chariot, and stood at the
door of the house of Elisha. Here I am, preacher. Elisha lived in this little meeting
house, little two-bed place, you know. Elisha was just a little
bald-headed prophet, you know, wore a robe. Look like one of
a million other little Jewish men, you know. Dwell in a little
bitty two-bit place, house, or whatever. Here come Naaman. I'm here. Aren't you glad, preacher? Yeah, it's me. It's me. I want to say Ernest D. Naaman. Aren't you glad to see
me by your church? Aren't you glad to have me here?
He's a leper, just like all the rest. My pastor one time said,
Naaman was a leper who just happened to be a great man. And that's all human beings.
They're all sinners. Worms, the scriptures calls us,
and some of them just happen to be greater worms than others.
That is, among worms. Prettier worms. Smarter worms. There have been more worm schools
than some worms. Worms. Nothing. Nothing. Any man, scripture says,
thinks he's something when he's what? Nothing. He deceived himself. Well, Neyman,
can you picture this, this great, mighty, noble Neyman with all
his, like, do you remember old Heil Selassie at Ethiopian? His name's Selassie, not Heil. That's what they used to say
to him. Like Hitler. He fell over in, I think it was
Ethiopian, years ago, back in the 60s, 70s. About four foot
eight, like Napoleon. He'd gone everywhere all over
the world, and they'd given him all sorts of medals and all.
He wore those everywhere he went, boy. His coat wasn't big enough,
say, to wear all these medals. Selassie of Ethiopia, a little
two-bit country off there, nowhere in the 40s, but I'm some doctor. Well, here comes Neyman, you
know, and all these medals and all that. Great, powerful Captain
VIP came riding up on his big chariot with all his entourage
behind him in the little house of the prophet and stood outside.
Stood outside and waited, expecting the prophet to come running.
And if it had been a false prophet, he would have, buddy. If it had
been a false prophet, oh, Elisha would have come running. Look
here, look who's here. We're so glad to see you. Glad
to see your money. Come on in. Get out of the way.
Get in that big chief seat right there. Get in. Naaman, buddy,
we need you. Church is not church without
you, Naaman. Am I making too much fun here?
I'm not making enough fun. When Christ went into that temple,
it said the zeal of His house ate Him up. This ain't a place
where we acknowledge worms. God's house is God's house. We come here to praise, worship,
exalt, and glorify the King of kings and Lord of lords and worms
hit for dust. Now, all this blasphemy in the
name of God If I'm going to preach like Elijah,
this is how I'm going to preach. If I'm going to preach like Elisha,
this is how I'm going to preach. If I'm going to preach like John
the Baptist, this is how I'm going to preach. Right? To this untoward generation. Well, when the false prophet
would have come running out there and thanked him for coming, but
Elijah was no false prophet. And let me tell you this, I said
this represents Christ. I got mad before. I don't get
really mad now. Men think the Lord of Glory is
at their beckoning call. They got Him on the outside of
the door standing in the rain. They won't let Him in. The Lord
of Glory. And when we get good and ready,
we'll let J. William into our heart. It can't get any worse, people,
than it's getting now. They've got this pinhead, peanut
Jesus that when they whistle, He jumps,
comes running. Elisha didn't move. He didn't
move, Elisha didn't. He sat in the house, sitting
down. And he got some little servant
of his and said, you go out there. You go out there. And this is
what you tell him. Look at it. Look here at verse
10. Elisha sent a messenger unto him. I bet, I just know he got
the smallest, the youngest, ugliest, maybe another woman, little girl,
the lowest, the most uneducated, a babbler. I guarantee you, he
didn't stand as smart as his... He said, you go tell him one thing,
one thing. Look at verse 10. You got it?
Elijah sent a messenger unto him and said, Go wash in the
Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be clean. Now, folks, the Jordan was and
is about the muddiest river in the world. I've seen pictures
of it. It always stays muddy. Muddy little river. But the word
to Naaman was this. Here's the word to Naaman. Here's
the word to Naaman from this servant. Life is not moving.
He's sitting down. And he sent a little messenger.
And here's the word to nail him. You get off your high horse right
now, and you go down to that muddy river, and you get down
under the water. Not once, not twice, not three
times, not four times, not five times, not six times, seven times. You get down under that mud.
You get just down, down, down, till you're down as low as you
can go, till you've got muddy water coming out of your ears. Get off your high horse and get
under that muddy water. What's this speaking of? The one thing this can speak
of? Blood. Blood. Without the shedding of
blood, there's no remission of sin. Sent by God has but one
message for lepers. Get off your high horse and get
down. And you're going to have to be
plum washed in blood. Somebody's going to have to wash you. You're
dirty. You're filthy. You're rotten. Blood, blood,
old-fashioned. Now listen to this. This is old-fashioned
bloody religion. Slaughterhouse religion they
call it. Old-fashioned. It's offensive. It's most offensive
in our day of educated, you know, 21st century society. It's most
offensive now. And there's no blood. We've got
wood, hay and stuff. We've got wood, fire. We've got
no land. This has all gone out the window,
this bloody preaching business. It's offensive. I'll tell you
why. Paul called it the offense of the cross. Some in general
terms, in little light flippant quick references make reference
to the blood of Jesus, but they quickly leave it. Ours is a bloody religion. There's
blood everywhere, everywhere, blood everywhere, everything. In Hebrew, if you'd have seen,
if you'd have seen Jewish religion back, the worship of God, It was gory. You know how many
lambs that Solomon slew in one day? Hundreds of thousands. Our Lord said, Salvation is of
the Jews. What's that mean? It's a bloody religion. Everything. And the Hebrew says that when
the high priest slew that lamb. And it wasn't a pretty sight.
It wasn't, you know, people came in, they didn't think about love. When they came in and saw all
this, the priest take a lamb's neck and SWAT! And blood fly
everywhere. And they take that blood, that
priest would take that blood and throw it all over the walls
and all over the people. They all had blood all over.
And the book is blood and ash. What are you talking about, preacher?
This is awful. This is Christ. This is salvation. This is why the Son of God came
and died on that cross, not to be some helpless martyr, because
without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sin.
This is why God hates self-righteousness. We think we can do something
to work our way to God. God said there's one thing that
I accept, one thing worth He said it's so serious that
if anybody thinks they can get righteousness in any way, Christ
died in vain. God said, why did I kill my son
if anybody thinks they can just quit their drinking, quit their
smoking, join this church, do this? Why did he kill his son? Why did he have to do that? Every time we preach the cross,
we have to preach these things. That man's dead. You say too
much about sin, preacher. If I don't, if you don't hear
it, if we don't hear about sin, we won't need life. We've got to hear about
sin every time. Every time. A leper. John, we're going to be lepers
until the day we die, aren't we? We've got sin in us. We're
going to have it until the day we die. What do we need, John?
We've got to wash in the Jordan, John. Seven times. Until we're plumb clean. Man's dead. And that offense,
the offense of the cross, man's dead, that offends people. I'm
not dead. I have free will. God's sovereign. Ah, wait a minute
now. I can do some things. I can accept
and reject. I'm not dead. God's not all that
sovereign. God's not all that holy either.
He isn't. Then why'd Christ come? Why'd
Christ die? Here's the offense of the cross.
Christ came and he lived and he said, now this is the only
life God will accept, the life I live. That's it. He won't accept anything anybody
has ever done before, or since, or after. It's not good enough. Only what I did is good enough
with God. Now, he says, I've got to give
that to you. You can't do it. I've got to
impute it to you. I've got to charge it to you. Right? That's offensive. I said, Fiance, men don't like
that. Surely I'm worth something. Surely it's something I can do.
Surely. Most assuredly, no. And then
the cross, death, blood. God's not that. You say, God
killed his son? That's right. That's what the
Scripture says. Why? I gave you that illustration
before. Maybe somebody didn't hear it. About that true story
about that man over in Scotland who was the mayor of the town?
I'm going to tell it to you again. I want to hear it. The man over
in Scotland, mayor of a town. Mayor, as in most small towns,
mayor, judge, sheriff, hardware store owner, preacher,
mayor of a town. Well, this mayor's son. was caught
doing something hard. The punishment was hanging. That's what the punishment was,
hanging. The mayor's son was caught. And
the people loved the mayor so much. He was such a good man.
So they loved him so much that they wanted him to let his son
off. They tried to talk him out of
it. Tried to shield his son. At any rate, the next morning,
this is a true story, true story. The next morning, everyone was
awakened. The whole town was awakened by
the town bell ringing at the city hall. Bell ringing. Everybody, what's going on here?
What's going on? And got up. Everybody came to
the center of town. There was the mayor. up on the
gallows with his son beside him with a rope around his neck. True story. And he said, My son broke the
law. My son is not above the law. What the law says must be done. And you know what the people
knew from that day forward? That's a just mayor. He will by no means clear the
guilty. And I'm telling you this morning,
God is just. His son came here. He slid his
thumb. And it wasn't in vain. It wasn't
an offer. It wasn't a whatever. He did it for some guilty sinners.
Not all guilty sinners. Not one drop of that blood's
going to be shed in vain. God loves his son too much. He
wouldn't. Would you? Would you kill your daughter,
Jenny, to save me and John and Joe and all that, if you didn't
know it was going to work? If you thought there was some
possibility, would you do that? You wouldn't think of it, would
you? Huh? This is the offense of the cross.
You see, God killed His Son, and it was a sin payment, blood,
death. Every time your blood's gone,
you're dead. Christ died. That's the wages
of sin that I deserve. And Christ was taken my place.
Whose blood? Whose did I fall? Lepers. Lepers. There is a fountain filled with
blood. drawn from Emmanuel's veins,
and sinners plunged beneath that flood. Well, you know, this message,
people, salvation, the gospel, is to bring us down. I know what's
going on in religion today. They want to bring you up. But
you can't go up until you come down. Christ said, He that abaseth
himself will be exalted. Let me give you an illustration
here. Moses lifted up a serpent in the wilderness. Remember?
Christ in John 3 said, As Moses lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness. What's that all about? That's Exodus. Everybody's been bitten by a
snake. And they were dying, weren't
they? They were dying. John, everybody
that was bit by this snake died, except Moses took some brass and fashioned
it in the likeness of that snake that bit him and put it on a
pole held it up and said, look, look, if you just look, you won't
die. Look. Now maybe somebody just got bit.
Bad English, but someone was just bitten. Somebody just got
bit. And maybe they weren't feeling
the effects, Henry. They weren't feeling fake yet, you know. It
wasn't feeling so bad. I don't feel so bad. I got a
bit. Maybe it's nothing to it, you know. Look! I don't need
to look. But let me tell you who was looking.
Let me tell you who was looking. There's an old fella laying over
on the ground. He's dying. He's on the ground,
Joe. He's on the ground. He's dying.
He said, I'm gone! The doctor said, there's no hope. He heard, look. What? Look! Deal. But just looking? That's it. Who looked? Dead, down, dying
sinners. All the symptoms. Look. Look. We did preach from Exodus,
didn't we? Bad off. Who's going to need
Christ? Who's going to need blood? Lepers. Let me quit, all right? Naaman, look at verse 11. Naaman
got mad. Verse 11. Elisha told him to go wash in
that old muddy river, and Naaman got mad. I can see him now. Wrath, it says. I've seen wrath,
people. I have. I tell them the gospel,
I've seen wrath. I don't know who you think you
are. You think you're the only preacher. There's other places.
I'll go there. Go. Go. And I'm telling you, there's
one way. Get down in Washington. The man was rough. He said, I
thought, I thought there was a whole problem in there. That's
the whole problem. With all of us by nature, I thought. God said, My thoughts are not
your thoughts. Isaiah 50, he said, Thou thoughtest. Thou was altogether such a one
as thyself. He said, I'm not. God's not like
a man. God's like that Scottish mayor. He's not like preachers are saying
he is. He killed his son. And Naaman said, I thought surely,
here's what I thought he would do. Naaman said, I thought surely
that he'd come to me and stand, as I stood here in
my chariot, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God.
No, Naaman, you're going to have to call on and struck his hand over. Can
you see? I thought he'd come here and say, you know, make
all this holy water. That's what they do down at Farfar
and Abenon Baptist Church. Look at verse 12. Are not Abenon
and Farfar? If I go down to Farfar, they
wouldn't make me get in the old muddy river. I think I'll go
there. No. You won't come clean. Not far, far. Yeah, I'll go down
there and they won't tell me what a dirty, rotten sinner I
am. They'll say, well, we need you, man. You say God doesn't need me?
That's right. You say I've got to get down
and wash in that old muddy river? That's right. You're not going
to do anything? No. Well, I don't know how long he
waited, Stanley. He got mad, you know. He turned
away. And one of his friends and buddies
said to him, verse 13, servant came to him and said, if a prophet
bid thee do some great thing, wouldn't you have done that?
Boy, if I didn't, mankind. Man wants to do some great thing
for God, for his salvation. He sure, why? He wants some of
the credit. He doesn't want to get down in
the dirt and the mud and have somebody, like an old common,
and have somebody do it all for him and get all the glory. See that? Well, I don't know how long maybe
his leprosy started acting up. Maybe it did. He got mad. Maybe
his leprosy started acting up. He said, maybe, you know. He started looking. Maybe he
went home and started taking a shower. Looked within. I'm dying. I'm rotten. Maybe I better get to that Jordan.
Huh? And Joe, he couldn't get there
fast enough. It's true. I'm a leper and nothing ever
done or am that ever matters. I'm dying. I got to get to the Jordan and
get there fast. And what did he do? Verse fourteen.
Oh, I love this verse. Verse fourteen. He went down and bit himself. How many times? How many times do I have to tell
you? He did what? Just exactly what I said. According,
seven times, according to the sayings of the man of God. Seven
times. People, I'm telling you this
morning, according to God's Word. But there's one hope for every
human being sitting in this room right now, one hope. It doesn't
matter who you are, where you've been, who I am, where I've been,
what I've done, what I have done, what I am doing, what I will
do, ever do, there's one hope that we're washed in the blood
of Jesus Christ, period. Nothing else matters. Nothing
else ever has, nothing else ever will matter. Can you get down and wash? Plunge? Take the plunge. Well, come down. Come down. Come to Christ as
a helpless, hopeless, worthless sinner. I had somebody ask me
one time, do you think, well, do you think Christ, the person said, do you
think the church would take somebody like me? I hope they meant, do you think
Christ would take somebody as low down and no good, worthless,
as helpless, hopeless as I am? Because I'm telling you based
on the Word of God, that's the only kind of people Christ takes.
That's it. That's the only kind of people
Christ takes. Yes, sir. Lepers. That's the only kind. The whale don't need a physician.
He said, I didn't come to call the righteous. I'm not righteous. I've tried. Then wash. Oh, come to Christ and say like
that publican that wouldn't come up front. He stayed in the bank
and said, let the blood be propitiation for my soul on the mercy seat.
Oh, may the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son. And if based on God's
Word, you'll be clean. But you say, wait a minute. Those
of you who have come to Christ, do you feel clean? Do you? Be honest, man. Come on. You think, I'm still,
I still feel this leprosy of sin. But wait a minute. What God calls
clean. Didn't he say this, John? Didn't
he say this to Peter? Well, I've called clean. Don't
you call him clean. He said, you come, you wash,
you're clean everywhere. You'll still be a sinner. Well,
that's why you keep coming to wash. Joe, did you wash this
morning? I'm not talking about down on Diamond Avenue or Windsor. I'm talking about at the fountain.
You washing right now? Folks, I feel dirtier and sinful
and leprous. I feel like it. I think I'll wash. I think I'll
get down just as low in that muddy Jordan as I can. I need
it right now. Right now. Take this suit off.
I'll just get right in that old muddy water. How about it? You want to jump in with me? He said there, look at verse
14. And his flesh was like a little child. He was clean. He was clean. A little child. You know, I said somebody heard
this for the first time, but really hear it. He received the word as a little
child. Oh, that's wonderful. That's the greatest thing. Children,
you know, when they see something new, Roberta, it would be the
simplest thing. This is wonderful. If you hear this, if you're a
leper, you hear this, oh, this gospel will be, you'll receive
it like a little child. It's not the end of the story,
though. It's not the end of the story. Verses 18 and 19, old
Naaman had to go back to his old church. See, he worked for this fella
who was an idolater. And they had services every Friday
at the workplace. And Naaman said, What am I going
to do? What am I going to do? They're all going to be bowing
down. And that's not my God now. I know who my God is now. I know
who the true and living God is. God of Israel, God of Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob. salvation of the Jews, one prophet,
one truth, one way. I know that. But I've got to
go down there. Peace. You're clean. Now, when I say you're clean,
huh? You know, I just kind of feel
amazing I didn't stay there long. I really did. It doesn't say,
but I I've met too many neighbors. I've met too many neighbors,
and they don't usually stay. They go there or back, and they
say, I can't stay here. I can't abide this. I mean, and
that's not the end of the story. There was a young, listen to
me, every, I want you, every person in here, particularly
young people, there was a young man named Gehazi. Elisha from the beginning. Listen to me. A young man named
Gehazi, he'd been with Elisha from the beginning. He'd heard
every message Elisha had ever written. He saw wondrous things. He saw
dead people raised, lepers cleansed. He saw. He heard. But Gehazi was more interested
in this work. And he saw an opportunity for
advancement. That's what happened in the rest of the story. He
took it. That's what he wanted. Now look
at the last verse. In 2 Kings 5, Elisha said to him, the leper
said, if Naaman had, he was going to cleave to you. And that young
fellow went out, a leper. Naaman came down and came fleeing. The young man went out and stayed
a little longer. If that isn't a clear picture
of salvation of Jesus Christ, there's not one in the Bible.
The veil is still there then. And that's just one, eeny, meeny,
miny, moe. One story. One story. Because day or day, Christ said,
as he testified in that, blood's everywhere. There's a scarlet
thread run through every page of this book, without which there's
no remission. Nothing else. Nothing but the
blood can wash away. Let's sing that song. What can
wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What number is that? Somebody
help me. 212. 212. Brother Joe, if you'd
come up. We'll sing a couple of verses and then. 212. Let's stand. Sing the first and the second
stanza, the first and the second. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is Thy flow that
makes me white as snow. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. For my pardon this I see, Nothing
but the blood of Jesus. For my cleansing this I flee,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, gracious is thy flow that
makes me white as snow. No other fount I know, nothing
but the blood of Jesus. Thank you, and you're dismissed.