The book of Luke chapter four. The book of Luke chapter four. Now, the Lord Jesus is in his
hometown and he is at a meeting at the synagogue and he quotes
a couple of instances from the Old Testament and he raises the
ire and hatred of his own family and people of Nazareth. He said
in verse 27, and many lepers. Now he's just said many widows
in the previous verse. There were many widows in Israel. And now we have in many lepers
were in Israel in the time of Elisha, the prophet, and none
of them were cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian. Now what was
it that really brought up the ire of those people that were
his friends, his family, that God would deal with anybody but
Jews? He brought up a Syrian. Now the
Syrians were the enemies of Israel a lot of time in the Old Testament.
So if you would join me, well, if you read the rest of this,
they got angry, tried to kill him. I would like to go back
to the incident that this is drawn from, and it's in 2 Kings
5. And I'd just like to go kind
of slowly down through there, but not taking a lot of time,
and just try to get some of the blessings that the Lord left
us in this passage of Scripture. And we will find ourselves, if
we're believers, we'll find ourselves in Naaman. Neyman is a representative of
everyone in the human race. And in the book of Second Kings
chapter five, and there in verse one, we're introduced to Naaman.
And this is the Naaman that the Lord was speaking about over
there in the book of Luke. There were many lepers. Now,
Naaman, captain of the host of the king. Now that means commander
in chief. He was in charge of the armies of the Assyrians,
of the Syrians, was a great man. And when we're introduced to
him, we find out that he has a great deal of note in the country
that he is in. He has the respect of the king.
He has the respect of many officers. He has the respect of many men.
In fact, he says, he's a great man with his master and honorable
because by the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria. He was
also a mighty man of valor. Now, the only negative thing
in that whole description about him is the last part of that
verse. He has a terrible, terrible, terrible disease. It says there,
but he was a leper. Now, if we were to see Naaman,
we would probably only see his eyes and maybe he'd be wearing
sunglasses. He would wear his uniform. He
would have his head covered. He would have everything about
him would be covered. He probably wore gloves. Because
if you saw his skin, you would be abhorred by it. It was leprous. And there's nothing in the Bible
or in medical science that says that leprous is a good thing
to look on. So he covers himself, and you know, that's just the
way we are in our natural state. We cover ourselves the best we
can to cover up what we have inside, and that is a heart that
is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, and we
don't want anybody to know about it. So we're going to cover it
with religion. We're going to cover it with
works. We're going to cover it. I don't believe in God. And we're going
to do all those things. And that's he's a fine man, but
he's a leper. And we may be upstanding citizens,
but we are sinners, sinners, sinners. All right. And the Syrians
had gone out by companies and had brought away captive out
of the land of Israel, a little maid. Now, when I was in Sunday
school, they talked about she's probably three or four years.
This is not possible. the scriptures would tell us
that she's probably a teenager or maybe in her early 20s. She is captive. She has the ability
of doing work because it tells us that she is a little maid. She waited on Naaman's wife.
So she has been captured. Now, she's been taken out of
her homeland. She's been taken out of Israel.
I cannot imagine what that would be like. I read about people
that go to foreign countries and are taken captive. And what
extent will parents, families go through to try to retrieve
them? I remember the captives that
were in Iran. for a long, long time. And what our government tried
to go through, and finally it took place. They were delivered.
What agony that a parent would go through when they find out
that their daughter has been taken captive by the enemy soldier. But we find out in this instance,
just like in every instance, God's not left behind. He, as
we find in the book of Daniel, and I don't know Nebuchadnezzar's
position before the Lord, but he certainly was a mouthpiece
for the Lord, when he said that God is the one in charge of the
army of heaven, the inhabitants of the earth, none can stay his
hand or say, what are you doing? So we have God working out this.
according to his good providence and good pleasure. And a young
maiden is taken out of Israel back to Syria by Naaman. And this young lady becomes the
servant of Naaman's wife. Now it's interesting that this
young servant girl knows something. That's how God does his business.
He is going to send us somebody that knows something. Now I had
a lot of people talk to me that didn't know anything. They knew
about free will, they knew about eschatology, they knew about
all of the other nonsense that is around us, but they didn't
know a thing about Jesus Christ and Him crucified. They portrayed
a Christ that is trying to do something. He made us savable,
and it's up to you and all that. Well, that's not what this girl
knows, and that's not what the man who brought me the gospel
knows, and that's not the gospel that is preached here. We have
a Savior that saves, and we have a Redeemer that redeems. And
what we find out is that he did that. He reveals those truths
to us. It's not that we discover that
he's a savior. He's always been the savior. We discover that
he's been my savior. He's my savior now. Well, it
tells us in verse three, as she said unto her mistress, would
God my Lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria. And in my
translation, there's an explanation point after that, because she's
pretty excited about what she just said. I wish this, your
master, I wish, would God, my Lord, were with the prophet that
is in Samaria, for he would recover him of his leprosy. What a statement. He would recover him of his leprosy. The prophet in Israel would recover
him. Now, she has faith. I have people
say, well, I have little faith. Well, thank God you have little
faith. Because by nature, we don't have any faith. It says,
the Lord said, if we have faith, if we have faith, we have faith
as a grain of mustard seed, we can say to this mountain, be
removed. Well, since we don't have faith
as a grain of mustard seed, we can't accomplish anything on
our own. We have to have God's faith.
The moon tells me a lot about faith. That moon is just a rock
until the sun shines on it and it reflects it back to us. That's
why we see the moon. And we must have his faith sit
to us and then we reflect it back to him. We have faith in
him. We believe him. We read the word.
I said, that's true. That's the truth. You know, I
don't have to see the Ark. The Bible said it was there.
I don't have to go looking for the Ark. I don't have to go to
a model of the Ark. God said it's true, and that's the way
it is. And I believe that God left us
all the Word he intended for us to have, and we're not having
to search for more or delete some of this. I knew a man one
time that said that, well, seven is the perfect number, and there's
only 66 books, so I'm going through the Apocrypha, and I'm going
to find out the four books that should have been. What idiocracy,
just telling me you don't even have any faith. The faith of
God's elect will believe God's word. All right, and it goes
on in verse four, and one went and told his Lord, saying, thus
and thus said the maid that is in the land of Israel. Oh my
goodness. So he just, okay, well, He goes to the king of Syria.
Now, isn't that just like us? We'll go to this place, we'll
go to that place. We've been told where to go,
but we'll go to this place, we'll go to that place, we'll go here,
we'll go listen to that. And we're not inclined to go
hear the gospel. That's not our goal. The apostle
Paul, as Saul of Tarsus, was not going to a revival meeting
down in Damascus when the Lord found him, when the Lord appeared
to him. And he spoke to him in the Hebrew
tongue. He is intersected the position that God intended him
to meet him, and right there it happened. So this Naaman is
going to Syria, go, go to, go and I will send a letter unto
the king of Israel. And he departed and took with
him 10 talents of silver and 6,000 pieces of gold and 10 changes
of raiment. Now, what is he going to do with
that? I need to trade this for healing. Now, if you look this up, there's
a lot of discussion on how much that is, but it's a lot. It's
a lot of money. And he is taking it along because
he knows that when he meets this man, it's going to have to be
a trade. Why does he know that? Because that's what's been going
on in Syria. If you want anything done, it has to be by trade.
You know, I find in religion that a person like this man,
a great man in his own eyes and a great man in the country, if
they go to church, They are so worked and milked and brought
in and friendly, let's have you teach, let's have you do this,
because they're gonna tithe. There's not much interest in
their soul. Their only interest is what can I get out of them?
Well, that's exactly what Naaman is used to in Syria. Well, let's
just go on. And it came to pass when the
king of Israel had read the letter that he rent his clothes. Now
that means I'm in trouble. I don't know what's going to
happen here because am I God to kill and to make alive? That
this man does sinned unto me to recover a man of his leprosy? My goodness, I am a terrible
spot here. If he expects me to be able to
do this, it's an impossibility. And he says, wherefore consider
I pray you and see how he seeketh a quarrel against me. Verse eight,
and it was so when Elisha, the man of God, had heard that the
king of Israel, isn't it interesting someone in the court took news to Elisha? He got word. There's a guy over here that's
got leprosy and he's expecting the king to take care of it.
And what does he do? Come over here and we'll do thee
good. 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? Why did you tear your clothes?
Let him come now to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet
in Israel. Now, in the first part of that,
we find that Elisha, God wrote this and said, Elisha, the man
of God. This is God's word about Elisha.
He's the man of God. Holy men of God spoke as they
were moved by the Holy Spirit. This guy knows something. Now,
the king doesn't know anything. The king of Assyria knows less.
You'd think the king of Israel would know something, but he
doesn't know anything. The king of Assyria knows less, and Naaman
knows less than all of them. There is just somebody God put
in a very special place in the household of Naaman over there
in Israel, someone that can help my master. So the Elisha, the
man of God says, send him over here. So in verse nine, so Naaman
came with his horses and with his chariots and all his money
and servants and stood at the door of the house of Elisha.
Now this is very interesting, because as we look at this, it
tells us in verse 11, as a result of verse 10, Naaman was mad. Naaman was very mad. In fact,
he's wrath. In fact, I kind of get the same
impression from these words as I do over in the book of Acts
where it says Saul of Tarsus breathing out threatenings and
slaughter. He's very upset. Now he's upset for a reason.
Number one, this man showed no respect to me. You know, I'm
convinced if the King of Syria, the King of Israel, or a leper
from Jerusalem had appeared at Elisha's door, like it was requested,
he would have done exactly the same thing. The gospel does not
change with station. The gospel is the same. And it
is not up to Elisha. In religion, we were taught how
to be midwives, spiritual midwives. All you have to do is ask the
right questions and you can get a profession of faith out of
people. You're a midwife. And then you find out there's
no way that we are allowed to enter into this special birthing
process. It is all up to God. He's the father and he's the
mother. He is the one that breathes life. He's the one that does
all. And it is in his time as the
Apostle Paul said, would it please God? He was born and he never
went back to his old religion. In fact, he talked most of his
conversation with the churches was against his old religion
because there were certain in there that were still following
it. circumcision and all that other stuff. Well, in verse 10,
Elisha sent a messenger unto him. He didn't even go to the
door. He didn't show any, there was
no deference. This man was a sick man. This
man had leprosy. There was no way in this world
that he would do anything different to anybody else. He sent a messenger
saying, go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall
come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean. Now, where did
this man, this servant, the messenger, get this message? That was the
message that Elisha gave him. Now, where do we get our message?
It's not our man-made message. It's from God. You must be born
again. Now, I'm out of the discussion
now. I'm out of the equation now.
All I am is a messenger. That's all we are. We preach
the gospel, and we're out of the equation. It is not up to
us to produce the fruit. God is going to do that, and
when we get involved, we're going to pick green apples. That's
it, and they'll rot. I'll never forget, Brother Rolf
Barnard was at a meeting one time, and somebody came up to
him and said, Brother Rolf, I'm one of your converts. He said,
you look like one. God would do a better job than I do. And
it does. God does a better job. We're
not going to go back. We can't fall back. The idolatry
is taken from us. We're going to worship the king.
Now we may fall down once in a while, but our eyes are on
the king. That's it. All right. So Naaman was wroth
and went away and said, behold, now this is just natural man
to its nth degree, I thought. Everybody has an idea of how
to be saved, you know. One old preacher said that every
mother's son is a theologian. And that's why we have Bible
studies that are, okay, you tell me your opinion, you tell your
opinion, you tell your opinion, you tell your opinion, you tell
your opinion, you tell your opinion, you tell your opinion, I'll tell
my opinion, and then we'll all have coffee. That's not the gospel. The gospel is we will declare
this and let it fall where it may. We just let it fall. Now, it may be offensive, but
the cross is offensive. We're not going to be offensive.
We don't want to be offensive, but the cross is offensive. When
we tell people, you must be saved by the Christ of the cross that
laid down his life, a ransom for many, that's divisive. That
will separate friends. That will separate families.
That will separate husbands and wives. That will separate brothers
and sisters. So it will be offensive, but
we don't have to be offensive. The gospel is, let's declare
Christ. So he says, I thought he will
surely come out. What? I'm a respectable man,
he'll honor me, he'll do all the things that are necessary
for good etiquette, and then call on the name of the Lord,
his God, he's got it all figured out, and strike his hand over
the place and recover the leper. And not one of that is what God
said. God said, go down to the river Jordan. Now, why did, he
said, he goes in the next verse here. Are not Abana and Farfar
rivers of Damascus? That's the rivers of Syria, aren't
they just as good? You know, what was the reason he didn't
want Jordan? Because these people were wrong, always wrong. They had a God that said, I will
save whom I will save. They had a God that spoke to
them and demanded blood payment. They had a God. This is so different,
I can't believe it. And you know, in the Dalles here,
if we just simply said, you know, we're gonna have to go along
with this free will preaching, and we're gonna have to quit
talking about election, we're gonna have to quit talking about the
doctrines of grace, and then we get a bigger crowd. You'd
have a bigger crowd, but you don't have anything. And people
are mad. They'll come once or twice. We've
had people come six months in the Dalles and finally say, oh,
I can abide by this. And then we have people come
by and say, you know, this is what I've been looking for. I'm
staying. So aren't that rivers over there
in Damascus? Isn't that religion I'm in over
there just as good as this religion? Well, in closing, there is something
that takes place. And his servants came near and
spakened him. You know, everything that we
ever hear about the gospel just goes whoosh, whoosh, whoosh by
nature until the Holy Spirit comes along and makes it effectual.
And that's what happens. A servant came, it says, came
near and spakened him and said, my father. If the prophet had
bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it?
How much rather than when he says to wash thee, wash and be
clean? And he went down. Everything has been overcome.
All of his misgivings, all of his thoughts, all of his I thoughts
are gone because someone came along and convinced him effectually
that what Elisha said was the truth. And he went down. Now this is the first time probably
any of his soldiers have ever seen Naaman in his real self. And they look at him and say,
oh my gosh, we've been following this man. He's an abomination. He goes down, comes out, and
he said, his flesh, verse 14, of a little child and he was
clean. Now it wasn't the water, it was
grace. It was grace. And how clean we
come. The Lord has made us clean. Put
sin away, never be charged with sin. Who shall lay anything to
the charge of God's elected is God that justify. Clean, clean,
clean. Gracious Father, we thank you
for this time you've given us this morning, these dear friends,
brothers and sisters in Christ. Thank you, Lord, for your word. And Lord, we thank you for your
spirit that makes it effectual to our heart. Bless our fellowship
now and may it be sweet in thee. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.