That song that Matthew just sang
Maurice Montgomery told me once that that was his Favorite song
and I see why it's a beautiful Beautiful him second Kings chapter
5 this morning if you would please Second Kings 5 1 Now Naaman, captain of the host
of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and honorable,
because by him the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria, and he
was also a mighty man in valor, but he was a leper. And the Syrians
had gone out by companies and had brought away captive out
of the land of Israel a little maid, and she waited on Naaman's
wife. And she said unto her mistress,
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 saying, thus and thus, said the maid that is of
the land of Israel. And the king of Syria said, go
to, go, and I will send a letter unto the king of Israel, And
he departed and took with him ten talents of silver, and six
thousand pieces of gold, and ten changes of raiment. And he
brought the letter to the king of Israel, saying, Now when this
letter is come unto thee, behold, I have therewith sent Naaman
my servant to thee, that thou mayest recover him of his leprosy. 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 to make alive that this man doth
send unto me to recover a man of his leprosy? Wherefore consider,
I pray you, and see how he seeketh a quarrel against me. And it
was so when Elisha, the man of God, had heard that the king
of Israel had rent his clothes that he sent to the king, saying,
wherefore hast thou rent thy clothes? Let him come now to me, and he
shall know that there is a prophet in Israel. So Naaman came with
his horses and with his chariot and stood at the door of the
house of Elisha. And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying,
Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again
to thee, and thou shalt be clean. But Naaman was wroth, and went
away, and said, Behold, I thought 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 Abania
and Farpar rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of
Israel? May I not wash in them and be
clean? So he turned and went away in
a rage. And his servants came near and
spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid
thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it? How much
rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean. Then when he down and dipped
himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the
man of God, and his flesh came again, Like unto the flesh of
a little child And he was clean In verse 1 we have the condition
of every human being Living or dead that ever has
or ever will live Though good things were said
of Naaman in this verse look at the look at the description
of him. He was great and He was honorable. And he was mighty. And that can be said of people
in an earthly sense. He or she was a remarkable person,
an upstanding citizen, smart, talented, an overachiever. But we have to add this epitaph. to every one of our stories. But he was a sinner. But he was a sinner. Maybe in
the eyes of this world, great, like Naaman clearly was. But
he was a sinner. He was a sinner. The leprosy
here of this man Naaman pictures our sinful condition before God. And this phrase, this is what's
important. When you add that phrase, but
he was a sinner, that makes everything else about you meaningless. Unless
that one problem is solved. It doesn't make any difference
whether you go to hell a smart man or a dumb man. It doesn't
matter whether you go to hell a rich person or a poor person. It doesn't matter how many so-called
good works you've racked up in your life. None of that matters.
But you're a sinner. And that means you need the Savior.
You need the Savior. You need a miracle of God's grace,
which our story tells about. Naaman was a wonderful person.
And by all accounts here, we're going to see it throughout this
passage, Lord willing. But all of it is meaningless
unless you, by God's grace, come to know the Lord Jesus Christ
in the forgiveness of sins. Everything else is just show. It's just window dressing. It's
vain. It means nothing. And notice the language of the
gospel here. He washed and he was clean. That's what needs to happen to
you because you're a sinner. Doesn't matter what else there
is to know about you. You need to be cleansed. And without the shedding of blood,
there's no remission, there's no putting away of sin. You could say this about people,
he was a smart man. I know some people that are smart.
They can think circles around everybody else. But he was an
idiot. He didn't know the first thing
about God. God could say plain as day in black and white that
he hates people. And he'll say God loves everybody.
Does that sound like a smart man to you? The Lord Jesus Christ can say,
I laid down my life for my sheep and they will never perish. Not
a single one of them is going to perish. I give them eternal
life. They follow me and they shall
never perish. And this, this smart man will
still turn around and say, well, Christ died for everybody. Does
that sound like a smart man to you? She was a kind, lady. I know some kind ladies that
are just a blessing to be around, but she was mean as a snake. If she doesn't know the Lord
Jesus Christ and you show her that her God is an idol, you're
going to find out how kind she is. I've found out a few times in
my life how nice people are. No matter your outward personality,
no matter your manner, your abilities, your character, and every other
sense, God knows what you really are. You can't even know, and this
is important, you can't even know the truth about yourself
unless God gives you faith to believe Him. Only He tells the
truth about you. You're not going to. And I can't convince you of that.
I can't convince you of what you are. You may have yourself and everybody
else fooled. Because of what they see outwardly,
but spiritually before God, you're a leper. And what is that? What is a leper? What's a spiritual leper? Well,
we have to understand something of what natural leprosy is. It's
a blood disease. It's not localized. It's your
whole body. You're all leper if you're a
leper. You're nothing but leper. And
that's how it is with sin. If you're a sinner, you cannot
not sin. You're all sin. And nothing but
sin. The Scripture says your very
righteousnesses are filthy rags in the sight of God. God says
your feet are swift to shed blood, Romans 3.15, and that you do
evil with both hands earnestly, Micah 7.3. Your tongue is set
on fire of hell, James 3.6. David said, I was conceived in
sin. I was born from my mother's womb
in iniquity. That doesn't mean that his mama
sinned when she conceived him. That means we're of our father
Adam. You can't get a clean thing from
an unclean. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. So it's all permeating. I'm all leper. Leprosy is incurable. As far as I know, it still is.
It's very rare now, but leprosy is incurable. What does that
teach us, Chris? You know, the disciples asked
the Lord Jesus Christ when that rich young ruler went away sorrowful
because he had many riches, the Lord said, go sell everything
you have, give it to the poor, come follow me. And he went away
sorrowful because he had great possessions. The disciples asked,
well, who can be saved? And this man came up and inquired
of the Son of God how to inherit eternal life. If He can't be
saved, who can be? The Lord said, with men it's
impossible. Leprosy is incurable. There's
nothing you can do about it. Not only are you wretched and
vile in the sight of God and hell deserving, there's nothing
you can do about it. God's gonna have to do something
for you. Like Naaman, you're gonna try
to figure out every way you can to mess it up. If you can get
away from God and his way of salvation, which is Christ, you
will. But if you're his, he's not gonna let you go. That's
what we see here. Leprosy under Old Testament law
was a legal problem. You were legally banished from
the society of Israel. It made you legally an outcast. There were things you were not
permitted to do and things you were required to do as a leper. And so it is with spiritual leprosy. It's a legal problem. You make
all the decisions you want to make, you're not coming into
the presence of God. It's not about you accepting
Him. It's about Him accepting you. And He does not, as you
are in your natural condition. He accepts and receives sinners
in Christ, and only in Christ. And notice that our text does
not say that Naaman was a mighty man, but he had leprosy. That's not what it says, and
that's not what it means. No, he was a leper. It was what
he is, and this is one thing, now, this is why sinners aren't
crying out to the Son of God, save me or I perish. Lord, save
me, because they're not sinners. It's not some complicated, deep,
dark doctrine that people don't get that's gonna wind them up
in hell. It's very simple. You don't know
what a sinner is. You don't know what you are before
God by nature unless God reveals that to you. You are a sinner. You're all sinner. Paul said,
in me that is in this wretched flesh dwelleth no good thing. God looked down upon the children
of men to see if there were any That did understand. That did
seek God. How's that for an altar call?
He looked at the whole world and said, is anybody coming to
me? Not a single blasted one. Not one. Not one. No. Not one. When a leopard can change his
spots, or the Ethiopian his skin according to scripture, then
you will do something that's not evil. That's when. The carnal mind is enmity against
God. Turn over all the leaves you
want to turn over, it's not going to change what you are. Come
down all the aisles you want to come down, it's not going
to change what you are. God doesn't save sinners by them
coming down an aisle. He saves sinners in His Son,
the Lord Jesus Christ. What can be done? You're telling
us we're hopeless, Chris. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm
telling you. Is there any hope whatsoever for a sinner? Is a
sinner being somebody that God's got to put in hell? Or he's not
God? He got to put you in hell. He's
just and holy. Where's the hope then? A miracle
of the grace of God in Christ. A miracle, not a decision on
your part. This is something God decides. And there's something you need
to know. Look at verse eight of our text again. It was so,
when Elisha, the man of God, had heard that the king of Israel
had rent his clothes, that he sent to the king, saying, Wherefore
hast thou rent thy clothes? Let him come now to me, and he
shall know that there is a prophet in Israel. You need to know that
there's somebody that can solve your problem. You need to hear
about it. You need to know about it. There's
something that there's somebody that can do about it. Now, there's
a preacher of the gospel in God's church, wherever that may be
all around the world. There's preachers that can't
help you. They can't do anything for you,
but they know who can. And you need to hear about it.
You need to hear about it from them. And notice carefully that
though it may seem that Elijah maybe was boasting a little bit,
he said he's gonna know there's a prophet in Israel. You know
how I know he wasn't boasting when he said that? Look at the
result of this whole thing. Look at verse 15. Elisha conducted himself in such
a way as God's prophet that this was the result. Naaman returned
to the men of God, he and all his company, and came and stood
before him, and he said, Behold, now I know. That's what we said,
isn't it? You're going to have to know,
there's something you need to know. There's somebody you need
to hear about. And he said, Now I know that
you're a great prophet. No, that's not what he said,
is it? Now I know that there's no God in all the earth. But
in Israel, there's no God like your God, Elisha. Everybody that God calls and
sins will preach and conduct himself in such a way that if
you hear what he says, you're going to say, now I know that
God is God. You're not going to brag on the
preacher. Yeah, and your preacher may be
one in a million because this world is a religious wasteland. If I tried to say 999,999.9999
preachers are false preachers, I'd probably be understating
it. But when God speaks through a
man, and God saves a sinner, which is what all of this pictures,
the takeaway is not going to be, what a great preacher. The
result of all of this is going to be that you're going to know
who God is, and you're going to say so. You're going to say,
there's no God like that. I've never heard of that God
before. I've heard of the one that wants to save everybody,
but he's impotent to do so. He died in order to save every
sinner, but he failed to do that. I've heard of that one. There's
no God like your God. A just God. That's what God says
about himself, isn't it? There's no God like me. A just
God that has to put sinners in hell, and yet a Savior. Because
Christ bore the sins and the penalty for the sins of His sheep
on the cross in their place. And you're going to find out
in spite of yourself. Naaman messed up everything he
could mess up, didn't he? God is going to use a nobody
to make sure you hear from Him and are saved in spite of yourself. You see salvation's not by chance. It's of the Lord. Do you see
that here? Look at verse two again. And
the Syrians had gone out by companies and had brought away captive
out of the land of Israel. It just so happened there was
a little Israelite lady in Syria. She waited on Naaman's wife. And while Naaman is trying to
figure out what to do, you can imagine his despair. A great mighty man, a warrior,
a champion among his people. And he seems like he was a really
nice guy too, though he was proud as he could be. This little maid,
she cared about him. It doesn't seem she was afraid
of him or oppressed by him or abused in any way. She sincerely
wanted him to know, oh, if he were just with the prophet, if
he were just with the prophet, he'd be healed. And a little maid, no name, we
don't know her name, no rank, no status, nobody. She couldn't
do anything about this man's leprosy, but she knew who could
Do you see let me ask you this this
morning you who know the Savior Bless God, you don't know anything
as you ought to know and you're painfully aware of that But by
God's grace, you know who Christ is, you know him Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. Do you realize that though you
have no power at all of yourself to do anything really for anybody,
the fact that you know the Lord Jesus Christ is a very valuable
thing. It's a priceless thing. This
little one, what's she going to do about it? She's going to
tell him about the Savior. That's the picture here. It doesn't depend on her, it
doesn't depend on you. We can see from this story that
the Lord had determined to save Naaman. He didn't do anything
right. But bless God, it doesn't have
anything to do with your ability or anything, but the Lord might
include you in on it. He might use you. You know, He
deliberately uses the weak and the foolish like me, the base, that the excellency may be of
Him and not of us. I'm so thankful for that. Do you know, do people that you
know know that there's a preacher in God's church? and that he
tells about the one who can save sinners by His grace, can just
flat save them if He wants to. He walked up to that man that
was paralyzed and said, your sins are forgiven you. That's
who we're talking about. Is there anybody you love that
you'd like to see their sins forgiven? You don't know if God's ever
going to save them. Thank God it ain't up to them.
Because I'm telling you right now, I love some folks that if
it's up to them, they're never going to be saved. I never would
have been. Would you? Thank God it's not up to them.
It's not up to me. But the one that it's up to. We don't know if God will save
him or not, but we know how He'll do it, don't we? If He does.
If He's going to have mercy on him, we know how He'll do it.
He's told us that plainly. They've pleased Him by the foolishness
of the Gospel. The preaching of the Gospel to
save sinners that believe on Him. She couldn't do a thing,
but she told Him. And the Lord used that to save
this man. The people that you know know
that there's a man that preaches the Christ of the Bible who's
able to save to the uttermost those that come to God by Him.
The preacher can't do anything, but we declare the one who can.
We can't get anybody saved. I can't even convince a sinner
that he's lost, much less get him saved. When are we going
to despair of man? When are we going to cease from
man whose breath is in his nostrils and look to the living God and
bow to His Son? I know the one who has power
on this earth." That's what he said when he forgave that man's
sins. He said, I could have said, rise up and walk. It would have
been just as easy, but I wanted you to know that the son of man
has power on earth to forgive your sins. And he's pleased by these means
to save sinners, by somebody telling you about him. by me
or somebody else telling you about him. I'll never forget.
I hope I don't. I believe Scott Richardson said,
I'm a nobody telling everybody about somebody that can save
anybody. May God use us like that. And notice that even before
Naaman was a leper, look at verse one. He thought he was a big
shot before he was a leper. He was a nobody then, too. The
Lord did those great and mighty things. Look, he was a great
man with his master and honorable because by him the Lord had given
deliverance unto the Syrian. He was nobody before he was nobody. Now he's a nobody with leprosy.
The lost sinner is nobody. The preacher is nobody. The only word used to describe
the one that God used to tell this leper about hope of salvation,
the only word used to describe her is little. She was little. And even when told what to do,
Naaman doesn't do it. He didn't do it. Apparently,
when Naaman sent word to the king of Israel, the prophet wasn't
even mentioned. He didn't even ask about the
prophet. The little maid didn't say, the king can help you. But
he sent to the king because this proud man is used to dealing
with people of a little higher estate than this prophet. She said, the prophet can help
you. He can help you. But people don't
have any use for God or His servants. Generally speaking, by and large
in this world, people don't have any use for God's sheep, God's
preachers, or God Himself. But notice that she cared though,
verse 3, I love this. Would God, would to God, my Lord, were with the prophet. For he would recover him. It
mattered to her, didn't it? And that tells us that maybe
Naaman wasn't such a bad guy, even in that way. Great, mighty, powerful,
but also well-liked. But he was a sinner. And he needed
a miracle of God's grace. He needed the Savior. He needed
the precious blood of Christ to wash him clean or he was never
going to be clean. But we'll mess it up if he sent
to the king. Is that what she told him to
do? But even though the prophet was
not even mentioned in sending word to the king, instead of
thinking of God and His prophet, he despaired of the whole thing
and made it about himself. He said, I'm not God. You think
I'm God? I can't heal nobody. I'm not
God. Well, we could have figured that out on our own. What about
the one who is God though? Did you think of Him? Have you
ever heard of Him? Might you suggest going to Him? Everybody knows you're not God,
but what about God? You're not God, but somebody
is. Somebody's sitting on the throne. It ain't you. Somebody's
there. When you and I don't know what
to do, Here's name it out. And here's this kid. This this
ain't gonna happen. There's no hope for you. I can't
do anything for you. Have you ever been in a place
where you didn't know what to do? We don't know which end is
up. If we knew what to do, it'd probably
be wrong. What about God? What about God
in that situation? when we suffer affliction and
our reaction, which is often the case, is to absent ourselves
from the worship. You're going through something
bad so you don't come worship, so you can deal with your problem.
What about God? What about God? I don't think that we have the slightest idea what's
going on most of the time. I'm talking about here in the
worship of God. I don't think we know what this is. Look at that in this story and
may God teach us something. What that little maid said, it
wasn't complicated was it? There's a prophet. You need to
make contact with this prophet And it's not until the prophet
hears that they've despaired of the whole thing that the hope
begins to glimmer again. It's going to end badly. It's
left right there with the king of Israel. It's going to end
badly, except God told Elisha what was going on. It says he
heard that the king was in distress, that he was in despair, that
he had rent his clothes. And he said to the king, why?
That's a good question. And why will you die? Why will you perish when there's
somebody that saves? Why will you starve when there's
bread from heaven? Why? The prophet heard, I don't know
if somebody told him or whatever, but that was God telling him.
Doesn't matter who he used. Told him that somebody needs
mercy. May God make us acutely aware
of that. Somebody needs mercy. Who? Who can cry out to sinners? Who can tell a sinner how badly he needs the Savior
but a sinner? God uses sinners. Cornelius was sitting there talking
to an angel, saying, we need to hear from God. And the angel
said, sin for Simon Peter. Well, you're an angel of God.
Can't you tell us? No. Get old impetuous, selfish, proud Simon. And he'll tell you who God is.
He'll tell you about the mercy of God. And may we make it clear that
there's mercy for sinners. Let him come to me. Moses said,
come with us, we'll do you good. It's not because we can do anything,
but we know who does. We know who did it for us. Elijah says, why, why despair
when there's such hope? Paul said, see, we have such
hope. We use great plainness of speech. Will you starve when the bread
of life is free to whosoever will? What did Elijah say? Come. Let him come. That's the Gospel
call. I've sent my angel to testify
unto you these things in the churches. I'm the root and the
offspring of David, and the bright and morning star, and the Spirit
and the bride. Say come. That's what Elijah
said. And let him that heareth say
come. and let him that's thirsty come. And whosoever will, let him take
the water of life freely. Are you thirsty? And listen, what are we supposed
to testify to the churches? This is the offspring, the root
and offspring of David and the bright and morning star saying,
I'm sending my messenger, I'm sending my preacher. to testify
to you these things in the churches. What is he supposed to say? The
next words are, I am. And look in verse 10, how simple
the message is here. Elisha sent a messenger unto
him, saying, go and wash in Jordan seven times. And thy flesh shall
come again to thee, and thou shalt be How is that not the best thing
a leper ever heard? How in the world is that? Naaman had a lot on his plate
until he became a leper and now all that matters is that. A cure for that, a remedy for
that, nothing else matters. He's got a clean plate now except
that. And this prophet of God sends
a message to him saying, go wash seven times in the river Jordan
and you'll be clean. How is that not the best news
this man ever heard in his life? I'll tell you why. Because there
wasn't any glory in it for Naaman. Not an ounce of glory in it for
him. He said, I thought this was going
to be a big deal. He's going to come out. He didn't
even come out to meet me. Laman wasn't used to that. He sent a lowly messenger to
pass on the message to him. And he didn't like that. It hurt
his pride. It angered him. He went away
in a rage. An absolute rage. And this was a message of perfect
cleansing. Seven times washed, the number
seven author in scripture is perfection. This is a message
of perfect cleansing. It was a Christ-honoring message
because no way Naaman comes away from that experience thinking,
well, I washed really good. I did a good job washing myself.
You know, I'm not a leper anymore. It was a clear, simple message,
and it was the best of possible news for a leper. Thank God for
the gospel. And yet, somehow, because of
our depravity, because of our pride, because of our desire
and determination to get some glory out of it, oh yeah, God
has made salvation possible, but you, but you, but you, You've got to go away if the
Lord's going to save you. It was an offensive message.
Paul speaks of the offense of the cross, and that's exactly
why. There's no glory in it for you. Where is boasting then?
It's excluded. If it had happened the way that
Naaman thought, It was going to happen, I thought, he said. Then Maimon would have had reason
to think highly of himself. They're making a big deal out
of it, as they should, you know, this is a big display. Yeah, I'm a leper, but you know,
this guy's going to come out here and by due decorum, you know, he's
going to acknowledge who I am. Naaman was willing to walk away
from that place a leper. You think about this. He was willing to walk away a
stinking, rotten leper rather than bow to the will of
God in saving him. Also, they have a zeal of God
and not according to knowledge and here's their problem They
will not submit to God's righteousness in Christ. They're going about
to establish their own righteousness Sinners are saved like that Name and thought his way was
better verse 12. Can you imagine that I? God says,
wash and be clean. Well, these rivers down where
I come from are better, better, better. I've got a better way.
I'm going to come down and repeat some prayer somebody else made
up. And tell the preacher about all
the bad things I've done. And I'm going to make a decision.
And God's going to honor that and save me. You're not gonna
get honored in any way whatsoever. God's gonna put you in the dust
if he's gonna save you. Agrippa, I think about Agrippa. It says he was almost persuaded
and for exactly the same reason. There was no glory for him. No
glory for Him. Ephesians 2, 8, for by grace
are you saved through faith, and that's not of yourselves,
it's a gift of God. God's going to have to give you
faith. The fruit of the Spirit is faith. Christ is the author and the
finisher of our faith. And that's how you're going to
get something if you don't have any. It is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. And in the garden of Eden, Satan
said, ye shall be his gods, and that sounded real good to Adam.
But I guarantee you, the remedy for what happened in the garden
is not going to have any boasting on your part. None. Neiman's attitude is if I can't
boast in God accepting me, then I'll boast in me rejecting him. I'll do it my way. I'll choose. I have a free will. That's what
you need to be safe from. Your will. Which is anything
but free. Scripture says you're held captive
by Satan at his will. Captive is not a word that means
free. He's a smart man, but he's a
blithering idiot. All of us are by nature. That's
what we must repent of. That's what we must change our
mind about, is who's accepting who. And you know how repentance comes?
Paul said to Timothy, teach them the truth, teach them the gospel,
so that God, peradventure, might give them repentance to the acknowledging
of the truth. If people aren't going to read
their Bibles, we're going to have to tell them about it.
We're going to have to tell them, here's where you can find out
what God said, or they're just going to go to hell while we
watch them. And God wasn't going to let Naaman
go, was he? He wasn't going to let Naaman
go. He sent to the king, the king couldn't do anything for
him. He didn't do what the little maid told him needed to happen. The wisdom comes from where it's
not expected. Paul said we have the mind of
Christ. That's unexpected, isn't it?
I wouldn't have thought that. I would never say that. By God's grace, when we preach
the gospel, we're preaching what God said. We're preaching His
will, His way. And in verse 13, look at the
beautiful language again, now. His servants came here and spake
unto Him in this name, and going away in a rage, willing to be
a leper for the rest of them, die a horrible, horrible, unimaginably
horrible death, rather than submit to the righteousness of God. rather than to submit to God's
way of cleansing in Christ and in Him alone. And His servants
came near and spake unto Him and said, My Father. Did they say that because they
were scared of Him? I don't know. Maybe. Maybe He
was a harsh, hard man. But it sounds like these servants
cared about Him, didn't it? I'll tell you this, whichever
way it was in this story, God's going to always send you somebody
if they're going to preach the gospel to you. He's going to
send you somebody that loves you. He said, I'll send you shepherds
according to my heart. And I don't know a lot about
the heart of God. I don't pretend to. But I know
what he's told me about his heart. And he loves his sheep. He loves
his sheep. And he said, if you love me,
take care of my sheep. My father. Solomon said, my son,
my son, if you'll take heed, with all thy getting, get wisdom.
God giveth wisdom. And her price is far above the
rubies. My son, hear me. How many times did Paul say,
my beloved children in the Lord? And they said, my father. tender, and yet how powerfully
God overrules our objections, our self-destructive idiocy. He overrules it tenderly and
compassionately, but powerfully. I'm thankful that God's not gonna
let me yell the gospel at sinners. You ever heard a preacher that's
shouting at you the whole time and Not only in tone, but in
word. I'm thankful the Lord's not gonna
let me go on a campaign just to prove people wrong. And wield
my doctor like a big stick. You can't say come unto me and
I'll give you rest in a harsh way. In a scathing way, a bruised
greed our war will not break. In smoking flax he will not quench. And I believe he'll send us like
that too. Verse 14 Then went he down, and
dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying
of the man of God. And his flesh came again, like
unto the flesh of a little child. And he was clean. I know the
kind of man Naaman was. Do you think his flesh was like
a little child's before he became a leper? I sincerely doubt it. We are
more than conquerors. The Lord didn't make him like
he used to be. He made him like he never had
been. That's what salvation is. It's a new creature. It's a new
creature. Beings to the law, in obedience
to the law, profiteth nothing but a new creature, a new creature. a powerful creation of God, a
new man. My skin is not like a little
child's anymore, but in the Lord Jesus Christ, the fall-cursed
sun has never beat down on me. The thorns and thistles of this
wretched world have not left their scars. Like our Savior
Himself, the dew of youth is on the brows of His sheep. And God's gonna get all the glory
in me, all of it, all of it, because He alone is worthy of
it. It's His loving providence that brought me here clean, His
will by which I'm saved, His precious blood that's washed
me, His gospel that made me wise into salvation, and His Holy
Spirit that's given me life within and without. God says, there is no God else
besides me, a just God and a Savior. And what does Naaman say? There
is no God like Him. How about you? Is that what you
say? Just and holy and righteous and
yet merciful to wretched sinners like us in Christ Jesus. You
know, Naaman thought, he said in verse 11, that Elisha is going
to come out to me. He's going to pay homage to me.
He's going to give me due respect. But we're told in verse 15 that
Naaman comes now and stands before Elisha. You don't accept God. He must
accept you, and He only does that. He only accepts sinners
who are cleansed perfectly, seven times cleansed, and in the precious
blood of His Son. And what a wonderful testimony
that man would have after that. There is no God like God. That's
going to be it, isn't it? That's going to be the response
to Him saving your soul. He's going to get every bit of
the glory. And rightly so. Would to God that He would show
mercy to all of us. And that we might glorify Him
by His grace.