2 Kings 7, verses 12 through
the end of the chapter. This is Elisha. This is the 19th
lesson in this study. If you remember last week, basically
the last couple of verses, 9, 10, and 11, the lepers had come
across an empty Syrian army. They had all fled.
They had left everything behind. Samaria was under siege. They were under famine. They
were starving to death. And then Elisha said, by this
time tomorrow, it's going to be plenty. So the lepers left
Samaria and went into the camp, and they didn't see any man.
And they said in verse 9, these lepers, Four of them, they said one to
another, we do not well. This day is a day of good tidings. And we hold our peace. If we
tarry till the morning light, some mischief will come upon
us. Now therefore, come that we may go and tell the king's
household. So that's what they did. They went back to Samaria. Of course, they're lepers, so
they couldn't, you know, they had to maintain distance and all
that type of thing. But they hollered to the porter,
and the porter told it to the king's house. And so that's where
we're going to start. The first point is the lovely
and sufficient message of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is what this pictures. This
pictures the city of Samaria, pictures desperation, loss of
life most certainly to come, desolation, corruption, And these
four lepers, they show what we are by nature. Unclean, every
wit, from head to toe, it's just opening sores, says another Old
Testament passage. From the bottom of the foot to
the top of the head, there's no soundness in it. So this is
indeed what they said in verse 9, this day is a day of good
tidings, good news in the midst of trial, loss, hardship, and
what good tidings it is. This bounty that they stumbled
upon, this bounty that the lepers stumbled upon, they saw, they
knew, and they had experienced was totally free. I mean, totally free. They didn't have to pay for anything.
They didn't have to produce anything on their own. They simply entered
into the camp And there it was before them, totally free, totally
unmerited, totally the unsolicited grace of Jehovah God. And it is free to all who have
such a need as to know their want of it. Turn with me to Isaiah
40. Isaiah chapter 40. verses 1 through 5. Isaiah 40,
verses 1 through 5, Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your
God, speak comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her warfare
is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, for she hath received
of the Lord's hand double for all her sins, The voice of him
that cries in the wilderness, prepare you the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall
be exalted, and every mountain hill shall be made low, and the
crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain. And
the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall
see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it." Now
the Lord spoke through his man, through the prophet of the preacher,
or through the believer, through Elisha, and said, by this time
tomorrow, this is going to be, you're spending all this money
for such a small portion. Now you're going to have more
food and clothing and raiment and sustenance, animals. They
left everything. To the hungry, these people here,
to the hungry, the Gospel and the Lord Jesus Christ is food
in surplus. It's a meal of delight. It's
a feast of unsearchable proportions to the blind. The gospel or the
Lord Jesus Christ is their sight, their true direction, their light
shining in a dark place. To the unworthy, the gospel,
the Lord Jesus Christ is our worthiness. He is our life, our
peace, and our all in all. Can you imagine? I don't know
how hungry these people were, these lepers. We'll see in a
minute how hungry the people of Samaria were. But I can't
imagine how hungry, near to death, these lepers were. And then to
walk into surplus, plenty. It's a day of good tidings indeed.
The second point, look with me at verse 12. And the king rose
in the night and said unto his servants, I will now show you
what the Syrians have done to us. They know that we be hungry
and therefore are gone out of the camp to hide themselves in
the field saying, when they come out of the city, we shall catch
them alive. and get into the city. And one
of the servants answered and said, Let some take, I pray thee,
five of the horses that remain which are left in the city. Behold,
they are as in all the multitude of Israel that are left in it.
Behold, I say, they are even as all the multitude of the Israelites
that are consumed. Let us send and see. Let us send
and see. So they took, therefore, two
chariot horses, and the king sent after the host of the Syrians,
saying, Go and see. And they went after them into
Jordan, and lo, all the way was full of garments and vessels,
and the Syrians had cast away in their haste, and the messengers
returned and told the king." Now, this is the second point.
How these lepers, they said, this is good tidings. to unbelievers, to freewillers,
to religious hypocrites, the gospel of God's free grace is
met with skepticism. I know what's going on, the king
said. Now this king is, this Gerald Holm, I think, I can't
remember, but he's, every time we see him, it's a negative,
he's like his father, his mother, Jezebel, And it says very specifically,
I think in chapter 5 or 4 or whatever, that he didn't get
rid of all of the idols and stuff like that. So he's a wicked king. But where you've got on one hand
the free and sovereign... We come here and we hear this
Wednesday and Sunday, I hope and pray, and we believe it,
and we wonder why there's not more people. We wonder where
everybody else is at. In the Lord's time, perhaps we'll
see more. I believe we will. But you're
always going to have unbelief. Always going to have unbelievers,
skeptics, free-willers. This is how mom and dad believe. You have to do something. This
stuff is not this free. The Gospel is not that free.
Yes, I preach it free. It's totally free in Christ because
Christ has satisfied the law and done the work required that
we could not do it. And if you're hungry, if you're
blind, if you're thirsty, if you're leprous, this is good
tidings, this is good news. But the same news, it hit the
ear of the king, and you remember that the king's lord on whom
he rested on his shoulder, or rested his arm on his shoulder,
to the free will of the religious hypocrite, the gospel of God's
grace is met with skepticism. Surely, I must merit or warrant
such a gift from God. And now I'm speaking of not necessarily
what he's saying, I'm talking about 2020. Religious people
today, yeah, I believe Christ died, but... I believe he did
everything, but you've got to walk an aisle, you've got to
sign a card, you've got to be baptized by the priest, you've
got to be the final benediction, it's got to be a blessing from
the priest or the pastor or whoever. There's something you've got
to do. All religions, there's only one true religion, the religion
of Abel. Every other, no matter what the
name of them is, whatever they go by the heading, If it's free
will works, they despise the freeness of this gospel. Surely, I know what they're doing. I know. I'm going to show you
what the Syrians have done to us. They know we'd be hungry.
He's not hungry. He's the king. He's got five
horses still. He's eating, I guess he's ate
the rest of them. And in the previous section of chapter six,
he's walking on the wall, on the palace wall. He looks down
and that woman says, King, oh King, help me. We boiled my son
and now I'm asking. And he's like, if God can't help
you, what am I gonna do? Looking down. Skepticism. Secondly, just plain
doubt. I must see for myself or I will
not believe. Verse 13, last words, and let us send and
see. And verse 14, go and see. It's not enough to believe, to
simply believe the report from someone who has experienced this
surplus of the grace of God found in the blood and righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not good enough. I mean,
it's not good enough. And they could say everything
exactly as the Word, and then they will add something or take
something away. Just plain doubt. And then the
third thing is pure unbelief. Unless I see, touch, feel for
myself, I will not believe or trust. Turn to 1 Corinthians
chapter 2. I don't know why we keep on giving,
I don't want to say that we do this, but why we would give people,
unbelievers, the benefit of the doubt. They do not love the gospel
of God's grace. They will not come to Christ,
that they may have life, and we wouldn't have either. Divine
selection, divine grace. Snag this out. Out of the pit. 1 Corinthians 2. But the natural man, and that's
all of us from birth, natural man, natural woman, natural boy,
natural girl, receives not the things of the Spirit of God,
for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them,
because they are spiritually discerned. Unless he opens our
eyes, even as believers, unless he opens our eyes, We will not
grow. The Spirit opens our eyes and
opens our heart and we grow in the grace and the knowledge of
the Lord Jesus Christ. But even that growth after salvation is
totally dependent on the work of grace. So we shouldn't be
surprised when the natural man, our relatives, our friends, our
cohort are so opposed It's so opposed as the natural man to
the free and sovereign grace that he must go about proving
and adding his vile worthless works to the already finished
work of Christ on Calvary's tree. I mean, they're enemies as we
were. We didn't, we would, we would,
did not. It's my way or no way. But the third point is, and this
is comforting to you and I. Keep reading in our text. Verse
15, And they went after them unto Jordan. And lo, all the
way was full of garments and vessels, which the Sarians cast
into their haste. And the messengers returned and
told the king. And the people went out and spoiled the people,
that is the people of Samaria, that were cooped up, locked up
under siege. They were huddling in their houses
and behind the walls. The people went out and spoiled
the tents of the Syrians, so a measure of the fine flour was
sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel." And
here's these last words that I love to hear, according to
the word of the Lord. According to the word of the
Lord. In other places, it's as the
Lord has said. It came to pass as the Lord had
said. So this is, this is God's promise. This is his word and his gospel.
It will have, it's God-purposed and God-certain effect and way. Absolutely guaranteed. Now, we
don't have the, we don't write any more scripture. This full
canonization is recorded for us, but there are Great and Seeding
Precious Promises that are given to us and it's applicable today
in 2020 as it was in 960 A.D. or B.C. So it's always according to the
Word of the Lord. According to the Word of the
Lord. Now this Word, according to the Word of the Lord is used
38, the exact match of this is used 38 times in the Old Testament.
And we know that the wrath of man will praise God. We know that the unbelief of
man will in no wise void or make God's promises of none effect. The great I am sits upon his
majestic throne and laughs. Who can resist his will or his
sovereign purpose? according to the word of the
Lord. It's the same in 2020. It'll
be the same in 2021. If the Lord doesn't return, it'll
be the same in 2022. And this is what we tell our
children. Yes, we are sinful as others. We're like these lepers.
We're like these Samaritans. We deserve damnation. We deserve
hell. But God has a remnant according to the election of grace, and
He will save them. And He will do so through the
good tidings told by someone who, these lepers were not preachers,
but they saw, they experienced the truth of God and it affected
them. It affected their whole life,
their attitude, their thoughts. And they say, I'm going to tell
somebody. So they may experience this with
us. And this is what we do. This is what the church, this
is what we do. You know, I remember when I was
in college and I first started hearing Calvinism, it made me
really upset. And I thought, well, my friend,
he's going to be saved. And they said, well, I'm praying
for him. And they said, it doesn't work
that way. But he does use his people's prayer. So, but our
God is on the throne. It doesn't make any difference
what the environment of the date, time, and place, our God rules
and reigns over everything. The hairs on our head, the birds
in the sky, the floods, the tornadoes, the this is the that, you name
it, He's over it. So, the believer believes this
and walks by faith. and not fear, not worry, not
murmuring, not unthankfulness, because what's taking place in
our life today, will tomorrow, and it has a couple weeks ago,
is according to the Word of the Lord. Now, this last point, and
it's said twice, it's said twice, in this chapter. This man, this
Lord, whom the king's hand was leaned upon. This man. What we see is the awful plight
of unbelievers. Verses 17-20, And the king appointed
the Lord, whose hand he leaned, to have charge of the gate. He's
supposed to be in the gate. The main gate of Samaria. So
there he is, and he's supposed to do this thing orderly. Orderly. How many weeks, days, months
have they not eaten anything, or had not enough to eat? And
you're going to try to maintain order? So he's standing at the
charge of the gate, and the people trod upon him in the gate, and
he died, as the man of God had said, who spoke when the king
came down to him. Remember, the king was coming
to his house, was going to kill him. He threatened to kill the
prophet. And in verse 18 he says, the
story goes over, it says it again. For the people trampled him,
trod upon him in the gate, and he died." Now, unbelief. People make fun of it. They mock
our faith. They mock the Lord Jesus Christ.
They mock that this even happened in history. They mock the Bible.
The Bible is not the true word of God. This free grace of God
is mocked. This man, how sad and how horrific
his end. He doubted God's man, he doubted
God's message, and he doubted God's promise. His end was worse
than his beginning. Crushed under the judging hand
of God. May we flee from the wrath of
God and hide ourselves under the shadow of his wing, because
judgment is coming. Judgment is coming. The last
thing that I see in here is that the king, the king of Israel, he did not run to the free bounty
of supply simply because he was not hungry. He really didn't
care about his servants. He still had a few more horses
out of his royal stables. Indeed, blessed are they, the
Scripture says, who hunger and thirst Righteousness. Christ's righteousness. He's
having this all done. You do this and do that. I've
got a few more weeks of food I can take care of. And those
who hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be filled. For He, Emmanuel,
only calls sinners unto Himself. He doesn't call the righteous
or those who see no need in the loveliness of our Lord Jesus
Christ. This King He did not have. He still wasn't pressed. even though his whole subjects
were pressed beyond measure. But it all took place according
to the good pleasure of God. So whether it's God's mercy unto
salvation or God's judgment unto damnation, our Lord will be praised. I just pray that we here would
flee and not become like this man who just mocked, laughed,
and doubted. And God showed him no mercy.
He left him to himself. Matt, would you close us? Lord,
we thank You for this message. We see that You are the lepers
walking towards You. May You deliver us. May You provide us with salvation. By You, who is rich in mercy,
deliver us deeply. or else the situation...