I invite you to turn back in
your Bibles to the chapter that our brother read to us, 2 Kings
chapter 5. My attention was drawn to this
this week, and I could not lay it aside. There are several things
here that I would love, by the grace of God, to be able to set
before you today. And I hope that it's in the providence
of God to give us the mind and the spirit this morning that
we would be able to declare those things that the Lord has laid
upon our hearts. We begin here, I just kind of
want to give a little exposition of the chapter and stop at some
of the highlights and to give you some things that I believe
that the Lord would have me to leave with you this morning.
Now Naaman, the captain of the host of the king of Syria, was
a great man with his master and honorable. His master thought
well of him. He was an honorable man, an honest
man. And it says that the reason why
he was in such favor with his king, the king of Syria, was
that because by him the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria. Now we know that when the scripture
here points out that the Lord had given victory unto the Syrians,
that what the writer is talking about, he is talking about the
victory that the Syrians won when Ahab was slain. And John
Gill suggests that this is the man that drew the boy to venture
to kill Ahab in the chariot. And so, when the Lord gave deliverance
to a heathen army, you know, when a heathen army got the victory
over Israel, everybody knew the Lord did it. Because if the Lord
did not protect His people, and if God did not will that they
win in the battle, then it was the Lord, and everybody knew
it was the Lord that caused the Syrians to win. There's a great
lesson in that for the Lord's people in our day and time, and
that is when we seemingly are not victorious, seemingly not
able to overcome our foes and our enemies, many, many times
we just need to look to the first cause, and that is God Himself
has allowed for some reason this thing to fall out the way it
has fallen out. God has a reason for everything
He does. The God of the Bible is the God
of purpose. And so when it says here that
God gave this heathen king a victory over Israel, or gave him a victory
for Syria, then it was that the Lord had withdrawn his favor
toward Israel for a season and let that army overcome them. He was also a mighty man in valor,
a very courageous man, this man Naaman, but he was a leper. But he was a leper. Now the church
has commonly held through the centuries that leprosy is a type
of sin, and it's a type of a disease of sin, a type of a death of
sin. When a man had leprosy, he as
it were had a death It was as if Providence had said,
you're going to die, and this is it. Because leprosy, there
was no cure for leprosy. And somebody has suggested that
he was a valiant man, and he was an honorable man, and all
these things. And maybe he might have looked
on it as if he was a leper, but all of his greatness and honor,
it hid from everybody what he really was. And he was a leper.
He was unclean. And he had a death sentence upon
him. But I want to put it this way. that he was a leper that just
happened to be a mighty man of valor, just happened to be an
honorable man. And we know that people are often
talking up man and his so-called accomplishments and his goodness. We know that all our sinners
before God. All have come forth from their
mother's womb speaking lies, and we have a depraved nature,
all of us, and the sentence of death is upon us. The soul that
sinneth, it must die. But many, many times we look
upon all of our accomplishments in the flesh. We look upon our
education. We look upon the many, many things
that we supposedly have gotten involved with that we were a
blessing to others and very useful among mankind. And we think that
that conceals the fact that we are a sinner. But you see, we
are sinners that just happen to be doing some good things
in this life. All men are sinners, and we try
to mask our sin and the incurable disease of sin by doing good
and by accomplishing certain things in this life. And it gives
people a certain amount of, I think, false hope. And we need
to see that we're sinners, first of all. That's what our name
is. We're sinners before God. Now, we see where the Assyrians
had captured a little maid out of the land of Israel and took
her back to be Naaman's wife's servant. And one day, she knowing
about Naaman's leprosy, she said unto her mistress in verse 3,
Would God my Lord be with the prophet that is in Samaria? For he would recover him of his
leprosy. If my Lord Naaman was with the
prophet that is in Samaria, he'd be recovered of his leprosy.
And my, what a word. What a word of testimony. What
a word this is. My, there's hope in these words,
these words of the little maid. And how many people have been
blessed to know the salvation of the Lord through the witness,
just a little insignificant individual giving a witness for the Lord. Well, and one went in and told
Nahum and saying, Thus and thus said the maid that is in the
land of Israel. And the king of Syria said, You
go, you go to the land of Israel, and I'll send a letter unto the
king of Israel, And he departed and took with him 10,000 talents
of silver, and 6,000 pieces of gold, and 10 changes of raiment.
So here he is, he's dispatched by the king of Syria to go to
the king of Israel. Now there's two things that I
see here in this fifth verse. One is, sent him to the wrong
place. when he sent him to the king
of Israel. Because the king of Israel, when he got the letter,
he said he tore his clothes and said, Am I God to kill and make
alive? This man is trying to start a
war with me, that he would send him to me. Am I God to kill and
to make alive? He knew that Naaman had a death
sentence upon him if he was a leper. And then another thing we see
here that was wrong was that he When he departed, he took
with him 10 talents of silver and 6,000 pieces of gold and
10 changes of raiment. When he left, he took with him
all this money because he intended to buy the blessing. He intended
to buy the blessing. Now, beloved, I don't know whether
you this morning are aware of the fact that You cannot buy,
the scripture says, it's not with corruptible things as silver
and gold, but with the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ
that we have our redemption. You cannot buy your redemption.
You cannot buy a blessing from God. You cannot give to the point
where that God is going to bless you unless you're His child,
unless you belong to Him, unless you're in right relationship
with Him. In other words, you can't buy God's favor. And this
man did not know that. What he should have took with
him was a broken and contrite spirit, one that God would not
despise. That's what he should have taken
and left all of his money at home. But he didn't do that. Okay, so he went to the wrong
place. Well, where should he have gone? Well, Elisha heard about the
king of Israel and how that he becomes so frustrated at this
letter. And so when Elisha, the man of
God, heard in verse 8, the king of Israel had written his clothes,
that he sent to the king, saying, Wherefore hast thou written thy
clothes? Let him come now to me. Let him
come to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel. Let him come to me. He needs
to come to the prophet. Now beloved, I want to read a
scripture to you out of Deuteronomy chapter 18 and verse 15. Listen to what the Bible says.
It says, The Lord thy God, Moses speaking here, will raise up
unto thee a prophet from the midst of thy brethren. Prophet
with a capital letter P. The midst of thee with thy brethren
likened to me, and unto him shall you hearken. Now this prophet
that God was going to raise up is the prophet, the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now this man, Naaman, should
have come to the prophet that was in Israel, but my friend,
when you come to God, you must come to God's prophet. God's
prophet who is Jesus Christ. Come to Him. Come to Him. You must honor God's prophet,
the Savior, the Son of God. You must believe on Him and trust
Him in order to be saved. Now your soul, my friend, has
eyes to see, and your soul has ears to hear. Your soul has the
ability to thirst. Your soul has feet to walk with. Now we're told in John chapter
6 that This is the will of Him that
sent me, that everyone which seeth the Son, that's talking
about a spiritual seeing, seeing with the soul, seeth the Son,
hath life. And then we know that in John
chapter 10 it says, the scripture says that, my sheep hear my voice. Well, how do they hear? Is he
talking about hearing with the natural ear, the voice of the
Lord? No. He's talking about the ear of
the soul. The ear of the soul hears the
voice of the Son of God. And then the scripture says,
Come unto me, saith Christ. Come unto me, come buy wine and
milk without money and without price. Come to me, saith the
Lord Jesus Christ, and I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you
and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and you shall
find rest unto your soul. Come unto me." Now does that
mean a physical coming? Does that mean for you to get
up out of your seat and walk to the front to the Lord? No.
No. It means that your feet, your
soul has feet to come to Christ. And when you come to Christ,
it's because you've been enabled by the Spirit of God to exercise
the faculties and the ability of the soul to come to Him. So
come to the Lord Jesus. And Jesus, on the day of the
feast, cried out, Any man thirst, let him come to Me. Let him come
to Me and drink. Let him come to Me and drink
the waters of life. Did He mean, I've got a bucket
here with water in it with a dipper? Did He mean that? No, He did
not. He meant that if your soul was thirsty, come unto Me. Jesus
is the prophet that you must come to. And you must come to
Him with your soul. With your very soul, come to
the Lord Jesus Christ. Now then, we see that Naaman
came with his horses and with his chariot, in verse 9, and
stood at the door of the house of Elisha. He did not come in. Here he is with his horses and
with his chariot, a man dressed in his army uniform and so proud
and arrogant. And here he comes. He stands
at the door of the house of Elijah. He wouldn't go in. And somebody
suggested, I think it was Dr. Gill, that he probably lived
in a mud hut, a little round mud hut with maybe one door in
it. And so Naaman, he just pulled
up in front with these horses and chariot and stood at the
door. And Elisha sent a messenger unto him saying, in other words,
Elisha didn't come out himself, he just sent a messenger unto
him saying, you go and wash in Jordan seven times And thy flesh
shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean. Now so the
message goes out through a messenger that what he needs to do is go
to the Jordan River and dip seven times. This is the message. But Naaman, verse 11, we see
he had a bad attitude. So we see that he has a very
bad attitude. He doesn't have any broken heart.
He feels still that he's worthy, and he still feels like that
he ought to be paid respect by the prophet. And he said, Behold,
I thought, I thought, I thought, this is what I thought in myself,
I being the man I am, I being a man of honor and valor, a mighty
man, I thought, that He would 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. I thought. Now you know there
are many places in the Word of God that suggest that our thoughts
are not His thoughts. Our thoughts are not God's thoughts.
And every one of us know that many, many times we have thoughts
that we are convinced is right. And somebody would suggest to
us something else besides what we grew up with, or what we've
heard all of our lives, or what we've been taught by grandfather,
grandmother, or whoever. And we immediately take offense
and say, well, that's not the way I heard it. I heard it this
way. I heard it that way. And so we
have our own thoughts. But Nehrman, his attitude, is
wrong. Now you see Naaman, that God is not going to deal
with him on Naaman's terms, but he's going to be dealt with on
God's terms. It's going to be God's will and
way that is going to be followed here. And he said in verse 12,
Are not Abandoned far per rivers of Damascus better than all the
waters of Israel? May I not wash in them, and be
clean? No, Naaman, you cannot wash in
those rivers and be clean. It may very well be that the
waters in your rivers over in Syria are running crystal clear,
but you cannot dip in those waters and be clean. Now there's a great
lesson to learn here. And that is, could Naaman have been washed clean
in any other river besides the Jordan River? And the answer
to that is absolutely not. Absolutely not. You see, God
crossed him at the point of his rebellion. He's a great man,
honorable man. He wanted this thing to be a
show and he wanted this thing to go just like he wanted it
to go and like he felt it should go. And it wasn't going to happen
that way. You've got to go down in that
muddy ditch and dip seven times or you will not be clean. And
there are many, many people that hear the gospel and they'll say,
I'll not have it. I'll not have it. I will not,
I will not trust my soul to somebody that lived 2,000 years ago and
died on a cross. I will not, I will not get involved
with this bloody religion, this religion of blood that it takes
the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, to cleanse my sin. I don't
want to get involved. And I've known people that were
ashamed of children, none of mine, that I know of, everybody
was ashamed that I was a preacher of the gospel. But I've known
other preachers' kids that were ashamed that their daddy was
a preacher of the gospel. Ashamed of it. Ashamed of it
in public. But I do know this, that you've
got to come down. You've got to come down. Now
don't miss this. If you miss this, then you're
going to miss Christ. And you're going to miss life.
You're going to miss the way of life if you miss this. Jesus
said that everybody that comes to me must be taught by the Father,
and that the Father teaches every man who comes to Him. And what
He teaches an individual when he brings him to Christ before
the soul takes its walk to the Lord Jesus Christ is He teaches
that individual that he is nothing in and of himself, and that he
cannot save himself, that he has an incurable disease, that
he must be washed in the blood, that he only, as God intervenes,
can he be delivered. Only as God intervenes, and no
other way. He can only be saved as God is
pleased to save him through the shed blood of His precious Son,
the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, he turned away, he turned and went
away in a rage. He said, I'll not have it. There
won't be no bowing down for me. I'm not going to do it. I won't
do it. Well, his servant came near,
slipped up beside him. One of them had probably been
his trusted servant, maybe one that had been with him for a
long time and came near and spake unto him and I'm sure what he
said was settle down you better just settle down now you came
over here to get your leprosy healed and you've been crossed
here and there ain't no way you can go back to Syria healed unless
you do exactly what the prophet says And my friend, I'm here
to tell you this morning, I'm here to plead with your soul
that there is no way for you to escape the judgment of God
except in the way that the Bible sets forth. You cannot escape
the judgment of God unless you're in Christ Jesus where the judgment
has already fallen. Christ is the Savior and you
can only be saved by being in Him. And so this trusted servant
came near and said, if he would have bid thee do some great thing,
if he would have bid you to buy a ticket on some, go to a foreign
place away and to walk on such and such ground that some holy
prophet of long ago walked on, would you not have been first
in line to buy the ticket? And now you know, brethren, People
want something to do, to get saved. And you can't, not by
works of righteousness which we have done, but according to
His mercy, He saved us. By the washing of regeneration
and the renewal brought about by the Holy Ghost. And so it's
not something we do, not by works of righteousness which you've
done. No, no, no, no. And by the deeds of the law shall
no flesh be be justified in His sight. And so, if the Prophet had said, do some
great things, how much rather than when He said to thee, wash
and be clean? All He said was, just go down
there and wash and be clean. That's all He said. That's what
you've got to do. The Lord Jesus said, just come
unto Me. Come unto Me, and I'll give you
rest. He says, you just come. You just
come. Now Jesus spoke those words,
and He's the one that said, No man can come to Me except the
Father which sent Me drawing. You must be taught to Him, but
He teaches people that they desperately need Christ. Nobody finds Christ
until they desperately need Him. It's when you need Him, and really
desperately need Him, that you will find the salvation of the
Lord. Then in verse 14, something has
happened. Then went he down. Then he went
down. Then he went 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. He was clean. He did what the
Lord said to do through the mouth of His prophet. Now, from verse
15 on, we see a changed man. Before Jordan, we have him before
Jordan, and we have him after Jordan. And here he is after
Jordan. And there are some things that
are very interesting in the rest of this chapter here that I just
want to mention to you this morning. And he returned, in verse 15,
to the man of God. He went away in a rage, you remember. But now he's clean. Now his leprosy
is gone. Now his flesh has come as the
flesh of a little child. And he returned to the man of
God, he and all of his company, and came and stood before him.
And he said, Behold, now I know that there is no God in all the
earth but in Israel. Spirit of enlightenment and revelation
has come upon this man. Come upon him. Now I know! You
know, people don't, they don't ever believe in the sovereignty
of God, really, until they experience the Lord's salvation. And people,
when they genuinely come to know the Lord, then they know that
God is the sovereign in all the world. in all the earth. He is
God in heaven above and God in earth beneath. He does according
to His own will in heaven above and in earth beneath. This man
knew that he had met God and that God had done something for
him. He knew that. Behold, now I know. And we read
in 1 John 5 and verse 20 that John said, We know that the Son
of God has come and given us an understanding that we might
know Him that is true, and that we are in Him that is true, even
the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, you see, he is now enlightened. He's enlightened. Now, you could
have talked to Naaman, and he would have told you it was God
in the waters of Jordan that delivered him from his leprosy.
He would have told you God did it. He wouldn't have been into
this talk about, oh, I did this and I did that. No, no, no. He
knew that it was God that did it. And I long for the day when
God will be glorified and lifted up and honored among His professing
people. And the only people whose tongues
will be held are the people who never really experienced the
true saving grace of God in Jesus Christ. Now I know that there
is no God in all the earth. In spite of all of the groves
and all of the altars that are all over Syria, I know there
is no God in all the world but in Israel. But in Israel, the
living God is there. Now therefore, I pray thee, take
a blessing of thy servant. Here he is now, you see he is
a changed man. This is what happens when a person
gets saved. Now then, he's Elisha's servant. And he says, I pray thee take
a blessing of thy servant. Now beloved, we're about to discover
something here that I think is very important. But he said,
this is Elisha. Now he says, I pray thee take
a blessing of thy servant. I want to be a blessing. and
I want you to take the blessing from me." Now what he meant was,
I want to give you some money. I want to give you some changes
of raiment. And Elisha said, but he said,
as the Lord liveth before whom I stand, and we all do stand
before God, I will receive none. And he refused, and he urged
him to take it, but he refused. Now the question is this, And
that is, why did Elisha refuse to take a blessing from this
man? Why? That's the question. Now beloved, there's a definite
reason. There's at least two that I can
think of immediately. Number one, the reason is, is
because he did not want Naaman to go back to Syria believing
in any way, shape or form that you can buy the blessing of God.
Salvation, my friend, is free. You cannot, you don't have enough
money to give and all of us together don't have enough if we pooled
it all. And if we got four or five billionaires
along with us, we wouldn't have enough money to buy salvation
for one of our souls. Not one of us. You cannot buy
a blessing from God. You can't do it. He doesn't need
your ten talents of silver and your six thousand talents of
gold. He doesn't need it. He doesn't need what you've got.
God doesn't need what you've got. You're in this world for
a little while, breathing God's air, and wearing God's clothes,
and eating God's food, and just a little while, you're going
to be gone, just like that. God is God in heaven and above,
and on earth beneath. And you cannot buy salvation. You can't buy it. And then the
second thing is this, is that he did not want to think
that the servant of God that he was doing this for money.
That he was a prophet for money. And there's a lesson here. The
true prophet of God will preach with or without it. Make any
difference. If there is some, okay. And if
there isn't any, he goes on and preaches anyway. With or without
it. With or without it. Now I want
you to understand that this was a young convert. This was a new
convert. Now if he had been saved for
a long time and had been a proselyte into the Jewish religion for
a number of years, Elisha might have handled it different. But
beloved, this is the attitude of a newborn soul. I pray thee,
take a blessing of thy servant. Take a blessing of thy servant.
God's people do give. God's people will give. They
must give. They have to give. Now the Scripture
is, there are many Scriptures, we're going to come right back
here in just a moment, but I want to read a couple of verses to
you out of the book of 2 Corinthians. There's two chapters in 2 Corinthians
chapter 8 and 9 that are devoted to giving for a believer. And
we read over in chapter 9, see a believer wants to be a blessing.
That's what he wants to do, he wants to be a blessing. He wants
to bless somebody with his life now that he's been blessed. Now
that he's experienced the grace of God in his own soul, he wants
to be a blessing. He wants to be a blessing to
the church of the Lord Jesus Christ and to those that are
in need. And Paul here gives us these
words in verse 6 of chapter 9, 2 Corinthians, But this I say,
He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly, and he which
soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. Every man,
according as he purposes in his heart, so let him give." Every
man, every believer, everyone who's experienced the grace of
God, everybody who knows the Lord Jesus Christ in truth, according
as he purposes in his heart. You need to sit down and say,
well, what should I give? A man is not expected to give
what he doesn't have. Scripture is clear on that. But
he is to purpose in his heart what he is to give. Somebody
said, well, maybe you should tithe. Well, you may believe
in tithing. And if you do, then that's up
to you. You believe whatever you think
the New Testament teaches you. But there's another who says,
I just give. I purpose in my heart to give
a certain amount. And I give that amount. I give
that amount. And the Lord blesses me because
I give. God will bless His people. And Jesus said, Give and it shall
be given unto you. Now beloved, there's a lesson
here. And that is, God's people want to be a blessing. And the
way for them to do it is to sow bountifully. Now a farmer, picture
a farmer going out in the spring of the year to sow his fields. Now beloved, if he sows sparingly,
don't put much seed in the ground. Now you see that farmer's got
to turn loose of that seed. He's got to turn loose of it.
He can't hold on to that seed and keep it in his pocket or
keep it in the granary back at the farm and have a crop. He's got to let loose of that
seed and he's got to put it in the ground. And Paul says, when
he sows, let him sow bountifully, that he may reap also bountifully. In other words, don't come to
this situation saying, well, I've got to I've got to do something,
and so I'll just do as little as I can just to have my conscience. No, do you want a blessing? Do
you want to be a blessing? Then purpose in your heart, and
then give according to the way God has blessed you. Give that
way. Now we don't say a lot about
that around here, but I thought this was very significant. He
says here that you must, if you're going to reap bountifully, if
you want a blessing, Jesus said, Give, and it shall be given unto
you, pressed down, shaken together, shall men give unto your bosom.
Give. Be a blessing. Be a blessing. He says don't let him give, not
grudgingly or of necessity, for God loveth a cheerful giver.
God loveth a cheerful giver. Now, beloved, There are all kinds
of statements that I've read and heard made about giving. And some people say that, some
preachers say that if you give just when something is needed.
In other words, if you just wait and wait until something is needed
to give, that it's questionable whether or not God will bless
that kind of giving or not. God loves a cheerful giver. He
loves a hilarious giver. He loves somebody who purposes,
who wants to be a blessing, and will practice giving. I think
it's good to keep a little bit of seed money, a little bit of
seed money, and let it go, because it isn't going to come back to
you just like the farmer if he keeps that seed in his pocket.
It's going to stay right there, and that's where it'll directly
mildew and rot. You got to let it go and put
it into the ground and then it will bring forth bountifully.
Just remember that. But this man wanted to be a blessing
and the prophet refused him. Because he wanted God to be honored
in this situation, and he didn't want the attention in any way,
shape, or form of Naaman to be taken off of the Lord, the Sovereign
God, who had performed this miracle of healing on him. And he wanted,
when he went back to Syria, to be able to go back and say, it
was free! I was cleansed and God did it,
the God of Israel did it, and it was free. Now, let me hurry
on because I think that clock is going to be a while before
12 o'clock by that clock. We see then that Naaman said
in verse 17, I pray thee, be given to thy servant two mules,
burden of earth, for thy servant will henceforth offer neither
burnt offering nor sacrifice unto other gods but unto the
Lord. He said, I'm going to be a worshipper of God from now
on. And he said, what I want is for you to give me enough
dirt from right around here. He looked on this to be a holy
place. I want you to give me enough
dirt just what two mules can carry. And I'm going to take
this back to Syria, and I'm going to make an altar there before
the Lord. You said, well, where in the world would anybody ever
get anything like this? Well, let me read a verse to
you out of Exodus. Exodus chapter 20. You shall not make with me gods
of silver, neither shall you make unto you gods of gold. An
altar of earth shalt thou make unto me, verse 24 of Exodus 20. An altar of earth shalt thou
make unto me, and shall sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings,
thy peace offerings, and thy sheep, and thine oxen in all
places where I record my name. I will come unto thee, and I
will bless thee there. And so what he wants is, He wants
the amount of dirt that two mules can carry because he wants to
take it back home, make him an altar so he can worship the Lord. Now there's some who have an
opinion that say that Elisha said no, there ain't no way,
there ain't nothing special about this dirt around here. But I
really don't see that in the scripture. I don't see that at
all. I would probably conclude that he probably took this earth
back with him and made him an altar. Now in verse 18, this
needs a little explanation. In this thing the Lord pardoned
thy servant, that when my master goeth into the house of Rimeon
to worship there, and he leadeth on my hand, and I bow myself
in the house of Rimeon, when I bow down myself in the house
of Rimeon, the Lord pardoned thy servant in this thing. Now
I want you to understand at the very beginning here that he's
talking about something he did, that he had done already. And
he wouldn't know if he was forgiven of this. And it wasn't as if
he was asking Elisha to sell him some indulgences for down
the road, when he went back home, so he could go into a heathen
temple. No, absolutely not. And he said to him, go in peace.
He said, the Lord has forgiven you. Your sins are forgiven.
This has forgiven you, your going and worshipping in a heathen
temple. Somebody asked the question,
if a man gets saved out of a false religion, is it okay if he goes
back to that false religion with his wife? Absolutely not. Absolutely
not. If God delivers you out of false
religion and delivers you out of Arminianism, then you ought
to stay away from it. You ought to stay as far away
from it as you can. Stay away from it. You got no
business being involved in it. Have no other God before me.
And certainly the God of free will is a very popular God in
our day. But have no other God before
me, saith the Lord. And so stand steadfast. Be unmovable
in this thing. But the Lord forgives you of
all your past. You say, I was in religion a
long time. I know, some of you were. But
my friend, listen to me. God has forgiven you of that
if you're in Christ. If you're saved, don't go and
be partakers with it again. Stay out of it and stay away
from it. All right? But now in verse 20
we have the unprofitable servant of Elisha, and I'm going to hurry
with this. But Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, the man of God, said,
Behold my master. Well, he spared Naaman. He didn't
take money for what he did for Naaman. He could have got some
money here and could have spread it around with all of us, but
he didn't do it. But as the Lord liveth, I'll
run after him, and take somewhat of him. Now, John Gill said that
in the Hebrew, this word somewhat means blocked. In other words,
I'll run after him and take a blot on my life. He didn't know that's
what he was saying, but that's what he was saying. My life's going to be blotted
ever from now, here on out. because of what I'm doing here.
So Gehazi followed after Nahum, and when Nahum saw him running
after him, he lighted down from the chariot to meet him and said,
It's all well. And he said, All is well. My
master has sent me a bold-faced lie. It's a lie. His master had
not sent him. His master was jealous for the
honor of God and jealous for the mercy and miracle of God
upon the life of Naaman that God receive all the glory. He
would not take anything from this man. My master sent me saying,
Behold, even now there come to me from Mount Ephraim two young
men of the sons of the prophets. Impudent lie, a lie. Given to them, I pray, the Italian
silver and two chains of garment. False preachers, when they're
asking for money, you know, they'll say, it's not for me. Not for
me. It's for the prophets. It's for this. It's for that.
It's for something else. How many times have you heard
them on television and other places? Asking for money. Begging for
money. Lying through their teeth. It's for them. This money, Gehazi
wanted this money. He wanted it. And Edmund said,
be content, you take two talents. Two talents was in our day and
time pretty close to $20,000. Two talents. And he urged him, and bound two
talents of silver in two bags with two chains of garments,
laid them upon two of his servants. Took two of his servants to bear
them, two of Gehazi's servants. to bear this loot. And when he
come to the tower, that was a place like a bank or a place where
that you could take your investment in and deposit it and it'd be
kept safe. And they took the money and invested
it in houses and lands and in olive yards and sheep and oxen
and men servants and maid servants, whatever you wanted them to invest
it in, that's this tower, okay? And so when they came there, He took from their hands, He
was done with them. See, He took it, because He's
the one that wanted it to begin with. And bestowed them in the
house, and let the men go, and they departed. In other words,
that's all they got out of it. Carrying it over there. But He
went in and stood before His Master. Now, here's this bold-faced
hypocrite liar. He goes back in and he stands
before a man like Elisha, who is jealous for the glory of the
Lord God of hosts, who's jealous for the truth of God. He come
in and Elisha said to him, Where have you been, Gehazi? And he
said, Thy servant would know whither. Now, he's saying this
to a man who has just had a word from God and give it to Naaman,
this man who is a seer, that's what a prophet is, a seer, a
man who is no dumbbell, a man who knew what was going on. And
he said to him, did not my heart go with you when the man turned
again from his chariot to meet you? Is it a time to receive
money? Has not God revealed Himself?
Has not God manifested Himself on this day? Has not the Sovereign
God of Heaven and Earth made Himself known to this man, Naaman? Is this a time to receive money
and to receive garments and olive yards, vineyards, sheep, oxen,
men, servants, and maidservants? Is this a time for that? No. It's a time when we honor God.
It's a time we glorify God. That's what this time is all
about. And in verse 27, he said, OK, Nahum, OK, Gehazi, you wanted
Nahum's money. You wanted his glory. You wanted
what Nahum had. OK, Gehazi. You got now, you got what Naaman
had. Now, he said, therefore the leprosy
of Naaman shall cleave into thee and into thy seed forever. In
other words, if you take part of it, you've got to take it
all. You've got to take it all. You want to be like Naaman? Then
you take everything. You take the curse along with
the talents of silver and gold. And they've changed this arraignment.
You take it all. You take it all. Now, beloved,
there's some people that's got to have this world. They just
got to have it. And they'll leave the things
of God, and leave the truth of God, and pursue this world. They just got to have it. And
I'll tell you what, they'll probably get it. But that ain't all they're
going to get. What they think they're going
to get, that's not all of it. There are some other things in
the capsule too, you see. And that's the wrath of God,
the judgment of God. That's a life lived in absolute
misery. Some of the most miserable people
on this earth are people that just got enough religion to make
them miserable. And who've not got enough to
stand firm and to give glory to God and praise God with their
life. and honor Him and seek His ways and do His will. Now,
beloved, there's a lot of lessons here and we covered them in a
hurry, but I do hope that some of these things will register
with you and that they'll be a blessing to you as you meditate
upon them, as you think upon them. And may God deliver us
all from this world and the things of this world that we might be
able to give forth that witness to the Lord and to His glory
his sovereign power that we ought to give. May God own the message.