Well, if God will give me grace
and power of his Spirit to preach this message to you, I have for
you a feast of fat things. Let's turn to 2 Kings. 2 Kings picks up the history
of Israel's divided kingdom. right where 1 Kings ended. It
is a sad, sad history of man's rebellion, sin and idolatry. After Solomon's death, after
the kingdom of Israel was divided, the northern kingdom of Israel
was ruled for 250 years by 19 different kings from 7 different
families. all of them, every ruler they
had, no exceptions, led them to idolatry and wickedness, every
one of them. God sent prophet after prophet
to them, calling them to repentance. These men, these kings, their
courtiers and the people of Israel heard the word of God from the
mouth of Elijah. Amos, Hosea and Jonah, but they
refused to hear. Choosing rather to follow the
lust of their own hearts, they followed Baal and the gods of
human invention. They preferred sacrificing their
own sons and daughters on the altars of imaginary deities than
sacrificing their hearts upon the altar of Jesus Christ. Walking
after the lust of their hearts, they walked in obstinate rebellion,
in open, constant defiance of God's right to be God. And they plunged themselves and
the nation that followed them deeper and deeper into degradation,
morally and spiritually. And at last, God gave them up. God gave them up. What a word. God gave them up. You want bail? You can have it.
You want your way? You can have it. You want death
instead of life? You can have it. And God sent
them no more prophets, but sent them into bondage and utter destruction. The southern kingdom of Judah
fared only slightly better. They survived for another 140
years. The southern kingdom of Judah
had 20 kings, but all of them were from one family, the family
of David. because God had promised David
that he would not lack a man to sit on his throne until that
man came who sat on his throne forever, Jesus Christ the Lord. These men had a long history,
hearing the word of God as well, all those prophets and then others
that the northern kingdom had heard. And after a long time
of hearing and despising the word of God, Israel was taken
captive by the Assyrians in chapter 17. Judah survived another 136
years before they were finally taken captive at the end of the
book by the Babylonians. But the reasons for both are
given in chapter 17. Turn there, if you will, and
let's read it and be warned. I would urge you to read, in
connection with this passage, the prayer and confession that
Ezra made in Ezra 9. Brother Bartley read that to
us in the office just a little bit ago. Read here what God says
concerning his reason for judgment, beginning at verse 9. And the children of Israel did
secretly those things that were not right against the Lord their
God. And they built them high places
in all their from the tower of the watchman to the fenced city.
And they set them up images and groves in every high hill and
under every green tree. And there they burnt incense
in all the high places, as did the heathen whom the Lord carried
away before them, and wrought wicked things to provoke the
Lord to anger. For they served idols whereof
the Lord had said unto them, Ye shall not do this thing. Yet
the Lord testified against Israel and against Judah by all the
prophets and by all the seers, saying, Turn ye from your evil
ways, turn from your evil ways, turn from your evil ways, and
keep my commandments and my statutes according to all the law which
I commended your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants
the prophets." Verse 14. Notwithstanding, notwithstanding,
though God sent prophet after prophet after prophet after prophet,
notwithstanding, they would not hear, but hardened their necks. like to the neck of their fathers,
that did not believe in the Lord their God. And they rejected
his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers,
and his testimonies which he testified against them. And they
followed vanity." That's what God says about all
the religion of the world and all the gods of the world, vanity,
just a puff of wind. just the imagination of a man's
proud heart. But don't you respect other people's
religion? No! No, it's vanity! Don't you respect other gods?
No, it's vanity! Just better, just a puff of wind,
just a puff of wind at its very best. And became vain and went
after the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom the
Lord had charged them that they should not be like them." Verse
16. And they left all the commandments
of the Lord their God, though they kept them in the house of
God. We'll see that in just a little bit. They were tucked away in
a nice, safe place. They had the word of God like
a creed. They could point to it and say,
This is what we believe. Everybody knows what we believe.
But they left the word of God. And they made them molten images,
even two calves, and made a grove, and worshipped all the hosts
of heaven, the sun, the moon, the stars, Orion, and all the
hosts of heaven, and served Baal. And they caused their sons and
daughters to pass through the fire, sacrificed their sons and
daughters upon the arms of molten gods they had made. and used divination and enchantments,
and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, to
provoke him to anger. Now hear me well. God's judgment is always The
right, just answer of God Almighty to man's willful, deliberate,
obstinate rebellion and unbelief. The judgment of God comes upon
men because they fully, personally deserve it. If you go to hell,
O my soul, if you go to hell, going to go to hell, kicking
down every fence God has set in front of you. Not by accident, but because
you will submit, or determined you will not submit to the rule
of God Almighty in the person of his Son. He that being often
recruited, hardeneth his shall suddenly be destroyed,
and that without limit. The Lord God says, Turn you at
my reproof, and I'll pour out my Spirit unto you. I'll make
known my words to you. I've called, and you've refused. and refused, and refused, and
refused. And when at last you go to hell,
you're just going to eat the fruit of your own ways. O God,
graciously stretch out your mighty arm, and do for these who yet
know not our God what you've done for us. for those who will
not hear and will not turn. Lord God, make them here, turn
them, and they shall be turned. That's what God in his grace
does for sinners. He stops you in your mad, obstinate
rebellion, in your mad rush for hell, and turns you to himself. And that's the only hope a sinner
has. That's the only hope a sinner has. Though the Lord God utterly destroyed
the northern kingdom, and swore that he would destroy Judah as
well, he preserved a remnant, even in the midst of judgment.
He turned easily over northern tribes over to the Assyrians.
A hundred and forty years later, he sent the southern tribe of
Judah down into Babylonian captivity, and there they stayed for seventy
years. And though they were restored to their land, they never quite
recovered. But at last, when the Lord Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, came into this world through the loins
of David after the flesh, as David seen, and was seated upon
his throne in 70 A.D., God destroyed the nation utterly. He promised
back in Genesis 49, he told Judah, he said, Scepter shall not depart
from Judah until Shiloh has come. Judah will not cease to be a
nation, a civil government, until the Messiah has come. But now
he's come, and he sends in wrath the armies of Rome to destroy
that nation. And that nation was destroyed. Jews are regathered as a nation.
They're not one of them over there who's got the slightest
idea what tribe he came from. God destroyed the nation. He
destroyed it. He sent darkness to them, blindness
to them, cast them off as a nation in judgment and in severity. But oh, he did it in mercy. Because
in this way, through their obstinate rebellion and unbelief, through
their stubbornness, through their willful, willful unbelief, the
Lord God was pleased to send the gospel to you and me. When
Paul wrote about this in Romans 11, he said, O who has known
the mind of the Lord? Who has been his counselor? He
said, God has done wondrous things. He speaks like this, O the depth
of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable
are his judgments and his ways past finding out. For who hath
known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counselor,
or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed to
him again. For of him, and through him, and to him are all things.'
That means, David, he did all this exactly according to his
purpose. You mean God has changed his mind? Oh, no! God hasn't
cast off his people whom he foreknew, but his people whom he foreknew
never was a physical seed. It was always a chosen seed of
whom he would make one holy nation and one royal priesthood, the
very Israel of God, out of every nation, kindred, tribe and tongue.
And yet as we read these twenty-five chapters of 2 Kings, Rather than
focusing our attention on the wickedness of Israel's kings
throughout these chapters, the Holy Spirit tells us the story
of grace by wonder after wonder after wonder. It is a story that
revolves around his prophets. It always does. In addition to
Elijah and Elisha, Amos, Hosea and Jonah, the history of Israel
and Judah described in this second book of Kings takes in the ministries
of Obadiah, Joel, Isaiah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Jeremiah,
Ezekiel and Daniel. That's the ministries that go
all the way through the history of Israel until it comes to the
end of 2 Kings 25. It's true, there were in Judah
a few good kings, a few who enacted laws for the glory of God and
the good of his people, a few kings who tore down the groves
and the high places, the altars and the images of Baal. Let me
mention just two a bit, and then we'll look at these wonders elsewhere.
Hezekiah stands out prominently. Hezekiah was a man who did that
which was right in the sight of the Lord. Oh, I wonder what
that was. Well, you don't have to wonder
for long. If you just turn to chapter 18, I'll show you. I know men of conviction, whether
they're kings or whether they're preachers, or whether they're
mothers or daughters or sons or daughters, it doesn't matter.
People of conviction are looked at by the whole world around
them as bigoted, narrow-minded, hard people. Let me tell you
something. That man who cares most for your
soul, will exercise every power he has to keep you from yourself
and from the idolatry of the world in which you live. Look
here, 2 Kings chapter 18. This is what Hezekiah did when
he did what was right in the sight of the Lord. He removed
the high places. They didn't have bulldozers in
that day, but if they had, they would have got on a bulldozer,
driven into Rome and pushed the cathedral over. And the old man
sitting on the throne there, too. He broke the images. Broke them. Broke them. Took
a hammer and smashed them to pieces. You can't do that to
our gods. Yeah, I can't do your gods. Because
they're nothing. Cut down the bones and broken
pieces. Now watch this. The blazing serpent. First time I read that and realized
what it said, I was just shocked. This is a brazen serpent. God
commanded Moses to raise up in the wilderness, make a serpent
of bread, a picture and type of Christ. And there were folks
who looked at that serpent and lived. Everybody who looked on
it lived. But rather than understanding
the type and worshiping Christ crucified, represented in the
type, the rest of Israel said, Let's keep this serpent." And
they polished that thing, and they carried it with them all
the way through the wilderness, carried it with them through
the ministry of Moses, through the ministry of Joshua, through
all the judges, through the days of David, through the days of
Solomon, all the way up to Hezekiah. And nobody did anything about
it. They bowed down and worshiped that stinking serpent. Just like
folks do the cross these days, the pictures and emblems of the
cross. There are statues of Mary, pictures of Jesus. All of it
is just idolatry. And the scripture says here,
look at it, under those days, the children of Israel, where
did God come to burn incense? He told the priest to take the
incense into the Holy of Holies, before his altar. But they burned
incense to this stinkin' stuff in a bath. And Hezekiah called it, mihashpeh. He said, fellas, that's a worthless
piece of brass. A worthless piece of brass! Oh, but, now we don't worship,
don't get us wrong King Hezekiah, we're not worshiping this thing,
we're just honoring this thing. Would you tell me the difference? Would you tell me the difference?
It's a worthless piece of brass. What do you do with it? He trusted
in the Lord God of Israel, so that after him there was none
like him of all the kings, nor any that were before him. For
he prayed to the Lord, and departed not from following him, but kept
his commandments, which the Lord commanded Moses. And the Lord
was with him, and fostered him with us wherever he went forth.
And he rebelled against the king of Assyria, and so it did not. And it crushed that worthless
piece of brass to powder. His grandson, Josiah, came up
after it, chapter 23. Every few months you'll hear
something on one of these discovery channels about the wondrous boy
king of Egypt, King Tut, and his great riches and his pyramid
and all that nonsense. Well, he was a wonder. He was
a wonder. He was a boy king who followed
his fathers in paganism and in idolatry, and he had a lot of
money. If you call that wonder, that's
wonder. But here's a boy king. who followed his grandfather
in the worship of God Almighty. Josiah was eight years old when
God put him on the throne. Ten years later, Josiah went
to work. Look in verse 25 of chapter 23. Like unto him there was no king
before him, turn to the Lord with all his heart, with all
his soul, with all his might, according to the law of Moses,
neither after him arose there any like him. Since the days
of David there was not a king like this man Josiah." What a
testimony! When he was eighteen years old,
the house of God had been laying in ruins for years. been laying
in ruins for years, all through the reign of his father, just
laying in ruins. And Josiah gave commandment that
the house of God should be repaired. And when he went down to the
house of God, Healkiah, this priest, was looking through the
junk, all the junk that people had brought into God's house.
And he found That's the book of God. He opened
it up and began to read it, took it to Shaphan the scribe. Shaphan
the scribe took it to young Josiah. And Josiah read the words of
the book, heard what Shaphan read to him, heard the word of
the Lord, and he repented, and called all of Israel to repentance.
And he began to go to work, sure enough. Not only did he continue
with the building of the temple, But this man Josiah, because
he loved God and loved God's people, because he was zealous
for the cause of God's glory, he destroyed every idol in the
land. He executed every false prophet,
didn't spare a woman. He purged the land of homosexuals. He put away the wizards and witches. They call them palm readers now,
you know, But that gal that doesn't have so much trouble reading
her other tarot cards, folks in feathers, folks who write
horoscopes in the newspaper, he got rid of all of them. Everyone,
oh, we don't pay attention to that thing, it's just funny to
us. It ain't funny to God. It ain't funny to God. He got rid of all of them, all
of them. He purged the land and kept the Passover. For the first
time in years, Israel came to God's house on God's day. and worship God's Son, the sacrifice
represented on the altar, the Paschal Lamb slain for his people. But still, the story of God's
mercy and grace, the story of God's blessings upon his people,
always revolves around God's prophets. Those men of God sent
to proclaim his word to his people. Oh, what a blessing when God
sends a prophet. A man with a word from God to
your soul, if you hear him. And what a judgment if you refuse. The first prophet, of course,
is Elijah. When we open 2 Kings, get to chapter 2, and you just
follow me along, if you will. Turn over to chapter 2. Elijah
was John the Baptist of the Old Testament. John the Baptist was
the fulfillment of the type of Elijah. As John the Baptist was
the forerunner of Christ, so God's prophets always are the
forerunners either of God's judgment or of his mercy. He sent the
prophets to the kings, calling them to repentance. And had they
heard and repented, God would spare them and have mercy. But
he sends the prophets to them either to wrap them up in judgment,
or to bring them to repentance and give them his mercy. But
in the 2nd chapter here, Elijah is distinctly set before us as
a picture of hope, the blessed hope in which we live, anxiously
awaiting our Lord's gracious call, by which he will soon fetch
us home. Look at verse 11. It came to
pass, as they, Elijah and Elisha, still went on and talked, that,
behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire,
And parted them both asunder, and Elijah went up by a whirlwind
into heaven, and Elisha saw it." He saw it! He saw it! Last time I was in Wichita Falls,
I went to see a dear friend. Some of you may remember me telling
you about Darlene Thompson. I've been going down there preaching
every time I can for the last 16 years to a little handful
of folks, mostly women, just a few women, one or two men.
When she was 72 years old, God saved her. And what a delight. Today, she's
gone home in a chariot of fire. Oh, but preacher, that's not
talking about a believer's death, that's talking about the second
coming. Our Lord had come for her, she had gone home, and he
took her to glory and translated her. But it's also a picture
of our Lord's glorious second advent when we which are alive
and remain under the coming of the Lord are caught up with him
in the clouds and translated immediately ever to be with the
Lord. And then the story picks up with
Elisha. And he's the dominant figure through the rest of 2
Kings. Elijah had faithfully served Elijah as his servant. He was Elijah's waterboy. That's
what he was. Wherever Elijah went, he drove
the chariot, or he walked in front of him and chopped down
the weeds. He carried his Bible, and he kept his coffee cup full. That's what Elijah did. That's
all he did. He learned what it was to be
a prophet, serving faithfully in God's place where God would
have it. The time has come. Elijah came
by and cast his mantle on him, and Elisha followed him. They
had been with him all these years. And the old man and his younger
friend, both of them God servants, he said, Elisha, boy, what do
you want from me? He said, I just want one thing. Oh, I just want one thing. I want one thing. I want a double
portion of your spirit to fall on me. And that's what's described
in chapters 2, verses 9 and 10. And Elijah said in verse 10,
Thou hast asked a hard thing, a double portion of my spirit.
Nevertheless, if thou see me, When I am taken from thee, it
shall be so unto thee, but if not, it shall not be so.' What on earth was this request? About everybody will read on
it, just about everybody. It's talking about Elijah has
been following Elijah, and he knows he's going to be the prophet
to take his place. When Elijah asked him, he said,
What do you want, boy? He said, I want to be twice the prophet
you are. I want to have twice the power,
do twice the works you do. Nothing could be further from
the truth. Such a question would not only be absurd, it would
be selfish, full of pride. That wasn't what he was asking.
You see, back in Deuteronomy 21, verse 17, God gave a law,
and this was the law of God. He said, The firstborn son shall
have a double portion, a double portion of the Father's heritage,
a double portion, the firstborn son. And when Elijah asked Elisha,
what do you want, son? He said, I don't want anything
except to be numbered among those who are called the church of
the firstborn. I want to be numbered among God's
elect, that's what I want. I want to be numbered among the
people of God, who are the sons of God, who have the heritage
of God. This great inheritance is that
which God gives to his people. He gives it to all his people.
The Lord tells us, You shall receive of the Lord's hand double for all your sins. double
for all your sins. You shall have the heritage of
God's firstborn, the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, I give them
that which you've given me, I give them my glory. But there's one
condition, one condition. You've got to see the Son in
his glory. Elijah said, Son, now, if you
see me, what I've taken up from you, It'll be yours. And you
read on through the chapter. He said, Lord, sitting over here.
He said, you stay here. Elijah said, not on your life.
I'm going over here. It's going to be a tough time.
You stay here, Elijah. Not on your life. I'm going down here
to confront these folks. You stay here, Elijah. Not on
your life. Not on your life. He said, I'm
going to hang around. I'm going to hang around. I want
a double portion. A double portion of God's grace
and mercy. I want all the fullness of grace
and glory in Jesus Christ, the firstborn Son. And one day, Elijah
is gone. Elijah says, man alive, it's
mine. It's mine! God's answered my
prayer, I'm numbered among his own, one of his own. I've seen
Christ in his glory, ascending up to heaven on the basis of
the merit of his sacrifice, taking his place at the right hand of
God Almighty. I've seen him and the blessing
is mine." And when he got it, this is what he did. He took
all his clothes and ripped them off. and picked up the mantle of Elijah. Oh, if ever you see Christ in
his glory, you will cast aside the garments of your self-righteousness
as filthy, loathsome garments, rip them off willingly, and take
the mantle of Christ, his perfect righteousness, and say, Where
is the God of Elijah? Where is he? He's mine now, he
promised he would be, let him be mine forever. Then in chapter
2, verses 16 through 20, as Moses healed the waters of
Marah, those bitter waters, by casting in the tree that he saw
by them according to the commandment of God, casting in that picture
of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, Elisha healed the waters
of Jericho. People had been living there,
and Jericho was now a nice place to live, but the waters The ground
was dead, useless, it wouldn't bring forth any fruit. And Elisha
was commanded of God to take a handful of salt and throw it
in the waters. And the waters of Jericho were
healed, and the land became fruitful and bounteous. What does that
say? You remember back in Leviticus,
God required Israel, with all thine offerings thou shalt offer,
salt. He preserved Israel by a covenant,
and he said it was a covenant of salt. And so it is that just
as the gospel of God's grace, the proclamation of Christ's
sacrifice as our substitute, heals the bitter waters of our
lives and heals all things in our lives by his matchless grace,
that gospel is a proclamation of covenant grace, and like the
salt in the waters of Jericho. When the gospel of God's grace
comes into your soul and the power of his it takes that which
was dead and makes it alive, and bountifully fruitful by his
grace to his glory. In chapter 3, Israel and Judah and Edom had
joined forces together, because the king of Moab threatened to
destroy them. And when they did, They were
in trouble. And they called for Elisha. And
Elisha says, Fellas, I'll tell you what you do. You take in
big ditches all through the land. There's big ditches everywhere.
Big ditches everywhere. And it's going to come to pass
that though you won't hear any sound, and you won't feel any
wind, and you won't even be awake when it happens, going to be
water in these ditches to refresh your souls by which you shall
live. And the next morning, down in
verse 20, about the time of the morning sacrifice, about the
time of the morning sacrifice, they looked at There wasn't any
rain, there wasn't any dew, there wasn't a clap of thunder, there
wasn't a cloud in the sky, there wasn't any breeze blowing. Suddenly,
everywhere a ditch was dug, water was found. Water by which they
lived. Those ditches were cut deep in the ground,
which is what God the Holy Spirit does in conviction. And wherever
the ditch was dug, water filled the ditch without the slightest
effort, sound, or even feeling in the man. Yesterday I was as
empty and dry and dead as a cold, And suddenly, today, full of
life, full of vigor, full of health, what happened? Grace
happened. That's what happened. God came
in, and God filled my soul. And the ditches were filled with
water in direct connection with the morning sacrifice. You see,
the grace of God comes to sinners only by the virtue of Christ's
blood atonement, only by the virtue of his sacrifice of himself. In the first seven verses of
chapter 4, we read about this poor prophet's widow. She had
two sons, and the old prophet wasn't real smart with his money,
or maybe he was real faithful. Either way, he didn't leave anything.
All he left was death, a widow and two sons. That's all he left.
And she was terrified, scared to death that somebody was going
to come haul her and her boys away into bondage. And God's
prophet comes to her, and she tells him her plight. He says,
What have you got? Well, she had a little. She didn't
have much, but she had just a little, just a little. And as long as
you've got just a little, you've got too much. She had a little
oil in a pot. She said, What am I going to
do? He said, Pour out your oil. Pour out your oil. You see, grace
only comes to emptiness. And she began to pour it out. Bring me another pot! The oil
is still running! Bring me another pot! Now take
it and go pay what you owed. God pours in his grace when we
have absolutely no worth and merit, and our conscience speaks
to the very law of God in our souls and says, here's what I'm
owed. Christ perfect obedience. and live upon him forever. Then,
down in the latter part of the chapter, there is the story of
this Shunammite woman and her son. She got the son as a gift
from God's prophet. And now the son happened to feel
worse than his daddy and said, Oh, daddy, I've got a headache.
And suddenly he fell over with an aneurysm or something of the
kind. And this gal, you talk about smart, verse 22, she ran after the man
of God with her son for mercy. She ran after him. Oh, my brothers and sisters,
carry your babies in the arms of Christ, or in the arms of
faith run after Christ that he may have mercy on them. And you know what Elijah did
in verse 26? He said to himself, you run after
her. You run after her. And then he took the boy, that
dead boy, so dear to his mama, so dear to him. And he took him
away in a private room by himself. And he stretched himself on that
boy, barely, face to face, mouth to mouth, eye to eye, hand to
hand. And his body began to warm, and life came to him. The picture is the Lord Jesus
Christ giving us his very life. I live, but it's not me, it's
Christ who lives in me, his very life. We are made partakers of
Christ. Then in chapter 4 there is death
in the pot. At Gilgal the men were in a bad
shape, the land was barren, desolate, terrible, terrible times. And
they went out and gathered herbs. There were some prophets there.
They went out and gathered herbs to feed the prophets. And when
they did, they gathered poisonous herbs. They didn't know. They didn't know. They were gathering
herbs from cursed ground. And they made a great big pot
of skin. Oh, it smelled good. One of them tasted it, and they
said, Oh, Elisha, there's death in that pot! Elisha
took a handful of meal, threw it in that cursed pot, and they
found food for their souls to sustain them. Christ, the bread
of life, makes that which would be curse to us and death nothing
but blessing and life forever. And then we get down in the last
section of that chapter, and we see Elisha multiplying loaves,
feeding multitudes, just like our Lord Jesus did. And everybody
there, they took a little bit of bread and started passing
it around. Folks were hungry, they started eating as soon as
they got it, passed it on. got done, everybody had all they
wanted, plumbed, full, sat back and said, I'm ready for the afternoon
nap now. And they took up what was left
over. You see, in Christ who is the bread of life, God's free
grace is infinitely boundless, fully satisfied. And there's
plenty for you. There's plenty for you. And then
the story of Naaman. It's the most familiar, perhaps,
of all. Chapter 5. Naaman was a Syrian, captain
of the Syrians. He was a mighty rich man, had
lots of money, lots of power, lots of influence. He was a sworn
enemy to Israel and to Israel's God. He was a Syrian. He was
an idolater. There was a problem. He was a
leper. And none of the prophets and
seers in Syria, none of those who worshipped the moon or worshipped
stumps, went to see witches and wizards, none of them could help
that poor leper. But God in his good providence,
oh, how wondrously God works, he had graciously sent Israel
into captivity to the Syrians, to call one of his elect at the
time of his love. And Naaman had a young lady in
his house, a Hebrew serpent girl. And he had gone here and there,
and she said, Would the God, my master, would that in Israel
My God would take care of that. Who should I see down there?
There's a prophet down there named Elisha. Go see him. Do
what he says for you to do. They went down there. And boy,
Elisha, he sure wouldn't make much of a preacher. He would
have passed every preacher's course in seminary. He ought
to have flunked every preacher's course. What do you do when a
mighty man comes? What do you do when the general
walks through your door? What do you do? You tell them
to stay outside and I'll send my servant after you? You mean
you don't honor the proud flesh? No. You mean you don't bow and
scream, you're not God's prophet? What do you do? Go tell them
to go wash in Jordan. Do what? Do what? You go tell that proud, rich,
powerful enemy of God who is full of leprosy, if he wants
to live, go wash in that muddy river." And Naaman said, But I thought! And he was dying of leprosy.
You see, God always confronts sinners. God never coddles sinners. Never. He never just sort of
eases you into his kingdom. He confronts you at the point
where you are most stubbornly rebellious to his authority.
And you're either going to bow or you're going to hell, one
of the two. Nehemiah was about to go home and his servant said,
Man, if he had told you to climb the Empire State Building, sprout
wings and fly, you'd have decided to do that. Oh, they said, don't
go down there and wash. You go wash in the fountain drawn
from Emmanuel's veins, so despised by the world that it will wash
your soul in the blood of Christ.