All right, guys, turn to 2 Kings
chapter 5. 2 Kings chapter 5. A couple weeks ago, Jamie and I
were driving back from somewhere. I don't remember where it was.
And she was telling me about she had the radio on in her car.
And just randomly, seemingly randomly, there was a message.
There was somebody preaching a message on the radio. And she
heard it, and the man was talking about the attributes of grace.
And she said, turn it up, because it was real good. And she was
telling me all the attributes this man talked about. And I
had this thought, how thankful I am that salvation is all of
grace, that it is not conditioned upon me in any way, shape, or
form. It is conditioned completely upon what the Lord Jesus Christ
has done. And that fills my heart with joy. I enjoy that. And there's
things we know about grace. Number one, it's sovereign. and
sovereign, and that's because the one who bestows the grace
is sovereign. He will show mercy to whom he
will show mercy, and he will be gracious to whom he will be
gracious, and to whom he will, he'll harden. And you know what
this is? To harden man, all the Lord has
to do is withhold that which softens, just not intervene. You and I sit in the palm of
his hand to be done with as he sees fit. But you know what?
I have to ask myself, how do I feel about that? What does
that inspire in me? Peace? And I'm in his hand. It's the
safest place I could possibly be in light of the gospel message.
The best place I could possibly be. Grace is irresistible and
invincible because the one who gives the grace is irresistible
and invincible. If he calls, you're gonna come. That's just
the way it is. Grace always saves its object. The Lord is going
to be gracious to a man. He is going to be gracious to
that man. He cannot fail. He is incapable of it. It's preserving
grace. It's grace that's going to keep
me all the way to the end. That means I'm not even responsible
for preserving myself. And that just makes me really
happy. I enjoy talking about that. This story here, 2 Kings
chapter 5, this is the story of Naaman the leper, Naaman the
Syrian. This is an illustration of sovereign
grace. That's what we're going to look
at here this morning. Now, this is 14 verses. That's a lot of
ground to cover. All we're going to be able to
do is I'm going to read a verse and make a few comments to you.
The Lord will bless it, and he'll give you something out of it.
So pick up in verse 1. It begins by giving a description
of Naaman. Naaman is the representative man. He is the natural man. 2
Kings 5, verse 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. He was
also a mighty man in valor, but he was a leper. Like I said,
Naaman is a type of the natural man. If you'll notice here, there
are four seemingly positive comments made about Naaman. He's a captain,
an honorable man, a great man with his master. He's mighty
and valiant. Four seemingly positive comments are made. And at the
end, one negative. But he was a leper. And the natural
man, this is the way we are born in this world. This is what we
believe about ourselves. This is what the natural man believes.
I've got a lot of great qualities. I've got a lot of good things
going for me. Listen, I hold down a job. I try to take care
of my family. I coach Little League. And, you know, I've never
committed any really serious crimes. I've never raped anyone.
I've never murdered anyone. Have I made mistakes? Have I
sinned? Absolutely. Everybody makes mistakes. But,
you know, compared to most other people out there, I'm doing pretty
good. I've got a lot of good things going for me, and I just have
this little sin problem. That's it. That's how the natural
man views himself. And if the natural man has made
a ruin of his life, let's say the Lord has just completely
removed his restraining grace from that man, which can happen to
any one of us at any moment, I'd add. But let's say he just
removes his hand from a man, and that man just acts out on
every wicked desire he has ever had, and just made a ruin of
his life, and he doesn't see any good abilities inside himself,
any good characteristics. That man, at the very least,
believes that he has the capacity to get better. Even if he doesn't
want to, he believes that he has the capacity to. That if
he chooses to and he tries hard enough and he works hard enough,
he can lessen his sin and he can raise in a personal righteousness. The natural man does not believe
that he is totally depraved. Now we're going to look at these
five pointers, these five descriptors that are given here of Naaman.
These are the five descriptors of the natural man. And while
it looks like there's four good ones and one bad one, they are
all negative. All negative. I'm going to show
you that. First, the captain. The captain. Naaman is the captain.
He is the lead general over the entire army of Syria. In this
kingdom, he is second only to the king. This thing of being
a captain speaks of this. Power, control, and authority. Who is in control? And this is
the way we were born in this world. We were born in this world
believing that we are in control. We were born in this world believing
that we have a free will. And at any given point, we can
accept the offer of salvation that is issued by the impotent
God of our imagination. And it's completely up to our
choosing. We are the one who's in control. We've created a God
that is impotent, that can only do what we allow him to do. And
we're the captain. We're the one who's in charge.
And this is where the enmity comes out. This is where the
depravity comes out. Because when the God of the Bible
is preached to the man, that we all sit in the Lord's hands
to be done with as he sees fit. He has the power to save, the
power to damn, and it is right, just, and fair, whatever it is
he does. When the man sees that, the enmity comes out, and he
shakes his fist, and he says, I will not have that man to rule
over me. And if you want a simple definition
of total depravity, it's right there, hatred of God. And that's
the way we're all born into this world. He's a captain, but also
says he's a great man with his master. Now, Naaman's boss thought
very highly of him. Thought very highly of him. And
no doubt Naaman coveted that praise. We all like that, don't
we? We all like hearing people speak
well of us. Why? Because we love getting
glory for our name. Every man enjoys hearing his
name glorified. That's the way we're born in
this world. And that's why men detest grace by nature. Because if salvation is by grace
and is completely conditioned upon what the Lord Jesus Christ
has done, That means the man's works don't count. They just
count against him. That's it. That means the man will have
no glory in his salvation. He will just be a trophy of the
Lord's power and his grace. And the natural man rejects that.
He says, I won't have anything to do with that because there'll be
no glory for me. Says he was honorable. Honorable.
Look this word up. This is interesting. The way
it's used here, what it means is, is someone who is so highly
respected that he will not be denied anything he asks. It is
literally owed to him. And this is our problem. We believe
we're owed something. We believe there's something
that is respectable about our character, that the Lord actually
owes us salvation. Look, I have done my part. Now
come over here, meet me where I've come to you at. Now you
do your part. We believe we're owed something. Folks, we're
not owed a thing. And we're to be given what we're owed is damnation. That's the truth, outside of
Christ. Finally, a mighty man in valor.
Now when you actually translate that out, you know what that
means? Rich in strength. Rich in strength. That's how
we view ourselves. Rich in strength and spiritual
ability. We have a pull-ourselves-up-by-the-bootstrap
mentality. That's the way we're born. We
think we can believe any time we want. We can repent any time
we want. We can actually produce love for God. All these things.
We believe we are strong and we're capable. And the whole
time, we are wretched and we are poor and we're miserable
and we're blind and we don't even know it. And the worst part
is we don't even know we're dead. The natural man can't see that
he is dead. It takes an alive man to see
a dead man. That's the case. And finally,
it comes down to a leper. Look back in verse 1. At the
end of that verse, where it speaks of him being a leper, notice
it says, but he was. That but he was is in italics. That means
it's provided by the translator, just not the original. It literally
just says all that, that he's the captain, that he's a mighty
man. And then it just says a leper. Because if you roll all that
together, everything Naaman was, he was just a leper. Same as
you and me. Nothing but sin. Sin is what
I am. It's my nature. It's how I'm
born in this world. That's your nature, too. It's what I do, because
that's what I am. And you roll all his qualities
together, he's a leper. That's it. And here's the thing,
folks. If the Lord has purposed to save a man, he's going to
have to bring that man down, like he's going to do with Naaman.
He has to wipe out all those other characteristics. He has
to get rid of the captain, the mighty man, the honorable. All
those things have to be wiped out until this is our single
defining characteristic, a leper. Nothing more. And this is why
grace must be sovereign, because if it was left up to a man to
seek the Lord's face, to beg the Lord for mercy, to believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, he can't, and he won't. That's the
issue. But what's beautiful about this
story is the Lord has purpose, not only to cleanse Naaman of
his leprosy, but to save him. And that means the Lord is going
to intervene. And we get to watch that gracious intervention. Now
pick up in verse two. 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. Now, the lord is purposed to
save a man. He is going to cross that man's
path with the gospel, the gospel of God's free grace. And that's
what this little maid represents. She knows someone. She's seen
someone. She's going to tell who she's
seen and who she knows. Now, it's interesting. Anyone
who would carry this message, any witness, because that's exactly
what she is, she's seen someone and she knows someone, they will
fit this little maid's description. Number one, they will be little,
largely insignificant. They'll be a servant. And number
three, they'll be almost completely insignificant in any way. No
one will probably ever know their name. Whoever the third party
was that carried this little maid's message to Naaman, he
probably went to Naaman and said, thus and thus said the little
maid out of the land of Israel. And Naaman was like, who? Who
are you talking about? I didn't know there was a little
maid around here. It will be largely insignificant, but this
little girl is a witness, a witness. She knows a man, Elisha, and
that's a type of the Lord Jesus Christ, and she has seen this
man do amazing things. Right now, there's a man in glory,
the Lord Jesus Christ, and he is seated at the right hand of
his father, being equal with God because he is God. That's
the case. This is Elisha here. This is
the type, and this is her statement concerning this man. Would God,
that's how she begins. Now what that means is everything
she says after that is the sincere desire of her heart. That's what
that means. And folks, shouldn't we sincerely
desire the salvation of those people around us? Shouldn't we
pray for those that are around us? Somebody prayed for you and
me? Would God, my Lord, were with
the prophet that is in Samaria, for he would recover him of his
leprosy. This is her witness statement.
Everybody who's with him, everybody who comes to him He will recover
them. Isn't that the call of the gospel? Everybody who comes to Him, He
will recover them. Revelations 22, 17 says, And
the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth
say, Come. And let him that is athirst come.
And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. Now, what does that mean to come?
In Acts chapter 16, The Philippian jailer said this to Paul. He
said, sir, what must I do to be saved? And that is a great
question. What must I do to be saved? And
Paul didn't say, you fool. God is sovereign. Salvation is
by grace. There's nothing you can do. That
is not his statement. He said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and thou shalt be saved. And that is the call here. That
is what it means to come to the Lord Jesus Christ. It's to believe
on him, to trust him for everything in your salvation. And the question
always comes up, who can come? How do I know if I can, in fact,
come? Well, verse 17 here gives us
some markers. Number one, it says, and let
him that heareth come. Now, folks, this is the gospel.
This is the good news, that salvation is in no way conditioned upon
the works of a man. It is completely conditioned
upon what the Lord Jesus Christ has done, and he has accomplished
that for his people. Is that good news to you, that
your works aren't involved? If anything, they just count
against you. They're sins that had to be atoned for. It is completely
dependent upon the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Is that good
news to you? Because if it is, you've heard. You've heard. You've
been given an ear to hear. You fit the description. Come.
Don't wait. Let him that is a thirst come.
A thirst. What's a thirst? A conscious
need. Todd has told us that so many
times. Matthew 5, 6, blessed are they which do hunger and
thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Do you
need to be made righteous? You can't come up with a righteousness
of your own. You need your sins completely washed away with the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and you have to be made righteous,
be made what you were not before. Do you need that? Come. You're thirsty. Come on. Whosoever
will. And the question always comes
up, okay, so you're talking about a free will then. You're talking about
a man enacting his free will. No. Man doesn't have a free will. Your will is tied completely
to your nature. Yes, in your area of domain, you can choose.
You can choose between sin and sin. You can choose between hatred
of God and hatred of God. You can choose rejection and
rejection. That's your span of influence right there. That's
what you can choose between. Man doesn't have a free will. Your
will is tied to your nature. But if you're willing to be saved
this way, in a manner to where you're going to be nothing in
this, just a trophy of the Lord's power and His grace, understand
this. You've been made willing. You've been given a new will.
That means there's a new man. There's a new nature in you. Come on. You're willing whosoever. And
finally, he says, take it freely. Freely. That means it will cost
you absolutely nothing. I've heard that statement over
the years several times, and it's absolutely true, absolutely true. But I've
also heard this statement, and I like this. It will cost you
one thing, one thing, and that is all your self-righteousness.
Any reliance you have on yourself, any good work or experience you've
held onto, it will cost you that. You will come naked and exposed.
You will come with absolutely nothing, nothing. It has been
said several times before, It will never be your sins that
will keep you from the Lord Jesus Christ. It will be your self-righteousness. That is the only thing that stands
in your way. And Naaman is not yet ready to part with his. He's
heard audibly. He's heard the little maid audibly,
but he hasn't heard in power. Go to verse five. And the king of Syria said, let's
stop there for just one moment. A little maid told him there
was a man in Israel. And he would recover him of his
leprosy. Does he go to him? He goes to
a king. He goes to the wrong place. 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 10 talents of silver and 6,000 pieces of gold and 10 changes
of raiment. And he brought the letter to
the king of Israel saying, Now, when this letter has 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 does send unto me to recover a man of his leprosy?
Wherefore, consider, I pray you, see how he seeketh a quarrel
against me." He's trying to start a fight with me. That's what
he's saying. He knows I can't do this. He's trying to start
a fight. Now, here's what I see here, and it's really kind of
simple. Naaman is told, there's a man and he will recover you.
No ifs, no ands, no buts about it. Not if you do this, he will.
Come to him, he will recover you. That's the statement here.
He doesn't go to him. He goes to a couple of kings
and these kings represent the law. Now, what did he get from
the king of Syria? Silver and gold and 10 changes
of raiment and a letter of recommendation. Ten coverings. What does that
sound like to you? Sounds like a man trying to establish
his own righteousness by the deeds of the law. Ten commandments,
ten coverings. That's exactly what that means.
And here's what he wants. He wants a letter of recommendation.
He wants to go to the law and say, I've kept you at least in
some way, shape, or form. I've come away with something.
It's written here on this letter, and I'm going to carry that to
the Lord and say, look, look what I've done. I have made myself at least
somewhat attractive. I have in some way earned your
favor. Here you go. Now, look favorably upon me.
But what does the King of Israel say? He says, am I God to kill
and to make alive? He wants me to recover this man
of his leprosy? I can't do that. He had no words of peace for
him. He had no words of comfort. He had no words of confidence.
And going to the law, we will never find peace. We will never
find comfort. We won't find any confidence
because there is one word that the law has to say to all of
us, guilty. Guilty, that's all it says, because
that's its only purpose, is to expose a man's sin. That's it. Now, look down at verse eight. Naaman had heard audibly, but
now he's gonna hear in power. 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 that
clothes? Let him come now to me, and he shall know that there
is a prophet in Israel. This is exactly when you and
I will come, when no longer we hear from a man, when we hear
from the prophet, the Lord himself. And when he says, come now, you're
going to come right now, because grace, thankfully, is irresistible
and invincible. But Naaman's going to continue
to make a mess of things. I identify with him real well, and he's
going to come the wrong way. Go down to the next verse. So Naaman
came every time the Lord calls, a man comes with his horses and
with his chariot and stood at the door of the house of Elisha.
Keep this in mind, Naaman is a big deal in the world. He's
a general. He's second only to the king. And I've had limited
experience with some generals. There's not that many in the
American military. They're few and far between. But here's what happens.
If you're an enlisted guy on a base, and there happens just
by some whim to be a general standing anywhere in close proximity
to you, say you're walking around a corner and you just run into
one, here's what you're going to do. You're immediately going to come
to the position of attention. You're going to run to a salute, you're
going to give the greeting of the day, and you're going to stand there,
just locked in, in the position of attention, until he dismisses
you. And if he's on his phone, or he's talking to somebody else,
and he's not paying any attention to you, you're just going to
stand there until he says, oh, yeah, go ahead, go about your
business. And that's what Naaman is used to. He's a man of power. He's a man of respect. He's used
to people being penitent to him. And he is so proud and so pompous
at this point, he won't even knock on Elisha's door. I know
exactly what he's thinking. He's thinking, listen, he knows
I'm coming. He knows I'm coming. He's probably been pacing around
his house all day, anxiously awaiting a man of my character.
He's got to come out to me. He's got to come to me. That's
exactly what he's thinking. Let's see what happens. Verse
10, And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash
in Jordan seven times, and my flesh shall come again to thee,
and thou shalt be clean. Number one, I want to address
this. So here's what I envision happening. So Naaman's standing
there, right? And he's a big deal. And he's standing in front
of the door. And he's about that close to the door. And he's like, I'm
not going to knock on this door. He's going to come to me. All
right? He knows I'm here. I'm going to wait out here. He's
going to come to me. I'm a big deal. And so he's standing that close to
the door. And the door opens. And there's just a messenger
here. And he's a nobody. And the messenger says, go wash in
Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall return. And he slams
the door. It just closes that far in front of his face. You
imagine that, how infuriating. That would be, but the Lord has
no respect for persons. We can be sure of that. But here's the
greater issue. Go and wash in Jordan seven times,
and thy flesh shall come again to thee. Seven, the number of
perfection. Where is it a man can go and
wash and be made perfect? To where his sins are no more. To where he stands righteous
before God. What can wash away a man's sin?
Y'all are singing the song in your head right now, I know you
are. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
But I wouldn't have you rest your hopes of salvation on a
psalm. I'll give you a scripture for this. David said this, Psalm
51.7, he said, Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter
than snow. Hyssop. Where do we read that?
The Passover. The Passover, the night of the
Passover, the Lord said, I'm going to pass through Egypt. I'm going to kill all
the firstborn in all the houses of the Egyptians. But you, my
people, here's what you're going to do. Slay a lamb. And you drain that blood
into a basin. You take a bunch of hyssop, and
you dip it in the blood. And you smear that blood over
the doorpost and on the side posts. And you get inside that
house. And when I see the blood, I'll pass it over you. There
was one thing the Lord was looking for, and that was blood. And
everybody who was inside that house with the blood over the
door, they were safe and they were secure, not for any other
reason other than the blood. The blood of the Lord Jesus Christ
is the only thing that can make atonement for a man's sin. That's
it. The Lord was looking for the blood, and it's not the blood
and. Hebrews 1.3 says, who being the brightness of his glory and
the expressed image of his person and upholding all things by the
word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins. He sat down at the right hand
of the majesty on high. The issue, folks, is by himself. Not his blood in your works.
Not his blood in your sincerity. Not his blood in your sorrow
over your sins. Not his blood in your faith. Blood alone. That's the only thing that can
wash a man clean. And this is going to have a reaction in men.
Let's see what the reaction is. Look at verse 11. But Naaman
was wroth. The blood alone will make a man
mad. That means his works don't count, which means he has to
take his rightful place as every other sinner out there. Naaman
was wroth and went away and said, Behold, I thought, I thought
he will surely come out to me and stand and call the name of
the Lord his God and strike his hand over the place and recover
the leper. Are not Abana 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. Now, Naaman's
mad. Naaman's mad. And the teaching
of the blood alone, it offends a man's sense of pride. And this
is what Naaman struggles with. Same thing I struggle with, pride.
Pride, he's got to be brought down. And he's mad, but he's
also mad about this. He said, I thought. I thought. Write this down. Everything we
naturally think about the Lord, how he saves sinners and ourself,
it's wrong. And I think this is interesting
what he says after that. He says, I thought he will surely come out to me.
Here's what I thought about this. The call of the religion of today,
the natural man's religion, is come any way you want. You just
come anywhere you want, come believing anything you want,
come to any God you want. You can make him into anything
you want and meet him on any grounds you want, and that's
absolutely fine. He'll accept you any old way. I thought he'd
come out to me. Man says, I don't like that sovereignty
thing. I don't like the fact that he's in control. I don't
like the fact that he holds me in the palm of his hand. I don't
care for that. I want a free will. I want some say in this. I want
him a little lower and me a little higher. Meet me on those grounds. Meet me on this platform right
over here and accept me. So listen, I don't have so much
a problem with that grace thing. It's that all of grace thing.
That bothers me. And what they'll say is, listen,
what that'll do is if you preach that, it'll lead men to sin.
What they mean is if you preach that, that means I have to take
my rightful place as a sinner with everyone else. And all those
works I thought I was performing over the years don't count for
anything. I mean, I spent a lot of time not committing all those
sins that I really wanted to commit. I mean, I have kept myself
back. I have made myself as holy as I possibly can. And you know
what? I want to be met on those grounds.
I want a bigger crown in glory. I don't like that all of grace
thing. You can mix them, though. Meet me on these grounds over
here. I don't like this holy God you're talking about. He's
too strict. He's too unapproachable. No,
I don't like him. He's got to come down some. I
want somebody more like me. Somebody I'd feel comfortable talking
to them on a first-name basis. Somebody more like me. I don't
like that unapproachable, God. Meet me over here. Come out to me. Meet me where I want to be met
at. Now, there's a half-truth to there, and you guys know exactly
where I'm going with this. The Lord will meet you on the grounds
you come to Him on. That's absolutely true. You want
to meet Him on the grounds of your free will, your works? Go
ahead. But His demands will always remain the same. His demands
are, number one, worship. Number two, holiness. That's
what he demands. And by nature, we can't come
up with those things. We cannot make ourself holy. We cannot
make ourself righteous. We cannot worship God. We lack
all that ability. He demands that. And you want
to come on those grounds, that's fine. Well, it's not fine, because
you're going to be turned away. But if you want to come to the
grounds of free grace, free grace, pleading to shed blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ alone, he will meet you on those grounds. Come
to me. Come to me. Nothing stands in your way but
you. That's it. Also said this. Look back at
verse 12 and look at the last verse. It says, so he turned
and went away in a rage. Let me ask this question. If
Naaman walks away and he refuses to walk in Jordan and to wash
in Jordan and he goes out to the desert and he dies in that
desert a leper, is anybody going to blame Elisha? Is anybody going to hold Elisha
accountable if Naaman walks away and says, no, I won't wash in
Jordan, and he goes out and he dies in the desert a leper? No
one says, no, this is Naaman's fault. If Naaman walks away,
that's on Naaman, absolutely. Now let me tell you this. Before
time began, God elected a people in Christ Jesus. He chose them
unto salvation. The Lord Jesus Christ came into
the world. He lived for those people. He bled for those people.
He died for those people. And he returned those people
back to his father. He accomplished their salvation, but only those
people, those particular people. Does that make you upset? It
shouldn't, because the picture is the exact same. We are all
born in this world running towards the gates of hell as fast as
we possibly can, shaking our fist in the face of the Lord,
wanting nothing to do with him, nothing to do with his grace,
and nothing to do with his gospel. And if the Lord chooses not to
intervene with a man, to not give a man what the man doesn't
want in the first place. Anybody going to hold him accountable
for that? Anybody going to say he's wrong? Folks, election does
not exclude men who want to be saved, and that's how the world
poses. There's this great number of people who wish to be saved.
They're crying out for mercy, and the Lord says, no, I just
didn't choose you. That's not the type. The type is everyone
is shouting crucify him, crucify him, but he intervenes with some
of us. And that's amazing that he would
intervene with any of us. Look at verse 13. And his servants came near and
spake unto him and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee to
do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? How much
rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash and be clean. What
they're saying here is, Naaman, if he would have told you to
take on an entire army by yourself, you would have done it. If he
would have told you to climb a mountain, if he would have
told you to burn your leprosy off with fire, you would have
done all those things. You would have done any of those things. But all
he's saying is wash and be clean. Do a very simple thing. And I
remember being young. I don't know how young I was,
probably 14 or 15. I was sitting right over there. Donnie Bell
was up here preaching. This is the first illustration I ever
think I heard in power. And Donnie Bell said this. He
said, if I sold you salvation, it cost you $10,000. Everyone
in this room would come up with $10,000. You'd come up with 10
grand for you, for your wife, for your kids. Everybody would
come up with the money. You'd go into debt. You'd get
five jobs. You'd rob a bank. You'd do whatever you had to
do to get that money, wouldn't you? But I tell you, it's free. That's absolutely free. It costs
you absolutely nothing. In fact, the only prerequisite
there is to getting it is to have nothing, to be completely
bankrupt, just an empty-handed, bankrupt sinner. And it's free.
And all you do is rest. Nobody wants it. Here's what
I thought. I was like, I want it. I want
it. I'm empty. I'm bankrupt. I want
it. That sounds good. But that's good news to a sinner.
That's good news to a sinner. Now, a man who's righteous, who
has his own righteousness, he's full of silver and gold, and
he's got his 10 changes of arraignment, that's bad news. That's bad news.
He's not going to have that big crown he's looking for. But to
a sinner, somebody's bankrupt, wash and be clean, sounds great. But Lord, wash me. Wash me. All right. The next verse, verse
14. Now, this is what happens when
the Lord breathes spiritual life into a man, and he brings a man
to a repentant state. Now, Naaman said, I thought.
I thought. He's going to change Naaman's
mind. He's going to turn him. He's going to do a work of grace
in his heart. Let's watch what happens. Then went he down. This is what happens when the
Lord does a work of grace in a man's heart. Here's what I envision happening.
So Naaman is walking off, and he's mad, and he's like, I'm
not going to have anything to do with this. I'm not going to deal with that.
I won't have any part of it. I'll die a leper. I don't care. And he's
walking along, and there's this still, small voice talking to
him the whole time. And all of a sudden, you see
him walk away, and he turns, and he just starts walking back.
His face was mad before, right? But now it's softened and everything,
and he starts walking towards Jordan. And he's wearing his
general's uniform, right? So he's got a big stack of ribbons.
And he's got all his garb on, a hat, shoes, things like that.
And he's trying to cover up as much of his flesh as he possibly
can, because he's a leper, right? And he starts walking towards
Jordan. And all of a sudden, you see the hat come off. He
throws it aside. Keeps on walking. You see the
shirt come off. Throws it aside. Kicks off his shoes. The pants
come off. And there he stands on the banks of Jordan, naked
and exposed, in front of his servants, in front of Elisha,
in front of himself. And he's no longer a captain.
He's no longer a great man. He's no longer honorable. He's
no longer a mighty man in valor. Now he's just a leper. That's
all everybody can see. And that's all he can see. He
just sees those sores and those wounds and those scabs. That's
all he can see. He's not those great things anymore. Now he's
just a leper. And now he's a candidate for
mercy. Watch what happens. 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." Imagine seeing this. So he gets
down in that water, goes under once, comes back up, nothing.
Under again, up, nothing. All the time. Seventh time, he
springs up out of there, and he's got new flesh, like a newborn
child, something new that was not there before. a holy man. Now, what does this look like? If you were to watch Naaman do
this, he goes above the water, under the water, and back up.
What does that look like? What is something we do in our
day that looks just like that? It's like a baptism, doesn't
it? A baptism. In believer's baptism, what are
we confessing? Confessing faith in the Lord Jesus Christ alone,
that he is our only hope. When we stand above the water,
we're saying when he lived, when he established that perfect righteousness,
my hope is that's when I lived, that I was in him. And when he
walked the paths of righteousness, I walked them too, in him. And
when he died, he died bearing my sins. He died bearing me in
his body. And when he died, I died. And
when he was raised again, signifying the full satisfaction having
made with his father, my hope is I was raised again in him,
incorruptible. a holy man. What this is pointing
to is the obedience of faith. Now, I'm going to leave you with
four questions, four very important questions. Number one, did the
dipping in Jordan, the waters of Jordan, did that wash away
Naaman's leprosy? No, it did not. The Lord washed
away Naaman's leprosy, the will of God. the purpose of God. God
himself washed away. Name is leprosy. Let me ask this.
Does faith save a man? Strictly speaking, no. The Lord
saves a man. The will of God saves a man.
The shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ saves a man. Faith believes
that. Faith is the byproduct of the
Lord saving a man. He saved us and he called us
with a holy calling. What came first? The saving.
And everybody he saved, everybody he died for, they will believe. Now, would Naaman have been cleansed
if he refused to dip in Jordan? No. Will a man be saved if he refuses
to come to the Lord Jesus Christ? No. I'm going to leave you here,
right here. Your command is not an invitation. It is a gracious command. Your
command right now, you, pretend you're the only person sitting
in this room, is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And when
you're coming to him, the emphasis is on who you're coming to and
not what you're leaving. You are leaving yourself, leaving
any hopes of salvation based on your own merits, and you're
coming to Christ and you're casting all your cares on him. and trusting
him alone. And that is what you are commanded
to do right now. Obey the command. Thank you. Let's stand and sing the Solid
Rock 272. 272.