I would like for you to open
your Bibles to the book of 2 Kings, 2 Kings chapter 5. Let's bow for prayer. Our Father, we ask you in the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ to bless the Word that we read
tonight. and the message that you've laid
upon my heart to preach. Make your word to be effectual
to every heart. Bless all of our brethren who
preach tonight. Lord, give us wisdom and grace
and the power of thy spirit to preach the gospel of Christ.
Pray for our pastor tonight. Pray for Lynn and the family. Ask you, Lord, to continue Blessed
Brother Todd, with your presence and your power and much grace
and faith and healing for his body, we pray for Christ's sake. Amen. I want to read the first 14 verses
of 2 Kings chapter 5. Let's read these first 14 verses. Now, Nahum, captain of the host
of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master. He was an
honorable man, because by him the Lord had given deliverance
unto Syria. He was also a mighty man in valor,
but he was a leper. And the Syrians had gone out
by companies and had brought away captive out of the land
of Israel a little maid, and she served or waited on Naaman's
wife. And she said to her mistress,
Would God, my Lord, Naaman, Mr. Naaman, were with the prophet
that is in Samaria, for he would recover him of his leprosy. And
one went in and told his lord, saying, Thus and thus said the
maid that is of the land of Israel. And the king of Syria said to
Naaman, Go to now, and I'll send the letter to the king of Israel.
And Naaman departed, and took with him ten talents of silver,
and six thousand pieces of gold, ten changes of raiment, and he
brought the letter to the king of Israel, saying, Now when this
letter is come unto thee, behold, I have therewith sent Naaman
my servant to thee, that thou mayest recover him of his leprosy. And it came to pass, when the
king of Israel had read this letter, he ran his clothes, and
he said, Am I God? to kill and make alive, that
this man doth send unto me to recover a man of his leprosy?
Wherefore, I consider, I pray thee, and see if he seeketh a
quarrel against me. And it was so when Elisha, the
man of God, had heard that the king of Israel had rent his clothes,
that he sent to the king, saying, Wherefore hast thou rent thy
Let Naaman come now to me, and he shall know that there is a
prophet in Israel." So Naaman came with his horses and with
his chariot and stood at the door of the house of Elisha. And Elisha sent a messenger unto
him saying, Go wash in Jordan seven times. and thy flesh shall
come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean. But Naaman was
wroth, and he went away. And he said, Behold, I thought
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. are not Abbana and Pharpha rivers
of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash
in them and be clean?" So he turned and went away in a rage. And his servants came to him
and spake unto him and said, My father, if the prophet had
bidden thee do some great Wouldst thou not have done it? How much
rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean? Then Naaman went down. The title of my message is The
Way Up is Down. Then he went down, and he 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. And he returned to the man of
God. He and all his company came and
stood before him and said, Behold, now I know that there is no God
in all the earth but in Israel. Now therefore I pray thee, take
a blessing of thy servant. This whole chapter has to do
with Naaman and Elisha and his being healed and what followed
afterwards. And we know this is true because
our Lord Jesus Christ referred to this incident in Luke chapter
4. And I want you to take the time
to turn to Luke chapter 4. The master says this is a true
story, not a doubt about it. In Luke chapter 4. In other words,
the Lord Jesus Christ referred to the healing of Naaman and
also he gave it as an example of his sovereignty over all people
and over all things. The Lord's sovereignty. Now watch
this. In Luke 4 verse 20, 25. Luke 4, 25. But I'll tell you
of a truth. Many widows were in Israel in
the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six
months, and when great famine was throughout all the land.
Unto none of them, but unto none of them was Elias sent, save
unto Sarepta, the city of Sidon, unto a widow, a woman that was
a widow." And watch this. And there were many lepers in
Israel in the days of Eliseus the prophet, Elisha, and none
of them were cleansed. None of them was cleansed save
Naaman the leper. So, our master says this is true. This happened. Now then, two
questions. Did the waters of the Jordan
River have power to heal leprosy? Did you ever read anything about
the waters of the Jordan River healing anybody's leprosy? No. Well, let me ask you this. Would
Naaman, would the Lord have healed Naaman without his doing what
the prophet said, without his going and dipping in the river
Jordan seven times? No. Then what do we have here? I'll tell you the lesson. Here
it is. Naaman is a proud, Arrogant, successful man. And salvation is of the Lord
and he's got to learn that. Salvation is of the Lord. Secondly,
Naaman has to discover his own poverty, his inability and his
impending death. Death is right on his heel. He's
got to discover that. And Naaman's pride? And self-importance
has got to be slain before he can be healed. Because the way
up is always down. The way up is always down. And
Nahum has got to learn these things. And that's what the Lord
is showing him. Our Lord said, I didn't come
to call the righteous. I came to call sinners. Our Lord
said, the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost. Humble yourselves unto the mighty
hand of God that he may exalt you in due time. My old friend,
Brother L.R. Shelton, who preached down in
New Orleans, Louisiana, so many years, he used to say this over
and over again. If a man misses Holy Spirit conviction,
if he misses Holy Spirit conviction of sin, of guilt and of inability,
you'll miss repentance. Except you repent, you'll perish.
He said, secondly, if a man misses repentance, if he misses conviction,
he'll miss repentance. If he misses repentance, which
puts the man in a dust, he'll miss faith. And without faith,
no man can please God. And if he misses the Holy Spirit
conviction, He misses repentance, he'll miss faith, and if he misses
faith, he'll miss Christ and he'll die in his sins. So it
goes back to Holy Spirit conviction. It goes back to discovering who
I am and what I am. Consider this for a moment. Every
command of God, every command of God to come to Christ presupposes
a need. Every command to come to Christ
presupposes a need. For example, listen, Matthew
11, 28. Come unto me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden. You've got a need there, seriously.
Labor and heavy laden. You come to me and I will give
you rest. Look at this, John 7, 37. If
any man thirsts, there's the need. If any man thirsts, and
come to me, and drink, and out of his belly shall flow rivers
of living water." Think about this. Our message this morning,
if you knew the gift of God, if you knew the gift of God,
and who it is that saith unto thee, give me a drink, you would
ask, if you knew, if you had that need, if you had that desire,
if you had that understanding, You would ask of me and I'd give
you living water. Got to have the need. The need
has got to be established. One old Puritan said this, approach
my soul, the mercy seat where Jesus answers prayer. There, broken, fall at his feet. You cannot perish there. Can't do it. No lost, hell-deserving,
undeserving, guilty sinner ever came to Christ for mercy and
went away empty. But you've got to find out who
you are and what you are, and Naaman's got to find that out.
So let's look at this story. In verse 1, Now Naaman, captain
of the host of Syria, was a great man with his master, an honorable
man. an honorable man, because by
him the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria. And he was a mighty
man in valor, but he was a leper. God had blessed this man with
many victories, but something was dead wrong, seriously wrong. He was a leper. He had at this
time an incurable disease. He could cover that disease with
his uniform and with his hats and with his glove, he could
cover those spots on his body from the eyes of men, but something
was dead wrong. He was a leper. And I tell you,
that's the problem with us. I know there's folks in this
world that are nice folks, that there's some people with talent
and gifts. They're known in the world as
good men and women. But every one of us in Adam are
sinners. We died in Adam. We're guilty
in Adam. My brother was a Naaman. Naaman
was a military man. My brother was a military man.
My brother went through three wars. World War II, Korea, and
Vietnam. He was a colonel. The full bird
colonel. I'm proud of him. Very proud
of him. He went through all of the schools
and all these things and went through the wars and died at
48 years of age. And was buried in Arlington Cemetery
with a full military funeral, even the ride of his horse and
all these things. I'm proud of him. He's a good
brother. He's a nice brother. We grew
up together. We used to pass our clothes down
from him to me. He was my older brother. He'd
come down at night. But he was a nailman. And you
find a lot of men like this. My brother, the last time we
were together at my mother's funeral, he was sitting in the
kitchen. I think Doris was with me. And
a friend of mine was with us. And the subject of salvation
was brought up. And this friend looked at my
brother and said, John, are you saved? He stood up like nailman
in a rage. And he said, I leave that sort
of thing to the chaplains. And walked out. He was a nice
brother. He's a leper. A spiritual leper. With all the spots and the filth
and the guilt of sin. And he's gone. You know, you
can turn to Romans chapter 3 and read about all of us. Turn to
chapter 3 of Romans and read about all of us here. It's just,
it's nature. It's nature. In Romans chapter
3, beginning with verse 10. As it is written, there's none
righteous, no, not one. There's none that understandeth.
There's none that seeketh after God. They're all gone out of
the way. They've together become unprofitable.
There's none that do it good, no, not one. Their throat's an
open sepulchre where their tongues have used deceit. Their portion
of ash is under their lips. Their mouth is full of cursing
and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed
blood, destruction and misery in their way and the way of peace.
They have not known. There's no fear of God before
their eyes. Now, we know that what the law say, that it seems
to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped.
That's what's got to happen. And all the world become guilty
before God. Naaman's mouth's got to be stopped.
My brother's mouth's got to be stopped. My mouth's got to be
stopped. We all are guilty before God. Something wrong, dead wrong,
and it leads to death. And that's our sin. All right,
Naaman, let's see about verse 2 through 5. And the Syrians
had gone out by companies and had brought away captive out
of the land of Israel a little maiden. And she weighed on Naaman's
wife. And she said, under her mistress,
Would God, my Lord, were with the prophet that is in Samaria,
he'd recover him of his leprosy. And one weaning told his Lord,
saying, Thus and thus saith the mages in the land of Israel.
And the king of Israel said, Go to now, go to now, and I'll
send a letter to the king of Israel. And he departed and took
with him. Naaman left, and he went to find
healing, but he took the wrong things with him. He took the
wrong things with him. Listen, he took ten talents of
silver, 6,000 pieces of gold and 10 changes of raiment. That's
the thinking of the natural man. If you want something, buy it.
If you want it bad enough, give anything you have to get it.
But that's the only way to get it, by buying it. And we know
this, Peter said, We're not redeemed with corruptible things from
our vain conversation received by tradition from our fathers,
but with the precious blood of Christ. Not silver and gold,
but with the precious blood of Christ as a lamb without spot
or blemish. Not by works of righteousness
which is done, but according to his mercy hath he redeemed
us. This is the plea of the people
at the judgment. The last judgment, when they
stood before the Lord in Matthew 7, and they said, Lord, we preached
in your name. We did many wonderful works in
your name. We cast out devils in your name.
We did all these things. We brought all of our tithes
and offerings and our time and our talent, and we gave them
to you. And he said, depart from me. I never knew you. You workers. of iniquity. If you will, they tell me, God
will. That's usually the proposition
at every altar call. If you will, God will. That's
backwards. If God will, you will. Not if
you will, God will. If God wills, you will. That's
what that leper said who came to our Lord when our Lord Came
down from the mountain and a leper ran to meet him. And he said,
and he worshipped the Lord. And he said, if you will, you
can make me whole, if you will. Old Naaman, he wanted cleansing,
but it took the wrong things with him. And listen to this. He went to the wrong place. And
he went to the wrong person. Look at verse 6. He brought a
letter to the king of Israel. Nobody said anything about the
king of Israel. This young girl said, would God
that my Lord Naaman was with the prophet, was with the prophet
in Israel. Not with the king of Israel,
with the prophet. Now, when this letter is come
unto thee, behold, I have therewith sent Naaman my servant to thee,
that you may recover him of his leprosy. recovering him of his
leprosy. What prophet is the girl talking
about? She's talking about Elisha. But
every prophet of God is a type of Christ. Every prophet of God
is a type of Christ. And the prophet to whom the scripture
is referring here is that prophet. Let me show you that scripture.
Turn to Deuteronomy chapter 18. Deuteronomy chapter 18, verse,
let's start with verse 17. Deuteronomy 18, 17. This is the
prophet. This is the prophet. Deuteronomy
18, verse 17. And the Lord spake to Moses,
they have well spoken that which they have spoken. I will raise
them up a prophet. from among their brethren like
unto thee, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall
speak unto them all that I command him, and it shall come to pass
that whosoever will not hearken to his words, to my words that
he shall speak in my name, I will require of him." God does send
his prophets and his apostles and his preachers to tell sinners
about the Christ who saves. And Naaman came to the wrong
place. He came to the king instead of
to the prophet. He came to the wrong person instead
of coming to the prophet. Now look at verse 9. And finally
Naaman got to the prophet. He finally got to the prophet.
In 2 Kings 5 verse 8. And it was so when Elisha, the
man of God, had heard that the king of Israel had rent his clothes,
that he sent to the king, saying, Wherefore hast thou rent thy
clothes? let him come to me, and he shall
know there is a prophet in Israel. So Naaman came with his horses
and with his chariot and stood at the door of the house of Elijah. He came to the prophet But he
came with the wrong attitude. He stood at the door of this
humble dwelling. I can just imagine it. Elisha
and his servant Gehazi. Elisha had a small house or dwelling
place and probably a dirt floor. And he was inside. And when Naaman
came, he stood at the door. He didn't dare go in that place. with his stars and bars and swagger
stick and all his gold braid. He stood outside with all of
his people and let the prophet come to him. He just had the
wrong attitude, the wrong spirit. You know what? This man is a
dying leper. This man is a rotten, helpless
leper. But he considers himself somebody. He considers himself a great
man who happens to have leprosy. He considered himself a great
man. He's too important to go in that
house. He's too important for that man
to come out and speak to him. He stood at the door of that
little humble dwelling. He considered himself a great
man who happened to be a leper. But you know what he really is?
He was a stinking, dying leper who happened to be, for a little
while, a great man. There's a lot of difference.
There's a lot of difference. He thought he was a great man
who happened to be a leper. No, he was a leper, a dying leper. who happens to be a great man
for just a little while. Oh, pride. Pride stops people
from a lot of blessings from God. Pride, pride. Humble yourself
under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in due
time. Pride groweth before destruction.
Holy Spirit before the fall. Six things God hates. Seven is
an abomination to him. I want you to listen to one of
the greatest things I ever read on this subject. Neheman came
to the prophet with the wrong attitude. Arrogance and pride. Listen to this. Pride is natural
to our flesh. It grows in the heart of every
person like weeds in a garden and leaves on a tree. Pride is
hard to destroy. If you kill it, it revives. If
pride is buried, it comes forth in the tomb. No man has more
pride than the man who thinks he has none. You may hunt down
pride in your life and think you've killed it, but your very
exultation and feeling of victory over pride is pride. Pride has a thousand faces. And
by perpetual change, it escapes captivity and destruction. Pride
is found in the pulpit. It's found in the prison. It's
found in the old. It's found in the young. It's
found in the rich. It's found in the poor. It's
found in the educated. It's found in the ignorant. It's
found in the believer. And it's found in the unbeliever. And sometimes, Pride even grows
on the very medicine which ought to kill it. The way up, down, down. An old neighbor listened
to him. Verse 11. Elijah, he didn't come
out. He didn't greet the man. He was
inside the city serving out. I just killed this man, just
killed him, just utterly, utterly devastated that that man wouldn't
come out and greet him. And he sent his servant Gehazi
out and the servant told him, my master said for you to go
wash seven times in the river Jordan and your flesh would come
clean. And damn one, listen to verse
11. And there was Roth. He went away.
He said, I thought, behold, I thought, I thought that He would come
to me. No, you're going to go to Him.
Your pride's got to go down. No, He's not coming to you. You've got to go to Him. I thought
He would stand before me. No, you're going to bow in the
dust before Him. I'm not talking about Elijah.
I'm talking about the Lord God. I thought he would call on his
God. No, you're going to call on the
name of your God, the Lord your God. I thought he would strike
his hand over the place. The place is not your problem.
The heart's your problem. The heart's your problem. The
nature's your problem. That's your problem. I thought. I thought. Man's thoughts are
not God's thoughts. And then he said, are not Abana
and Farfa, 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. I just imagine he was popping
that swagger stick. I've watched them do that, Bob.
They get all outraged and getting on the men. They'll stop popping
that swagger stick and walking off. His coat covered up, keeping
his leprosy out of sight. His gloves, you know, keeping
his leprosy not seen and all these things. He started walking
away. And this servant said, my father, If the prophet had
bid you do some great thing, would you not have done it? Then
how much rather, when he says, wash and be clean? Well, old
Airman finally did something right. He was wrong. He took the wrong things with
him. He went to the wrong place. He went to the wrong person.
He went with the wrong attitude. And now he's doing something
right. Four words. Then went he down. Then went he down. Stripped. I just imagine that was a very
difficult thing for him. He took off that hat and there
was that scale all over his head. I saw, I've seen lepers when
I went to Africa. Back in the 50s. Saw one in Yukstown
not too awful long ago. And then he took off that jacket,
and there it was, the spots all over his skin. Everybody, I imagine,
turned their heads. My, I tell you, when we get a
good look at ourself, it ought to turn your head. We get a good
look in our hearts, we ought to turn our heads. Took off his
pants and everything, his boots, and laid his swagger stick down
and his gold braid and stood there naked. Nothing in the world
but a dead, dying mass of human flesh under the judgment of God. He went down, down, down. And
he stepped in that water, not once, not twice, seven times,
just like the prophet said, seven times. And his flesh came again like
unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. And when he
returned to the man of God, he returned a different man. And
we will, too. We return a different man. He came and didn't ask the man,
the prophet, to stand before him. He came and stood before
the prophet and said, Would you take a gift?
We should take a gift. You can read about this as you
read on, but there's got to be a willing heart. There's got
to be a broken heart. There's got to be a smitten heart. There's got to be a real repentance
and a contrition before God if we're going to come to Christ. God doesn't save proud men. He
saves sinners. He saves lost people. Pride goeth before destruction
or the heart or spirit before the fall. Back in the Civil War
times, both I've read about this and some of you men have read
about it. It was such a terrible, terrible time that they were
having revival meetings and there seemed to be a work of God not
only in the Confederate forces, but in the
Union forces, there seemed to be a turning to God. It was a
terrible time, four years of bloodshed and warfare and devastation
and some people turning to God. I read about this story and down south on one of the plantations,
there was a group of the slaves, the black people, who got together
every evening after work, after they got their work done, they
got together to preach and to pray and to sing. And they had
an outstanding young black preacher, powerful preacher. And a lot
of them came to hear him. They came to hear this fine preacher
preach the gospel. And one evening, the slave owner,
the master, he walked down and stood in the shadows. and listen
to this man preach. And this old man could preach.
Powerful, powerful. And the next night, the slave
owner went down to listen to him again. And the next night,
and finally, after the crowd had dismissed, the slave owner
walked up to the old preacher and said to him, said, Rube,
he said, I believe the Lord has done a work of grace in my heart.
I believe He's broken me down and I'd like to be saved. How
can I be saved? He said, I'm on the slaves and
I've worked them. How can I be saved? He said,
Master, you see that pig pen over there? I said, go get in
it and just water it. And he got so angry, like old
mailman, he just went away in a rage. But he couldn't stay
away. The next night, he was back there
in the shadows listening to that old black preacher preach the
gospel. And he said to him after he dismissed,
he said, now, Rube, he said, I don't want any of your foolishness.
I want to know how to be saved. He said, Master? He said, you
see that pig pen? I see the pig. Go get in it. He got mad again and walked away. Finally, he heard the old black
preacher the third time. And after this crowd had gone
away, he moved forward and he said, now, rude, he said, I'll
do anything. I need to be saved. What should
I do? Master, you see that pig pen? He said that, the master just
turned and started walking right straight toward the pigpen. And
the black preacher stood there and said, Master! He turned and
said, What is it? He said, Is you going to get
in that pigpen? If it takes that to be saved, I'm getting in the
pigpen. He kept walking. Finally, he
put one foot on the rail. About that time, he turned and
the preacher said, Master, you really going to get in that pig
pen? If it takes that to be saved, I'm getting in the pig pen. He
said, Master, you don't have to get in. You just got to be
willing to get in. Oh, old man got to be willing. You
got to be willing. That's it. The first must be
a willing heart. Come to Christ, to love Christ,
submit to Christ, cling to Christ, continue with Christ, live with
Christ, glorify Christ, and be with Him forever. You've got
to be with Him. That's what that's all about.
That's what that's all about. Nobody else ever went to the
Jordan River and got cleansed of leprosy. Nobody else. But this man did. And he had
to do what the prophet said. He had to be willing. I'm preaching too long, but let
me read you something that I picked up. Suppose that you could be saved,
become a Christian by sprinkling water, drinking some wine at
the Lord's table, or memorizing a catechism, or eating a wafer,
or an external ceremony. Suppose you could be saved by
doing things like that. What about your heart? Out of
it are the issues of life. And your heart would still love
evil. The defiling sin would still be there. And you would
not love God nor enjoy His fellowship. What about your heart? Then secondly,
what about your nature? If you could be a Christian by
doing these things, external ceremonies can't touch the nature.
The evil nature which causes us to hate and to envy and to
get revenge and to show no mercy. That evil nature would still
be there. And you would have no desire for righteousness.
What about your mind? If you could become a Christian
by doing these things, what about your mind? Gospel mysteries would
still be mysteries. God's wisdom would still be unknown.
There could be no praise for His great glory. And His glory
would be useless if you didn't love it with your mind. What
about heaven? If you could gain heaven by one
of these deeds or duties or works, heaven would be an unhappy place
for you. For the unregenerate would be
an unhappy place. Would a man enjoy eternity with
Christ in the atmosphere of godliness that he found to be repulsive
and uninteresting on the earth? No, not at all. So then the author said, come
Holy Spirit, heavenly dove, with all your quickening powers, and
kindle a flame of love divine in this cold heart of ours. Down. All right, brother. Dr. Walmsley, come and lead us
in a closing hymn.