Luke chapter 4 and 2 Kings chapter
5. You turn to those two places.
Luke chapter 4 and 2 Kings chapter 5. We looked this morning at
the mission of mercy. The Lord coming to preach the
gospel to the poor and to grind up the broken hearted and so
on. Tonight we want to look at discriminating mercy. A mission
of mercy and discriminating mercy. Let's begin here in verse 20
of chapter 4 of Luke and begin here and read. This was the place
where the Lord Jesus had been brought up. When they left Bethlehem, they
came back up here by the way of Egypt and this is where He
lived and was brought up in this little town of Nazareth. And
He came back here and He went into the synagogue and they had
heard about his spying, what he had been doing in other places.
And he goes back here, he takes out the Bible, he opens it up
and he reads about him being sent to heal the brokenhearted
and so on. And here in verse 30, he closed
the book and gave it again unto the minister and said, And the
eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on
him. And He began to say unto them, This day is this Scripture
fulfilled in your ears. Well, no doubt, most of those
there knew where this passage was found. And they knew it was
prophesied of the Messiah, the King that was coming. And they
said, Who does He think He is? We know His Daddy. We know His
brothers and His sisters. He's just a mere man. He may
be a great man. We don't know that for sure.
Who does he think he is? Who is he making himself out
to be? Matthew's gospel says they were offended in him. They
were offended in him. And he says here in verse 22,
And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words
which proceeded out of his mouth. I imagine he had been expounded
on verse 18. He probably preached from the
very same verse that I preached from this morning, but I know
this much. He did a lot better job than I did. But they said,
the gracious words that come out of his mouth. I imagine he
began to tell them, don't you, that I've come to aid the poor. I've come to make men rich. I've
come to heal broken hearted. And he began to explain what
that was. And they said, man, what grace. But then they said,
is this not Joseph's son? And then in verse 23, He said
unto them, You will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician,
doctor, heal yourself. Whatsoever we have heard done
in Capernaum, do also here in thy country. And what they were
saying was, you finally got back to your
hometown. These people were so jealous, they were sort of tribal.
If one city, one region got something they didn't have, they were so
jealous. If some prophet rose up in some region that God didn't
raise up the prophet, they were so jealous. And they said, we've
heard you've been over there in Capernaum doing these great
things. Why don't you come over here
then and show us what you can do over here? Do these great
miracles in front of us, your hometown. They were offended
in him. They were offended. And in verse
24, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own
country. Familiarity. Boy, that's dangerous,
isn't it? Familiarity. How many people
have we seen get gospel hardened? They've said unto the gospel,
and said unto the gospel, and said unto the gospel, and they're
so familiar with hearing the gospel. They're so familiar with
hearing the name of Jesus Christ the Lord. They're so familiar
with hearing the gospel of grace. It means nothing to them. Familiarity. Oh, I've got honor, Christ said.
It's just not among my own nation. It's not among my own family.
even some of my own friends, familiarity. But then here in
verse 25, But I tell you of a truth. Many widows were in Israel in
the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up for three
years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the
land, and no telling how many people died. But unto none of
them was Elijah sent. There were many widows in Israel,
but God did not send Elijah to any of those widows in Israel. That's amazing, isn't it? We
don't know if He sent another prophet or not. I don't know
that. But He didn't send this prophet. He sent this prophet
to a Gentile woman who had a little boy. Remember that? She was outside
and Elijah was hungry and he walked up to her gate and he
said, could I have a glass of water? And she turned to go get
him a glass of water and he said, would you make me a little bowl
of bread? I'm hungry. And she said, as God liveth,
all I got is a little handful of meal. And I'm getting ready
to make that cake for me and my son and then after that we're
going to die. And he said, I tell you what
you do, you go into your house and before you make you and your
son a cake, you make me one. And you bring it out to me and
this is the promise from God to you. That meal will stay. That meal will last. However
long this famine lasts, that's how long that meal is going to
last. And he stayed there with her during this famine and that
handful of meal stayed Every time she went to the barrel,
there it was. She got out everything she needed to feed her family.
The Lord sustained that widow woman during this family. But
she was a gentile woman. That's what we call discriminating
mercy, isn't it? When mercy passes by one or passes
by many and lays hold upon someone else, that's discriminating mercy. Somebody said there's two ways
that God makes us appreciate mercy. One is by making me feel
my need of it. Men need mercy. They just don't
know it. Everybody needs mercy, but they don't know it until
the Lord comes and makes us feel our need of mercy. That's one
way. Another way is this. When God
teaches us that mercy is free, you can't earn it. You can't
merit it. And when I say free, it's free
in His hand. Mercy discriminates. That's what
the Lord is teaching them here. He's saying this, you fellows,
you're in Nazareth. I know you're familiarity with
Me. I know that you're offended in Me. I know you don't believe
Me. You don't appreciate what I'm doing here. And I'm not going
to do many miracles among you because you don't even believe
Me. But He said, be careful of this.
You better be careful of this. You better be careful not to
sin against mercy. You better be careful not to
sin against mercy. Because mercy is free. And God
don't owe it to you. And if He withholds it, you're
in trouble. You're in trouble. Boy, that's
an awakening thing. Discriminating mercy is an awakening
thing. If we have any ideal, if we see
any evidence, in our own hearts that the Lord is visiting us. Well, I tell you, it's good to
humble ourselves before Him and praise Him and thank Him for
it. And ask Him for grace to believe Him and give ourselves
up to Him. Because I'm telling you, He owes
us nothing but justice, does He? Justice doesn't discriminate. It goes to the guilty and finds
the guilty and punishes him. But mercy discriminates. It passes
by this guilty and that guilty and lays hold upon this guilty
person. And it's usually the most miserable person in the
world, is it not? And then he gives another example
in verse 27. And there were many lepers in
Israel in the time of Elijah. the prophet. And none of them
was cleansed saving Naaman the Syrian. Two Gentiles. Two Gentiles. This woman, she was a Gentile
from up around Sidon. And Naaman, he was a leper, a
general over Syria. He was the king of Assyria's
general. Fought many battles for him. Only those two people. Mercy laid hold upon a widow
woman that was starving to death, and upon a man that had leprosy. And passed by all these Israelites. Discriminating mercy. Now, how
does people feel about that? How does people feel about that?
Well, look in verse 28. And all they in the synagogue,
when they heard these things, were filled with wrath. and rose
up and thrust him out of the city and led him into the brow
of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast
him down headlong." There's something about discriminating mercy. Flesh
despises it. And when these Jews who counted
themselves such privileged people, if God should love anybody and
visit anybody and do good to anybody, it's a Jew. Because
look at us, we're such fine people. And boy, when they heard about
this, they said, man, that's awful, that's awful. Passed by
us? Passed by our country in any
sense and go to a dead dog's head to save him? We don't like
that. And I tell you one thing that gets to religious people,
you go find a self-righteous legalist and you teach him about
God's discriminating mercy, he'll make you mad. Just let God pass
him by. God can pass you by and go save
a harlot or go save a publican. And you know what he says? Oh,
I hate that. I hate that. If I could get my hands on him,
I'd kill him. There's something about discriminating mercy that
stirs up the enmity of a man's natural mind. Discriminating
mercy. I want you to turn with me now
over to Kings chapter 5 and let's look at this story right quickly
about Naaman. about naming. And when I talk about discriminating
mercy, I'm not saying that the Lord knocks somebody in the head
and drags them to Himself kicking and screaming. People misunderstand
when we talk about electing grace, when we talk about effectual
calling or irresistible calling or something like that. That's
the ideal that some men give. Oh, you're just saying that God
treats us like robots. And He knocks us in the head
and He saves us against our will and all this. But when we talk
about discriminating mercy, God visiting this person and delivering
him by mercy, that doesn't mean that God eliminates all the means
and all the methods that He's pleased to use. And that's what
I want us to see in this story of Nehemiah. Mercy was going
to this man and mercy was going to accomplish its mission. But
let's look how the Lord works. Let's look how He works. Over
in 2 Kings chapter 5. Just go with me through these
passages here. Look at this. In verse 1. Now Naaman, captain of the host
of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master. A great
man. A captain. A great man. with his master, and honorable,
because by him the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria. And he
was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper. But he was a
leper. Boy, nobody's going to get away
from that, are they? We talk about great men, I mean,
you know, who's who in history and all of this. Great presidents,
great generals, great soldiers, great inventors. But you know
they all have something in common. They are all lepers. They are
all afflicted with sin. That afflicts everybody, doesn't
it? Even the children of God. You
talk about great preachers. There have been some great preachers.
And the Lord has mightily used them hymn writers that wrote
great hymns. You think of old Isaac Watts
and Fanny Crosby whose song that we just sang. The Lord has used
men and women in a mighty way. But I tell you there is something
that can be said about every last one of them. They are sinners. Only a sinner saved by grace. Here was a mighty man and even
the Lord had used Naaman to deliver Syria time and time again in
these battles. But he was a leopard. And all
of us can say that, can't we? All of us are afflicted with
that. He was a leopard. He was a leopard. In verse 2,
look at this. And the Syrians had gone out
by companies. Some people think these were
just renegade troops, that they weren't actually soldiers of
Syria. They had these renegade troops in all of these nations
that they would get together and they'd go into these border
towns and rob them and pilfer and take captives away and sell
them. And that may have been what happened here. They had
a bunch of renegade people, soldiers that went into the town and they
took this woman, this young lady, away from her family. Look at
it. The Syrians had gone out in the companies and had brought
away captive out of the land of Israel, a little maid, and
she waited on Naaman, Naaman's wife. And in verse 3, 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 in the land of Israel. Now this is amazing to me, and
when we think of discriminating grace, here's one of the first
things that we see, that the Lord uses means, doesn't He? He said, I'm going to have mercy
upon Naaman. I'm going to cleanse him of his
leprosy. That was His purpose. But here, look at what humble
means He uses. This little maid, Now, you and
I can learn something from this, brothers and sisters. We sometimes
think, well, if the Lord's going to do something, even if He does
it through us, everything's going to go real easy. How many times
have we thought that? If it don't go easy, we think,
well, the Lord's not in it. If it's going to happen, it's
going to come so easy and we're not going to have to labor, we're
not going to have to suffer. But you know, that usually isn't
the way the Lord works, is it? He was going to have mercy upon
Naaman, and He was going to do it by this means, but look at
the means He used. He used it by the means of afflicting
this poor family. Can you imagine what her parents
thought when their daughter was kidnapped? Can you imagine the
sleepless nights her parents had? What has happened to our
daughter? What kind of state she's in? How is she being abused? Don't you imagine night after
night they poured their hearts out to the Lord to keep their
little daughter safe? And what about her? Man, she
was in this strange country. No doubt she was full of fear
and doubt, wondering what was going to happen to her. But you
know something? In this affliction and through
this affliction, The Lord was pleased to use this little girl
to get the message of mercy, to name it. And it's been so
in my life. It's been so in my little ministry.
I thought when the Lord had called me to preach that it would be
a little tough. That's one reason why I hesitated
as long as I could. But I had no idea it was going
to be rough as it was. And it is! And you can't please
people, can you? And you carry the burden, will
you, 24 sevens? But you know something? That
seems to me like when the Lord uses people. If He's going to
use somebody, He's going to bring them under great afflictions.
He was going to use this little girl, but not in her house, not
in her country. He said, I'm going to use you.
And how He mightily used her. We're talking about this today,
aren't we? I bet you people all over the known world at this
time knew what had happened to this great man. They knew he
was a leper and now he's cured! He's healed! What a miracle! And this little girl, God used
to bring this about, but she was afflicted. I just think sometimes that we
think this is going to be too easy. And we ask the Lord to
use us and work through us, but when it gets tough, we say, he
must not be going to work. That may be exactly when he's
working. Charles Spurgeon, some of you have got the little biography,
the new biography of Charles Spurgeon. If you've got that,
I suggest, I would really encourage you to listen to that because
I knew that Spurgeon had had a lot of difficulty in his ministry,
but I had no idea that he suffered like he did. The Lord began to
bless that man, and they outgrew the building. In two years, at
Park Street, they outgrew their building. The Lord was saving
people, baptizing people, and they rented a building, a huge
building, until they built the tabernacle. And somebody got
up, six or eight thousand people are in this auditorium, somebody
got up and hollered, And they stampeded out of that place and
several people died in that body. Spurgeon had a nervous breakdown.
They didn't know if he was going to be able to even think right
again, let alone preach. The man was afflicted with gout.
In his older age, he had to always leave England in the wintertime
and go to men's conference. His wife was invalid for years,
recovered a little bit in her old age. He had people to turn
on him. The downgrade controversy, the
modernists come in and lied to him and treated him like he was
a dog. He suffered extremely. But I don't know of a modern
preacher that was more blessed than Charles Haddon's Virgin
of the Lord. But he suffered. He suffered. That's what we see
in this poor woman here. Discriminating mercy doesn't
mean that God's going to come down and knock somebody in the
head. It means He's going to work through mercy. Boy, how
He works sometimes is bringing the rest of us down to nothing.
And boy, the Lord Jesus is a perfect example of that, isn't He? Boy,
He come and things weren't easy for Him, was it? He was despised
and rejected of men. They were going to throw Him
over the brow of the hill, tempted in all points like as we were,
and went to the cross and exalted only out of attunement. And He's
left us in an example of suffering. No, just because things get rough,
brothers and sisters, that's no sign that the Lord ain't using
you. That may well be a sign He is. In verses 3 and 4, we learn this
also from this little maid. Whenever we find ourselves in
some tough circumstances, in a tough situation, patiently
seek the peace of those that you're around. That's what she
did, wasn't it? Can you imagine this little girl?
I don't know how I'd have felt. I may have had some bitterness.
I may have looked at old Haman as he walked away from the house
saying, good enough for you, you old leper. I hope you die
of leprosy. Who do you think you are kidnapping
me and keeping me from my parents? You know, she wasn't bitter at
all. She called him Lord, didn't she? Oh, that my Lord, my Master
was over there in Israel. There's a prophet over there
of God that could heal him. You know that's what the Lord
told them to do. He said, I'm going to, because of your sins,
I'm going to send some of these countries. They're going to call
you away over there into their cities. And when you get to those
strange countries, here's what I want you to do. Pray for the
peace of that place. Seek for the peace of that place.
That's a good lesson for us, is it not? We all have trouble
in our families, don't we? We have trouble in our community
and at work. There's just trouble on every
hand. But let us use this woman here, this little maid as a good
example. What's the first thing that we should do? First and
foremost, above everything else, above politics and everything
else, seek the peace. Seek real peace through the cross
of Jesus Christ. Tell people about the Lord. Salvation. Here this little woman was in
a strange country, but you know what her priority was? seeing
this man saved, seeing this man cleansed. That ought to be our
priority, shouldn't it? I don't know what's going to
happen to our country. All of us are so concerned, aren't we?
Somebody asked me one day, said, what would you do if the Muslims
took over? I said, I'd like to think I'd preach the gospel to
them. That's more important than politics, isn't it? That's more
important than anything else. That's the main issue. Everything
else ain't going to mean anything in the end. but salvation of
people's soul. Whatever situation the Lord has
put you in, brothers and sisters, seek the peace. If some members
of your family are giving you trouble, preach Christ to them.
Some of your family hates you, preach Christ to them. Tell them
about the Lord Jesus, no matter what situation you find yourself
in. Here in verses 5 through 7, look at this. And the king
of Syria said, Go, and I will send a letter unto the king of
Israel. And he departed, and took with him ten talents of
silver, six thousand pieces of gold, they tell us that's about
eighty thousand dollars total, and ten changes of raiment. And
he brought the letter to the king of Israel, saying, Now when
this letter is coming to 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, he rent his clothes and said,
Am I God to kill and to make a lie, that this man doth send
it to me to recover a man of his leprosy? Wherefore, consider,
I pray you, and see how he seeketh a quarrel against me." Now see
some things in this scripture here. First of all this, how
often we trust in our politicians to aid us in the work of the
Lord. Is that not what concerns us
and burdens us when we look at our country? We somehow think
that, boy, if the right politician is not in the White House, if
the right governor is not in the State House, the work of
the Lord is going to suffer. That's just not so, is it? Here
you had two ungodly kings. The king of Israel was an ungodly
man. He was the son of Ahab, a wicked king, and his mother
was Jezebel, a wicked man. The king of Syria was a wicked
man. What did these wicked men have to do with the work of the
Lord? Nothing. Nothing. Ain't it strange how
it got so political so quick? This little maid didn't say,
there's a king over there that can heal you. She said, there's
a prophet over there that can heal you. But it got to the king.
got mixed up in politics. Politics has nothing to do with
the work of the Lord, does it? He may or may not use it. I tell
you, our country, if you study about the Civil War, some of
the greatest revivals that this country ever had was during the
Civil War. The Lord visited the camp of
those soldiers and saved thousands and thousands of them. I tell
you, he can visit in any situation. Bad leaders are good leaders.
Sometimes he won't visit during the good leaders, but he visits
during the bad leaders. He's free to do that, isn't he? Fearful we're going to lose our
country. We may. But what does that have to do
with mercy? Nothing does it. Secondly, there's
a good lesson here for you and I. I thought of this and I thought,
boy, this is a good lesson for me. This king of Israel misinterpreted
the intentions of the king of Syria. I really don't think the
king of Syria was saying, you're going to heal Naaman. All he
was simply saying was, there's a prophet in your country and
you've got to know him. He's a famous man. And when Naaman
comes over there, you make sure that he gets in contact with
this prophet. Send him to this prophet to be
healed. But the king of Israel misinterpreted
that letter altogether. He said he's seeking a quarrel
out of him. He's wanting a fight. He's wanting war. No, he wasn't. He wasn't wanting that at all.
Don't we misinterpret people's actions sometimes? Do you ever
misinterpret people's looks? I've looked at people sometimes,
and because they just didn't smile at me, I thought, boy,
they're mad at me. And I go home, and my heart's
so burdened. And oh, I think about it all
week, that person's mad at me. And they're not mad at me at
all. I misinterpreted the way they looked. Or they said something
to me and what they said I misinterpreted. And boy, it just hurt me so bad.
And they weren't mad at me. They weren't feeling hard at
me. It was just a misinterpretation. Don't wear our feelings on our
sleeves. That's what this fellow was doing.
Nobody's seeking to fight. I'm not seeking to fight with
any of you. If you say, boy, Bruce, he was mean to me today.
No, I wasn't. I'm not. I'm telling you. Just because
I get up here and scream sometimes, slang my hands, that don't mean
I'm mad at anybody. If I look at you when I'm saying something,
that don't mean, boy, he's preaching at me. He's mad at me. I say,
don't go home feeling bad. I'm not mad at anybody. Don't
misinterpret this poor man. Thirdly, consider this. When it comes to salvation, the
carnal mind is sure to err. When it comes to salvation, the
carnal mind is sure to err. Why do you say that? Because
of what this man did here in verse 5. Look what he did in
the last portion. He took with him ten talents
of silver, 6,000 pieces of gold and 10 changes of raiment. Why did he take all this? Well,
you know why he took it. He said, this is going to be
a miracle. If I'm healed of this, this is
going to be a miracle. But it's going to cost me. I'm
going to go will it and ready to pay for whatever miracle is
wrought upon me. Ain't that what he was doing?
Why else would he have took all of this? And you see in the context
here in a few minutes when you read on down, He tried His best
to get this prophet to take all this silver and all of this gold.
Isn't that the way the carnal mind thinks? Even those who know
that salvation is a miracle, they think I've got to make some
kind of a contribution. It may not be money. I doubt
if it would be money. But how much prayer am I going
to have to pray? How many tears am I going to
have to shed? What kind of condition do I have
to have my heart and mind in? Something I have to contribute. Something. Don't we think that
way? We can't just go to the Lord
as a leper, can we? He didn't have to bring nothing
with Him. Come riding on a mule. It didn't have anything to do
with what He had or what He had to offer. He had nothing to offer.
It's difficult to come just as an empty sinner, is it not? I heard the voice of Jesus say,
stoop down and drink and live. Freely? Freely? Surely it's not that free. Surely
I've got to make some kind of contribution. No. But that's what the carnal mind
thinks, isn't it? Why do we have all this religion? Look at all
the different denominations. Why do we have all that stuff? Somebody's erring somewhere,
isn't he? Somebody's got a religion of works, merit, worth, buying
something. So they go off and start their
own denomination, just like this carnal-minded man did here. Oh,
the Lord was going to have mercy upon this man, but I tell you
what, He's going to have to teach him. He's going to have to teach
him because he didn't have a lick of spiritual sins. That mercy
is free. It's free. How much do I need
to give up? How much do I need to pray and
weep and seek? You know something, as long as
we're thinking on those terms, mercy will be delayed. Mercy
will be delayed. In my hands no price I bring. Could my tears forever flow? These for sin cannot atone. Something
else we see here in verses 8 and 9. Naaman sought to impress this
prophet. He sought to impress him. Here
in verse 8 and 9, look at it. And it was so when Elijah the
man of God had heard that the king of Israel had rent his clothes,
he said to the king, saying, Wherefore hast thou rent thy
clothes? Let him now come to me, and he shall know that there
is a God, 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. And Elijah sent a message unto
him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, thy flesh shall
come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean. And Naban was
wroth, and went away, and 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 Abana and Pharpha rivers
of Damascus better than the waters of Israel? May I not worship
them, and be clean? And he turned, and went away
in a rage. And you can almost see him here
in verse 9 and verse 15. In verse 15 it tells us that
he had a big company with him. He had all of these horses packed
up with his silver and his gold. He had this servant with him
and he's riding in a beautiful chariot dressed in his uniform
and all of his entourage followed him. And he rides up to Elijah's
house And he sits there on his horse waiting for Elijah to come
out. And you can almost know what
he's thinking. Man, when he cracks that door
and sees me, he's going to say, what an opportunity I've got
here. Man, look at this guy. Look at his riches. Look at his
soldiers. Look at his people. Look at his charity. Oh boy, he's really going to
appreciate me being here. That's what he thought. This
leper thought that he is really going to be impressed. Elijah wouldn't even come outside
and look at him. He sent a messenger out. He sent a messenger out. You know
flesh don't impress the Lord. Somebody said, boy, you've got
all kinds of talent. The Lord would love to use you.
He don't need you. He don't need your silly talents. And if anything, He's not impressed
with you at all. If anything, He won't even look
at you. He won't even spit at you. You're nothing in His sight. You're nothing but flesh. You're
running, stinking, leprous. That's all you are. And you think
you can impress the Lord? Boy, that's pride, isn't it?
I'm telling you, There's pride of who we are and what we are
in our communities and countries and so on. Proud of what we can
do, but I tell you the worst pride of all is spiritual pride.
God's going to be impressed with me. That's why He's fixed it
so no flesh will glory in His presence. You know what mercy is impressed
with? Stinking sores. rotten flesh. Mercy is impressed
with misery. You want to impress mercy? Go
with your misery. Go with a chain about your neck
ready to hang yourself. That impressed His mercy. There
was a leper who came to the Lord Jesus in Mark chapter 1. And
his nose was rotted off. His eyes was blood red. His ears
was gone. His fever was 110. He was half
out of his head. And he stinks. And he was put
out of society and he'd come in his rags and his filth and
his stink and he said, Lord Jesus, if you will, you can make me
clean. That's a way to impress the Lord.
That's the way to impress Him. I'm only a sinner. That's the
way to come. I tell you, we come trying to
impress Him. We'll find out we're not going
to impress Him. He's got too much. He's too wonderful himself.
Why would He be impressed with us? God's impressed with His
Son and His merit and His worth. And He's impressed with us when
we're impressed with His Son, claiming to be His Son. In verses 11 and verse 12, Naaman
was wrought, and he went away, and here's what he said, Behold,
I thought, I thought, You know He had this all figured out,
didn't He? He'd been thinking about this all the way from Syria,
all the way over here to Samaria. He'd been thinking, now here's
what's going to happen. Here's the way this prophet's
going to do this. Here's the way the Lord's going to save
me. And everything He thought was wrong. I mean, He had it
right down to the T. Here in verse 11, I thought,
surely He will come out to me Well, he didn't do that. He will
stand and call on the name of the Lord his God. He didn't do
that. He will strike his hand over the place. He didn't do
that. He will recover the leprosy. None of that happened, did it?
I don't know of a single person who begins to seek the Lord,
but what he thinks he knows, the way of salvation. I know
how the Lord is going to save me. We don't have a lick of sense,
do we? That's what got me so frustrated. When I began to seek the Lord,
I became so frustrated because I had it figured out. I've told
you this before in my teenage years. I thought, here's the
way the Lord is going to save me. I'm going to do the best
I can. And I'm going to keep on getting
better. I'm going to quit lying. I'm going to start keeping my
promises and doing this and doing that. And after a while, the
Lord goes, that didn't work. Then I thought, well, I need
something else. And here I need Jesus. I need
Jesus to help me. And me and Jesus together, He'll
save me that way. And that didn't work out either.
That didn't work out either. Nothing that I thought was right. And isn't that the way it is
with the carnal mind? You can just pretty much put
this down. Whatever the lost person thinks about God is wrong.
Whatever he thinks about himself is wrong. Whatever he thinks
about Christ and His work is wrong. The natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, their foolishness unto
him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually
discerned. And when you see a lost person
that won't shut up and miss them, you can just about know they
got it all figured out and everything they got figured out is wrong.
I love it when a person stops talking, don't you? I had a fellow
come to my house one time and they said, I think he's seeking
the Lord. He seemed to be seeking the Lord. He came to my house
and sat down. I never got a word in edgewise. He never shut up. The only time he was there. And
he left and the fellow said, what do you think? I said, he's
not within a mile of the Kingdom of God. How do you know that?
Because he won't shut up. He's got it all figured out.
He knows how the Lord's working. No! No! We don't know anything, do we?
That's why we have to be taught. Boy, when the Lord starts teaching
us, we shut our mouths. Jeremiah said, there's hope for
those who put their mouths in the dust. And when the Lord starts
teaching us, one thing He teaches us, you don't know nothing. You
absolutely know nothing. And verse 12 says he went away
in a rage. When we talk about discriminating
grace, we don't deny everything that goes along with that. We
don't discount man's understanding that has to be enlightened. The Lord don't save anybody without
enlightening their understanding. That's what was the matter with
this man. Here we see something else. He's not going to save
this man until he subdues his stubborn will. It's going to
be my way or I'm out of here. No, the Lord's going to save
you. You're not going back to Syria. The Lord's going to have
mercy upon you. He's just going to subdue your
stubborn will. And I'll tell you something else that goes
along with discriminating grace. The Lord secures a man's obedience. He secures a man's obedience. Look at this in chapter 5 and
verse 13. The Lord used a little maid and
now He's going to use a servant. And his servant came near and
spake unto him and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do
some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it? Boy, he knew
human nature didn't he? He knew what works for salvation
was about. He was a smart servant, wasn't
he? If he had bid you get on your face and crawl back to Syria,
you'd do that. If he bid you to give half of
your money, you'd do that. There's no telling what you would
do to be clean. But when he simply bid you wash
and be clean, it made you mad. It made you mad. Oh, this is a wise fellow, wasn't
he? How simple is the gospel? How simple is the gospel? I said
to men to go, the reason we have so many denominations, you've
got people that's gone off and they said, boy, the gospel is
complicated and only we can figure it out. So they've got their
own little denomination. They're so smart. They're so
brilliant. And they have to be because their
way of salvation is so complicated nobody else can understand it
but them. You ever seen anybody that way? And every time they
get a convert, he's just like them. And you say the least little
thing that they perceive to be wrong, and man, they're going
to eat you alive. I had a fellow come here one time
and I had an article in the Bulletin by J.C. And because he don't
see particular redemption the same way they did, a fellow came
in the door and he said, did you know you posted an article
by a heretic? You know what? I probably shouldn't
have told him this, but I basically said, you know, you look better
going than you did coming. But it quietened him down. He
shut his mouth. That's what people think, you
see. This is so complicated. And they think, you know, they
got everything figured out. And they've left the simplicity
of the gospel. The simplicity of Christ. Aren't
you glad it's not complicated? The gospel boils right down to
this, brothers and sisters, and don't try to put anything else
to it. Wash and be clean. Isn't that wonderful? Oh, a poor
sinner can get a hold of that! I can get a hold of that! Wash! Wash and be clean! There is a
fountain open for sin. Wash and be clean. Is your conscience
guilty? Is your conscience screaming
at you? Do you feel the judgment of God upon you? Wash. Wash and
be clean. I love the simplicity of the
Gospel. I just love it. If you are a poor sinner, here
is the Gospel. Christ is coming to this world
to save sinners. Wash in His blood and be clean. I love that, don't you? And boy,
He did in verse 14. Then when He downed. Boy, you're
always going down. Then when He downed and dipped
Himself seven times. Oh my goodness, I've kept you
too long. And His flesh came again like
unto the flesh of a little child. And He was clean. That's discriminating
mercy. But there is so much that goes
with it, isn't there? He was clean. Poor fellow, he is going
to have all kinds of problems though. In verse 15, He returned
to the man of God and all his company, and 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. But he said, As the Lord liveth
before whom I stand, I will not receive none. And he urged him
to take it, but he said, No, I'm not taking anything you've
got. And Naaman said, Shall there not then, I pray thee, be given
to me, thy servant, two mules burned to burn? And thy servant
will henceforth offer thither burnt offerings, nor sacrifices,
unto other gods, but unto the Lord only. He came over there
and he despised the river of Israel. Now he's going to take
some dirt back with him. He's wanting to do that to build an
altar. He said, I ain't worshiping those gods anymore. I'm not offering
sacrifice. I want to take some dirt back,
and I want to build a mound, and I'm going to offer it to
God in heaven alone. But notice this in verse 18 quickly.
And then this saying, The Lord pardoned my servant, that when
my master goeth into the house of Remon, to worship there his
false god, his idol, and he leaneth on my hand, And I bowed myself
in the house of Rimeh. When I bowed there myself in
the house of Rimeh, the Lord pardoned thy servant in this
thing. And Elijah said, Go in peace. And he departed from him
a little ways. This has been a verse that's
often confused people. He said, I'm going back home,
and my master is not an idolater. I used to be too. And he says,
when I go with him in this idol's house, pull on my arm and want
me to bow down to his idol. And he said, ask the Lord to
forgive me when I do. And there's been all kinds of
discussion. What did he want? An indulgence? I don't think
he wanted that at all. I think it was just simply said,
when my Master pulls me down and I bow my body, I'm not bowing
my heart. Idol is nothing in this world.
I'm just honoring my Master. And Elijah said, ìGo in peace.î
And I think what Elijah was simply saying, this prophet was simply
saying, ìThe Lord will deliver him in time. The Lord will keep
him in time.î Heís just a young convert and heís conscious now
that these idols are nothing in the world. There is but one
God and the Lord will teach him and keep him. So he said, ìJust
go in peace.î And I bet you, I just about bet you before this
great man died, He quit bowing. I just about bet he quit bowing.
Don't you? Some of you heard of Frederick
the Great. He was one of the leaders in
Germany back in the 1700s. He had a general, a mighty general.
His name was Von Zeeland. And Frederick the Great was somewhat
of a wicked man, open and profane man. But Von Zillen was a devout
believer, a Christian. He fought a lot of wars and he's
a brave man, but he was a believer. He's a believer. And listen to
this little thing here that I got from one of the commentators. Von Zillen, Frederick's greatest
general, was a Christian, although his master was a scoffer. One
day he was making his coarse jokes about the Savior. And the whole place reigned with
sympathetic laughter. And it was too much for old Von
Zeeland. He'd grown old now. Standing
up amid the hush of the court's flattering parasites, shaking
his old gray head solemnly, he said to his master, You know that I have not feared
death. I have fought and won thirty-eight
battles, but I am now an old man and shall have soon to go
into the presence of a greater than thou, the mighty God who
saved me from my sins, the Lord Jesus Christ, against whom you
blessed me. I cannot stand to hear my Savior
spoken of as thou hast spoken of Him. I salute thee, sir, as
an old man who loves the Savior and who is on the edge of eternity."
Then he sat down, and Frederick, with a trembling voice, replied,
General, I beg your pardon. I beg your pardon. And the company
quickly dispersed in silence. And the king that night had opportunity
to reflect on a king that was greater than himself. I imagine
the same thing eventually happened to Naaman, don't you? Lord bless His Word. Let's pray.