We're looking in 1 Kings this
week. And we're in chapter 17. Up until 1 Kings 17, many prophets
had come and gone and declared unto the Lord's kings the Lord's
Word. But Elijah, he just pops up basically
right here. We have no account of his existence
prior to this chapter, chapter 17. And we can learn something
by that, that the Lord really doesn't need us. He doesn't need
me to be his preacher. He'll raise up whoever he wants.
A good example of that would be whenever the donkey spoke
to Balaam. The Lord used an ass to literally
speak and warn a man. The Lord doesn't need you and
I, does he? The Lord will do whatever he
chooses to do with whomsoever he chooses to do it. when he
chooses to do it, he's God. And so he raises, he chose to
raise up Elijah right here in chapter 17. Now, let's look at
verse eight. Chapter 17, 1 Kings, verse eight.
The word of the Lord came unto him saying, rise, get thee to
Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there. Behold,
I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee. So he
arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate
of the city, behold, the woman was there, the widow woman was
there, gathering of sticks. And he called her and said, fetch
me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel that I may drink.
And as she was going to fetch it, he called to her and said,
bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thy hand. She said,
as the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but a handful of
meal in a barrel and a little oil in a cruise. And behold,
I am gathering two sticks, that I may go and dress it for me
and my son, that we may eat it and die. And Elijah said unto
her, fear not, go and do as thou hast said, but make me thereof
a little cake first and bring it unto me, and after make for
thee and for thy son. For thus saith the Lord God of
Israel, the barrel of meal shall not waste, neither the crucible
fell until the day of the Lord, the day that the Lord sendeth
rain upon the earth. And she went and did according
to the saying of Elijah, and she and he and her house did
eat many days, and the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did
the cruise of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord, which
he spake by Elijah. If a stranger came up to you
and asked you to make them a cake of your last meal and your last
oil, that would be intended for you and your only child to have
to sustain you, what would be your response? I would imagine
you would say, no, this is mine and my son's. But notice in the
first part of this that the Lord purposed, I have made, he tells
us, I have arise and go to Zarephath. I
have commanded, that's the word I couldn't remember, commanded,
I have commanded a widow to sustain thee, commanded." Now, this widow
does not mention this unto Elijah. So what is the Lord telling us
here? He's telling us that he's given this widow faith to believe
God. This Zarephath was not in Israel. This was a Gentile place. This
was not according to the promise, but yet the Lord had purpose
to go to Israel. and call one of his sheep to
go and bring one of his sheep to the gospel. And this is the
means by which he does it, Elijah. There's something called provenient
grace, brethren, grace that goes before. And an example of this
is whenever the Lord came to Philip to call Philip, one of
the 12 disciples, he says unto Philip, I saw you sitting under
the tree when you were praying. This is provenient grace that
had went before. And this is exactly what's taking
place. Before Elijah went, God had already put upon this widow's
heart to obey the word of the Lord. Did you know that's what
he does for his people? He gives you pervenient grace
from the womb, you come forth and everything that happens in
your life is pervenient grace, bringing you to the Lord Jesus
Christ. And then the day, in the day
that he hath purpose, the gospel goes forth and you hear it and
you believe God. The Lord gets all the glory in
that, doesn't he? The good news of this account
for you and I is the words that says the barrel of meal wasted
not, neither did the cruise of oil fail according to the word
of the Lord. You and I are not holding this
thing together. You and I are not figuring this out as we go
and making things be good in our lives. It's God that gets
the glory in that. He's the one holding it together. He's purposed
it. I'm making him sound too small when I say he's holding
it together. He's not holding it at all. It's his, he owns
it, he possesses it, and he's purposed all of it. Whether it
be in your life, whether it be in this church, whether it be
in the lives of your children, God has purposed all things,
and he gets all the glory for it. He sustains his people physically,
but he sustains them spiritually, doesn't he? So what are these
two items that's here? Well, the meal and the oil could
be likened to the water of the Lord and the word of the Lord.
Remember the number two that we looked at several Wednesdays
ago, we found the water and the word. We also see that it's the
spirit and the blood. It's the means by which he saves
his people. It's the means by which he calls
his people, and it's the means that he keeps his people. These
are the two that the Lord gives, the oil of gladness. Remember
David talked about the Lord anointeth my head with oil, my cup runneth
over, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days
of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Why did he dwell in the house of the Lord? because that's where
the oil is given over and over and over. He anoints our head
with this oil, with his spirit, through the preaching of the
gospel. Never fails. He never will fail to feed his
people. He never will fail to meet with his people. He promised,
and God cannot lie. God cannot lie. He promised,
and so he will keep his word. He never fails to anoint our
head with his oil, with his gospel. Imagine this widow woman reaching
into the barrel every day. She's reaching for the same thing,
and she's just hoping that it's there. She has confidence that
it will be there. How do we know that she had confidence?
Because God said so, and she believed God. Why do you believe
God? Because God said so. Because
God made you to believe God. God gave you repentance. God
give me repentance and faith, and we believe God. Abraham believed
God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. Why did Abraham
believe God? Because Abraham was one of the elect of God.
Abraham could not not believe. He had to believe. Everyone that
the Lord died for will believe on the Lord Jesus Christ in time,
and the Lord will bring them safely to the other side. The
barrel will never run out of meal. The cruise of oil shall
never run dry, it shall never fail. He's going to continue
to bless his gospel to his people and sustain us. Every time we
reach in, we need new manna every day, don't we, brethren? Children
of Israel in the wilderness, they needed manna every day.
They said, don't save some for tomorrow, because it's going
to have worms in it. If you try to save it, you try to keep it,
you try to hang on to it a little bit longer, it's going to fail.
We need fresh manna every day, don't we? We need the oil of
gladness every day. We need the meal. Every time
we reach into the barrel, where is the barrel? The Lord's word. Do we see that? That's what's
a picture here is the Lord's given us his word, given us his
spirit, and we're constantly mercy beggars. Lord, I'm coming
before your throne of grace again. Please have mercy upon me. Lord,
save me. Lord, keep me. This is us reaching into the
barrel. And you know what the scripture says? The mercies of
the Lord will never run out. The grace of God is not exhaustible. The Lord will give grace and
mercy. Why? Because he delights in giving
grace and mercy to his people. He loves his people. He loves
his bride. He loved her so much that he died for her. He brought
her safely unto glory with him and presented her as perfectly
righteous before the Lord. The Lord was satisfied. The Lord
is satisfied with every one of his people and the Lord sustains
his people. Every day of our life, the Lord
is sustaining his people. You believe that, don't you?
You'd see that, you know, you've been made to know that if it
was left up to you, we'd just crash and burn, wouldn't we?
It's the best way I could say it. We'd crash, we'd run this
thing into the dish and we'd burn in hell forever, wouldn't
we? But the Lord keeps his people. Lord, keep me. Lord, keep me
from the world, but keep me from myself. Don't leave me to myself,
Lord. What did all those people say
whenever the Lord would heal someone? The Lord made the blind man see.
What did he say? He said, go your way. Talk to blind Bartimaeus.
He said, go your way. And it says, and Bartimaeus followed
the Lord. He went his way. He followed the Lord. That was
the way that the Lord had put in his heart. Told Bartimaeus, go your
way. And Bartimaeus said, okay. And
he followed after the Lord. I love that. The Lord sustained this widow.
I've titled this message, Widows and Lepers. Widows and Lepers. Now the Lord only sustains widows. Why? because a widow is someone
who does not have a husband anymore. She used to, but she no longer
does by reason of death. The Lord only saves widows. Someone
that needs a husband, a husband. We need a near kinsman, don't
we? To redeem us. You remember Ruth, look of Ruth.
She had no hope. She had no hope of having children.
She had no hope of having a husband, except the Lord had made her
land upon the lot that belonged to Boaz. And it just so happened,
right? Just so happened that he was
a near kinsman. No, it was the Lord's pervenient grace that
led her right there. And he says, drop handfuls on
purpose for her. Handfuls of purpose. Feed her
of the barrel today and tomorrow and the next day and the next
day, next week, next month, until we die and we're made in his,
when we're conformed to his image. We need a near kinsman and we
have that in the Lord Jesus Christ, don't we? We're no longer widows.
The Lord only saves widows. We're no longer widows. We're
made his bride. We're made his bride by his own
death, by his own doing. Christ mentions this widow, this
our sister. He mentions her in Luke chapter
four, and we're going to turn there, but he also mentions Naaman
the Syrian. Now I found a conundrum as I
was studying, because next Sunday we're going to be looking, Lord
willing, in second Kings. And Naaman's found in 2 Kings.
So I guess we're kind of getting a, I might end up talking about
Naaman again. I don't know. We'll just see
whatever the Lord leads us to do. But for now, let's turn to 2
Kings 5. The good news is, is you could
declare the gospel of Naaman, the gospel that happened to Naaman
again and again and again, and the Lord's people would still
be reaching into the barrel and the Lord would keep feeding us that because
it's the good news of the gospel. Look at verse one of 2 Kings
chapter five. 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. Now I want us
to understand his titles here, his person, his character, what
you would have viewed him as, as a man. Captain of the king's
guard, of the king's host of Syria. He was honorable. He was
a mighty man in valor. Can you imagine the responsibilities
that would befall this man? We're talking about the, it would
be a general in today's time. A general over all of Syria,
the Syrian army. And at this time, Syria was the
powerhouse in the world. They were the ones that were
in complete dominance over everyone else. Can you imagine his responsibilities
as the general? You imagine his problems that
he had? He had several problems, didn't he? Dealing with people
all the time, trying to figure out what to do in this situation
or that situation. But when God made him a leper,
he had one problem, didn't he? Just one. What was that problem? He was a leper. Leprosy was a
disease that's incurable, at least at that time. It was an
incurable disease, and he had no hope of getting better from
his sickness, no matter what he did or what he said or how
much he prayed or whatever else. He could not become better in
and of himself. He could only get worse and worse
until eventually he would die. Now, leprosy is a nasty disease.
It's a skin rotting condition that literally will rot the flesh
off of your body. That's us by nature, isn't it brethren? We
see that we are lepers. We're born in sin. We're shaping
into iniquity. We see that we are born polluted
in our own blood, that nothing that we can produce is good in
and of itself in God's eyes. Now in man's eyes, certainly.
Men will look at other men and say, well, he's a good man. You
ever heard that before? Oh, she's a good woman. She's a good lady.
You'll like her. What about God's standard? God says, there's none
good. A man came up to Christ. The rich man said, good master,
what must I do to inherit eternal life? And he said, why callest
thou me good? There's none good, but God. There's
none good, but God. And the Lord told him exactly
what he had to do to inherit eternal life. He had to get rid of his
gods, his riches, go sell all that you have. Sell all your
thoughts. Sell all your money. Sell everything
that you possess. Cleave unto Christ. Take up your
cross and follow me. And the man went away sad because
he had much, the scripture said. Naaman was a leper. Naaman was
a leper and you and I are lepers by nature. Lepers by birth. Let's
read on. 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. In verse three of chapter
five of 2 Kings says, 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. And the king of Syria said, go to, go. I will send
a letter unto the king of Israel. And he departed and took with
him 10 talents of silver and six talents of 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 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, he read his clothes
and said, am I God to kill and to make alive? "'that this man
doth send unto me "'to recover a man of his leprosy? "'Wherefore,
consider, I pray you, "'and see how 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 clothes? "'Let
him come now to me, "'and he shall know that there is a prophet
in Israel.'" Naaman hears a little girl, a maid, a young lady, that
there is a prophet in Israel. Now, I don't really understand
why Naaman, the captain of the host of Syria, the mighty man
in valor, why he would listen to a handmaid that is an Israelite,
only because the Lord made him to do so. That's the only explanation
we can come up with, right? He would not have just heard
what she said and then said, okay, That sounds perfect. I'm
gonna march down to Israel and let him heal me. I believe that
the Lord made him do that. How do we know? Because the Lord
mentions him. He mentions him in the book of
Luke and we're gonna see that. Naaman's our brother. The Lord
saved Naaman. His confession at the end of
this chapter is evident that the Lord gave him a new heart.
He believed God. And it started with this little
handmaiden. If Syria had never invaded Israel, then she would
have never been taken captive, and she would have never told
Naaman that there's a prophet down in Israel, and Naaman would
have never went down and got healed of his leprosy, and then
the Lord saved him by those means. Isn't that amazing? That's perennial
grace. That's what I'm talking about this morning. The Lord
saving his widows and his lepers his way. His way. Now, Naaman represents every man and
every woman that has ever been born on the face of the earth.
The difference, the difference is that the Lord reveals unto
his people that they're lepers. If you were to call someone a
dog, if you were to call someone wretched and vile and tell them
that they were the most ugliest thing that you could possibly
declare unto them, they're not going to look at you and say,
thank you so much for telling me that. But that's exactly what
gospel preachers do every Sunday and every Wednesday, every time
they meet, they look and they say, here we are as lepers. Scripture
tells us in Ezekiel that we're, we're polluted in our own blood.
We're dead. We're cast by the wayside. And
the Lord said, none, none had compassion upon you. He said,
but I, I chose you and I spread my skirt over you. I washed you.
I put a robe on your back and a ring on your finger. That's
what he does for his people. We are born in trespasses and
in sin. We're shaping into iniquity.
Everything that we are is leprous in his sight. And if he leaves
us to ourself, we'll die a leper. We will die a leper. The good
news about leprosy is, is when the priest would come out and
declare unto the leper himself, if he was covered in leprosy
from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet and there
were no good flesh on him anymore, it couldn't pass from him to
anybody else. He was considered clean at that time. Isn't that
ironic? That's evident of the Lord making his people completely
leprous. And you know what color leprosy
is? White. He makes them whiter than snow.
Isn't that glorious? Takes a bunch of lepers and he
washes them in his blood, makes them white as snow. takes a widow,
takes his widows, and feeds them the bread of life, gives them
eternal life. Isn't that good news? Now look
in verse number eight. The king fears death. You can
tell his reaction, you can tell the king's reaction is that he's
afraid of dying. Why is the king of Syria coming
down to me, sending his general? They were just conquered right
before that. So he's scared to death, and he's renting his clothes,
He's crying out unto the Lord. Now, something I failed to mention,
Naaman coming down here, he loads up. silver and gold and changes
of garments. He's gonna buy, he's gonna buy
his healing, isn't he? That's his mentality. He's gonna
go down and he's already got it all figured out, how this
healing is gonna take place, how that Elisha is supposed to
be, how that, to him, because this is an excellent man, right?
This man believes that he's something, that he's somebody and he wants
to be treated as such. So he's bringing all these gifts
and he's coming down parading down to Israel. The king hears
about this and the king panics. He don't know what to do. He
rents his clothes. He's crying out to the Lord. Elisha says,
send him down to me. He'll know that there's a prophet
in Israel. Now let's look here in verse
eight. And it was so when Elisha, it was so that 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 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 and wash in Jordan
seven times, and thy flesh shall come again unto thee, and thou
shalt be clean. But Naaman was wroth, and went
away and said, Behold, I thought He will 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 Abania and
Farpar rivers in Damascus better than all the waters in Israel?
May I not wash in them and be clean? So he turned and he went
away in a rage. His servant came near and spake
unto him and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee to
do some great thing, wouldst thou have done it? How much rather
then When he saith to thee, wash and be clean, 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. Naaman had it all figured out,
didn't he? He said, I'm gonna go down, and Elisha's gonna come
out, and he's gonna put his hand over the spots of leprosy, and
he's gonna cleanse me, and I'm gonna give him gifts, and this
is gonna be a great day. When he got down there, a messenger
was sent to him. Elisha didn't even grace him
with his presence, did he? He said, go dip in Jordan seven
times. And what did Naaman say? I thought, I thought. Is that not our problem? We think
too much, don't we? We think too highly of ourself.
We do. We think way too highly of ourself
and not enough of the Lord. The Lord has to cause us to think
on him, to think on heavenly things. The Lord has to cause
us and give us repentance to see we have no business thinking
at all. Christ didn't say, think on the
Lord Jesus Christ. He said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
the good news of the gospel is he causes us to believe him.
We can't believe him on our own. It's not a choice that we make.
It's not a prayer that we pray. It's not something that we can
do. We can't bring our gifts in a caravan unto the Lord and
say, well, I thought you would do this, God. No, the Lord is
other than we are. The Lord is sovereign. The Lord
is holy. The Lord demands justice and
he will not acquit the guilty. Justice must be satisfied. Did
you know that justice was satisfied for his people on the cross of
Calvary? He put away their sin and in
doing so, he put away our leprosy. Put away our leprosy. All he
sees us now is perfectly righteous in his eyes. The number seven
represents perfection, doesn't it? and Jordan represents death.
So what was Naaman really being told to do? Go die the perfect
death, dying with Christ. Is that not our confession? Lord,
allow it to be that when you died, I died. That's why we have
believers baptism. We're confessing his life, his
death, his burial, and his resurrection. That's what we do in baptism.
That's the only reason that we do it. He told us to, and that's
what it represents, that when he died, I died. Everyone that
is a leper, if you want to be healed of your leprosy, you must
be dunked in the Jordan. You must die the perfect death
of Christ and those for whom Christ died, died that death. So knowing these two accounts,
brethren, I want us to turn to Luke chapter four. I'm still speaking to us about
widows and lepers. The ones that the Lord died for.
The ones that the Lord saves. The Lord only saves widows and
lepers. Luke 4. This is Christ. Christ comes into the temple.
And he reads into them Isaiah chapter 61 verse one, which says
the spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord hath
anointed me to preach good things unto the meek. He has sent me
to bind up the brokenhearted and proclaim liberty to the captives
and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. Now look
in verse 21 and he began to say unto them, this day is this scripture
fulfilled in your ears and all bore him witness. and wondered
at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said,
is this not Joseph's son? And he said unto them, ye will
surely say unto me this proverb, position hill thyself. Whatsoever
we have heard done in Capernaum do also here in that country.
And he said, verily I say unto you, not a prophet is accepted
in his own country, but I tell you of a truth. We are here this
morning to hear of the truth, are we not? That's why we're
here. We don't go to the Lord's worship in order to hear a lie.
We want to hear the truth, don't we? The Lord tells them, I tell
you a truth. Verily I say unto you, I tell
you the truth. Many widows were in Israel in
the days of Elisha. That's what Elias is. Elijah,
whenever the heaven was shut up three years and six months,
when great famine was throughout all the land, But unto none of
them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto
a woman that was a widow. Many lepers were in Israel at
the time of Eliasias, that's Elisha. The first one's Elijah,
second one's Elisha, as we know, the prophet. And none of them
was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian. 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 a hill, whereon their city was built, that they might cast
him down headlong. You find that amazing? They wanted
to kill Christ for telling them the truth. That's exactly what
took place. The Lord said all that he told
them was is there was several, there was many widows in Israel,
but the Lord didn't have compassion upon any of them except for the
one that wasn't a Jew. Same thing with Naaman. Naaman
wasn't a Jew. He was a Syrian. Why did that anger them so much? Why? That's the question. Because God gets all the glory
in his choosing. God gets all the glory in salvation,
and it's not about your bloodline. It's not about your my good works.
It's not about our anything that we do. Anything that we produce,
nothing that we produce can merit salvation. God gets all the glory. That's what he told these Jews.
And what did they say when they heard this? Kill him, throw him
over the cliff, murder him. We will not have this man to
reign over us. We will not have the, we're not widows. We're
not widows or lepers. We're just fine. There's a song
that actually says, me and God have a good thing going. Brethren,
brethren, the Lord is sovereign. He's just, he's holy, and we
need a substitute before him. The only good that you and I
can hope in is the goodness of the Lord Jesus Christ. His goodness. Men hate this gospel for four
reasons. There's many reasons, but I'm
gonna speak on four right now. Four different reasons. Number
one, God gets all the glory in the salvation of his people.
Before the foundation of the world in the covenant of grace,
God elected a people. God became a man named Jesus
Christ. Jesus Christ is God. God became
a man and he saved his people from their sin. He redeemed his
people back to the Father. We know this because he is now
seated at the right hand of the Father. That means his work is
finished. Everything that he set out to do, he accomplished.
He didn't try to save man. He didn't try anything. He successfully
redeemed his people from their sin. The second reason men hate
the gospel is it abases man's righteousness. It abases man. We have no righteousness, do
we? Our righteousness is filthy rags. It reveals unto us that
we're nothing but widows and lepers. That's what it does.
Revelation chapter three, verse 17 says, because thou sayest,
I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing.
And knowest not that thou are wretched and miserable and poor
and blind and naked. We don't have any righteousness
before God. We're naked. We need a clothing. You remember
Adam and Eve, we mentioned this earlier. Adam and Eve tried to
sew fig leaves together, didn't they, in order to have a righteousness
before God. But it was God that clothed them in righteousness,
wasn't it? It was the Lord that gets all the glory and salvation.
He said, I'm not gonna take your fig leaf covering. You're gonna
have to be covered in the lamb, the blood of the lamb, his righteousness. You're gonna have to dip seven
times in the River Jordan. That's what he's telling us.
Our righteousness is filthy rags before him. We know that we are
polluted in our own blood. Our blood is the problem. Our
blood is enmity against God. Our blood is sinful. We are not
sinners because of what we do. We are sinners because of what
we are. And that's why men hate the gospel of God, as it shows
us that we are nothing but sin. And we need a substitute. Number
three, upon showing man this, it renders them completely powerful.
God's gospel renders men completely powerless. Powerless. No power
whatsoever. No hope of making a choice. We're
dead in trespasses and in sin, remember? You could not go to
this cemetery behind me and look at any of those graves and tell
them to live and they would have eternal life. That's what men
are doing today. All you have to do is take the first step
and God will take the rest. You won't find that in the scripture.
God did the saving and then he does the calling. God gets all
the glory and salvation. God saved his people, past tense,
it's done, it's finished. We've been presented justified
before the Lord. Renders us powerless before him,
dead. That's why he said in John 15,
16, you've not chosen me, I chose you. I've chosen you, you didn't
choose me. The world hates you because I
chose you. He told the Pharisees, the same
ones that he was speaking to here, he tells them, you will
not come to me that you may have eternal life. You can have eternal
life if you come to me, but you will not come to me. Men by nature
will not come to God because it strips them of their righteousness,
renders them powerless, and God gets all the glory in salvation. Romans 9.20 says, nay, but oh
man, who art thou that replyest against God? Shall the thing
form say to that, Him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus?
Hath not the potter power? Hath not the potter power over
the clay of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and
another unto dishonor? See, the Lord's the potter and
we're the clay. And he can do with the clay whatsoever
he seems, he's deemed as right. Did you know that that's all
he does is right? Everything that he's ever done is right
and good and perfect, everything. He can't lie. He can't do anything
bad. He's never sinned. He's God,
He's holy, He's other than we are. And He redeemed His people
in being so. By His own will, by His own will
He begot us, not by works of righteousness, which we have
done. Scripture tells us that clearly, doesn't it? Not by works
of righteousness, we are rendered powerless. Not by works of righteousness,
which we have done, but according to what? His mercy, His grace,
His goodness, His love. According to his choice, he saved
a people. He redeemed a people, his people. Lastly, number four. The reason
men hate God's gospel is it makes men mercy begging sinners. Mercy begging centers. Nobody
wants to acknowledge that there are a beggar, but that's exactly
what the Lord's people are. We are coming. We are hoping
that the Lord will bring us to him. We are in hope that the
Lord will send His Spirit in power, that when we put our hands,
so to speak, in the barrel, that there's meal there, that the
cruise of oil has not failed. We're coming unto the Lord as
mercy beggars. Lord, save me. Lord, save me. Lord, save my children. Lord,
save my grandchildren. Lord, save me. That's not a one-time
thing, is it? This is not a one-time thing
where I say, Lord, save me, and I've marked it down, we're good
to go. This is something we pray every day as the Lord's people.
Lord, save me from myself. Save me from what I am. Men will
not come to Christ. They hate his gospel because
it makes them mercy beggars. Just as Naaman, if the Lord hadn't
given Naaman repentance, he would have still been a leper, wouldn't
he? The Lord changed his mind by the word of the servant, didn't
he? That's our hope, is that the Lord would change our mind
by the gospel declaration. Naaman said, I thought, I thought. He wasn't a beggar, was he? He
said, I'm the captain of the guard. I'm not gonna be a beggar.
I'm not gonna beg this man to do something. There's plenty
of other brooks that I can dip in that are much better. See,
Jordan's muddy and Jordan's dirty. Jordan's a dirty river. It's
ugly. It doesn't look like something
you would wanna get into. Death is ugly. Men do not want
to die with Christ, so to speak. They would rather come unto the
Lord with their own righteousness. And Naaman said, I thought, I
thought he would come out and do all this, and I thought God
was this way. The Lord said, my thoughts are not your thoughts.
My ways are not your ways. As heaven is higher than the
earth, so is the Lord's ways above our ways. God is other
than we are. That's why we need a substitute. That's why we need a savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ. The only way that you can come
to him is not thinking you control your own destiny. It's knowing
that He controls all things. It's knowing that He has purposed
all things. He's not moving pawns on a chessboard. I say that often,
but it's so true. Men believe God's playing chess.
He's not. He's not playing any kind of
games. He purposed, He fulfilled it, and He sat down. And now
time just has to take its course. And all of those who Christ,
who were in Christ before the foundation of the world, are
seated in Him right now in the heavenlies. God's people love that God is
God. God's people love that God is
God. We don't want to change him,
do we? We don't want to bring him down from above or bring
him up from beneath. We see him seated as the sovereign, successful
savior, and we love his gospel, and we love our husband and our
healer, our great physician, the Lord Jesus Christ. We just keep sticking our hand
down on the barrel, don't we? To get another morsel of bread. Lord, give us this day our daily
bread. Isn't that what he told the disciples to pray? Here's
the promise of the Lord. My God shall supply all of your
need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. What
is our need? Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus is
our need. The meal and the oil, the healer,
the great physician, the one that dipped in Jordan for his
people, so that you and I, by the grace of God, by His grace,
He tasted death for His people. By His grace, you and I will
never have to taste death. O death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory? That's the good news of the Gospel,
isn't it? Men hate God's Gospel. Men hate God's people. And these
men hated Christ for having mercy. for having mercy. They hated
Christ for having mercy. Now understand that's what men
are doing today. They hate God for having mercy upon sinners. They hate this gospel. That's
all that they can be angry at is that's all that the Lord did
is have mercy and give grace. And what do they want to do when
they find out this information about who God is? Kill him. Let his
blood be upon us and on our children. When the Lord is speaking to
them here, he said that they were gonna say, physician, heal thyself.
It's the same terminology as others he saved, but himself
he cannot. What is he saying? If he would
have saved himself, you and I would not have been saved. He could
not have saved himself and redeemed us also. He had to die. He had
to dip in Jordan seven times for his people in order for us
to be cleansed from our leprosy. See, we don't have legs to walk
into Jordan. We're dead in trespasses and in sin. We don't have eyes
to see where Jordan is and we don't have ears to be instructed
where to go to. But whenever he dipped in Jordan
for his people, he gave us life and life more abundantly. The
scripture says he gives us eyes to see and ears to hear, and
he gets all the glory for it. These men wanted to murder Christ
because they did not want to bow to God. That's it. Men do not want to
bow to Christ. Aren't you thankful that God
is not threatened by man? God's not threatened by me. God's
not trying to save me. God's not sitting there saying,
OK, I need you to do your part. I've done the very best I can.
God's not threatened by man. He's not intimidated by man.
He saved his people. And then he calls his people
in time and he reveals to them, I saved you. That's what he does. I've saved you. I've cleansed
you of your leprosy. I am now your husband. What do
we do? We praise the Lord, don't we? We worship Him. We bow to
that truth, Lord. Thank You. He gives us a heart. Causes us to eat of that bread.
Causes us to drink of His water. And lastly, I want to turn over
a page or two to Luke 5. Luke 5. Verse 12 says, It came to pass when he was in
a certain city, behold, a man full of leprosy who seen Jesus
fell on his face and besought him saying, Lord, if thou wilt,
thou canst make me clean. And he put forth his hand and
touched him and said, I will be thou clean. And immediately
the leprosy departed from him. And he charged him to tell no
man, but go and show himself to the priest and offer for that
cleansing, according as Moses commanded for a testimony unto
him. Now, I've already mentioned this
to us, but the lepers had to go before the priest in order
to be declared as clean or unclean. They couldn't have any part in
worship. They couldn't have any part in sacrifice. They could
have no part with the people whatsoever. They were out of
the camp completely, as long as they were leprous. So when
the day came when the priest said, you're clean, can you imagine
the rejoicing that a leper would have? Did you know that's the
exact declaration that our high priest has given to all of his
lepers, you and I? Clean, you're no longer unclean before him.
What is our confession? Lord, if thou wilt, thou can't
make me whole. Lord, if thou wilt, thou can't
makes me clean. What did Ezekiel, the Lord spoke
to Ezekiel and said, can these bones live? Ezekiel said, Lord,
thou knowest. If they're gonna live, you're
gonna have to cause them to live. Ezekiel realized he had no power in causing
the bones to live. And that's all we are, isn't
it? It's just full of dead men's bones. And yet the Lord comes
and the Lord says, live. And the Lord gives us eyes. And
the Lord, we don't even, we don't even realize it happens, but
all of a sudden we start talking different than we used to, don't
we? We start singing his praise. We say all things unto the glory
of the Lord. I don't mean that as our righteousness. I mean,
we can't help but confess Christ is all in salvation. That's our
confession, isn't it? That's what he changes. He gives
us a new heart. Scripture says he pulled us out of the mire,
put our feet upon a rock and establish our going, put a new
song in our mouth, even praise unto the Lord. Well, that song
is the confession of Christ. Christ is all. Christ is all
to the glory of God the Father. This leper had a need, didn't
he? And he came to the Lord and he said the same thing that you
and I come to the Lord and say, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst
make me whole. The good news is, is as soon
as our confession is that his reply is, it is finished. You
are whole. You have been made clean. I am
your husband. There's nothing for you to do
anymore. There's no requirement whatsoever by the law, by the
Father, by the prophets that have not been fulfilled in the
person of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is finished. So what do we
say? What do we say to that? We're
just thankful. Who are thou that reply? We don't
reply against it. We rejoice, don't we? He gives
us a rejoicing heart unto Him. They that are whole. Need not
a physician. But they that are sick. Christ
said I came not to call the righteous, but centers to repentance. I
came not to call the righteous, but widows to repentance. I came
not to call the righteous, but lepers to repentance. You see
yourself as a leper. You see yourself as a widow.
Spiritually speaking, you need a husband. One that accomplished
everything necessary for your redemption. If you do, Christ
says, come, come unto me. Come unto me, all you that are
labored and heavy laden. You're no longer gonna be labored and
heavy laden because your burden is cast upon him, for he careth
for you. He put away that burden, didn't
he? By the death of himself, he put away the burden of our
sin. He satisfied his father and saved his people. Christ
Jesus saved his sinners, his lepers, his widows, by becoming
the propitiation for us. He appeased the wrath of God.
He satisfied God's wrath and put away our leprosy and became
our husband. He always responds, if you come
to him as a mercy beggar, he responds the same way as he did
this man. He immediately put forth his
hand saying, I will, I will be thou whole, be thou clean. Everything he touches is made
whole, isn't it? Everything He touches is made clean. Everything
He touches is made perfect. You and I are the opposite of
that, aren't we? Whatever we touch, we defile. But everything
He touches is made holy. Made perfect. Isn't that glorious? He's touched His people. Every
one of us. He touched us. Father, thank You for saving
Your widows and Your lepers. Thank You that You cannot be
defiled by us. That You are other than us. and
that You have successfully redeemed us, Your people, according to
Your Word, according to Your Gospel. Lord, allow us to always
find meal in the barrel. Allow us always to have the oil
of gladness upon our head. Keep us as your mercy begging
lepers and widows and continually make us see that we've been made
clean and that we have a husband in you. It's in Christ and we
pray. Amen.