Thank you, brother. It's a joy to be here with you.
Again, I express my thanks to the Lord for our fellowship,
the fellowship that he's brought us in of his dear son. Our fellowship is in the gospel
with the Lord Jesus Christ. And this morning I We were talking about the message
that I felt the Lord would have me preach, and I found out your
pastor is also preaching through Second Kings, and we just enjoyed
talking about this passage. But this morning, I want to use
this passage as an illustration of what the scriptures teach
in In 2 Corinthians chapter 10,
the Apostle Paul says, we don't wrestle with flesh and blood. Our weapons of this warfare are
not carnal, but mighty through God. The weapon
is the Word of God. Mighty through God, the Holy
Spirit, to the pulling down of strongholds, the imaginations
of man. The title of the message this
morning is, I Thought. The title of the message is,
I Thought. Man, since he fell in the garden,
that is, we, since in our father Adam fell in the garden, we have,
we come into this world dead in trespasses and sins. Coming
into this world with our minds at enmity against the one true
and holy God. When man knew God, they honored
God not, they glorified him not, neither were they thankful, but
became vain in their imaginations. The mind of natural man is darkened,
has the mind darkened, being alienated, alienated from the
life of God through ignorance that is in every man by nature. When the Lord God looked down
on the earth, and it hasn't changed. It's in Genesis chapter 6 and
verse 5. What is said there in that verse
is said every day from the day that Adam fell. It's revealed
then in that verse, but it's the same today. In Genesis chapter
six and verse five, the Lord said, he looked down. He looked
down and saw that every imagination, of the thoughts of men was continually
only evil. Only evil. And I'm going to read
that. Genesis chapter 6, verse 5. And God saw the wickedness of
man was great on the earth, and that every imagination every
imagination of the thoughts of his heart. Where is this enemy? Where does this enmity reside? In the heart of man, in the heart
of man, every thought, every imagination. What this means
that man by nature, if he even tries to have lofty thoughts
of God, Even those thoughts are enmity against God. He cannot
know. He cannot know God. Continually
evil, evil continually. Well, the natural man, the natural
man, the carnal man is enmity against God. Without faith it
is impossible to please God. Man's thoughts are enmity. That's
what the scriptures teach. That's what God teaches about
every one of us in this place by nature. It's the doctrine
of total inability, total depravity, death. Man is dead by nature. But being dead by nature doesn't
mean he doesn't have thoughts. He thinks, and everything he
thinks is contrary. He thinks, man by nature thinks, God is like him. God is like
us. Therefore, he makes himself God. You know, when Satan came in
the garden and tempted Eve, he said this, he said, so God has
said, he said this, God has said that you cannot eat of every
fruit, And Eve said, well, it's this fruit, the fruit of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And he said, oh, you
won't die. God knows this, that the day
that you eat thereof, your eyes will be opened. You'll be like
God. You'll be like God. And man, from that day to this
day, he thinks he's like God. He makes himself God's after
his own imagination. Every man, every man, woman,
and child, their thoughts are contrary to God, only evil. And here's the thing is, man,
when he makes the God of his own imagination, he knows that
there's evil. He knows that there's evil in
the world, but he doesn't think he's evil. And man thinks this,
that because God doesn't strike him down with a lightning bolt
right then and there in the act, that God must love me. God must
love me. The psalmist said in Psalm 50
verse 21, Thou thinkest, thou thoughtest that I was altogether
such as one as thyself. And By that, men believe that
God is relative. God is not holy. God is not holy. God is relative. Everything's relative. But God
is holy. God is just. God is holy, God
is just, and man is a sinner. Man is a sinner. Man doesn't
believe that the only way to come to God is by the Lord Jesus
Christ, the one who he sent to give his life a ransom for his
people. Now, here's what the gospel teaches,
that God has made reconciliation. When man went away from God,
when man went away from his creator, He was dead, he could not come
to God, did not know God, did not have the desire to come to
God. Dead in trespasses and sin. But God in grace. The reason is found only in the
heart of God. In His grace, sovereign grace
and mercy, He sent His Son to make reconciliation, to bring
together again. He has reconciled His people
to Himself in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. He has made
reconciliation and He's given His church He's given us the
ministry of reconciliation to wit that God was in Christ reconciling
the world to Himself, not imputing trespasses to His people. He imputed to His Son because
He made Him to be sin for us. He made Him to be sin, that's
why He imputed. He didn't impute it to us because
he made his son to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in him. Now, reconciliation
was made in the fullness of time. The Lord Jesus Christ came and
gave his life, a ransom for his people, but man needs to be reconciled. Man needs to come to an understanding.
That's the gospel. That's the ministry of the gospel. God sends forth His good news,
the witness. He gives life. The Holy Spirit
gives life in the heart of a man and gives him a new mind, a new
understanding, a new affection, and a new will. That's the heart
of man, the understanding, the affection, and the will of man. Understanding. Man is lost, dead. But how is he going to know? How is he going to know? His
thoughts are against God. His imagination is against God.
He needs to be reconciled. Remember the title of the message
is, I Thought. Naaman said, I Thought. And we
have this picture here in 2 Kings chapter 5. You see, Naaman, it says here,
a captain of the host of the king of Syria was a great man
with his master and honorable because the Lord had given deliverance
or victory unto Syria. He was also a mighty man in valor,
but he was a leper. This is teaching us that by man,
no matter what kind of degree of as we compare man against
man. That's comparing one worm against
another worm. One maggot against another maggot.
They're both maggots. But one maggot feels like he's
more than another. It gets elevated in rank. And no matter what a man, you
may say of a man, this is what causes us to be unclean. We're lepers. Before God, we're
lepers. Leprosy is an incurable disease. Leprosy causes everything that
we touch to become unclean. Leprosy cast us out of the city. We are lepers, and it affects
everything in our being. Everything we touch, everything
we do, where we actually stand, everything is unclean. And that
is the description of man. Now, man doesn't know that. Man
doesn't know that. Man thinks he's somebody who
happens to have a little problem with sin. No, he's a sinner. And these are the thoughts that
are in the imagination of a man. I thought, I thought, before
the Lord Jesus Christ comes and reveals himself, reveals himself,
I thought I was pretty good. But I found out that I wasn't
good at all, that nothing, there's no good thing dwelling in the
flesh, no good thing. Naaman, he's a leper. That is the one word that describes
man, unclean. A leper was to go about outside
the city. If anybody came there, he had
to cover his mouth and cry out, unclean, unclean. Because everything
he touched was unclean. It is the very opposite of God. God is holy, holy, holy. God is just. There is none like
God. And man thinks that he's like
God. His thoughts have to be changed. He has to be changed
on that. Leprous is a good picture of
man. He's unclean. God is holy. And we do not understand the
holiness of God apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. And it's on the cross where we
see, begin to see, the holiness of God. the holiness of God. Can you imagine, can you imagine
the angels looking down? They've been looking down from
eternity. They're looking down at the Old
Testament, rounding, that's what the picture is of the ark with
the cherubims looking towards the mercy seat. What God is, what is this? That God would, De Sampara, that God would forsake
his son, the creator of all things. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? The darling son, the Lord Jesus
Christ, who always did that which pleased the Father, when he was
made sin, when he took the sin of his people and his own body
on the cross, and he was made sin, the justice of God fell
on him. the justice of God, and in that
agony, the Lord Jesus Christ, as a man, he always believed
God. Though he was made sin, he didn't
lose the knowledge and understanding of God. I hope that comes across
clear. When we became sinners in the
fall of our father Adam, we lost the knowledge of God. By sinning,
we lost the knowledge of God, we lost the life of God, we lost
the way to God. But the Lord Jesus Christ, he
always believed God. And when he was made sin, he
still trusted God. That's the faith of the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's the faithfulness. That's
the faith by which we're saved, the righteousness of God. God is holy, and man is a sinner,
a leper. But he has thoughts, he has imaginations
that he is somebody. And the Syrians have gone out.
Now, here he is, he's not looking for God. He thinks he's all right. He's blessed by God, if you would
ask him. God loves him. You see, God gave
victory to the Syrians by this man. He was well-liked. And if you would have asked Naaman
before, does God love you? Oh yeah, God loves me. Well,
he didn't have a reason to say that, but men have this thought
that God loves me. The only way you can know that
God loves you is if you believe the Lord Jesus Christ. And the
reason you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, trust Him, is because
God did love you. But if you'd have asked Damon,
he'd say, oh yeah, I believe in God. But he didn't know God. There he is in Syria, and he's
a leper. But God, but God, who is rich
in mercy, God who is rich in mercy, he loved his people from
before the foundation of the world. And yes, we're lost, and
yes, we're lepers. Yes, his people are sinners.
But He loved him. I've loved you with an everlasting
love. I've loved you with an ever... Nothing can separate
us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
That's what the Apostle Paul talks about, it's the love of
God. God doesn't love you one day and then the next day He
doesn't love you. This man Naaman and God's people, God has love
for eternity and they're lost, they're sinners, they're in their
own imaginations, they're enemies of God, but God is going to reconcile. He's already reconciled to his
people by the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Lord Jesus
Christ is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
He's always looked to his people in the Lord Jesus Christ. Well,
how's he gonna reconcile this man? His thoughts are wrong. Repentance, there's no faith
apart from repentance. and there's no repentance apart
from faith. They're two of the same coin,
or two sides of the same coin. When God gives faith, He grants
repentance. And when God grants repentance,
He grants faith. You can't have one without the
other. And the repentance is towards God. And faith is in
the Lord Jesus Christ. Believing on Him. Trusting His
finished work. Trusting what He did as a man
when He lived here on this earth that He did establish righteousness.
Trusting His blood that it does put away all my sins. And I'm
not doing anything. I'm just trusting Him. Well,
repentance has to do with all these thoughts. All these thoughts
that a man has by nature that he's going to somehow or another
earn salvation or somehow or another by his position that
he's going to merit God's favor. God's got to knock that out of
His children. He's the only one that receives all the glory and
all the praise in glory. Not unto us is the song of glory. Not unto us, but unto thy name
give glory. And it says here, the Assyrians
had gone out by companies and had brought away a captive out
of the land of Israel, a little maid, and she waited on Naaman's
wife. Like I said, Naaman wasn't looking
for a knowledge of the true and living God. He wasn't searching. And when the Lord found you,
you weren't searching for Christ either. You perhaps were in religion. All men by nature are in religion,
the religion of their own imagination. But you're in religion and you
thought, God loves me. But God is going to send his
message. God is going to bring you out
of that that darkness, that superstition, and that idolatry of your own
mind. And he's got to send a messenger.
He's got to understand that I've got a problem. Now, Naaman probably
thought, well, I've got this real hidden. But there was a
little maid there in the house. And I'm sure Naaman wasn't publishing
this. I'm a leper. Perhaps he had it
well hidden under all those general clothes. But this little maid that lived
in the house, she told Naaman's wife, it says here, she said
to her mistress, would God my Lord, that is to say Naaman,
were with the prophet or before the prophet, the one that has
the word of God, that is in Samaria, for he would recover him of his
leprosy. Notice that even the message
there of this little young maid, she didn't say, he might. He
said, if he was before him, he'd save him. Everybody that comes
to the Lord Jesus Christ as a poor leper, brought by the Holy Spirit,
is saved. God doesn't bring His people
and start the work and then leave it halfway done. If He's working
in the life of His people, He's going to bring them to a knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it happens when God shines
light, we see ourselves in the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.
But she said, Would to God that my Lord, that is Naaman, were
with the prophet that is in Samaria, for he would recover him of his
leprosy. That is good news in a far land. That is good news in a far land.
But you see the sovereign work of the Lord to send His gospel
or His good news to a person in a far country. And listen,
it's a sovereign work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the
sovereign. He will do and He will have mercy
on whom He will have mercy. And He'll have compassion on
whom He will have compassion. No man can force Him. In fact,
The Lord Jesus Christ, when He came back from Capernaum and
went into His own town, it says there in Luke chapter 4 that
they gave Him a scroll, and He read the text and He said, this
day, in Isaiah, He said, this day is this prophecy fulfilled
in your ear. And they all gave testimony of
the gracious words of the Lord Jesus Christ. But He said to
them, you're going to say this proverb to Me. You're going to
say, physician, heal thyself. And then he explained what he
meant. He said, you're going to say to me, of all the things
that we've heard you do in Capernaum, we want you to do them right
here. In other words, we've got some kind of influence over you. We got some kind of right to,
if you did it over here, well, surely you're going to do it
here. And the Lord said, he said, there were many widows. There
were many widows in the days of Elijah. Did I say it right? And then to none of them was
the prophet sent but to this woman, a widow in Sarepta. And then he said there were many
lepers in the days of Elijah. And to none of them, none of
them were healed but Naaman, a Syrian. And that infuriated
them. What was the Lord Jesus Christ?
They wanted to kill him. And what was the Lord Jesus Christ
saying? He's saying, I'm sovereign. I'm sovereign, and I'll do whatsoever
I want to do. I'll have mercy on whom I'll
have mercy. I'll have compassion on whom
I'll have compassion. And no man can stay in my hand
and say, what doest thou? No man can stay in the hand of
God Almighty and say, what doest thou? He's God. God. Well, he's sovereign. He sovereignly
sends his word throughout the world to accomplish his will.
And here's some of these thoughts. Well, Naaman went and told the
king of Syria. And the king of Syria said to
Naaman, he was going to send him some letters of recommendation.
You see, Naaman didn't disagree with that. Naaman didn't disagree
with that because he thought, yeah, that's the way I'm going
to get entrance. I'm going to get this recommendation. So he sent these letters. We
read the text earlier. And they said, this is my servant,
Naaman. When these letters come before you, know that he is Naaman,
and I'm sending them to you for you to heal him. And the king
of Israel, he thought, man, he's looking for a fight. I know I
can't do it. Naaman knew he couldn't do it.
Naaman knew he didn't have power in himself to heal himself, but
he had wrong thoughts. He thought that by, he went to
the wrong place. The message was, would that he
were before the prophet of the Lord. Would to God that people
would come to the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the only one that
can say. It's not coming to the front
of the building. People have altar calls and have
people come down. There's nothing up front. There's
nothing in this man or any other man. Don't come to me. You come to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Can, but people think, well, I need to, and sometimes people
come to me and they say, well, so-and-so wants to talk to you
about confessing the Lord and baptism. I don't go chasing them
down. They don't need to talk to me.
They don't need to talk to me. And they don't need another person
to come before me. And it's like, I think I want
to make a profession of faith. Don't tell somebody, Talk to
the Lord. Talk to the Lord. And if He does
something for you, and if He saves you, and He gives you understanding,
then you'll come and you won't say, well, it won't be something
sheepishly. Can I be baptized? The Lord commands
me to be baptized. But anyway, He went with these
letters and said, it came to pass that the king of Israel
had read these letters, and he read his clothes and said, Am
I God? Only God could do this. Am I
God to kill and make alive, that this man doth send unto me to
recover this man of his leprosy? And so Elijah, the man of God,
heard that the king had rent his clothes, and said unto the
king, and saying, Why did you rent your clothes? Let him come
unto me, let him come unto me, and he shall know that there
is a prophet in Israel. He shall know that there is one
that can tell him who God is. And so Naaman came with his horses. Now, I'm thinking I want you
to see the thoughts and imaginations of men. Here's Naaman coming
with all this pomp and ceremony. Men think in their mind that
salvation is something that men can do. Catholic religion is
full of this, pomp and ceremony. And that's what, have you ever
heard anybody say sacrament? That's what they teach, that
involved or wrapped in the ritual is actually the grace of God. That's why, by the way, they're
the ones that administer the Lord's table. They give it, put
it in your mouth. They teach that in these sacraments is actually
wrapped up the grace of God. They teach that a person is put
into the kingdom of God by baptism. But that's what Damon said. He said, I thought he came with
his horses and his chariots and stood in the door of the house
of Elijah. He's going to be impressed by me. False religion does cater
to that. False religion does cater to
a man that comes in. give honor to where honor is
due. But the gospel is for sinners. And if the President of the United
States comes in, we want to preach to him like we preach to everybody
else. There's no difference. He needs a Savior because he's
a sinner. And Elisha came to him thinking
that, well, he was going to come out to him. And it says, Elijah
sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash. Now, this is the
message. This is the message of God. Go
to the Lamb of God. Look to the Lamb of God. John the Baptist said, Behold
the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. Your leprosy
is sin. My leprosy is sin. Who are we
to go to to have our leprosy taken away? the Lord Jesus Christ,
by His blood, only in His blood. We're to go to Him for washing
of all our sins. And a person's going to believe God because God gave
him faith to believe it, or he's going to get mad. And that's
what Naaman did. He got mad. It says, go and wash
in Jordan. Now, again, his thoughts are,
well, if it's just about washing in a river, there's two rivers
over there in Syria that are crystal clear water, and this
Jordan is a muddy water. And that offended his dignity. That offended his dignity. that
a man of his stature, of his accomplishments, would have to
come by the way of the vilest sinner. Man thinks that he's
somebody. Man thinks that he's somebody.
Naaman was wroth. He said, go wash in Jordan. And
here's the offense of the cross. It took God sacrificing his own
son the blood of the cross to put away your sin. Can't be any other way. You have to come by the sacrifice
of the Lord Jesus Christ or you will not be saved. Your sins
have to be cleansed in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ or you
will not be saved. There's only one way. There's
only one way, through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's
no other way. Christ said, I am the way, the
truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but
by me, by his sacrifice. Naaman said, behold, I thought.
But Naaman was wroth and went away and said, behold, I thought. I thought. He will surely come
out to me. Surely to me he'll come out.
May not come out to this person, but surely to me. I'm somebody. Surely to me he'll come out.
And He will surely come out to me, and He'll stand, and He'll
call on the name of His God." That's another thought that people
have in their mind. Your God is just as good as my
God. And you see, there's a lot of different ways, and if you're
sincere and you're honest, some people can go by Buddha, some
can go by this other, and no, no. A person's gonna know that
there's only one God, the Lord Jesus Christ, and you can only
come to God by Jesus Christ. He said, the Lord his God. Jehovah
his God, that's what he's saying. He's still talking about his
God, Nimrod. I guess I said it right. Jehovah
his God. He's gonna come out in the name
of Jehovah. I got my other God over here. He doesn't know that
there's only one God. And he says he's going to strike
his hand over the place and recover the leper. And then he said,
he gave this reason, he said, are not Abana and far, far rivers
of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash
in them and be clean? Can I do that? I can do that
and not, you know, I could have some dignity, I could have some
dignity. So he turned away in rage. Well,
bless God, here's a lesson that is taught, is that God is not
going to allow his people to go away in rage. He went away
in rage and he was mad, he was furious. But the Lord brought
him. Saul of Tarsus was furious. Saul of Tarsus was furious and
wanted to destroy everyone that confessed that Jesus Christ was
the Lord. And the Lord arrested him. But he said, And his servants
came near and spake it to him and said, My father, if the prophet
had said unto thee some great thing, wouldest thou not have
done it? Yes, he would have. He would have done anything if
he could do something. Give something to man to do and
they'll do it. But here's another thing. People
call this gospel easy believing. Believe. If you can believe,
believe. that we don't put any obstacles. Believe in the Lord
Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. If he'd have told you
some great thing, you would have done it. How much rather when
he said to thee, wash and be clean. The gospel is believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. But men
got it in their mind that they've got to do something. you have
a little pamphlet back there, done, done. This is the gospel we preach,
it's done. You know, false preachers always
try to put some kind of, try to put some kind of thing to
do, and that's a false preacher. The gospel gets men out of the
way, puts them just between him and the Savior. But the Apostle
Paul is not just false preachers. Not just false preachers that
bring up obstacles. The people that hear themselves.
Nameless said, I thought. Now look over here, if you will,
in Romans chapter 10. You know, when the Apostle Paul
is talking about the the faith that we preach, he
said, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they
might be saved. For I bear them record that They
have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge, for they are being
ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish
their own righteousness, have not submitted to themselves to
the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. For Moses describeth
the righteousness which is of the law, that the man which doeth
these things shall live by them. That's all the law says, do and
live. contains no stipulation for mercy. Do and live, don't do, curse
is everyone that continueth not in all things written in the
law to do them. But the righteousness which is of the faith, the righteousness
that comes by the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ, the
righteousness that saves us, speaketh on this wise. Notice
the first thing it says, say not. Say not. Preachers are not... God's preachers
are not putting obstacles, you know, like, come down before
here, and you must experience this experience, or you must
have this great experience of repentance, and you must have
this feeling. God's preachers are not saying
that. You don't say it. You see what I'm saying? Here's
the gospel we're preaching. Don't you put obstacles in front.
Don't say in your heart, don't say in your heart, who shall ascend into heaven?
Well, that's a great thing, right? Christ already came down. Christ
already came down from heaven. Christ already came, it's already
done. Don't you say what you gotta
do. That's not what we're saying. Or who shall descend into the
deep? That is, to bring Christ in from the dead. But what saith
it? The word is nigh thee, even in
thy mouth and in thy heart. That is, when the gospel is preached, it's either there or it's not
there. God shines a light. It's either there or it's not
there. It's not there one moment and then the Lord shines a light
and it's there. That's the word. That's when
God gives life. Even in thy mouth and in thy
heart, that is the word of faith which we preach. This is what
we're preaching. That God gives life. And don't say what you've
got to do. It's done. Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. Thou shalt believe with thine
heart, confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe
in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou
shalt be saved." This man, he went away mad. Naaman went away
mad. And the servant said, if you'd
have said something simple, you'd do it. And Naaman noticed the
obedience of faith. Then went he down. Then went
he down. Boy, that's grace. The grace
of God manifested. Otherwise, a man will not come. Otherwise, a man will not come
down. He went down. Can you imagine Naaman going
down to the river and all these servants around him? And now
he's got to take those clothes off. He's got to take those clothes
off, and now he really has to expose who he is. A man's gonna
come as a sinner or he's not gonna come. A man's gonna need
salvation or he's never coming to the Lord Jesus Christ, the
Savior of sinners. Imagine him going down to the
river and taking them clothes off, one after the other, and
finally getting down into his breeches. And now he walks down
into the river. Why? Because he's obeying what
God said by the prophet. And he dips in the first time
and he comes up and he washes and it's still the same. But God said, come unto me, keep
coming. You look at yourself right now
and you say, well, I believe God, but boy, I see a lot of
sin in me. You keep coming. You keep coming
to the Lord Jesus Christ. You keep coming, you keep coming. To whom coming? Keep coming,
keep coming. One day you'll open your eyes
and your flesh will be just like his. But he had washed seven
times, washed seven times. And that seventh time he came
up and his skin was like a little baby. Well, you read on, he said,
well, now I know. Now I know there's only one God.
Now, man has to be stripped of his thoughts about God and how
God is going to save a sinner. And man has to come to the Lord
Jesus Christ. Keep coming to Him. Keep trusting
Him. He that begun a good work will
perform it. Keep coming. One day, the Lord
Jesus Christ will come for you. And when He comes for you, you'll
open your eyes and you'll see Him. like he is and you'll be
like him. May the Lord bless this work.
Thank you brother.