Date: March 1, 2020 ()

Bible Text: 2 Kings 5 |

Series:

The Gospel is free, but it cost a lot!
~ Evangelist Gary Gillmore

Naaman

The man was great

  • He was honorable
  • He was honest
  • He was courageous

The maid he captured

  • She was compassionate
  • She had confidence (Faith)

The mistake he made

  • He thought the King could take care of his problem
  • He really needed mercy from God

The message he heard

  • Plain: Cleansing comes from the prophet, not the king
  • Simple: Go dip in the river - close by
  • Free! - couldn't do it his own way

The method he accepted

  • A change of mind
    • Recognized he was a leper
    • Obedience to the only way of cleansing

Thank you very much it is a joy to be here today. I looked at my clock and I only have a minute here to preach because my clock says 12:20. But I realize that, praise the Lord, I get a little bit more time because you are on central time here, but anyway, it is a blessing. I live over in South Bend, as many of you know, and I will try and bring a little light in the midst of the darkness here. And, so anyway, it is a joy to be able to be here preaching the word of God. Let's take our Bibles please and open with me to the book of II Kings, if you would in your Bible. And we are going to, look at this passage of scripture, in II Kings chapter number five.

I am going to be preaching today on the world's worst disease. Okay, disease seems to be something that is in the news a lot today. The Corona virus is worldwide and so I want to preach on a worse disease than the Corona virus. All right, let's look at II Kings 5:1, "Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master, and honorable, because by him the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria: he was also a mighty man in valour, but he was a leper." Let's bow our heads and hearts in prayer. Father, we just thank you so much for every opportunity to open the Bible. We thank you for this church. Thank you for the fact that it stood so many years preaching the word of God. And we pray that, that will ever be true until the rapture takes place. Lord, we thank you for the opportunity. We pray you will use the message, speak to hearts, save that soul that is here without Christ, and stir the heart of everyone of your people, Lord. And we will give you the praise and give you the glory for it in Jesus name and for his sake we pray all of these things, amen.

Now, the worst disease that you could ever have is not the Corona virus, it is not cancer. By the way I am battling that right now. That particular disease and some of you are praying for me. I just have three more treatments. Amen. Yes. Three more. Hallelujah. If you hear a shout, over here, and it seems to be a really, really loud shout on Wednesday. Well it could be the rapture, but you know, if it i not the rapture, it is me just shouting I am done with those treatments. So, I appreciate your prayers and so forth. But the world's worst diseases is not any of those that I have just mentioned, you know, there, are so many different diseases. In fact, I think it is one of the reasons why we must be close to coming to the Lord because in the tribulation period, the world is going to be plagued with tremendous pestilences and diseases. And certainly, we are seeing it right before our very eyes folks what the Bible says is true and in the world it is not going to stop. There are going to be others coming and I hope that is not too alarming to you. But Iam not being alarmed about it, because when you know the Lord, you do not have to be alarmed, you know, and that is a wonderful thing.

So I want us to look at this man named Naaman, he had the world's worst disease. And I want you to see a number of things about this man Naaman this morning. First of all, I want you to see the man he was. Now, according to verse number one, he was a great man, not just a famous man. You know, a lot of people could be famous but not great. And there are a lot of infamous people. As you know, my name is Gary Gilmore. There used to be a Gary Gilmore in Utah back in the late seventies. Some of you may remember it. Well, he was famous, because of a crime he did. But this guy, Naaman, was a great man and I want you to see why he was such a great man.

Number one, he was a great man because he was honorable. He was honest, there in verse number one, it says he was an honorable man. He was honest, and that is a rarity. It is a rarity, particularly in politics. Amen. So, you know, I mean, Abraham Lincoln, he was a great man and he was honest. One time, I remember hearing about how that someone gave him a penny too much in return change for something he purchased. This is when he was a young man. He went all the way home and you know, they did not have cars back then he walked there. I do not know how far it was, but he got home and he found out he got too much money given back to him. And I think it was a penny, just a penny. And he took it all the way back. You know, he was honorable, he was honest. And you know, we need some more politicians like that don't we. We need some people like that. It just does not seem like there is much honesty anymore. So this guy was great because he was a honorable man, but that did not take care of his disease. You know, you could be honorable and that does not take care of your disease. And then we know something else about him. He was great because he was a courageous man. The Bible says there in the last part of verse number one, that he was a mighty man in valour, which means courageous. He was a very, very courageous man. But you know, even though he was honorable and even though he was courageous, and even though he was a great man, you know, the Bible says there in verse one, yet he was a leper.

He was a leper. Now it is interesting that God's word uses leprosy, the disease of leprosy to picture sin. You know, leprosy is a horrible disease. You do not hear much about it. It is still around, but you do not hear much about it. But back in these days, it was a horrible disease. It would eat away your flesh. It would eat your fingers off, it would eat your ears off your nose off. It was a horrible disease. And you know, Naaman was a leper even though he was great and even though he was courageous, he still had this disease of leprosy. It did not take it away just because he was great, just because he was honorable, just because he was a courageous man. Now, if Naaman was here this morning, you know, we would welcome him, and you know, if you would see him come down the aisle of this church this morning, you would probably say, what happened to his nose? You may say, sure does smell awful. Oh, I tell you, something leprosy has a horrible smell to it. Rotten flesh, I do not think I have ever smelled rotten human flesh, but you know, they say that is the worst smell that you could ever smell. You know, that is what your sin smells like to God. My sin smells like that to God. You know, we will never have revival until we realize how rotten the smell of sin is in the nostrils of a Holy God. Just one, you know? And so this man, you would probably say this, I am sure as you would see him walk down the aisle with his nose gone or whatever, maybe his ears gone, you know you would say, what a terrible smell. You would probably say this, that, you know, I sure would not like to be like him. I do not think there is anybody that would even though he was great, even though he was honorable. You know, he probably was very well paid too, because he was the general of the Syrian army. You know you would not want to be like him.

But may I say this to you this morning? You are, you are like him. You have the disease of leprosy. You see leprosy is a picture of sin. We all have this plague of sin. We are born with it. You say, well, I do not feel I have got the plague of sin. You know, I do not feel like I have cancer. I really do not feel sick. I feel as normal, as I ever have felt, you know, but I got it. You know, that is what they say the tests say and so forth. I do not feel like I got it. You may not feel like you have got this plague of leprosy, but you know you were born with it. See you and I were born with it. The Bible says in Romans 3:23, "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Romans 5:12, "Wherefore, as by one man, sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." All of a sudden you see the proof that you have the plague of leprosy is that you are in the process of dying. You know the first thing that begins to deteriorate in your body is your sense of hearing, and another things that begins to go is your eyesight. You know, I used to have 20, 20 vision, but now I gotta wear these things. See you got a disease called leprosy. In the Bible it is a picture of sin. The disease of leprosy is a picture of sin. We are all sinners. Isaiah 1:6 says, "From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds and bruises, and putrefying sores: they have not been...mollified with ointment." Yeah, that is, the plague of leprosy. You see that we all have. And so the second thing I want you to know about this man, not only do we see that, he was a great man but he was leper. All that greatness and all that courage and honor did not take away his disease of leprosy. He was dying. He was dying of a horrible disease.

So the second thing I want you to see about this man is the maid he captured. If you look at II Kings 5:2-3, "And the Syrians had gone out by companies, and had brought away captive out of the land of Israel a little maid; and she waited on Naaman's wife. And she said unto her mistress, Would God my Lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria! for he would recover him of his leprosy." Now this profit would be Elisha. And so you know, this little maid, she was the one that was really great. This little girl, I mean, just a little girl, you can be great and just be a little girl or a boy. You could be great in the eyes of God, you know, no matter if you are a captive or you are not a captive or whatever, you can be great before a Holy God.

And this little girl was great. You know why she was great? Because number one, she was compassionate. Now she was taken captive by Naaman, taken away from her mom and dad taken away from her home. She could have had a great bitterness in her heart towards these people. I will tell you bitterness is a horrible thing and she could have been bitter. Because when you are bitter, you know you can not be a blessing to anybody. And so she could have been bitter against this guy. I mean, she could have said he does deserve to die from it. I know there is a prophet that can heal him, but he deserves to die. She could have reacted that way, but she was compassionate. She is a picture of God's love for us. God is compassionate towards you and I as sinners. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. God did not have to do that. We did not deserve that. But God had compassion on us. And he has compassion on you this morning because he knows that you have this awful disease called leprosy. God sent his son to make a way possible for you to get that disease taken care of, this plague of leprosy. This sin, plague that we are all afflicted with. And so she was compassionate.

Secondly, she was not only great because of her compassion but she was great because of her confidence. You see, she knew that Elisha was the prophet of God. Now, how many people did Elisha heal of leprosy? Well, the Bible says in Luke 4:27, Naaman was the only one. And so this little girl has a lot of faith. You know, I mean, there was not a whole bunch of people that Elisha had healed, but she believed in Elisha and she had faith that Elisha could bring healing to this general. And she had a tremendous faith here. You see if you want to be great before God then you have to go by faith. You have to believe him. You have to trust him. I believe God has tested my faith. You know, God allows tests in our life to build our faith. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. You know, people that do not come to church on Sunday night, they are not going to have the faith that someone would have who comes to Sunday night service. See, faith comes by hearing, hearing by what? The word of God. That is how you have faith. That is how you get the word of God in your life. Memorize it. Hear it. You read it. That is how you get faith. If you are not reading your Bible your faith is going to be skimpy. You know, Charles Spurgeon said, little faith will take your soul to heaven. You do not have to have a lot of faith to get to heaven. Just take the little faith you have got and put it in Jesus. See, he is the one that saves, it is not the amount of faith you have but you have got to have faith. You have faith, every one of you have faith. You had faith to sit in that pew that it holds you. You had faith to get up this morning and go out to your car, put the key in and believe the the car was going to start. All of us have faith. We just take what faith we have and put it in the Lord. Spurgeon said this, he said a little faith will take your soul to heaven, much faith will bring heaven into your soul. See much faith will make you someone that is great for God. That is why we need to increase our faith. We need to pray to God, increase my faith, oh, build my faith, Lord. And you know, when you pray that remember that God sometimes tests you to build that faith.

And so we find that she was a great little girl because she was not only compassionate, but she was confident, the lastly, because she was courageous. She had a lot of courage. She spoke up, you know, she could have been kinda shy. People say, I am so shy. Will get over it. You know, one of the things we need to pray for his boldness. We would have a lot more people saved, if we were not so shy. Boldness, you know, God's people ought to be the aggressive people. Not in a mean or unkind way, but really be aggressive by being kind, be aggressive by being a courteous, be aggressive. But you know, we just sometimes are too shy. No wonder we are not seeing people saved, we are not aggressive. I am praying, God baptize me with boldness. Help me to, when somebody needs help, help me to not wait for them to come to me, help me to go to them. You see somebody standing in church and they are all, worried. You go to them, do not wait for them to come to you.

I never forget, I was up in Pierce, Idaho years ago, not preaching, I was working in the forest service. I was a young Christian. I was so green, you know, in my Christian life and, I had gone to work in the forest service to get some money to go to college. And I am sitting there and I am you know, I am feeling very, very down because my mother dropped me off and I was a hundred miles away from home. And, the most horrible sickness that I ever had in my life hit me, that is homesickness. And I am sitting there, we lived in cots and tents, you know, and I am sitting at my cot there, and man I am feeling so disconsolate. And you know all of a sudden this guy comes over to me and he puts his hand on my shoulder and says, Hey, what is your name? And I told him my name and he said, my name is Abe Carter. And we became great friends, and I am so glad that he was aggressive. I am so glad he came to me. See, Christians are to be the ones that carry the ball. We are to be the ones that are out there meeting people and aggressive and not sitting in some corner. Not thinking that we are a success this week because we did not talk to some about Jesus. No, you are a failure. You know, if you listen every day we ought to seek to talk to somebody about Jesus. Just get the word out. Do not be ashamed. Paul said, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. There is power of God in salvation to everyone, the believeth to the Jew first and also to the Greek, so this woman, she was this young girl, she was courageous. You see? And that is why she was so great. Oh, if we would have more Christians who were courageous, if we would have more Christians that were confident, if we would have more Christians who were compassionate, I think we would see more people saved. I think we would see a lot more people saved. So we see that this little maid was used of God here, to introduce this great general to Elisha. The man of God told him how he could get healing.

The third thing I want to say about this man Naamam, we have noticed, he was a great man and we have seen also the maid he captured. Now the third thing to see is the mistake he made. Look in your Bible in II Kings 5:4-7. The Bible says here, "And one went in, and told his lord, saying, Thus, and thus said the maid that is the land of Israel. And the king of Syria said, Go to, go, and I will send a letter unto the king of Israel. And he departed, and took with him ten talents of silver, and 6,000 pieces of gold, and 10 changes of raiment. And he brought the letter to the king of Israel, saying, Now when this letter is come unto thee, behold, I have therewith sent Naaman my servant to thee, that thou mayest recover him of his leprosy. And it came to pass, when the king of Israel had read the letter, that he rent 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 so, here we see the mistake that Naaman made and the king of Syria made as well.

Notice with me a mistake he did not make. He did not make a mistake here, because the Bible says in verse number five when he heard about the healing, he said, "go to, go." In other words, the Bible says he departed. In other words, he did not procrastinate. He did not say, well, some other time I will go. He realized he was a leper and he was in great danger. He did not say, I am going to put it off, he said, I am going to go. You know, one of the great tools of Satan to keep people in the disease of leprosy, the disease of sin, the plague of sin in their soul is procrastination.

You know, legend says one time the old devil was having was having a meeting with his demons and they were talking how they could keep people from getting saved, and keep people in this case what we are preaching and getting a cure for the plague of sin in their life. And so one demon spoke up and said while people are hearing preaching, I will just go down, whisper in his ear and say, you know, the Bible is not true it is just written by a bunch of men. And boy, the old devil slapped that demon in the face, and said, you old fool anybody knows that the Bible is not written by men with 40 different authors that all agree in everything they read. Oh, that will never work. And one of the demons said I know what I will do, when people are hearing the preaching about how they can have the plague of sin in their life cured. You know what, just go up and say, you know, that Jesus is just a man. He is not God. And a devil slapped him in the face and said, why? You know, anybody that would study the life of Jesus, they are not going to believe that. You know that is what Ben Hur did, he studied the life of Jesus and he got saved. And then one demon boy, he is sitting there and he is really thinking hard. And then he says, I know when people hear the preaching of the Bible about how they could have a cure for the plague of sin in their life, we will go up and whisper and say tomorrow, some other time. And the devil jumped up and down said, you got it. And folks, I am going to tell you something. The devil has caused many people to die with the plague of sin on them and they went to hell for all eternity because of it, because they listened to the devil about some other day.

How many Christians are listening to that, some other time I will get baptized. Why not now? God says, now is the time, today is the day. So many Christians say, well, some other time I will start reading my Bible every day. Some other time I will start coming to the evening service. Some other time I will witness to my neighbor. I remember one time I said that, and the neighbor died suddenly the next day. I felt so, so terrible. I said, Lord, forgive me. The spirit of God was telling me about doing it right away but I said I am busy, Lord, I am busy. I got this and this to do. I will go over there, visitation night but visitation night was to late. You know, he died that next day. Listen, if the spirit of God is talking to you about something this morning, boy you better do it now.

See, Naaman did not make the mistake of saying it is not a big deal. You know, I can take care of this leprosy some other day. No, he said, I am going to, I am going to go. If there is a healing for me, I am going to get it. I do not want to die, maybe probably had some other people had died of leprosy or maybe he heard or saw some people who had leprosy and he said, man, I got to get the cure. But what was his mistake? You know, what his mistake was? Naaman and the king of Syria made, a big mistake. And that mistake was that they wanted to deal with their leprosy by their works, by their own efforts. See what the Bible says here is they took 10 talents of silver, we will take that to the king of Israel. You know, 10 talents of silver and we will take 6,000 pieces of gold, we will take 10 sets of clothing. They are making this big mistake thinking that by their works, their good life, they will be able to cure this disease of leprosy and they are going to the wrong person. They are going to the king of Israel and know that is what they are doing here. And so they made a big mistake here. You see, the Bible says that good works will not cure the sin, the plague of sin. Isaiah 64:6, all our works are as filthy rags before a Holy God. By the way, that is a picture of the lepers rag. They used to wrap the rag around the lepers part of the body and then they would take it off. And the dead corrupted skin would stick to that lepers rag. And God, the Holy spirit uses that as an illustration to depict your good works, to take care of your sin. It won't do it. It is a lepers rag, filthy, right? And so, this was a big mistake. They thought they could take care of their leprosy. What did Naaman need to do? He needed to do what that publican did and he needed to admit that he needed mercy from God. He need a healing from God. See, he needed to humble himself and that's what Naaman needed do. And he needed to put his faith in the right person. See, Naaman put his faith in the king of Israel. He is just another man, he can not do anything. You need to put that faith in the right person. And so what does this teach us? This whole thing teaches us about your works and my works as far as taking care of our plague fo sin. They can never deliver you and me from the plague of our sin.

Only humble faith apart from good works can give you deliverance from the plague of sin in your life. Only a humble faith. The next thing I want you to know about this man Naaman, I want you to note the message he heard. He heard a message and look at that message he heard just like you are hearing this message this morning. Look at II Kings 5:8, "And it was so, when Elisha the man of God had heard that the king of Israel had rent his clothes, that he sent to the king, saying, Wherefore hast thou rent thy clothes? let him come 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 to 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 Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage."

The Bible says he went away in a rage. Notice what the message was. It was very plain, wasn't it? The message was very plain. The message was this, that the cleansing was going to come from the prophet, not the king. If you want cleansing from your sin, it is going to come from the prophet of God. See, that was the message. You know a lot of people, a lot of religions say, yeah, you need Jesus, but -- no, my friend it is not Jesus, but -- you do not need somebody else to. You do not need the help of Mary, you do not need the help of Mohammad, you do not need the help of some other. No, the message was very plain. You do not add anything to Jesus. He is the one who can bring healing to your plague of sin. Only he can do it because he paid the price of that sin at Calvary. He is God, he was perfect, he is able to pay that price. He never sinned you need someone who has never had the plague of sin to take care of your sin. Jesus never had sin, he was perfect. Born of a virgin, came down to this world, went to the cross, the old rugged cross. In Galatians chapter two the verse 21 says, anytime you add anything to Jesus, you are making void, you are making vain the grace of God. You are making vain the death of Christ.

Galatians 2:21 says, "I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, (by good works) then Christ is dead in vain." So anytime you add something to Jesus -- Christ can not do anything for you. Christ can not bring that healing for your sin, but you have to just look to him alone. If you want healing for the sin disease that all of us are born with. But notice something else. It was not only plain, it was simple. All you had to do is go down to the river and dip himself in it. That is pretty simple, just go down to this river, dip yourself in it seven times. It was close, I mean the Jordan river is very, very close to where they are, and you know, the Pharpar in Damascus, I mean he had to go clear to Damascus. This was very close. Just like your deliverance from the plague of sin is very close. You are close this morning. You are so close. You are in church. You are hearing the message of God. You do not have to go hundreds of miles away. It is here, it is right here in the message. And it was free, it was free. You know, doesn't our world love the word free. You get a free this, you get a free that. I heard I think McDonalds is, having a free egg sandwich for everybody on Monday morning if you have the app, because Wendys is coming out with their breakfast meal. Free, you get a free egg sandwich. You know I will tell you something, I watch a little bit on TV, I don't have cable or anything I never had that. But you know, there is a couple of stations there that will have decent advertisements. You know, the worst thing about TV is the advertisements, they are so stupid. I mean, I can not even understand them, you know, but there is a number of them in which they advertise Medicare. You need to sign up for this and it is free, free, free. So, you know it is amazing how people love things free.

I want to tell you something, dear friend, the gospel is free, but it costs a lot. It is great to be free, but it costs a lot for you to have freedom. People died for it to preserve it, to give it to you. You better value that freedom because people want to take it away. Back to Naaman, you know it was free. I mean, there was no pay here. They did not have to pay a certain amount of money, you know, it was free. And then also notice what happens to the message. He rejects it in verse number 11, look at II Kings 5:11. He rejects this message that he is hearing, he rejects it. You are going to make a choice is this morning to receive or reject. Will you reject it? That is what Naaman did, he rejected it first off the bat. First off, he did reject it but then he got smart. How does he reject it? Two ways, he gets mad. He gets mad because, you know, he is offended. He is full of pride wasn't he. He gets offended, you know, it is offensive to him, the message is offensive. One time I was preaching in Miles City, Montana, and I was preaching the way of salvation. It is not by baptism, It is not by confirmation, it is not by good works. And man, there was a lady there and she got offended. I mean, she got upset and she got mad and I tell you something after the service was over, she shot out of there and she, she did not shake hands. I was back there to try and catch her but she shot right passed me. I mean, she was offended by what she heard. You know, all her life she had been told that her good life and her good works were the way, and now she was offended.

Well, that is what happened here. He got offended and then the second way he rejected the message, he says, "I thought" in verse, 11, I thought I could do it my way. In other words he wanted to have a cleansing for his disease of leprosy, his plague of sin, which is what leprosy pictures. That he could do it his way, see he thought that he could come his own way. He did not like the humbling way. Go down to a river, dunk yourself in that seven times. He did not like that. That was against his pride. You know, pride is the biggest sin I think that gets in all of our lives. You know, without pride, there would be so many marriage problems that could be solved if there were some humility -- say, I am sorry.

So we could have revival in our churches if there would be some humility, If my people who are called by name shall humble themselves, pray, and seek my face. What are you proud about this morning? What is keeping you from humbling yourself. You know, I had to humble myself recently. I am an evangelist and I always get this every year. I always get some cancellations and I do not like cancellations. You know, somebody cancels you. But sometimes they are legitimate, but this guy cancelled me. I was going to be with him in May this year. And, he cancelled me to get another Evangeliest. Now folks I do not think that is very ethical, do you? I mean, here, I have been on his schedule for two years and he said, brother Gilmore, I will put you on next year. I have an opportunity to get this guy and I am not going to be able to have any other opportunity to get him. And so I am going to cancel you this year and we will to reschedule something next year. Folks I will tell you something I thought that was very wrong. And I let him know, I said, you know, I think you, you were not ethical at all. You told me that I was scheduled and now for another evangelist. You know, why can't you get him scheduled some other time? You know, you were committed. And so I let him know that I did not think it is right. But you know, the spirit of God began to work in my heart about that. I did not react the way I should have. You know, many times it is not the action that is wrong as much as the reaction. How you react to something, is oftentimes worse than the action. And I reacted in my spirit and so I got in touch with him. I said, pastor, I want you to forgive me. I did not react the way I should have. And I said, I am sorry and would you please forgive me. And you know what, he was very gracious about it and I have another meeting scheduled the next year with him. You know, but I want to tell you something that is so good, it feels so good to humble yourself. It feels so good to get things cleared, you know? So there is nothing between you and anybody. Humility is a blessing.

One time there was a lady greatly concerned about her sister and, every time she would witness to her, she just did not want to hear about it. And so, the sister that was saved was really, really greatly a burden for her. And so she wrote a letter and said, listen, if there is anything I have ever done, if there is anything I have ever said that has offended you or, caused you to have something against me, would you please forgive me? There probably wasn't anything, but she just wanted to make sure that there was nothing there. And it so disarmed that rejecting sister by her humility. She called her local preacher and the local preacher led her to Christ. See, humility will take you a lot further down the right road than pride. Pride always takes you down the wrong road. And this was the problem with Naaman, he was filled with pride. You know, that is the way it is with so many people. He wanted to go his own way. He did not want to want to humble himself to God's way. See, God has a way to cleanse you of the disease of leprosy. And that way is Jesus Christ. That way is humbling yourself and saying, I am a leper. I have got this disease of leprosy, this sin disease that takes some humbling. And then it takes faith to obey what God said to do to get that disease taken care of. God said, come to Jesus. He died for you. Trust him as your Savior. You can go by faith. That is how you get faith in the right person. The Lord Jesus Christ who died on the cross. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, the life. No man comes to the Father, but by me.

The last thing I want you to know or to see about this man is I want you to see the method he accepted. Isn't it wonderful, I am glad I can get to that point. He accepted the method. He accepted what the Lord said, what the prophet Elisha told him. He accepted. He finally humbled himself, you know, and he finally was willing to be obedient. Do what he was told to do and go down to the river. Notice what that method involved. It involved a change of his mind. In other words, recognizing that he was a leper, that he was, about to die a horrible death. And you and I know that if a person dies with the leprosy of sin, the word of God says you will be in hell for all eternity. God is not going to let any person into heaven that has got the disease of leprosy, the disease of sin. He is not going to let you corrupt everything up there. And so he recognizes that he has a change of mind. He is humbling himself. And then he had a change of heart. He wants to obey the Lord. He wants to go to that river. You see, as soon as those two things took place, he could be cleansed. Number one, recognizing that he was a leper, that he had this disease. And number two, obedience to the way to be cleansed and he recognize it. That is the two things. Now, here is the crux of it all for us. You and I have this disease or leprosy we need, in order to have this disease cleansed, of the disease of sin cleansed. We need to humble ourselves and repent of our way. Repent of your way to take care of your sin. Repent of it, turn from it. Repent. Turn from the churches way. You know, that is like going to the King of Israel to find cleansing. You can not do it. You have to go to God's prophet, you have to go to Jesus Christ who is represented by Elisha here. You have to go to him.

Secondly, you need to go to Jesus Christ by faith. You need obey the word of God. You need to come to Him by faith and totally, completely put your trust in what He did on the cross of Calvary in order for you to get off the road to hell. You see, you are on the road to hell this morning. Everyone that was born is on that road to hell because we have the disease of sin, the plague of sin, and we are on that road to hell. But when you are willing to repent and change your mind about your way and turn to God's way to deal with that plague of sin, then you get off that road to hell and you get on the road to heaven. There are only two roads in the Bible that you could be traveling, the road that leads to hell or the road to heaven, and Jesus Christ is the difference.

Now, notice the result of his obedience to this method. He went down to that river and he got down in that river. He is supposed to dunk in it seven times. He did not just do it twice. He went down seven times. And he came up and there were two wonderful results after he obeyed what the prophet of God said, what the word of God says. You know what the first result is? His flesh was like a little child. Look there in your Bible to II Kings 5:14 the Bible says, "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." The leprosy was gone. You know, I do not know about you, but I love to feel the flesh of a newborn baby, so soft, so smooth. That is what the Bible says here, his flesh became like a little child. Flesh, soft and smooth. He was cleansed of that disease of leprosy. You know, I will tell you what, he was no longer unclean. See, leprosy made you unclean before God. A person who had leprosy had to be outside the camp. They could not be around people, it was contagious. They had to be cleansed of the guilt of his sin, his sin was gone. You know the peace that comes when you get the guilt of your sin gone. Oh, it feels you with peace that passes all understanding. He is clean, all the sin is gone. All the sin of the past, present, and future is all gone. The plague of sin could longer condemn him to hell because that plague of sin is gone. Jesus did it by his mighty blood. The plague of sin is gone. Now you could still get defiled by sin. I am talking to people here. Many of you have come to Jesus and and you have been cleansed of all your sin. Your sin can never condemn you to hell, even the sins you will commit in the future. Isn't that amazing! That is the power of the blood of Christ, but you can get defiled by sin. Some of you have sin in your life and it is robbing you of peace.

And there is a guilt there because it is there. What you need to do today is you need to come put that, sin under the blood, and go out of here free. Go out of here set free from guilt. Go out of here with peace knowing there is nothing between you and the Lord. Nothing between you and people. See to be right with God means there is nothing between you and the Lord, and there is nothing between you and people. Is there something between you and somebody? You are not clean, do you think that God is going to use you and bless you if you are unclean. No way. You know, it is not going to happen. You got to get that defiling sin taken care of by the blood of Jesus today. If you have had all your sins, taken care of because you have put your faith and trust in Jesus and he has taken care of all your sins, he has cleansed you of all the plague of sin, all sin. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's son cleanses from all sin. All the sin in the past, present, and even the future, you have been cleansed from. But you are still a human being and you still have an old nature and you still live in the world. And you know what, you can sin as a believer. You can get some things in your life that are not what they ought to be. I pray you want to deal with them this morning.

And then look at the last result in verse 15. The Bible says in II Kings 5:15, "...Behold, now I know ,..." that is in the middle part of that verse. Lets start at the top of verse 15, "And he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and came, and stood before him: and he said, Behold, now I know..." See, I will tell you, when you get rid of the plague of sin in your life, you will not hope you are going to heaven, you will not think maybe you are, you will know it. You will know 100% for sure. I am so glad my friend that I am not hoping, I am not thinking, I am not saying maybe-- I thank God I know. Why? Because one day as a leper having the plague of sin, I came to Jesus and I trusted Him as my Savior, and thank God he has delivered me from all the comdemnation. He has delivered me from the plague of sin. And I know, that is the Holy Spirit witnessing inside of you. You can know. He will witness inside of you that you are going to heaven and not to hell. We are all like Naaman folks, all of us in this building are like Namaan, spiritually unclean. But, if you are willing to, repent of your way to cleanse your sin, you are willing to repent of all the churches way and all mans way to repent of sin. If you are willing to come and obey the word of God and put your faith totally in Jesus Christ and Him alone, dear friend, you can go away spiritually clean. You could go away spiritually clean.

Remember that lady in Miles City, Montana? I told you about? Got all mad. You know when I went back to that church for a meeting, you know the first person that came up to me who it was? It was that lady. She was waiting for two or three years to be able to come to me. And she came up to me and she said, brother Gilmore, I knew what you preached was right? But she said, I did not like it, but I want you to know something that I came to the pastor here. And I said, pastor, what do I have to do to go to heaven? He said, you have to repent of your way of getting there and you have to put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ to be your Savior. And she says, I have done that and I am so glad. She came from being mad to glad. Now I will tell you something dear friend, you turn to Jesus Christ you will not be sad about it, you will be glad about it. And I will tell you something dear friend, you will get off that road to hell and will be on the road to heaven and you will have all your sin totally washed away by the powerful blood of Jesus Christ.

You know the real hero of this story, you know, humanly speaking, is that little girl who wanted to be used of God. Have you ever realized where Naaman would have been if it had not been for that little maid? That little girl who was great in the eyes of God, who is holy, because she was used of God. You know, how is your testimony? That little girl had a testimony? How is your testimony? Is your testimony being used of God to reach the lost or did you defile your testimony? You need to repent, get it right, get back to the living for the Lord again. Have a testimony that is ringing strong and true. May God help you do it. That is what you need to do this morning. Let's pray.

 

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