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dear congregation, the healing
of Nehemiah in 2 Kings chapter 5 is not just a story of the
healing of a man from one of the most dreadful diseases in
ancient times, but it is a story of salvation, an illustration
of us in the Old Testament of the saving of a soul. A salvation
that is found only in Jesus Christ. And the story of how people come
to know of that salvation in Christ. Now in Naaman's healing,
there's various people that are playing a role in his history. Some good and vital to the salvation
and the healing of Naaman. And others, not so good. Some with good persuasions, others
with evil persuasions. That really also describes us.
Because we are either aiding or helping to bring sinners to
Christ, or we are hindering them. One of the two. We see that in
the history of Naaman. This morning, we're not going
to be there in Samaria, we're going to Syria. Yes, that Syria
that is much in the news today, with all the unrest and turmoil
there. It's always been a nation of
unrest and turmoil. A heathen nation, covered in
darkness, a place of idolatry back in Elisha's days and heathen
blindness and it really hasn't changed. But what we see in this
history is an anticipation of the gospel that would go out
from Israel through the Messiah and then out from the church
carrying the light of Jesus Christ to Gentile nations. We have in
this history an illustration of what God would do through
the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ and His Church. An illustration
of the love of God that reaches out to a people in utter darkness. And an illustration of how He
often uses the afflictions in those people's lives to draw
them to Himself. in His goodness. In Romans 2, verse 4, the last
part, do you not know that the goodness of God leads you to
repentance? Well, this morning we turn to
our text in 2 Kings 5, the first 7 verses. I'll read you just
verse 1. 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. And what follows, through the
end of verse 7, our text speaks of Naaman, a leper, first going
to look at his disease, what that actually was, and then secondly,
why that's so significant in scripture, and thirdly, the possibility
of cleansing of this disease. Naaman's disease. What we have
in verse 1 is a picture of a sinner, before he comes to God. A picture
of you and me as we are outside of Christ. The Hebrew word for Naaman, though
he is Assyrian, he seems to have the Hebrew name, means to be
delightful, pleasant, and even beautiful, well-formed, So the
name suggests that he had been a very handsome man before leprosy
struck him, but now his name is a contrast to his appearance
and to his character because of that disease that had attacked
his body. A striking picture of us created
physically and spiritually beautiful in God's image before sin began
to take its toll on us. Nehemia's description gives us
a picture of him as he was seen by people. People who tend to
look mostly on the outward appearance. Look at his position, one of
the highest positions available in those days. He was the captain
of the army of the king of Syria. He's the general of the Syrian
army. second in command only to the
king, a man of great authority, in a great position. He's a popular
man, a man great with his master, and honorable. That means he
was highly respected by the people, a national hero, as the general
who'd been victorious over the enemies of the nation of Syria. on his chest these days would
be medals of honor and valor. And notice in verse 1 how scripture
describes the source of his victory and courage, it says, because
by him the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria. So the Lord uses
all people, saved and un-saved, to carry out his decree. But Naaman has a problem. The words, but he was, in italics
and king James, are not there in Hebrew. So you have a description
of Naaman, the captain. Great, honorable, mighty, leprous. Doesn't seem to fit together,
does it? great man, honorable, mighty leprous. In his scripture, leprosy is
a picture of sin and of man's true condition without the saving
grace or the spiritual healing of God's salvation in Christ
Jesus. And regardless of how men may
see us, or how we see ourselves in God's holy and pure eyes,
we are leprous without the righteousness of
Christ imputed to us through faith in the person and work
of the Savior. Here we have God's perspective
on the true condition of this man and of all of us by nature,
regardless of how we are seen and thought of by man. Holy God's
perspective of man without Jesus Christ under the ruin of sin. And billions today are perishing
from the leprosy of sin. You may be here this morning,
a great person, successful, wealthy, honorable, highly respected by
people, and spiritually lost. To realize your lost condition
before God, and to desire to escape from it, are the first
steps towards salvation. What does leprosy in the Bible
teach us about sin and its effects in our lives? What can we learn
from this history about man's condition in sin and what God
does for man in Christ Jesus to heal him from the leprosy
of sin? We'll get to that in a minute,
but we first need to realize what this leprosy actually was. The Hebrew word for leprosy is
for a wide range of skin diseases. and actual leprosy. In Greek
it comes from a word that means to peel off in scales. It's like
psoriasis, only far more serious than the psoriasis we know today. In those days there were two
types of leprosy. The very dangerous type that
was malignant and a more gentle type. And they both started the
same way. There would be a discoloration
of a patch of skin. It would turn white or pink. It would scare people when they
saw that. It would most likely appear on your eyebrow or your
nose or your ear or your cheek. And that malignant type, as it
begins to spread, had all kinds of effects. Portions of a person's
eyebrow would disappear. And then these spongy little
tumors like swellings would appear on the face and the body of that
person. And this disease was deeply seated in the bones and
the joints and the marrow of the body. And it resulted in
the deterioration of the tissues between the bones. And the end
result would be deformity and a loss of feeling in children. people's toes and fingers would
eventually fall off. And this type of leprosy was
impurable and would last until the victim dies. Some of these
people would live for 20 to 30 years in that miserable condition. The other type, the less severe
type, would last from one to three years, and when it looked
like it was gone, you would have to go to the priest, and he would
observe it, and then he would declare you cleansed. But other
than by God's direct intervention, there was no cure for malignant
leprosy. That's why all those special
instructions were given in Leviticus 13 and 14. was not only for health reasons,
but for spiritual reasons and ceremonial reasons. Because leprosy
is a picture of sin and all its features and its effects upon
man and on his relationship with God. Leprosy is very significant
in scripture. How so? Well, that's our second
thought, the significance of leprosy in the Bible. In Old Testament Israel, if you
had leprosy, you were considered unclean, and you would be isolated
from society. Wherever you went, You had to
cry out when people were coming, unclean, unclean. You had to wear a black cloak
with a hood covering your face. You had to live outside of the
walls of the city. And Jesus, when He came here,
He cleansed lepers. But it never says that he healed
them or cured them. It always speaks of cleansing
them. And that's because a true leper
was incurable in Bible times. Just like sin is incurable. Jeremiah 17 verse 9 says we are
desperately wicked. It means also that we are beyond
pure, incurably sick. And Isaiah puts it like this
in chapter 5, from the sole of the foot even unto the head there
is no soundness in our body but wounds and bruises and putrefying
sores. And there is nothing a sinner
can do to deal with his sin problem, just like there was nothing a
leper could do to deal with his leprosy problem. Sin separates
us from God, and even from intimate fellowship with other people.
So when the Lord Jesus healed a leper, that picture should
have been so obvious. Christ alone was and is the means
of reconciliation, the means of peace with God and man. In the Old Testament, when the
priest said, you are cleansed, that's not what cleansed it. It simply recognized the fact
that this leper who had that mild form of leprosy was indeed
clean of the disease. and could be reconciled to society. We need to know that leprosy,
like sin, begins on the inside, and then it erupts on the skin,
on the surface. Lepers are just like sinners. It's not just what we do, and
say that it's so bad, but it's what we are. Our mouth speaks
and our hands do what they do as a result of what our heart
is and what our heart thinks. In Leviticus 13, even the slightest
blemish on the skin, there was a little swelling or a scab or
a bright spot had to be very carefully observed to see if
it was leprosy. The priests had to examine the
skin and then pronounce that person clean or unclean, depending
on what he was observing, depending on what he saw. And so today,
the Lord Jesus has provided cleansing for sin. And every one of us,
especially believers who are all priests, are to detect sin
in our own lives and pronounce it as sin. If we say that we
have no sin, we deceive ourselves. And the proof is not in us. If
we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins,
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say, we have not sinned,
we make God a liar. And the proof is not in us. That would be like an Old Testament
leper looking at his leprosy and saying, I don't have leprosy. The truth would not be in him.
Same with us. We say, I have no sin. And the
truth is not in us. That would make God a liar. See, the pain, the pain of leprosy in most forms was not severe,
because leprosy also killed the nerves in the area that was affected. These people didn't really feel
a lot of pain, but they were restless, and miserable, and
frustrated, and disgraced. As they saw all that happening,
parts of their bodies becoming numb, the muscles wasting away,
the tendons in their hands contracting, making their hands like claws
many times. And they were losing bits and
pieces of their hands and their feet until it was all gone. That's
the picture God wants us to see from Scripture this morning.
This is what sin is like. because of man's separation from
God, because of our spiritual deadness and the hardness of
our hearts, we by nature become insensitive and calloused, yet
restless and never satisfied. No, we may not have severe pain
from our sins and waywardness, not only insensitivity, and restless
misery, and emptiness, and ever seeking a means to fulfill, and
to run after one thing after another, looking for satisfaction,
and never finding it. The wicked, says Isaiah in chapter
57 verse 20, are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose
waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, says my God,
to the wicked." So by nature, our ultimate difficulty is death
and loss and the judgment of separation. And because of the
nature of the disease, A leper was often considered like a dead
man. He was living kind of a living
death, even though he was still physically alive. And that's
how it is with us. Without Christ, we are nothing
more than the living dead. Yes, walking around and talking,
but according to Ephesians 2, dead in trespasses and sins. And regardless of your position,
or your honor, or your power, or your possessions, or whatever
it is, leprosy, like sin, is no respecter of persons. Naaman was a man of great prestige. but the lepers. Now in Israel, according to the
law, lepers were excluded. And the most painful part for
a truly godly leper would be to be excluded from religious
society. They were banned from the temple.
They could have no communion with God's people. And as a picture of sin and its
effects, God used this to remind all of Israel of His holiness. Cleansing a leper meant that
he would be restored to that communion, restored to a normal
life, Later on, when a little girl says that she wishes that her master
could go to that prophet in Israel because he would recover him
of his leprosy, the word there means to receive him back. Receive
back, and that's a fitting picture of our reconciliation to God
and to each other. All things are of God, says Paul.
who has reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and has given
to us the ministry of reconciliation. To wit, God was in Christ, reconciling
the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and
has committed unto us the word of reconciliation. That's what
it would mean to be recovered from leprosy. All leprosy, the
leprosy of sin, destroys the pleasantness, the graciousness,
the beauty that God meant for man in his creation. Sin deforms us. Oh, we may be
beautiful on the outside, but inside, like a grave with dead
bones, until In Christ, we are made new creations and can be
transformed into His glorious likeness again. Therefore, if
any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed
away. Behold, all things are become
new. Think of Naaman. His greatest problem that he
knew about was that he was lecherous. And that's exactly the problem
that God is going to use for Naaman, to bring him to himself. And God often does that still
today. He will use our personal failures or sicknesses or problems
or afflictions to bring us to a place where we don't know anywhere
we're to turn anymore, to bring us to a knowledge of the Lord
and His salvation, so that we may say with David in Psalm 119,
it is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might
learn thy statutes. Not only does the Lord often
use those problems in our lives to draw us to himself initially,
but he often uses further problems in our lives to force us to face
our deepest problem. The problem of indwelling and
ongoing sin and our desperate need of God's forgiveness and
salvation in Christ Jesus. Zenaiman went from his problem
to God's solution. And that was much more and much
better than the healing of his leprosy. Because as we will see
later on today, this afternoon, Naaman came to know the one true
God, and to worship Him, and to love Him, and to adore Him. So when we are going through
difficult times, remember, this is often exactly what the Lord
is using to draw us ever closer to Him and to depend exclusively
on Christ Jesus. So now we have met Naaman, the
general of the Syrian army, and we know what his greatest problem
is now. He has leprosy. What about Think about this for
a moment. What about if we had to choose
one person from this congregation to go to Syria and to speak with
the general of the Syrian army today and be the first person
to tell this man of the possibility of cleansing? Because there's
a prophet of God who could do it. be the first person to speak
to the Syrian, the Gentile of God. Who would we choose if we
could vote? Who from this congregation would
we send? I think for sure it would be
one of the elders, don't you? They know. Or somebody who's really highly
educated. who could argue and reason all
about God and salvation. And we would choose the wrong
person. Do you know who the Lord chose to be the first person
to speak to an army general in the Syrian army, the hated enemy
of Israel? He had his messenger. Oh yes,
the Lord always has messengers for his word. And there is a
person whose heart he has prepared to hear the word of God. God
always has his messengers. And sometimes the most unexpected
ones. Here, God's messengers begin
with a little girl. Would we have looked around this
morning and say, let's find a ten-year-old girl and send her? There's some
ten-year-old girls here, I'm sure. You would be the one to go. You wouldn't like the way you
got there, because this little girl is a
little slave girl. In fact, by God's amazing and
matchless grace, God has worked through the unrighteous deeds
of Naaman and his own army to bring this little girl into Naaman's
house, to be an instrument of God's
love for Naaman. Because what's happened to this
little ten-year-old girl She was taken captive by rough and
tough soldiers, snatched from her family, and then sold in
Syria. And Naaman bought her. And now
she's working for Mrs. Naaman as her servant
girl. It seems she's been forgotten. But the Lord has not forgotten
her. He's blessed her with childlike faith and trust in the Lord. So what kind of messengers does
God use to speak to the sinners of the world? He uses those who know and love
the Lord. Here was a little girl, humble,
obedient, insignificant to people, living under horrible conditions. They may have treated her nicely
there, but she was nowhere near her family, nowhere near the
place of worship, and yet, in that place, using the very problems
that the Lord has brought into her life, using them as opportunities,
and open doors to witness for God. Oh, she's so small, so weak,
so insignificant, but she knew. She knew the Almighty. and the
sovereign Lord. And she knew that Elisha was
a prophet of Jehovah, the Lord of the universe. With him, there
is healing. And she was willing to point
others to the most significant being in the whole universe. Jehovah, the God of Israel. She knew he could cure Naaman's
disease. And so she speaks. She speaks
words that we use every day. And she speaks to Mrs. Naaman.
And she says, Oh, I wish that my master could go to Samaria,
where there's a prophet who can heal him of his leprosy. And
Mrs. Naaman, when Naaman comes home,
she tells him and he goes and tells the king.
Now why would, why would one of the most powerful men in the
world of that day, why would he pay any attention to what
a little ten-year-old girl says to him? A slave girl for crying
out loud. Why did they listen to her? Why
do you think children like You know why that was? It's because
the way she lived her life. They could see the way this girl
lives is a testimony. And when she speaks, they listen
to her. Because they know she's for real.
Otherwise they would never have listened to her words. But her life gave credibility
to what she said. And the Lord used this little
girl to be the first person in Amon's life to begin his journey
towards the Lord. A little girl. As an example,
for us We so often think, I don't know
how to speak to people. How foolish is that? You speak
all day long. Can we not say something like
what this little girl said? When we meet somebody and they
tell us the problems they're having, can we not say something
like, I wish you knew the Lord Jesus? Could the Lord not use that as
the first step in drawing that person to himself, bringing him
under the preaching of the Word? He did it here. He hasn't changed. Our problem is that we are more
like Nehemiah, originally, and the King of Israel. Then we are
like this little girl. What's Naaman doing? He's a typical man. Typical human
being. He knew he had a big problem.
He's got this leprosy. But he wants to have a part in
the healing. He's trusting in his power. in
his position, in his riches. He doesn't know about God's grace
yet. He's thinking in terms of favoritism,
and leverage, and political power, and wealth, and what he can earn,
or buy, or take by force. So Naaman, first thing he does is go to
the king of Syria. with the noose. Guess what, your
royal majesty? This little slave girl of my
wife, she tells me there's a prophet in Samaria who can heal me of
my leprosy. And I would like permission to
go there. And Naaman is a very good general,
so the king doesn't want to lose him. He gives his permission. I'll
help you, Naaman. But he does the same thing Naaman
does. He's thinking in terms of political
power and financial power. They thought they could just
go and buy the favors of the God of Israel from the prophet
of Jehovah through the king of Israel. You don't go to the prophet,
you go to the king. He's the most powerful, influential
person And so this king of Syria sends
Maimon to the king of Israel, not to the prophet. And he took
with him a lot of money. 750 pounds of silver and 150
pounds of gold and fine clothing as a payment. I did a search on the gold and
silver prices this week. And by today's figures, that
would be $4.5 million. That's what he brought. Put that in his context there
in Syria, that would have bought 500 horses for the army of Syria. This is what Ne'eman brings.
This is how he's going to pay for his healing. That was the
cultural pattern of the day, and of our day. But that's not
God's way. So that's how the king of Syria
and Naaman, his general, go to work. And we would expect it
from them. They're pagans, they're heathens,
they don't know how this God works. But the king of Israel
would surely know, wouldn't he? Well, in verse 7 we find out
even though he knows, he doesn't act according to his knowledge
either. Here is the king of Israel, the man in power and position
and wealth, but he doesn't speak of the Lord. He's no witness for God, like
the little slave girl was. Instead of immediately pointing
them into Elisha's house, That that's where he has to be, by
the prophet of God. No, the king is paralyzed with
fear and paranoid. Instead of seeing this as an
opportunity to speak of the love of Jehovah for his people, he
thinks the king of Syria is making an incident here so he can come
and attack. What? Am I God? that I can kill
and make alive, instead of seeing this as an opportunity to direct
this man to the power of the Lord, he's thinking of himself,
cowardly, selfishly. What a contrast to the little
slave girl, little ten-year-old, who was thinking of others. A little girl who, because the
Lord loved her, loved the Lord, and loved others, even those
who had done her terrible wrong, like Naomi. She could have fought like many
would. Naaman is getting what he deserves,
serves him right. Or she could have tried to make
some kind of a deal and say to Mrs. Naaman, I'll tell you where
he can get healed if you let me go free. She didn't do that. She spoke of the Lord. no matter who the other person
was. And like the King of Israel, how quick we are to begin reasoning
and thinking about how other people are going to react to
what we're saying. Expecting the worst, what will
they think of me if I start talking about God and Jesus? Instead of taking life situations
as they come into our daily life, wherever the Lord places us,
as opportunities to serve the Lord and to see Him work. Why are we like that? Because we are paralyzed by self-love. That's why. Paralyzed by self-love, blinded
by ourselves. So the Lord gives us this morning
an example in His Word of how to go about speaking to others. In your daily situations, wherever
you are, if you live in your life, The Christian life, as
a Christian, your words will have credibility. People will
listen to you. They will. They want, really,
what you have. That's what they're lacking. But this little girl, accountable
to her master, in the service of his wife, in a place where she didn't want
to be, as a captive uprooted from her
home and family, trusting the Lord and thinking of others'
needs. So what did all this do for Naaman? Well, it shattered his trust.
in human resources. Naaman is learning here that
all the stuff he brought along to pay for his cure was worthless. He's left holding the bag full
of money and he's still leprous. Naaman needed to learn And we
all need to learn that we must never trust in anything to be
saved or to stay saved except God's grace in and through the
work of His Son. Nothing else will do. That's it. Children, did you know that Naaman
is also mentioned in the New Testament? In fact, the Lord
Jesus talks about Naaman. He's in a little place, and the
people there are saying, do some miracles for us in his hometown. And then he says, no, a prophet
is not received in his hometown. Then he says, there are many
lepers in Israel, in Elisha's days, and none of them was cleansed
except Naaman the Syrian. Why did God do that? It reminds us of God's amazing
love, God's amazing grace in choosing His people his marvelous election. He could
have gone to all the lepers in Israel and cleansed them all. But he went to one in Syria. That's the one he had chosen
to be cleansed. Think for a moment, dear believers,
of 35 million people in Canada Out of all those 35 million, He has chosen you. Bypassed millions of others and
chosen you. And the only way to account for
it is God's sovereign electing love. There was nothing in Naaman
that would have moved God to choose him Just like there was
nothing in you that would move God to choose you. You are who
and what you are only by God's amazing grace. God's love for
sinners. What are you going to do with
that good news? Let's go and spread the good
news of God's love in Christ Jesus for sinners. And let's never forget what scripture
says, Ephesians 2 verse 8, For by grace are you saved, through
faith, and not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. In Titus 3 verse 5, not by works
of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy. He saved us by the washing of
regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Almighty God and Merciful Father, We see in the dealings of the
Lord in Naaman's life such a picture of Thy dealing with Thy people,
choosing us from before the foundation of the world, sending Thy Son
to obey Thy law perfectly and yet to die as a guilty one for
our sins. And O Lord God, we do pray for
boldness. to proclaim the news of the goodness
of the Lord. We have seen, O Lord, in this
history also, how Thou hast used the testimony of a little girl
as the first step in drawing Naaman unto Thyself. Lord, take away our great self-love,
our cowardliness. Give us boldness, we pray. and
a love for the souls of others, so that we may see all other
people as image of God, having a soul destined for eternity,
whose only hope is in Christ Jesus. Lord, bless us, we pray. Be with us now as we go to our
catechism classes and to the sermon discussion. Bring us safely
home afterwards and back again this afternoon. We pray it in
Jesus' name, Amen.
Naaman... a Leper
Series Elisha
- Naaman's disease
- Its significance in Scripture
- The possibility of cleansing
| Sermon ID | 11512232091 |
| Duration | 50:42 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | 2 Kings 5:1-7 |
| Language | English |
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