being made a Christian, will usher in the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we say, until then, Mernath, our Lord, come. I want to draw your attention this morning in the ministry of the Word, and just let not your hearts be troubled. I'm not going to preach a full 45 minutes, but I do this morning want to look at 2 Kings 5, and I want to consider another baptism. Not the kind of baptism that we saw this morning, but a baptism that ushered in a healing of the Syrian commander Naaman. So I want to look at 2 Kings 5, and I'm going to read in your hearing verses 1 all the way down through 19a. 2 Kings 5, verse 1, all the way through 19a. So let's give our attention, brothers and sisters, to the reading of God's holy, inspired, and infallible Word of God. 2 Kings 5, 1-19a. Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and in high favor because by him the Lord had given victory to Syria. He was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper. Now the Syrians on one of their raids had carried off a little girl from the land of Israel, and she worked in the service of Naaman's wife. She said to her mistress, Oh, would that my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria. He would cure him of his leprosy. So Naaman went in and told his lord. Thus and so spoke the girl from the land of Israel. And the king of Syria said, Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel. So he went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten changes of clothing. And he brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you Nahum, my servant, that you may cure him of his leprosy. And when the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, Am I God to kill and to make alive that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Only consider and see how he is seeking a quarrel with me. But when Elisha, the man of God, heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent to the king, saying, Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come now to me, that he may know that there is a prophet in Israel. So Naaman came with his horses and chariots and stood at the door of Elisha's house. And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean. But Naaman was angry and went away, saying, Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the Lord his God and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper. Are not Abana and Farfar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage. But his servants came near and said to him, My father, it is a great word the prophet has spoken to you. Will you not do it? Has he actually said to you, wash and be clean? So he went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God, and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and he came and stood before him, and he said, Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel, so accept now a present from your servant. But he said, As the Lord lives, before whom I stand I will receive none. And they urged him to take it, but he refused. Then Naaman said, If not, please let there be given to your servant two mule loads of earth, for from now on your servant will not offer burnt offerings or sacrifice to any god but the Lord. In this matter, may the Lord pardon your servant when my master goes into the house of Ramon to worship there. leaning on my arm, and I bow myself in the house of Ramon. When I bow myself in the house of Ramon, the Lord, pardon your servant in this matter. He said to him, Go in peace. Thus far the reading of God's Word. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the Word of our Lord stands forever, and we are grateful for it. Beloved, would you bow your heads with me as we ask the Lord to illumine our hearts in the ministry of His Word this morning. Dear Father in heaven, we pray that in this brief exposition of Your Word, You will once again remind us of the grandeur of Your salvation and fill us with the wonder of its effect. Father, You sent Your Son some 2,000 years ago to pay for the sins of His people and to give them the righteousness that they did not have. And in addition to that, Father, You sent Your Spirit from heaven on the day of Pentecost to dwell within the hearts of Your people to serve as a homing beacon, as it were, to true north, to the eschatological kingdom that You have prepared for Your people and are preparing even now, building mansions in glory until that day when You will send Your Son from heaven to retrieve Your church. Father, remind us in this picture this morning of Your great work of salvation, and may it take priority and efficacy in our lives, we pray in Christ's name, Amen. I want to talk to you very briefly this morning about the baptism of Naaman. In the Bible, specifically in the Old Testament, the Lord, listen to me, gives us types and shadows of New Testament realities. And what I want to do very briefly is show this morning how Naaman's baptismal healing is a type and a shadow and a picture, not only of the sign of baptism, but more importantly of that to which baptism points. In the same way that Naaman was healed of this thing called leprosy, So the children of God are healed of this thing called sin through the personal work of Jesus Christ coming down in the person of the second member of the Trinity in His incarnation to take on flesh, to be born under the law, to redeem those who are under the law. And so, that's the big idea this morning, how Naaman's baptismal healing is a picture of our salvation in Jesus Christ. And I want to show that to you in about six points. They're very brief, and I want you to pay attention. This is simultaneously an exposition of our salvation in Christ, but also a way to read the Bible sideways. I say that often, and what I mean by that is that the pictures in the Old Testament are meant to put on display new covenant realities, and we should read our Bibles in that way. So here's the first thing that I want us to see. The first thing I want us to see, listen very carefully, is how sin cancels every advantage. I want you to notice in the text how Naaman is described. He is described as a great commander of Syria. You might say that he was the second in command in Syria. He was the great military general. He was the one that led out the armies of Syria into victory and it says, the text tells us that he had many victories under his belt. He was an accomplished man. If you were to think of him in terms of today, he had a brilliant portfolio. He had people looking at him and aspiring to be like him. He was an accomplished man. But the Hebrew text does something very interesting. It says he was a great man, a man of many victories, and then in the Hebrew text it just says a leper. And the idea is to show that despite all these accomplishments of this great man, there was one thing that hindered him from true greatness, and it was this sin and this disease of leprosy. It was similar, as far as we could tell, to what we know as leprosy today. It would cause the limbs to go numb. It caused desensitization. And it was a horrible thing to look at. Whiteness on the skin. It caused ostracization of that person from the rest of the community. And you may not know this, but in the Old Covenant, leprosy served as a picture of sin. What happened to the leper in the Old Covenant when they were discovered to have leprosy? They were isolated. They were put aside. They were not able to come in and make sacrifices. They were not able to come near to the priest until they were purified of their leprosy. And what I want to say this morning, beloved, is as we draw, we read our Bible sideways, I want you to see, as I said this morning, that sin cancels every advantage. Many of you in this room may be men and women of great stature. In your perspective fields of influence, perhaps you have accomplished much. Maybe you have a bunch of letters after your name. Maybe you have a very high-ranking position. Maybe you have a big house and a big car. Maybe you have many things that would commend you to those who aspire to such things, but there is one thing like Naaman that holds you back. You are a sinner. You are a sinner. And it reminds me of the words of Jesus when He says, what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and yet forfeits his soul? My friend, this morning, I don't know all of you, and some of you may not be in a saving relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, and what I want to tell you is you could have the straightest, widest teeth in the world, You could have all the degrees that make you a great man or woman. You could have a wonderful portfolio. But at the end of the day, if you are not right with God through the personal work of Jesus Christ, sin cancels every advantage. Sin cancels every advantage. I want to also draw a connection between the characteristics of leprosy and sin with us. One of the marks of leprosy, as I said, is that it causes numbness and desensitization to things. A leper, if he is not careful, as he's making his macaroni and cheese on the stove, can burn his hand and not even know it. And so it is with sin. Sin desensitizes us to what really matters. Sin causes us to disregard the most important things and value the least important things. In fact, this morning, as you're listening to this gospel message, you may, if you are a leprous sinner like Naaman, just think this is not a big deal, that what this man standing before you is saying doesn't have any relevance or bearing on my life. And what I'm here to tell you this morning, as a representative of Jesus Christ, is that what I'm telling you this morning is the most important thing for your soul. And not only to get you into heaven as some type of fire insurance, but to give you the kind of life that is worth living in this life. A life that is filled with hope. A life that sees beyond death and beyond the grave into the heavenly places where Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. So the first thing we see is that sin cancels every advantage. But I want you to notice secondly, dear people of God, I want you to notice secondly that God uses unexpected means to bring salvation and sanctification. You know what's interesting in this text is that Naaman was offended that Elisha wanted him to go baptize himself seven times in the Jordan. In fact, he tells us that, you know, aren't the rivers in Damascus better? Abana and Farfar, we see in verse 12. And you must understand geographically that Damascus was higher up, okay, which is kind of funny because that means the waters would be colder, but they would also be what? Purer. Because it would be closer to the snowpack. And as that snow melts, it is pure, and as it goes downstream, it gets more contaminated, if you will. But Naaman was thinking of his own country land. He was thinking of his own rivers. He was thinking of solving his problem of leprosy according to his own terms. And I find that interesting. I find it interesting as a pastor because in my evangelism efforts and in my pastoring efforts, I see the exact same thing. I see people that maybe they want to be saved, and yeah, maybe they want to be sanctified, but they want it to be on their terms. They want it to be on their terms. What does the prophet say? He said in verse 11, It says, Nehemen was angry and went away saying, Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the Lord his God and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper. Kind of sounds like a Benny Hinn concert to be honest with you. You know, I've got an ailment. Let's just go to a Benny Hinn concert, right? And we'll go up to this man that is full of the charismatic spirit, and he'll just wave his hands or his sport coat over us, and we'll be slain in the Spirit and all of our problems will go away. Beloved, that is so American. We just want things to be done right away. We want salvation. We want sanctification to be a drive-through window. where we just pull up, we order, we pull up to the next window, and there it is. It's just all right there. And the fact of the matter is, no, God uses unexpected means to save His people and to sanctify His people. You just witnessed a baptism. Can you believe that 2,000 years later we're still doing this? I've read theologians that are like, you know, this idea of baptism, it's a little outmoded. I think what we should do rather is, you know, have the new Christian come out in like torn, dirty clothes and have mud on their face and stuff like that and hair disheveled. And then they give their testimony, and then they go into this little door and this little room, and then they come out with new clothes on. That would be better. Well, first off, friend, we don't have the luxury or the liberty to tinker with the way in which God has told us to worship. That's why we as Christians, but I would also say Reformed and Baptistic believing people believe that the way God tells us to worship, that's the way that we worship and no other. But secondly, I don't think we can improve on what God has done. He has given us a beautiful symbol, which is not just simply about getting wet. It's about showing our faith union with Jesus Christ, which you know what? That points up the greater picture that you can't save yourself. You need to connect yourself to one who can save you. One who has the works that you do not have. One who has the blood to cover your sins that you cannot cover. You see, all of your fixing things, all of your sweeping things under the rug, all of your trying to make people forget your wrongs will not make you right before God. So you must connect yourself through faith union with somebody who can. So God uses unexpected means. Do you wish to be healed? Do you wish to be healed of your sin this morning? And brothers and sisters, I'm not just talking about people who are not believers. I'm talking about you who are believers. Do you wish to be healed of your anger? Do you wish to be healed of your covetousness? Do you wish to be healed of your lust? Do you wish to be healed of your murderous thoughts and your gossip and your slander? You see, as Christians, we're continuing to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. And God doesn't stop changing your life at salvation. Surely that is the line of demarcation between the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light. But He continues, listen to me, He continues to change you throughout your life. And you know what? The same way that He changes you in salvation is the very way He changes you in sanctification. Two things. Repentance and faith. You know what we want as Christians? I do this as well. We're okay with getting corrected. We're okay with getting rebuked. We're okay with sanctification and being corrected by other brothers and sisters, but they've got to do it perfectly. They've got to make us feel really good. It's got to be painless. My sanctification's got to be painless. Beloved, there's no such thing as painless sanctification. At the moment, all discipline seems what? Painful. It's not pleasant. But later, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. You have sin in your life that you want to kill? You have sin in your life that you want to mortify, as the old divines say? Listen to me. It will not come but by hard work, with your sleeves rolled up and mud on your face and finding yourself in the trenches, probably with another brother or sister who are helping you. They're putting the mirror of the Word of God in front of you, right? Because we're not accustomed to putting the mirror of the Word of God in front of us and seeing the things that we need to see. Sometimes we need brothers and sisters to come alongside us and help us see the things that we don't see. And the biggest thing that stands in the way of God's sanctifying work through those means is that ugly sin of pride. Don't tell me I have something wrong with me. Friend, if that's your attitude, this is not the church for you. There's a country club down the road. You can go join that church, okay? We want, as a church, to have a wartime mentality when it comes to sanctification. We want, as a church, to stand shoulder to shoulder and point each other toward the eschatological kingdom of God, which has broken in in the personal work of Jesus Christ, but is coming in its fullness with His second coming. And we want that hope to be our motivation for killing sin in the flesh now. You know what's interesting? in the place of God's unexpected means of saving and sanctifying the Word, baptism, and prayer. In the place of those simple things, we run to other things. We run to substitutes. One of the substitutes, listen to me very carefully, I'm not speaking in a void here. One of the substitutes that we run to, that we see the culture running to, is the substitute of victimhood. The substitute of victimhood. You see, what our culture tells you, if you've got problems, if there's trouble in your life, more than likely it's not your fault. More than likely it's somebody else's fault. This is the culture, the psychobabble culture, that tells us to blame shift. The buck doesn't stop here, it stops with somebody else. Now, don't get me wrong. I want to make a qualification. There are true victims in this life. Don't get me wrong. I'm aware of that. But this victimhood culture is on steroids. And it's ravaging your minds and hearts through media, through entertainment, through everything that you see on your social media feed. It's not my fault. It's somebody else's fault. Let's shift the blame. And parents, I would warn you as you are raising your children in this culture not to fall prey to that. I know many of you have your kids in homeschool, but there's others who are in private school and public school even, and that's fine. We have liberty to do that. But one of the ways that this manifests itself is If your kid's teacher comes and says, you know, little Johnny was a little hellion today, okay? Don't throw the teacher under the bus, okay? You join with your teacher and say, little Johnny, we got some things to work on, okay? Don't justify actions. Don't look for every excuse that you can. See, this is just one example of the victimhood culture. What else does our culture say that it uses as a substitute? Well, God helps those who help themselves. That's what the culture says. Friend, you will not find that phrase in the Word of God. The Word of God says God helps those who realize that they can't help themselves. Do you realize that you can't help yourself? Do you realize that the concept of sanctification, that God is going to grow you in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, to be able to have victory over your lustful thoughts, men and women, to have victory over your anger, to have victory over your coveting, to have victory over the hate in your heart, to have victory over all those things is a painful thing, and it's actually when I get myself out of the way, that God moves through His Spirit and the Word in my life. I think the greatest mark of the Christian, if I could sum it all up, the main thing that should characterize a Christian is a spirit of humility. Humility. But that's not the only thing that we run to as a substitute for these humble means that God uses to save and sanctify this. Sometimes, and I'm going to qualify this, so listen carefully. Our culture also tells us that if there's something wrong with you, that you just go to medication, whether that is the medication of the bottle, whether that is the medication of illegal drugs, or even if that is the medication of sanctioned drugs. And there is a place for that. Many of you know that we believe there is a place for that. God uses a place for medication. But again, in the same way that the victimhood mentality is on steroids in our culture, so there is a mentality in our culture to find the solution to my problems and just medicating them away. And I know of men and women who for many, many years at the direction of their doctors were on certain forms of medication when they shouldn't have been. And after a while, they finally had the wherewithal to just say, I need to repent of my sin. And they did. And the Lord was transforming them and is transforming them. So again, I don't want this to die of a thousand qualifications. There's a place for it. But I think our sinful flesh is so wicked that we look everywhere except for where God tells us to look to find a solution. And the fact of the matter is, it's just a lot easier, isn't it, to medicate our problems away. It's just so much easier to just put our head in the sand rather than to work hard under the grace of God and by the Spirit of God to make war with our sins. So that's the second thing we see, that God uses unexpected means to bring salvation and sanctification. I mean, after all, what is the glory of the Christian faith? A bloodied, bruised, and crucified Savior. I mean, the world looks at us, right, and they say, well, Christianity, don't you follow one, a figure, a historical figure who lost? I mean, he lost, right? He was crucified on a Roman cross. And we say that cross is not our crux, that cross is our glory. And it should characterize the mentality of everyone who claims to follow Jesus Christ I am crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives within me. I want you to notice thirdly that this great faith that Naaman had was modeled not first by him, not first by any of his soldiers, but by a little girl. A little girl. It was a little girl who, if I had time to unpack this, I would, and maybe in another sermon I will, but she's ripped out of her home in Israel and taken captive to Syria. And listen to me. If anyone had a human justification for being bitter at God, I think it would be this little girl. Right? Ripped away from her home, ripped away from her friends. And you know, I'm thinking, if I were her, because I'm so wicked, if I were her and I thought, oh, Naaman, the commander of the army that took me into captivity has leprosy? Good! Thank you, Lord, for judging him. But what does she do? She goes to his wife and says, you know what? If he goes to the man of God in Samaria, he could be saved. Look at the faith of this little girl. Look at the faith of this little girl. And it reminds me, beloved, it reminds me that the faith that God calls us to is a childlike faith. A faith that says, Father, I don't understand how you're gonna do this. I don't understand how you're gonna provide. I don't understand how you're gonna get me out of this dire strait, but I believe that I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. It's a childlike faith that believes despite everything that you see around you. This is the childlike faith that saves the people of God. God chooses the weak things of the world to shame the strong. Naaman ends up believing the little girl, but he had first to overcome his pride. Fourthly, I want you to notice, in all the Bible, there's really only two examples of lepers being healed. It's this case, and then the case of Jesus healing a leper. And I don't think that that should be lost on us. Mark chapter, I think, one, verse 40, 41. Jesus heals a leper as well, and I think, again, reading our Bible sideways, we're meant to see the connection That the man, the woman, the child even, who comes to God in a humble disposition, are willing to say, God, I recognize you need to save me. I recognize you need to sanctify me. I recognize you need to change me. I want to be changed. And secondly, I'm willing to do it the way you tell me to do it. And not my own way. Not imposing my ideas on what God wants to do in my life. But God, I want to do it Your way. I want to repent of my sins. I want to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to take up the cross and bear it day by day. That is the man and woman and child to whom the Lord saves. Fifthly, I want to make a connection to baptism today. This is a picture of our healing, is it not? It's why we talk so much about the sacraments, the ordinances in this place, because, beloved, I hope you this morning remember your baptism. I want you to think about when you were plunged under those waters of judgment, that if God were just in one sense, He would keep you under those waters. The waters that represent the watery grave. The waters that represent judgment. The waters that represent death. But He did not do that, did He? You came up as a symbol of your faith union with Jesus Christ. So in the same way that Christ conquered death, hell, and the grave, so you through Him conquered death, hell, and the grave. Then finally, the final thing I want you to notice as we come back to the text. is that baptism is a symbol, it's a sign, it's an external sign of an inward reality, but it ushers in a changed life. And isn't it interesting, Naaman, he gets saved, he gets cleansed of his leprosy, and then he says two things. Number one, Well, three things. Number one, can I give you some money? And Elisha's like, no, no, no. You don't pay for salvation. You don't pay for this healing. All right. And that does tell us as a lesson that our salvation is free. But secondly, secondly, he says, Well, you know what, I'm going to go back to Syria, and of course they worship false gods over there. Let me take two mule loads of dirt back to Syria with me. Now if you've ever wondered why he asked that, let me tell you what the answer is. You must understand that in the old covenant, in the ancient Near East, not just the people of Israel, but the ancient Near Eastern peoples had this concept of cosmic geography. And wherever God made his name known, okay, like that was his territory. He reigned over that, and the whole idea was that Israel was to spread that territory throughout the whole earth. Well, now Naaman's gonna go back to Syria, and that earth is going to be shot through with false worship of a false god. And so what does he do? He said, let me take some earth from Israel, And on that, we don't see that, but we know why He's doing it. He wants to erect an altar on that dirt. And it is on that altar that He's going to offer sacrifices to the true and living God, Yahweh, who presides on the territory of Israel. So I want you to see first that Naaman's life is changed. He didn't just get this healing and then move on and there was no change in his life. His worship is radically changed and transformed because of this interaction that he had with the God of Israel. But the third thing that I want you to see is life is still messy as a Christian. If you read the text, he says, you know, Elisha, I just ask the Lord to forgive me because I'm the commander general, which means when my king goes in to worship this false god, I gotta go with him. I'm like his bodyguard, right? And so I gotta go with him, and as he comes into the temple, what's he gonna do? He's gonna genuflect, right? He's gonna bow down, and you know, he's on my arm, and I kinda have to bow down with him. But I want you to know, I don't mean it. I'm not trying to worship this God, I'm just, this is the situation that I'm in. And he says, Elijah, or Elisha, you know, ask the Lord to forgive me. And it's interesting, Elisha doesn't say, oh, you're fine, don't worry about it, life's messy. It's true. He just says, go in peace. And I think that's kind of his way of saying, figure it out, brother, okay? Life is messy. We're all gonna have our crosses. We're all gonna have our crosses to bear, but the Lord will guide you. And it's the same thing that I say to you. It's the same thing I say to Piper. It's the same thing I say to Malik, to all of us. Getting baptized, being brought into the church, beautiful, wonderful things, but guess what? We still have problems. It doesn't make all those problems go away. In this world, you will have trouble, but take heart, Jesus says, I have overcome the world. So this picture of Naaman's baptism is a picture of our salvation. It's a picture of how the saving God reaches down in the person and work of Jesus Christ and makes us new. And it's a picture whose reality can be your reality this morning if you turn from your sins and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's bow our heads this morning and ask the Lord to help us as we consider this great picture. Father God, we thank you for your kindness to us in the person and work of Jesus Christ. We thank you, dear Father, that you have reached down and you have saved us. You have reached down and you have given us new hearts. And we thank you, Father, for this sign of baptism which reminds us of such. And now, fathers, we turn our attention to the table, which is a blessing to have two sacraments and one Lord's Day, that you would once again remind us in a vivid way, in a tangible way, of the person and work of Jesus Christ. For it is in His name we pray. Amen. Well, we come now, people of God, to the table of the Lord.