We are looking here at the story of Naaman. We have seen that he was a very successful man and very influential. He was the leader of the armies of Syria and he was the king's right hand man. The king looked at him and saw that he was able to do whatever he wanted done. And so he counted him honorable and great. He was a mighty man of valor, one who had gone out often in the wars and had come back with great possessions, great wealth that he had achieved in his endeavors. But for all of Naaman's success, we see that he was a leper. It tells us that in verse 1. But a leper. A very sad statement placed at the end of all of his achievements that undoes all the glory. He was a leper. And no one would have changed places with Naaman for the whole of the world. Yes, he had money. He had power. He had influence. He had everything that he wanted. But he was a leper. He had this desperately destructive disease. It wasn't just a skin disease. It didn't just give you blotchy skin. But it consumed your body. It would consume the skin. It would consume the flesh under the skin. It destroyed nerve endings so that you lost sensation. It could lead to loss of limbs, beginning perhaps of fingers, moving into hands, and maybe the whole of the arm. It was a long, drawn-out death. When you heard that diagnosis of leprosy, you knew that this was it. There was nothing that could be done. And so Naaman, for all of his part, was showing a great weakness. And of course, for us, as we read the Old Testament, something which Naaman did not have, he didn't have the scriptures. We see that lamprosy is a picture of uncleanness. It's a picture to us of separation from God. And we'll see that later on this morning. We thought of the servant girl here in verse 2. A young girl brought from her own land, snatched away from her parents, but providentially brought into the household of Naaman. Look at what she says in verse 3. If only my master were with the prophet who is in Samaria, for he would heal him of his leprosy. This young girl, not named, says very clearly, if only Nim were in Israel, God would already have healed him of this sickness. That's faith. It's faith that the Lord Jesus Christ is able to save to the uttermost. And that's a faith that we should have, as we saw. A very simple faith that we can commend to others. Come and hear what he did for my soul. You don't have to say much. You don't have to be able to recite great portions of the scripture. You don't have to be able to know your theology perfectly, although it's good to be able to say the scriptures. It's good to have good theology. But you very simply can say what he's done for your soul. And that's a good word spoken in season. And we saw last week how Naaman went and how he went with great pride. He thought that he could buy for himself his healing. We saw how much gold and silver he took in verse 5, and 10 changes of clothing. that this amount of gold and silver is over a million pounds worth in today's market. And so he goes with his great sum of money, no expenses spent, and he thinks that he will earn and merit his own healing. And of course, the Lord shows to us that we can't merit salvation. There's nothing that we can do to deserve our own salvation. But Naaman was self-reliant. how he said, first he goes to Elisha's house, and he expects that Elisha will come out and wave his hands around and make this scene, this magical scene, in which all his flesh will be healed. Elisha doesn't even come out of the house. Elisha does what is utterly rude. This delegation from Syria has come, this great retinue, and Elisha just sends out a messenger with a very simple message. Go and watch in the Jordan. Naaman was furious. Remember, he had better waters in Damascus, greater rivers, bigger rivers, cleaner rivers. Rivers that could actually heal, or so it was reputed. Not the Jordan, not this small river, this dirty river. But the Lord was humbling him. As the Lord humbles us. In our hearts, as we're brought into this world, is a great deal of pride. There are some people who are very self-centered, and you may look at them and say, well, I'm glad I'm not as proud as that. But what you find is that in your own heart there's a great deal of pride. And it's that sin, I described it last week, as the roots of the tree. It's easy to cut off the sins which are the branches. Anyone can go and very easily lop off branches. It's much harder to dig out the roots and it would be gone completely. And so it shows just how we need to be humbled by the Lord and depend upon him. But I want us today to look particularly at verse 14. So he, that's Naaman, went down and dipped seven times in the Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God. And his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. The first thing we see here is that Naaman was obedient to the word of God. If you look back at verse 10, the messenger that Elisha sent tells him to go and wash seven times. The command is clear. If you go and wash in the waters of the Jordan, you will be made clean. Initially, of course, Naaman was reticent to do that. In fact, he was angry. But his servants persuaded him. If the man of God had said to do something complicated, would you not have done it? But he's only told you to do something very simple. Surely do it, because he said wash and be clean. And so Naaman responds with obedience. And he does it exactly. 10 and 14. And you'll see that he's told to wash seven times. And in verse 14, he washes seven times. He doesn't wash one time or five times or eight times. He washes seven times. The number that he was told to do. I don't know if you've ever thought about this before. If you've ever imagined yourself in this story, there are some details that were not told. perhaps you think what would it be like going into the River Jordan with leprosy in your flesh? Did he dip in the Jordan one time and did he see a measure of relief? Did he see a change in his skin the very first time that he dipped in? And then when he went in a leave his body, up until the seventh time when he was made perfectly clean. Is that the way you imagine it? Well, perhaps. It doesn't tell us. But do you not think it's more likely, from the way it's stated, that Naaman washed once in this Jordan, and it made no difference? That he washed a second time, and it made no difference? And up until the sixth time he'd washed, of that destructive disease of leprosy. And it was only when he washed a seventh time that he was healed. Perhaps if you put yourself in Naaman's shoes and you think, after washing that first time, is there any point? Is there any point in washing another time? It does nothing. The waters of this Jordan River are useless. They are not doing what they are supposed to do. that the command from Elisha was clear. Go and wash seven times, and then you'll be clean. Do it according to the command, and then you will be healed. Do it in the place that God commands, and then you will be healed. You see, when it comes to these matters, we need to do it according to God's command. This is a picture for us of salvation. If we are to be saved, it has to be according to God's command. He said, wash seven times and do it in the Jordan. And Naaman had no liberty to go to Damascus and wash seven times. It would have done nothing for him. He had no liberty to come and to wash six times in the Jordan and expect to be healed. No, it was seven times and in the river Jordan. And friends, if you and I We need to obey the clear command of the gospel. The gospel is not merely an invitation thrown out to you, although it is an invitation. There are many passages that give a warm invitation to come to Christ. The gospel is also a clear command. If you are to be saved, it must be by obeying that gospel command. Repent and believe the good news. There's a command in Isaiah 1. which shows this to us. Wash yourself and make yourselves clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes. Cease to do evil, learn to do good. We could summarize that by saying repent, isn't it? Ceasing doing evil and turning instead to do good, that's repentance. That's a gospel command. But then it goes on into the familiar words of verse 18. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. You see, we have this command at the start. Wash yourself, make yourself clean, repent of your sin, of your wickedness. then you shall be as white as snow. You see there's a promise attached. The gospel comes forward as a command which must be obeyed. You and I have guilt of sin and guilt is a great stain upon our hearts. Unless something washes that sin away, that guilt remains. But the way is open in those waters, and you shall be cleansed. Obviously, we can't just decide that we're going to wash ourselves by our own strength and with our own resources. It needs to be in the way that it's prescribed for us. For Naaman, it was in the Jordan, and for us, it's in the blood of Christ. James tells us, cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. lament and mourn and weep. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians what we were by nature, fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, sodomites, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, extortioners. But what does he say then? But you were washed, but you were sanctified, that you were justified. Such were some of you. You had these sins, these great burdens which lay upon you. They condemned you before God as deserving of eternal punishment and of death. But you were washed and you were made clean. For the Lord Jesus Christ has shed his blood. As the writer of Hebrews tells us, let us draw near with our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience. That burden which weighs upon you, the guilt, it can all be removed because of the blood of Christ which sprinkles. Now Naaman, of course, almost did not obey this gospel command. He almost went back to Damascus to seek to be healed there. But in the end, he obeyed. And it was only when he obeyed that he was made clean. Friends, I would ask you today to search your heart and ask yourself this question. Have you obeyed the gospel? Have you been made clean by the blood of Christ? It's a command that's gone out to you. Cleanse yourself in Christ's blood. The second thing I want us to see is that Naaman's flesh here is restored. It tells us child. I've described a little bit of what leprosy was like. Perhaps you can imagine there was gross ulcers and lesions on the flesh, incredible painful wounds. Perhaps you can imagine what it's like not having nerve endings working in your hands, that you're full of scars and burns. You can think of the It's a terrible disease. A slow and painful death. And we're not sure how far Naaman had gone in that process. It could take years and years for someone to die of leprosy. I think even up to 20 or 30 years. A long, drawn-out process from start to finish. Naaman, of course, we get the impression that he's still able to function. on behalf of the king of Syria. But nonetheless, he still has the marks on his body. And day by day, as time goes on, people can see more and more that he's a leper. And it's getting worse and worse. Look at what it tells us here. It tells us that his flesh was restored to him. All of the effects which had come upon him because of leprosy were reversed in a moment. On that final washing in the River Jordan, his flesh was healed and restored. But notice it doesn't just say that it was restored to him like a man, like a man's flesh. No, it was restored to him like the flesh of a little child, smooth, soft skin. He's made new again. He's made perfect again, if I can use that term, He's been washed. All the effects of this leprous disease have gone from him. And do you not see that that's the same with the gospel? When we wash in the blood of Christ, all the sin and the stain and the pollution of sin is washed away from us. I think sometimes we forget just how ugly sin is. eyes of the behold evil and so he is utterly disgusted by sin. He is repulsed by it, if I can use that phrase. The Lord looks at the evil of man's hearts and he is deeply angered by it. It displeases him because iniquity is a twistedness of heart. It is a corruptness in our nature, a corruption in nature. and it's deeply ugly. And perhaps sometimes we look at sin and we turn a blind eye to it and we say it's not really that bad. It's not the end of the world. Why do Christians make such a big deal out of these sins? Everyone does it. But beauty is not in the eyes of the beholder. Beauty is in the eyes of God. God sets down for us very clearly what is good and what is beautiful. And holiness is what he tells us befits his house. Unless you're holy, you will not go to heaven. And that's the requirement he sets before us. But when he saves us by the blood of Christ, he makes our flesh whole. like a little child. To use the language of David in Psalm 51, he washes us and makes us whiter than the snow. We avoided the snow recently, but we know what snow is like. We know just how pure it is. If the sun is shining on a snowy day, you have to wear sunglasses because it gleams so bright. A place which is ugly and derpy is transformed in moments when it snows and suddenly it looks beautiful and clean and pure. But David says, wash me and make me whiter than snow. Have you ever wondered why he said that? How can you be whiter than snow? Is there anything that is whiter than snow? I can't think of anything. But I think the reason that he says that is to show us that he wants a holiness, a cleanliness, not one by nature. Not one that you can see in the natural world, not the best that we can come up with, but something deeper, something more clean than that, whiter than the snow. He wants the purity that God alone can give to his heart. He knows his sin. He knows that he sinned and committed adultery with Bathsheba and murdered Uriah the Hittite. wash me, make me whiter than snow from all these ugly sins. I think it's a picture here of the new birth. Naaman washes and his flesh is not just restored, but restored as that of a little child. It's as if he's been born again physically. of aging, not with the effect of the sun upon the skin which would burn, not with the effect of this lapras which consumed and destroyed. He looks like a new creation. Friends, the Gospel does that to us too. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. All things have passed away and behold, all things have become new. There is a marvellous work of God which transforms us. when we're born again. Unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven. But when a man is born again, when the spirit of God renews that man, well then he's clean, then he's pure. We have our own righteousness. And the scriptures tell us that our righteousness is like filthy rags. And we can try to cleanse ourselves, but all we're doing is moving dirt around, are we not? You're just moving dirt around, you're not really cleaning anything at all. We need the blood of Christ to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But when he does cleanse us, well then we are clean indeed. He doesn't just remove from you the guilt of sin and then say, Try again. Here's a clean slate for you to obey me this time. No, he doesn't do that. He gets in deeper. He goes into your very nature. He takes away your heart of flesh, or heart of stone, he gives you the heart of flesh. He changes your nature from being sinful and wicked and ugly. He changes it. He makes it new, like Christ's nature. Oh, he does this work. to life, but then there's a continual, gradual change that if you're a Christian here today, this is where you find yourself. That gradual change of moving from one degree of holiness to the next, and we call that sanctification. But your nature has changed. Your nature has changed from the first moment, like that of a little child. Then one other thing to see from this verse. It doesn't just tell us that his flesh was restored to him like a child. The verse ends saying, and he was clean. We might be very tempted just to skip over that. It's very obvious. If his flesh was restored, then he was also clean. But remember that this man is a Syrian. He is a stranger to the Commonwealth of Israel. know what it says. He doesn't know that leprosy is a picture of separation and alienation from God. He doesn't know that someone who was a leper was ceremonially unclean. They were not welcome to go into the temple. They were not welcome to bring offerings to God because they were marked as unclean. The scripture here tells us that this man is now clean. That's quite a remarkable thing. not just according to the ceremonies of the Old Testament, but he is clean indeed. Naaman came out of those waters, not just physically restored, but reconciled to God. The sin that he had was washed and cleansed. The wrath of God was propitiated. The alienation was removed. The dividing wall of hostility out of the waters close to God. He was welcomed as one of God's people. He was counted as clean. We read from Leviticus chapter 14, we read there of the ceremony that was meant to be followed for a leper to be declared clean. Imagine if you were diagnosed of leprosy and you were separated from your family and from the worship of God and you were apart But then you begin to see there's a difference. I'm improving. Maybe this isn't leprosy at all, but you're still unclean. You're still not welcome to come near to God. And so you go to the priest, the representative of God on earth, and you ask him to examine you to see if you're clean. And he goes through the ritual. We read it, the various sprinklings. Notice it was seven times. He was to be sprinkled just as indeed seven times. A picture of completion, a complete cleansing. Seven times sprinkled, but what comes at the end? A declaration, you are now clean. Can you imagine the joy that would be in your heart hearing the priest who's given you a thorough examination? It opens up to you fellowship with your family next. More importantly, fellowship with the living and true God. I wonder, can you hear the word of God speaking to you through the scriptures? Are you clean? For those of you that are Christians and you've trusted in Christ, but sometimes you can have doubts. Sometimes you can lack assurance. And you hear that God speaks through the words of the scriptures to say that if Christ has cleansed you, you are indeed clean. And even though we continue to fall into sins, which dirties us, it can't take away that cleanliness that's within. It can't take away the new nature which he's given to us. Do you remember when Jesus, in John 13, on the night in which he would be betrayed, they were in the upper room And you remember how he got down and humbled himself and he washed the feet of his disciples. And Peter, we have a great affinity for Peter. And he says, you're never going to wash. And Jesus shows him that you need to be washed. And so then Peter swings to the other extreme and says, wash my whole body. Jesus says, no. No. If you've been bathed, you only need to wash your feet. And for those of you that are Christians, You don't need a rebirth. You've already been born again. You don't need a brand new nature. The Lord has already given that to you. What you need is only to wash your feet. You need to wash it from the ongoing pollution, the ongoing sin. pretty quickly, as you use your feet. And so too in this world, as we use our feet, as we walk around in this pilgrimage, we get dirty, we sin against God. It can't rob us of our salvation, it can't take it away from us, but it pollutes us nonetheless. And so each day we must go back to him in repentance and faith. We go back to the ourselves to it again and again and again. It's not salvation all over again. It's not the rebirth all over again. It's a continual washing which we need from our sins. I wonder if today that's what you need to do to begin a practice of washing and cleansing yourself from sin. Our confession of faith is very helpful because it tells us that we are to confess our particular sins particularly. We're not just to say I'm sorry for the sin that I've done today, a jam over pink. I'm sorry that I sinned this day, please forgive me. No, we're to confess particular sins. I confess that I did this action today, and that was wrong. I confess that I had this thought today, and that was wrong. As soon as we note a sin, we are to confess that particular sin. And believe me, friends, a general repentance doesn't lead really to a proper holiness. If we're just generally confessing sin, it's much harder to put off that sin. But if you particularly confess your sin, those individual sins, well, it's much easier to avoid those sins the next time. For the Lord grants us grace to remember our repentance. Well, looking at this example of Naaman today, can you say today that you are clean? Are you clean in your heart? Are you clean in your feet? The blood of Christ this day is open to you. You don't need to go to the waters of the Jordan. The blood of Christ is able to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. This day, go to him, and he will deal with you. Amen. Let's stand and pray. O Lord, our God, joyous in the salvation which you have revealed to us, that you have given to us in the scriptures the gospel command and invitation to wash and to be clean. We thank you, gracious God, that you have made it known to us that Christ Jesus has shed his blood to sprinkle our hearts from the evil that we find within. O Lord, help us We pray, Lord God, for any who have never been cleansed. Maybe they have come close, but then stopped. We pray, Lord God, that you would let them see that it was only on the seventh time that Naaman was healed, because only on the seventh time he was actually obeying the gospel. Teach that, we pray, this day. And for those of us, Lord God, who have been converted but continue to stain ourselves with the sin of this world, O Lord, we confess this wickedness before you. And we pray that you would cleanse us. We pray, Lord God, that you would help us to forsake all sin, help us to look at it with the same level of disgust as we would look at leprosy in our own flesh. Lord God, let us Put these desires once again into our hearts, for we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Turn to page 380 of this Psalter. Well known words of repentance. Particularly we will end with verse 7. Ye thou with hyssop sprinkle me, I shall be cleansed so. Ye wash thou me, and then I shall be whiter than the snow. David here borrows from that Old Testament language, Leviticus 14, the language of the cleansing of the leper and sprinkling. The Lord is able to do these things and to make us whiter as snow. We'll sing these first seven verses and stand to sing praise to God. After Thy lovingkindness, Lord, have mercy upon me. For Thy compassion's great boldness, from mine iniquity. Be cleansed from sin and truly washed from mine iniquity. For my transgressions I confess, my sin I never see. It is the only harm I've sinned, and I strike down the sun. But when Thou speak'st, Thou mayst be just. Unclean and judging still. Behold thy iniquity was formed the womb within, My mother also becomes it, and guiltiness answers. ♪ Behold thou redeeming work art ♪ ♪ In truth's delighted art ♪ ♪ And wisdom thou shalt make me know with it ♪ Do not with this song strangle me, I shall be free. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit