The title of my message this morning is The Way of Salvation and if you're taking notes my points will be five. A condemned man, a concerned child, a confused beginning, a convincing argument, and a converted man. So a condemned man, a concerned child, a confused beginning, a convincing argument and a converted man. This is a magnificent story. You just simply can't help but be drawn into the drama of it. The details are rich, vibrant, but it's a magnificent story, not just because it really happened. That would be just a delight all by itself. But because in these characters and in the interchange that we have in the story, you find God orchestrating events in such a way that the drama of redemption is played out. You find the way of salvation laid out. And that's what we're going to be looking at as we go through the story this morning. God's great salvation for lost, leprous mankind. As I said, we'll first look at Naaman, a condemned man. The writer wants us to see this man as he is, and so spends a little time giving some descriptions. It's evident he's a great man. He's a man's man. He's a warrior. He's a very powerful man. He's earned his way up the ranks and now is the number two man in Syria next to the king only in power. And so if you can just think of a soldier, a military man, a man of great strength. He's a man's man. He's an honorable man. There's valor, integrity. He's an impressive man. You would like Naaman. You would be impressed by Naaman. He has charisma. He has something about him. There's a presence to him. And the text tells us why he's risen to such great heights in the land of Syria. It's because the Lord has given victory to Syria through Naaman. The king trusts him implicitly. God, Israel's God, an interesting wrinkle in the story, Israel's God has given victory to Israel's enemy through Naaman. God is not a tribal God, is He? He's a God over all the world and He's orchestrating this human history according to his own infinite wisdom and skill. But you see, Naaman's blessing is also his crime. He's a man made in the image of God, endowed with great gifts and abilities. He is a man blessed uniquely by God. His success is directly because of God. And so he owes to God his worship, his obedience. He exists because of the living God. And yet, you see, Naaman doesn't worship God. He worships pagan gods, gods that have been made by human hands, gods that are not gods at all. And so his blessing is exactly his crime. And we find in the text as well that Naaman is a very impressive man, but he's a desperately needy man. But he was a leper. It's very terse in the Hebrew. This is sort of the final line on Naaman. These are really the defining terms of his life. You see, no matter how great a man he was, no matter how impressive a man he was, there was not a single person, the lowest slave in Syria, would not trade places with Naaman. Because he has a death sentence on him. He's a condemned man. He's a cursed man. This disease is incurable. It's judgment. It's hard for us to really understand the desperate nature of this man and the stain of being a leper. If someone is told today that you have incurable brain cancer, you've received a physical diagnosis that's dire. It's very likely if the doctor says this is terminal, this will kill you, you have six months to live. We maybe know folks who've had that experience. It's a very dire, Diagnosis. But leprosy is that and more, because leprosy has this shame to it. Leprosy carries the sense of being condemned by the gods, that you are unclean, you're defiled, you're stained, you're not worthy. Which is why in the text, the language for healing is not health, but cleanliness. So if you look in verses 10 and as they're talking about, Elisha says, go and wash and you will be clean. The language is always about cleanliness. To be recovered is to be cleansed. I think it's helpful to point out Naaman here really stands, doesn't he, as a representation of mankind in general. You will meet people in the world around us who are very impressive, people who are accomplished, they're bright, they're kind, they have integrity, they have amazing gifts. Just look around you in the world. There's something impressive about man made in the image of God and the things that man can accomplish by the grace and goodness of God, by the gifts that God gives to people. And yet you see it's exactly man's accomplishment that is his crime. It is because he's made an image of God, because he has inherent value and worth as an image bearer of God. It's because he's been so blessed by God in every way. He owes to God worship and yet he does not give worship to God. It's exactly the crime of humanity. We need to see people in that sense as they are. And there is a leprosy attached to humanity in general. People have leprosy of the soul. It is just a truth in scripture, leprosy is the disease that is sort of chosen to be the sign of sin. It's the disease that represents sin in a unique way. Only in Israel, if you had been defiled by leprosy, you need to be, the only way back into the covenant community is if the priest himself examines you. He has to give the official word that you are allowed back in. And there's so many similarities between sin and leprosy. I won't go through all of them, but just think for a moment. Leprosy would start very small and insignificant. One morning you'd wake up and there would be a little whitish spot. somewhere on your body, or maybe someone would point it out. You wouldn't even know it was there. It seems so innocuous, so insignificant, and yet it is the beginning of the end. It carries in it the seeds of ultimate destruction. The Bible says that when Eve looked at the fruit of the tree, when the devil had said, did God really say? She looked at the fruit and it looked good. It was pleasing to the eye. It seemed good for life. It didn't seem like a horrible thing at all. It seemed somewhat innocuous. I mean, what harm could one bite? and yet in that, the seed of mankind's destruction. Sin is a defiling. It is death already at work in those who are alive, and that's exactly what sin is. It's death already at work, defiling the person. Leprosy makes the one who has it lose sense of feeling. You don't feel things anymore. In fact, one of the greatest dangers of leprosy was that you would do great harm to your body and not know you were doing it. That's exactly what happens in sin. I mean, look around you in the world. People doing devastating damage to their eternal soul as they throw themselves into all manner of sin with no sense. You see, there's no spiritual sensibility. They don't feel it. And so when they take the name of God in vain, nothing in them trembles. When they throw themselves into sexual sin, they think they're just having fun. They have no sense about how this is waging war against their soul, how they're destroying themselves, committing spiritual suicide. There's no sense of it. In fact, if you would tell them, do you realize, you see, that what you are doing is destroying your soul, yourself, eternally? There's no sense of it. They don't understand. They don't feel it. See, they don't feel the reality of God in His holiness. They don't feel the horror of sin. Well, that's spiritual leprosy. And that's the world in which we live. And it is, this spiritual leprosy, like physical leprosy in those days, it's incurable. It's a death sentence. It's not reversible. There is no cure. in Naaman's day for leprosy. And so we have a condemned man. And then we have this wonderful concerned little girl. This little girl is such a wonder in this story. She's one of the few, besides Elisha, who understand things as they really are. And she would have reasons not to. She was a little girl, maybe 10 years old. We know from the story she'd been carried off in a Syrian raid. One day her life had just been destroyed. Our soldiers came into town or maybe they were out in the country, we don't know. But they came and they snatched her away and every dream she had as a little Israeli girl is destroyed. And now she's in a foreign land, foreign language. She's serving the wife of the commander of the forces that destroyed her life. She would have every reason to despise Naaman. She would have every reason to wish this upon him, to delight in this diagnosis, to wish a torturous death for him. Humanly speaking, right, that would make sense to us. And there would have been many, many Israelites who would have done exactly that, thinking that that was pleasing to God. But here we have this little girl who has a genuine concern for this pagan man, and a deep conviction that the God of Israel is able and willing to save him. Do you know how rare that is? Even among God's people? A conviction that the God of the church is able and willing to save proud pagans? There's a deep skepticism, an unspoken cynicism about exactly that issue. And yet here this little girl has a real faith in the God of Israel. She was raised in a covenant home. Somehow the truths of the Word of God have been spoken to her. She believes in the God of Israel in just a beautiful way. See, undoubtedly she'd been told as a little child, as parents do, nothing is impossible with God. And she undoubtedly had been told as a little child, God is good. God is good. And so as a little child, she puts two and two together. If nothing is impossible with God, well then it's no big thing that Naaman would be cured of his leprosy. Even though there's no cure for leprosy, that's just in the world's realm of reality. God is able and God is willing. And so she says, oh, would to God that my master were over in Samaria with the prophet of God. I just want you to sense what a wonderful, audacious, bold, beautiful faith this little girl has. It's a beautiful thing. She clearly believes God's able and that God is willing to magnify His grace in the saving even of this pagan man. And so she offers her desire, her earnest concern and Naaman's wife tells her husband and we have then a confused beginning. Maybe you've heard of conversion stories where things just seem to neatly line up and the person just goes from step to step to step and they're converted. That is not how this story happens. There is confusion amok in this story. If it were left to the people in power, Naaman never would have gotten converted. And yet through servants, God does this amazing thing. So this little slave girl gives this audacious, tantalizing idea that maybe leprosy isn't a death sentence. And he goes to his king with it. And the king of Syria and Naaman have this conversation, now you'd love to have been there, where they're willing to consider maybe the God of Israel can do the impossible. Maybe the God of Israel can do what the gods of Syria are unable to do. And so they decide to go for it. And you find all these assumptions in the story. Notice the king's assumption. Tell you what, he says to Naaman, you go and I'm gonna write a letter to the king of Israel. Now, why would he send Naaman to the king of Israel? And why this letter and why all this money? Well, a cure for leprosy, that cannot be cheap. It's life we're talking about. And surely the man who's able to do this, he must be in the king's courts. He must be an honored man. He must be at the king's right hand. A man who knows the God of Israel this way and has this amazing ability surely must be exalted and valued in the court of the king. And so they send Naaman to the king of Israel. And then you have the devastating unbelief of the king of Israel because he gets the letter and what does he do? panics. The little girl sees the issue and she sees an opportunity for the God of Israel to make His name great. She sees an opportunity for the God of Israel to show His compassion and His power and to magnify His name. That is not what the King of Israel sees. He sees a threat. That's all he sees. so when he gets the letter he tears his clothes now if you if you just take things on a horizontal level it's understandable here he gets a letter saying from the king of syria I'm sending my number two man over and for you to cleanse him to cure him of leprosy the disease that has no cure well if there is no God in heaven you are in a pickle Because the king says, am I God? No, you're not God. But you have a God which he seems to have completely forgotten. Does he get on his knees and pray? No. He just says, look at this man is trying to pick a quarrel with me. You see, the One of the things that real faith does is it exposes false faith. When people move forward as this little girl does in actual faith, it just exposes charlatans, fakes, imitations. The king of Israel would profess to believe in God, but he doesn't It doesn't really believe in God. Not that way. Not as the little girl does. He doesn't believe that God is good in this way and that God is powerful in this way. It never dawns on him that the request is a sincere request. Because, well, in his little world, these things don't happen God, the living God of Israel, who made heaven and earth, has not infiltrated this world, hasn't penetrated this little world of unbelief in which he lives. And so, you see, his faith, it's not real. It's not functional. He has no sense of the power of the goodness of God. It's interesting, in Matthew, chapter 22, 29, Jesus is talking to the religious leaders, and he rebukes them, and he says, you do not know either the scriptures or what? The power of God. You have a form of godliness, but deny what? The power of it. You have no sense of the power of the living God in a functional way. And again, brothers, I have to confess, I think many of God's people, and I can conclude myself there, where it isn't true that sometimes we live exactly like that. where we believe in God and yet a conviction about the power of God, what God is able and willing to do is not penetrating. Well, Elisha hears about it and rebukes rightly this king and says, send the man to me. And so Naaman comes with all of his horses and his chariots and all of his money and his high expectations. He would be expecting big things and sort of nervous. Is it possible? Could it be true? And he comes into Elisha's house and Elisha sends a messenger to him and says, go wash in the Jordan seven times. Now Naaman, we're told, is wroth. He's mad. very upset both by how this is playing out in terms of how he's greeted. Remember, he's a big shot. He's an important person. I don't think he's a prima donna. He just knows how things ought to work. He's earned his respect the hard way on the battlefield. And being the number two man in Syria, he would expect to be greeted as royalty. It's just the way things are done in a proper way. And Elisha just trashes all of that. He sends out a lowly servant. not to greet him and usher him into Elisha's presence, where Elisha maybe could bow down and say how happy it was to see him, just this terse little message, go wash in the Jordan seven times. So he's very upset. And notice what he says, Behold, I thought, surely The man would come out to me. He has expectations about how this is supposed to happen. In his mind, there's a ceremony involved. There's maybe some incense. There's something impressive, something maybe a little mysterious, maybe even magical, where the man of God comes out and does his incantations or whatever he does. But it's religious. It's impressive. and then he claps his hands and strikes the spot and shazam it's gone. The world is full of people like this who think to themselves surely I thought I mean you told me I had a problem I'm willing to accept that my life is a mess my marriage is in shambles I'm addicted to this or that and I'm willing to be helped But surely I thought it would be something other than get on your knees and confess your sin and trust in a crucified Jesus, where blood was poured out to atone. There was a sign, we were just downtown last weekend, right in front of a fountain church. Sign says, traditional worship, liberal theology which means all the form none of the content and People like it that way Like it that way Give me give me the form Don't bother me with the content Because it's awkward. It's embarrassing. It's humiliating humbling and to tell me I need to confess my wickedness and humble myself and accept that God and God alone has the right to determine how I will be saved. And that's Elijah's message, you see. Go wash in the Jordan seven times. It's a devastating blow against all of his assumptions about how the gods work and about what's required of people. He was willing to pay everything he had brought with him. Because then he could walk away at least with his pride. But go wash in this muddy little Israeli river? That's it? It offends him. We got rivers in Syria vastly better. If that's all it's about is going to wash in a river, let me wash in my river. Why this river? See, Elisha knows exactly what he's doing with this man. He's calling him to faith and repentance, to recognize that the God of Israel saves and it's on His terms. And so he's going to walk away. Well then we have a convincing argument. I need to wrap up. Here's this wonderful argument from the servants again who say, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it? How much rather than when he said to thee, Wash and be clean? You see, their argument is, in the ESV that I use, it's a great word the prophet has spoken to you. Who else has promised you a cure for leprosy? Nobody promises cures for leprosy. There's not even charlatans in the land promising cures for leprosy because you can't put snake oil on the spot and then have the spot still stay there. You can't fake cure from leprosy. So nobody's promising this. And so the servants are, my Lord, he's spoken a great word to you. Did he actually say wash and be clean? Is that it? And I think the sense, if it had been some big thing, you'd have been all over it, but he just, just this one thing, it's free. Will you not do it? Will you not do it? Well, it's a very convincing argument. And Naaman does it. He goes into that Jordan. He's got nothing to lose and everything to gain. He's a dying man. He has nowhere else to go. And he dips his head once, and then twice, and three times, and four times, and five times, six times, seven times. It's a significant number. And every time, you see, he's humbling himself, submitting himself, being broken by the beautiful, gracious sovereignty of God. And he comes out the seventh time. And he's clean. Spot is gone. The impossible has happened. In the simplest, most humble, most God-glorifying way, the impossible has taken place. And Naaman goes back to the man he just stomped away from because he was so mad. And he goes back and he says, surely I now know there is no God but the God of Israel. Of course he still has some pagan tendency, let me pay you now. But Elisha is a man of God and he exists for the glory of God and for Elisha to receive the payment as though it happened by his power would be a renunciation of everything that had taken place and a renunciation of his own calling to point all the glory to God. And so he refuses it. Gehazi of course takes it, doesn't he? And receives judgment. But Elisha doesn't and then this request from Naaman, then let me take two mule loads of Israeli dirt back to my land. Here's the man who is boasting about the rivers of Syria and now he's clinging to the dirt of Israel. He's an Israelite now, isn't he? This is his homeland. This is where he belongs. These are his people. And from now on, when he worships, he will worship the God of Israel and he will worship on Israeli soil. He's a converted man. Brothers and sisters, we live in a world of lost leprous people. And we have the message, the one message in all the world that can make them clean. And that's the promise of scripture, wash and be clean. As Ananias says to Paul, rise up, be baptized, washing away your sins. It's the most magnificent promise in all the world. And we get to be prophets who speak it, who have a conviction that there is a God who's good and kind and mighty and gave his son so that leprous sinners could be made clean, just like he's done for you and me. And so our call to the world is this, you see, God has spoken a great word in the gospel of His Son. It is a great word. Will you not do it? Come and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved forever and ever. All your sins washed away. You made a new creation by the power of God. You made an heir with Jesus Christ of a new heaven and a new earth. You the rebel, you the sinner, an adopted child of the Father. Will you not do it? I love how scripture ends, come the spirit of the bride say, drink of the free gift of the water of life. In our invitation to the world, our charge to the world. It's a great word. Will you not do it? Amen.