Yeah, all right, so we'll be in 2 Kings tonight, and we're gonna be in chapter four. We left off in 2 Kings chapter four last time. We didn't finish it, so we're gonna try to finish off that chapter this evening, beginning at verse four. 38 and then we're going to try to do chapter 5 as well. I normally don't title a midweek service, give it a title to the sermon or the teaching, but this one I kind of titled it Pride or Humility and the fruit of both. And we're gonna see what pride and humility can bring in this teaching and the fruit of what happens both ways. And so it's kind of a good theme of what we're gonna be looking at. So let's go ahead and read a little bit of our teaching to start off this evening in 2 Kings chapter four. It says, and Elisha returned to Gilgal, and there was a famine in the land. "'Now the sons of the prophets were sitting before him, "'and he said to his servant, "'Put on the large pot and boil stew "'for the sons of the prophets.' "'So one went out into the field to gather herbs, "'and found a wild vine, "'and gathered from it a lap full of wild gourds, "'and came and sliced them into the pot of stew, "'though they did not know what they were. Then they served it to the men to eat. Now it happened as they were eating the stew that they cried out and said, man of God, there is death in the pot. And they could not eat it. So he said, then bring some flour. And he put it into the pot and said, serve it to the people that they may eat. And there was nothing harmful in the pot. We'll stop right there for now. There are some characters in the Bible, of course there's many, that are fascinating to study about. And this evening when we come to this portion of scripture, and in particular these two books, 1st and 2nd Kings, we're introduced to Elijah and Elisha. And Elijah is gone now, he's been taken up into heaven. Elisha is left. And as Elisha has been given a double portion of Elijah's spirit, we've seen the Lord do a lot of miracles already through Elisha. Elisha lived a very exciting, amazing, and busy for God life. And I can say that in my 43 years of serving the Lord, it has not at all been boring. And I think that's how it should be. It hasn't been dull. In fact, it's the opposite. I believe that when we live our lives yielded completely to the Lord, and we say every single day, we say, Lord, here I am. Do with me today what you will, what you want to do. Send me where you want me to go. Set up the appointments that you want me to be involved in. I wanna do what's pleasing to you today. You know, that's the most fulfilling life there is because I believe that God always has stuff for us to be doing. God always has people for us to meet, people for us to talk to, places to go, people to help, assignments to fulfill. but it comes down to, and I've discovered this for myself, I think it's not so much our ability as it is our availability to God. And as we make ourselves available to God, God can then in turn use us for his divine purposes, to accomplish his divine purposes. And so the more surrendered the life is, the more useful to God the life is. And then we become more and more useful as we are more and more surrendered. That's sort of how it goes. Now, Elisha was that kind of a servant. He was used by God in a lot of amazing ways, mighty ways. I believe because he was surrendered, he was yielded. And he wanted God, he desired God to lead him. He desired God to set his appointments, to plan, if you will, his day timer. They used day timers back then, but you know what I'm saying. And thus we read about all these amazing, miraculous things that went on in his life. And so, you know, I do think this, that if you're a believer and your life is dull, your life is boring, if your life is uneventful, perhaps maybe think about this. Maybe you are not as yielded or fully surrendered as you should be. Maybe you haven't been thinking about saying to the Lord, Lord, daily, Lord, here I am. Today, use me however you want to. Use me for your glory. Fill me with your Spirit. Lead me by your Spirit. See, we're called to be like Jesus. And when you look at the life of Jesus, Elijah is a perfect example of an Old Testament saint that was yielded. Jesus is the best example in the New Testament that was yielded. The apostles also were Spirit-led and yielded. But for example, with Jesus, what's really amazing, we have four Gospels written about Jesus' life, and we're told that He was given the Spirit without measure, and that He basically, everything that He did, He did because the Father told Him to do it, or sent Him to do it, or set up the appointment for Him to do it. So, and it's amazing because we only have a small portion of stuff that Jesus did in his ministry written in the four gospels. How do we know that? Because John ended his gospel with this insight into the life and the ministry of Jesus. In John chapter 20, verse 25, it says this, Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written. So Jesus is our ultimate example of being yielded and we're to follow Jesus, we're to be like Jesus and be yielded like He was. So when we look at the testimonies, that we're looking at like tonight. They're written down for us as, you know, we would say in the holy record of the Bible to encourage us to realize who God is and how God works in and through yielded vessels. I think that's one of the main, you know, lessons that we can look at when we look at these individuals. Remember, they were humans just like us. They were not super human. They were just normal, everyday people that were just like we are. Now last Thursday we touched on the first three miracles in chapter 4 and now we're going to finish off chapter 4 with two more miracles. And then we're going to look at chapter 5 and we're going to see two more miracles there. And so there's a whole lot of miracles going on in this section of scripture. And there are a whole variety of kinds of miracles. And what I love about that is that you can't put God in a box, right? Because God works in so many different ways and in so many different circumstances all of the time. God is working in our lives and many times we don't even see it, we don't even realize it, we're not aware of it. Sometimes we really are, right? We're praying about it and God does things, we're like, Whoa, did you see what God did, right? Because we're expecting it, we're looking, we're praying about it. But there's many times I believe that God is working and we're just not even aware of it. We're kind of just going through life like duh, you know, and God's doing stuff. But in this story, we're gonna see God working in some amazing ways. And so what happens at the beginning here? as we see this interesting miracle about food. A food miracle. I guess we could call it a food miracle. I call it the miracle of making a veggie stew taste good. Okay, that's a miracle to me, straight up miracle. If you have vegetables only in a stew, and somehow it can be made to taste good. That is a miracle of God, right? Because in my mind, the only way you can have a stew taste good is gotta have some meat in it. Put some meat in it. Put some elk in it, you know, deer or beef or pork or something. But Elisha, he does something else. Let's seriously, let's notice. I think what was going on here, hard times were in the land. There was a famine, food was scarce, it was hard to come by. The shelves at the local Jewish snappy mart were empty, or the Jewish Walmart back then, whatever they had. It was empty, the markets were empty, there was no food, there was a famine, it was hard to come by food. And Elisha comes, this prophet, this mighty prophet comes to Gilgal, in the heart of the famine, to the school of the prophets. And he says, hey guys, let's eat. Cook up a large stew for all the guys and let's have a meal together. And I don't know if you guys have noticed this, but we believers in general, Old Testament saints, New Testament saints, the church, Christians, we like to eat together. We like to eat. It's funny, if you have a gathering, you say, we're gonna have food. It always works, more people come when there's gonna be food usually. And we like to eat together, it's just kind of a neat thing, it's great to fellowship, to just hang out and talk, and you know, so it's just something that's always going on. So I think that was one of the reasons he said, guys, I'm here, let's hang out, let's eat, let's fellowship. So look what happens in verse 39. And Elisha returned to Gilgal, and there was a famine in the land. now the sons of the prophets were sitting before him and he said to his servant put on the large pot and boil stew for the sons of the prophets now I guess when we look at the story, let's go on a little further. So one went out into the field to gather herbs and found a wild vine and gathered from it a lap full of wild gourds and came and sliced them into the pot of stew, though they did not know what they were. I guess a little bit of a moral of this story is, you know, if you're gonna eat together and share a meal together is, you know, pick the right cook. Be careful who you ask to make the food, right? So this guy goes out, finds some gourds, and they're like, what are these? Well, I don't know, why don't we just chop them up and throw them into the stew? And that's pretty much what they do. They don't even know what they are, it's a bad idea. Know your ingredients. Right? And so this sounds like how some guys cook, right? They just throw anything into whatever they're making. This sounds good, throw this in. This sounds good, yeah, let's throw that in too. And they just start throwing stuff in. Now, although that might turn out okay once in a while, in this case it turns out really bad. Horribly bad. Notice verse 40. After they do what they do, then they served it to the men to eat. now it happened as they were eating the stew that they cried out and said man of God there is death in the pot and they could not eat it now I'm sure they went through the process like we probably, most of us do. We have a little tradition in our family that when we're gonna eat, we'll ask somebody at the table to pray. And it's neat because now we have all these grandkids and they're getting a little bit older and a few of them come to Calvary Christian Academy here. And so when they come to school here, You know, they learn lots of stuff about the Lord, and they even have, they take turns praying, doing the opening prayer in the morning. So it's wonderful, we sit down and we always pray before we eat. And I understand that in the Jewish tradition, sometimes I think, I heard this, I don't know if it's true, that they would pray after they were done with the meal, which I don't know. But I, you know, we do it before, and usually when we start to sit down to eat, somebody almost always cheats and starts eating before we pray, right? So I always say, you're gonna get a stomachache, you know? And so one day this happens and we're sitting down to eat and I was so hungry I forgot to pray and I just started eating and one of the grandkids pointed at me and goes, Grandpa, you're gonna get a stomachache. And I'm like, ah, ah, ah, ah, whatever. And so we prayed and anyways, guess what? I got a stomachache and I had to run. So I was like, maybe I better stop saying that. But anyway, this is sort of what's going on here. I'm sure they prayed for the food and blessed and all that, but they jump right in and they start to eat it. Now, we're not told if it just tasted bad. Like once they put it in their mouth, it just tasted horrible. Or if it hit the stomach and they're eating it, they're tolerating it, they're eating it, it hits the stomach and then something starts to happen. You guys know what that means, right? Have you ever had the food hit the stomach and then it starts to churn? And then there's a thing called the runs. The reason it's called the runs is because you usually have to run, right? And so we don't know if this is what happened and they yell out, there's death in the pot. You know, someone cries out, Elisha, man of God, there's death in the pot. And it was a consensus. They all cried out. They all agreed. They couldn't eat it. It was yuck, right? It was horrible. So in one accord, they all say the same thing. Now, I don't know if you've ever had an experience where you've been in a public setting and something like that has happened. It happened to us, Dee and I, we were in Samoa, and we went to a missions trip to Samoa, and when our team got to one of the villages in Samoa, it was really neat because the villages in Samoa, when visitors would come, like white people like us, right, and we're not from there, and all the village would come. and everyone would come and there'd be this big ol' celebration welcoming you to the community. And when they would do that, they would cook this giant meal for us and then they would serve it to us. And so we were at one of the villages and we had got there and they had this big ol' to-do and they brought us some kind of a stew. Well, it wasn't really a stew, it was breadfruit. Have you guys ever heard of breadfruit, anybody? Over there in Samoa, they eat this stuff called breadfruit. Well, anyway, they bring us breadfruit, and they put it in front of us, and they have this red sauce on top of the breadfruit. And so to them, it's a delicacy. They love it. That's one of their favorite meals. So anyway, here we are. There was 50 of us traveling as missionaries to Samoa, and we're in this big circle sitting on the floor. And they come, and they just start serving us the food. I remember we blessed it and the very first bite I took, my American palate went into shock. I'm not lying, I almost ralphed, okay? You guys say that? Hurled, ralphed, threw up, whatever. I almost threw up in the very first bite and I was like trying to be... I was trying to be polite because they're being nice to us and serving us and I'm trying to be nice and I'm trying to chew it and I'm just like trying not to throw up every time I'm chewing. And I look around the room and I notice it wasn't just me. A bunch of other people were like, you know, and the girl especially that was sitting right next to me, I looked at her and she had tears in her eyes. She has tears in her eyes and she's like, And I said to her, want mine? I was trying to encourage her and the Lord, you know? And so anyway, we ended up just trying our best to eat it, and then right the second it looked like we were even gonna get close to being finished, they came back and offered us seconds. And everyone's like, no thanks, we're full, we're full. And we all went to bed hungry that night, I'm pretty sure, because it was so disgusting. But anyway, it kinda reminded me of this story that we're seeing here, as these guys are like, there's death in the pot. Now, this isn't good news in the room full of hungry men, right? But Elisha, once again, God uses Elisha in this seemingly ordinary way or circumstance, right? They're having a meal, the food's bad. And Elisha steps up, Elisha to the rescue, right? Or rather God to the rescue using Elisha. Remember, every miracle is God, it's not the human, it's not the person. God may use an instrument, God may use a person, but we're never to put our attention on the instrument. It would be like you going to the hospital and getting a surgery And then, you know, the surgery is this complicated surgery and the physician, he's been through, you know, 15 years of school learning how to do this surgery and he does it and it comes out perfectly. Right? And then all of a sudden, you go to the instrument. Thank you, thank you knife, thank you scissors for saving my life. No, you thank the one who did it. Well, a lot of times we focus on the instruments, right? When it's God who's doing the miracle, not the person. I mean, God can use us to do things, but the real miracle comes from the Lord here. But Elisha was a vessel, like look at verse 41. And so he said, then bring some flour. And he put it into the pot and said, serve it to the people that they may eat. And there was nothing harmful in the pot. He just says, bring some flour. Now it's interesting because we know that flour normally cannot cure anything, right? It can't make something bad good. But the Lord cured the food and it tasted good after that and it brought healing to the bad recipe. Now the Lord you know, has designed us humans in such a way that we need to eat, we need food, we need nutrients in order to keep the body running. And so he provided that so that the cook's bad mistake could be fixed and the guys could get nutrients. Now, next is another miracle, and this is the miracle of multiplication. We saw a miracle of multiplication last time when the uh instructed the widow to go get all those pots from all the neighbors and then she had a little bit of oil and start pouring the oil into the pots and all the pots got filled she was able to pay her debt so you know god took care of her and her two sons they didn't have to go to slavery all of that that was another miracle and we saw that we just need to be willing to give our little over to the lord and obey the lord and And there was an amazing miracle, a multiplication. We saw that with Jesus as well. Look at verse 42 down to verse 44 now as we continue. and brought the man of God bread of the first fruits, 20 loaves of barley bread and newly ripened grain in his knapsack. And he said, give it to the people that they may eat. But his servants said, what? Shall I set this before 100 men? And he said again, give it to the people that they may eat. For thus says the Lord, they shall eat and have some left over. So he said it before them and they ate and had some left over according to the word of the Lord. There was in the Old Testament an offering called the offering of the firstfruits. And what you would do is whatever God blessed you with, the very firstfruits of that, the firstfruits of your crop, or even if you made a meal like this guy made a little loaves of bread, you would offer those to the Lord. You wouldn't take it first for yourself, you'd give it first to the Lord. And so this is probably what's happening here. He hears that Elisha's there, the man of God's there, so he wants to go and bless Elisha. So he takes this food over to Elisha, and remember, Kind of the background here, the Northern Kingdom where Elisha is at right now is corrupted, but there was still a remnant, even though they were corrupted by idolatry, there was still a remnant of faithful believers in the Northern Kingdom. So this man, he brings his first food offering to Elisha, these 20 loaves, and what I understand about these 20 loaves is that they were small in size. They were more like maybe our biscuits. Not like bigger loaves of bread like we might have or when you go to Walmart and you buy a loaf of bread. They weren't that. They were very small. And then he also had some ripened grain in his knapsack. And he was carrying it in a knapsack. So there was not a whole lot. It all fit in the knapsack, right? This man obviously probably was poor, but he's still giving to the Lord even though he doesn't have very much. And I love what Elisha does here. He doesn't say, is that all you got? And he doesn't say that, he's like, yeah, I won't take it, thank you. Now Elisha, instead of being selfish with it, and saying, you know, I'm the man of God, I'm the main guy here, and keeping it for himself, he says, hey, let's give it to the people to eat. But his servant does the math. And we see an instance like this in the New Testament when Jesus was about to do a miracle and he, like I said, we just have some loaves and fishes and one of the, I think it was Nathaniel, one of them was like, he calculates it all. He goes, there's no way it's gonna work. right it's not going to happen well this servant he does the math too he calculates it out and he goes this isn't going to feed a hundred men but elijah's solution is awesome listen to elijah's solution but his servant said what shall i set this before 100 men He said again, give it to the people that they may eat, for thus says the Lord, they shall eat and have some left over. Remember Jesus, like I just mentioned, he did the same thing. We're told there were 5,000 men there, probably as many believe as 10,000 because they didn't count the women and the children in the count, there were 5,000 men, and with just five little loaves, same thing, and two fish, Jesus fed the multitude and there were baskets full left over. So Elisha tells his faithful servant, that there's not only gonna be enough for everyone, they're gonna all have their fill, but there'll even be some left over. And what I love about God is that God is an abundant supplier, an abundant giver, or an abundant oversupplier even, right? How awesome it is that God does this. And so we see in verse 44, So he said it before them and they ate and had some left over according to the word of the Lord. How many of you guys, I'll just ask you very quickly, when you go to a restaurant and you don't finish your food, do you bring home the leftovers, anybody? Right? Yeah, most of us, we eat leftovers. And so these guys, they're gonna have some leftovers to eat now. And so, you know, the Lord blessed them with enough for some leftovers. And so, and notice how it happened though. Verse 44, according to the word of the Lord. And let's understand this. With God, nothing is impossible. And what God's promises, his promises are all yes and amen. It's neat to get these little like promise books. And they, I don't know who went through and went through all the promises of God in the Bible. And they put them into these little promise books. And it's neat to go through those promise books and read the promises of God to us. and realize that God, what does God always do? He keeps his promises, right? Now some promises were specific for certain situations like this one, right? He said, set it before them, they ate and some was left over according to the word of the Lord. He said that was gonna happen. But God is a God who keeps his promises and nothing is impossible for him. Now let's come to chapter five now. Now a little intro to this chapter. This chapter once again to me is a display of the power and the grace and the mercy of God, even to the ill deserving. I had a guy ask me a question today, Christian guy asked me a question today. He was witnessing to this lady and the lady rejected the gospel. And then he said to her out of habit, well, God bless you. And then he felt bad afterwards, because he's like, should I have said God bless you to her, since she rejected the gospel? And we had this little discussion about that, and I said, well, you know, the Lord is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked, right? He's merciful, he sends the rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Well, this story is a great illustration of how God is kind even to the ill-deserving, and God extends his love and grace even to, in this story, an unbelieving pagan. A Gentile who is outside of the covenant of Israel. Even an enemy of Israel. He's from Syria. And Syria was Israel's enemy. But we see this is a picture of the grace of God. And how true it is, as Jesus said, right? I just quoted it, misquoted, I'll quote it the way it was really said. He causes his son to rise on the evil and the good. He sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. He's kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. So I'm always taken aback, you know, when I hear someone say stuff like this. And people will say stuff like this. Well, that's not fair. He didn't even deserve that, right? They'll see someone seemingly get this great blessing, and they're like, in their mind, they're calculating why they don't deserve that blessing from God. I have a good friend of mine who, for many years, we've had these kinds of discussions. He's like, I don't understand how God does that. I pray and pray and pray, I fast, I serve the Lord, and then I go hunting and I come home skunked. This person over there is partying, their whole camp's getting drunk, and they go out and all five of them kill a deer. Why does God bless them and not me? And he'd have all these kinds of struggles all the time. And a lot of times people will say, well, they don't deserve it, but if you think about it, do any of us really deserve anything from God, right? Everything that God gives to us is by his grace, by his mercy, and he gives it to us in spite of us. You know, if we deserved it, it would no longer be grace, according to Romans chapter 4. If we deserved it, it would be an obligation, but we don't deserve it, and therefore it's grace. So, it's God. God is no man's debtor. That's what I love about the Lord. We can't do something and say, okay God, I did all this, now you owe me. God is no man's debtor. We owe him everything, not he owes, he doesn't owe us anything. So God's blessings are enjoyed by all, and especially, I mean, we can say the general blessings, like when he sends rain and all that. Those are general blessings that God gives to everybody. Look at verse one. So it says, now Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great and honorable man in the eyes of his master. Because by him, now this is interesting, by him the Lord had given victory to Syria. He was also a mighty man of valor, but a leper. And the Assyrians had gone out on raids and had brought back captive a young girl from the land of Israel. She waited on Naaman's wife. Then she said to her mistress, If only my master were with the prophet who is in Samaria, for he would heal him of his leprosy. We'll stop there just for a little bit. Now, we see right off the bat that there's this guy, a pagan dude from Syria named Naaman. We're told a few things about him. He was the commander of the army. He was right underneath the king of Syria, as high up in the government as you can go. He was a man of power, he was a man of prestige, he was a man of importance. We also notice he had some commendable qualities about him or characteristics. you know, by the way, you know, the world, at least quote-unquote of the world, by that standard he was a good person, it seems like, a person of high morals or ethics and standards. And still, you know, there are people like that in this world that still don't know the Lord, right? They're still lost. You can be a great philanthropist. You can help people and still be lost and still not make it to heaven. So, you know, I remember having a discussion one time with an atheist on my Facebook page and he was arguing with me that there are atheists that he knows that are better Christians than Christians are. that he was saying, and the way that they treat others, and the way that they help others, and the way that they give to others. So he was trying to make a point that you don't have to be a Christian to be a moral or a good person. But here's the thing is, we know that it's not those kinds of things that save us. It's a relationship with the Lord that saves us, not good works, or being a philanthropist, or being even religious. You can still even be religious and lost. And there's a lot of religious lost people. Now notice, he was a great and honorable man in the eyes of the king, plus we see even God had used him to accomplish God's purposes even though he was not in the covenant with Israel. In spite of him being lost and being in spiritual darkness. And yes, God, who is sovereign, can use even unbelievers for his purposes. You can find this out on your own, do a little study. God called Nebuchadnezzar, who was not an Israelite, he called Nebuchadnezzar, my servant. He called Cyrus, the king of Persia, my servant. And so they were servants, even though they were God's servants, even though they were pagans. So God had used Naaman to give victory in battle to Syria. Again, God is sovereign over the nations and over kings. In Ezekiel chapter 38 and 39, we're taught something interesting, that in the last days, God is gonna put a hook in the jaws of Russia, and a whole host of Muslim Islamic nations are gonna come down against Israel. And they will be wiped out by God's almighty hand. And God is going to punish and discipline Israel's enemies. And he's going to prove that God is alive and Allah is not. He's going to prove that. Now, yes, God has spoken many times. or done things many times or spoken through, or like for me he has, he's spoken to me through unbelievers at times. He's spoken to me lots of times through believers, my wife many times, or my mother-in-law, which I always hated when the Lord spoke to me through my mother-in-law, it was horrible. But anyway, Mrs. C was sweet. But, you know, it was like, no, not her Lord, you know, kind of thing. But he would speak to me through my mother-in-law, my father-in-law. One time, I remember I was a brand new Christian and I was preaching the gospel to everybody that I came in contact with. And I was like just on fire for the Lord. And I'd come home and my poor family, they would get a sermon from me immediately when I walk in the door. and one day I walk in the door and they're watching something on television and I say to my dad, dad, turn this off, this is of the devil. I tell him. And he looked at me and he said something that floored me, I remember. Because I was like the devil's everywhere. The devil, the devil, the devil, the devil, you know. And I was wanting to rebuke the devil out of everything. And I said to my dad, turn this off, this is of the devil. And my dad said, son, why is it that since you started becoming, or you say you're a Christian, I never hear you talk about Jesus. All you ever talk about is the devil. Man. he might as well have hit me across the head with a two by four. I remember I went in my room and I wept. I wept and I repented and I cried and I said, Lord, he is right. I never talk about you, I'm always talking about the devil. And you know, God can use lots of different things to accomplish his purposes. He used Syria to discipline Israel. Now notice, he's a mighty man of valor also, but we're told at the end of the very first verse, notice it says, the Lord had given victory to Syria. He also was a mighty man of valor, but a leper. It's like this little footnote there. This great and powerful man, but he was a leper. And you know, no matter how great he was, the big damper, he has this incurable disease of leprosy. A guy named Bishop Paul who lived in the 1800s said, Naaman was a great, as great as the world could make him. And yet the basest slave in Syria would not change skins with him. Because leprosy was a horrible disease. It's still around today. It's flesh eating. Your body just starts to rot. Limbs fall off. It's a horrible slow death. And so you got leprosy back then, especially, I think today I've heard it's still incurable, but back then for sure, right? You were a goner. So here is where we glean some spiritual insight. I think that's got a wider application. We've talked about this before, but leprosy in scripture is a type or a picture of sin. And the way it starts, very similar to sin, It starts off undetected at first, very small, but then it begins to grow, it begins to spread, and eventually leprosy like sin brings death. And thus, sin and leprosy are very similar. It can take over and totally destroy your life and incapacitate you and enslave you. So, leprosy and sin are kind of a, they're a picture of each other, sort of. And so, the only cure for both, we know, is the same, it's the Lord. A miraculous touch, a cure from God. And in one sense, all of us, In a spiritual sense, we're born as lepers. We were born with sin passed on to us from our parents. As sons and daughters of Adam, we have a sinful nature. And the only cure for our sinful nature, the only remedy, is the shed blood of Jesus that cleanses us and takes away our sins. I've said this 100 times, probably, from this pulpit. I have all these kids and all these grandkids, and not one time have we ever had to teach any of them how to sin. Not once. We never had to teach them how to be selfish. We never had to teach one how to bite the other one when the other one was trying to steal their toy. We never had to teach any of that. They are just sinful little creatures. They're wonderful, but you know, they're sinful. And that's what we all have. So Naaman, although he had many fine qualities, and maybe our grandchildren have many fine qualities, or humans might have some nice qualities about them, we all have the same problem, right? We have sin or leprosy, and apart from the mercy of God and the grace of God, we're in trouble. But we see here that God, works in this man's life, seemingly good man, right? But this seemingly good man needed a touch. Every person seemingly good or maybe bad, some will say, oh yeah, they're bad, they need a savior for sure. But even good people need a savior. And even good people, quote unquote, by the world standards, are lost without Jesus, right? That's why the gospel applies to every single person the same. Everybody needs a savior. A lot of people will try to argue, well I'm a good person. We've been doing this evangelism class on Saturday mornings and it's been interesting because a lot of people that they go and share the gospel with, at the beginning they'll always say, do you think that you're a good person? Yeah, I'm a good person. Almost all of them will say that. And then he lays out the law, the law of God, and they find out they're liars, they find out they're thieves, they've stolen something, they've used God's name in vain. They find out they've looked lustfully at a woman or a man, and all of a sudden they're a lying thief, an adulterer at heart, and then pretty soon they find out they're not as good as they thought they were. Well, none of us are, right? So a good person cannot make it to heaven in their own goodness. Because the Bible tells us that the standard is perfection. And so by that standard, none of us are good in the eyes of God. We're all tainted and diseased spiritually with the leprosy. We all have that sin nature. And the only cure, the only antidote is what God has done for us through his son Jesus. And so let's go on and read the story and see what happens here and how this gets dealt with. So they apparently went to war against Israel and the Syrians had gone out on raids and had brought back a captive young girl from the land of Israel. So this girl, this Jewish young lady apparently, she waited on Naaman's wife. They took her in and made her a slave. And she became Naaman's wife's servant. Right, Naaman's a powerful man. Now he's got this servant that they brought back in captivity. Then she said to her mistress, if only my master were with the prophet who was in Samaria, for he would heal him of his leprosy. So she says something to the wife, and the wife's like, wow, what, really? There's someone that can cure my husband of leprosy? And Naaman went in and told his master, saying, thus and thus said the girl who was from the land of Israel. Then the king of Syria said, go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel. So he departed and took with him 10 talents of silver, 6,000 shekels of gold, and 10 changes of clothing as a gift. Well, if you can give this healing to the head of my military guy here, the king sends this letter, all this is yours. Then he brought the letter to the king of Israel which said, Now be advised when this letter comes to you that I have sent Naaman my servant to you that you may heal him of his leprosy. So they don't really know who this powerful prophet is. There's not a name listed here yet. He's like, we know there's someone there according to what this girl said and so we're sending all these gifts and can you heal, name it, of his leprosy. Verse 7, and it happened when the king of Israel read the letter that he tore his clothes and said, am I God to kill and make alive that this man sends to me to heal him of his leprosy? So he misunderstood, well, sort of, no one knew for sure who it was. They just sent this letter to the king. Hey, we hear that someone there can heal. And the king takes it like, what? I can't do that. I can't heal a person. Can I make alive and do all that? No, I can't do that. therefore please consider and see how he seeks a quarrel with me he interpreted what he said as he's just picking a fight with me because he knows that i can't do it so he's just trying to pick a fight with me so it was when elisha the man of god heard that the king of israel had torn his clothes when you tore your clothes it was it was a sign of extreme duress or grief or even anger and they would tear their clothes. And so he hears that he tore his clothes, Elisha does, that he sent to the king saying, why have you torn your clothes? Please let him come to me and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel. So obviously this girl was talking about Elisha the whole time. Right? And so when they show up, they don't know who he is. Now, Elisha finally hears about what's happening, so he steps up to the plate. Verse nine, then Naaman went with his horses and chariot 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 to you and you shall be clean. Now this is going to get under his skin in a different kind of a way here in a second as we'll see. He gets really upset about how Elisha treats him. Notice what happens. But Naaman became furious. and went away and said, indeed, I said to myself, he will surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God and wave his hand over the place and heal the leprosy. So he goes there, Naaman does, thinking, look, I'm a powerful man. I'm the second in command over all of Syria. So when I show up at Elisha's house, he's gonna come out and greet me. No, he doesn't come out and greet him. He sends his servant out and tells him, hey, tell him to go wash in the river seven times. And he gets mad, right? Why does he get mad? Because he probably had a big old stinking ego, right? And he expected to be treated with more dignity or respect. And so he becomes furious. And he says to himself, he will, you know, then he, notice his expectation. And I'm gonna tell you guys, talked a little bit about this on my Facebook page this week. Most of the time when we get mad at other people, not every time, but a lot of times, it's because we had expectations of them. That they were gonna be a certain way, they were gonna do a certain thing. I expected them to do this and they didn't do it. Now I'm mad at them. How many of you guys have ever been guilty of doing that, right? It happens to me all the time. Because I'm the pastor that's supposed to be Superman, right? I'm supposed to do all this stuff that people think I'm supposed to do, and then when I don't do it, I'm not a good pastor anymore. But a lot of its expectations, sometimes they may be realistic, but they don't tell me what they are. Or sometimes, we do this to each other, we have unrealistic expectations. towards each other. Sometimes we do it to our spouses. And then when they don't live up to those expectations, we become mad or we become resentful. We've all been guilty of stuff like that. This is what happens here. Right? We had an artist one time. I'm not going to mention his name, but he, he, they laugh because they know what happened, but he came to play for us and he had been a previous time. And then the second time he shows up, I guess he had expectations that I was going to be here, you know, putting the red carpet out. And I was going to be here when he walked in the door and they were going to be practicing together. The worship team was like, I don't need to be there. I'll just show up. Like I always do when the service starts. Right. And he got mad. He got so mad and he didn't want to go eat with me afterwards, he was mad at me, because he had these expectations that like, hey, I'm in town and Joseph needs to come and, I don't know what he thought, but anyway, I didn't do whatever he thought I was supposed to do. And he hasn't talked to me since. And he's a man of God, you know? And so this guy, this kind of stuff happens between humans. So be careful with your expectations, because they can lead sometimes to, anger or resentment or bitterness if you're not careful. And sometimes it's just your issue. It's not the other person's issue, it's your own issue. So this guy, he shows up and he's all ticked off because He thought, well, this guy is going to, you know, he's gonna heal me. Now, Naaman basically had three diseases. Number one, he comes from an idolatrous country. Number two, he has another big issue, and it's pride. And number three was leprosy. And the first needed a cure as much as the second, and the second needed a cure as much as the third. He had need of a lot more than just the skin disease that was going on in his heart. He had to forsake his God's, he needed to forsake his pedestal of pride, he needed to humble himself, and he's told to go dip in the river, and that was God's prescribed manner for him to be healed, and he gets mad, and he doesn't wanna do it, right? So let's continue on, where did we leave off at? Where was I? Verse, yeah, verse 11. He became furious, let's go to verse 12. And then he says, are not, and so he starts to, he's mad now, right? He said, I thought he was going to come out. I thought he was going to wave his hand over me. I thought he was going to heal the leprosy. I traveled all this way, brought all these gifts. He didn't even care. He didn't come out and greet me. He sends a servant out, for crying out loud. Verse 12, are not the Abana And the Phafar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Now he begins to get like, well, our land's better, our water's better, our rivers are better. And he's telling me to go dip in the Jordan, that muddy river? Could I not wash in them and be clean? So he turned and he went away in a rage. So he doesn't listen to the word from the Lord. What was the word from the Lord? Verse 10, go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored to you, and you shall be clean. Pretty simple, maybe in his mind not, but pretty simple instruction. Just go to the river, dip in it seven times, and your leprosy will go away. Instead, he gets all ticked off and starts, you know, getting angry at Elisha, refusing to go obey, thinking his rivers were better, and then verse 13. And his servant came near and spoke to him. Isn't it neat when people will talk sense into us when we're being stupid? And his servant came near and spoke to him and said, my father, if the prophet had told you to do something great, would you not have done it? How much more then when he says to you, wash and be clean? What great counsel or logic, right? What if he would have told you to go jump off this big cliff and spread out your wings, and then you would fly, and on the way down, your leprosy would be, yeah, you would have done it, because you would have been like, look how cool I am, or whatever. I mean, that's just a great exaggeration, stupid exaggeration, but he's basically saying, look, if he would have told you to go do something great, you would have done it. But he says, go wash and be clean. Verse 14, notice, so he 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. That little phrase right there, like the flesh of a little child. I was talking to a fellow this week. He's a little older than me and he just had skin cancer surgery. And I said, how did you know you had skin cancer? Because I have all these little blotches on my arms now and got stuff. My mom the other day, son, you've got stuff on your face. I go, I'm getting old, man. That's what happens when you get old. I'm telling her. And she's like, amen. Yeah, and she's like, you go get that checked by the doctor and all this stuff. And you know, I always think about, you know, you look at the kids and the grandkids and the little ones and their skin is so soft and so beautiful compared to us old folks. But anyway, so you look at this and now you're gonna all be looking at my skin. Don't be doing that, okay? You're gonna weird me out, you know, don't do that. But anyway, so he says, you know, and when he does it, this phrase just stuck out to me because it says, and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child. And he was clean. Can you imagine? When he came out, you know, his body's rotting with leprosy. Disgusting. They said it would even stink really bad. The smell was horrible. And now he goes into the river and he does it after his servant talks some sense into him. And he dips seven times and he comes out and now his skin, he's like a child, his skin's like a child. It's like, wow. This reminds me, though, that little phrase of a little child. One time, Dr. Bishop, I told you this story, Dr. Bishop, he grew up in a church where his father was a pastor. He was a Presbyterian pastor, and their theology is cessationist theology, so they don't believe in miracles. They don't believe God heals anymore, they don't believe in miracles, and certain gifts aren't valid any longer, the Holy Spirit doesn't do those things, they're not for the church now, they were only for the early church, just stuff like that. So Jay grew up with that mindset, and he was a doctor. He is still a doctor. He's a urologist. And one day we showed up to his office, because we used to have our Bible study every Wednesday morning. We've been doing our Wednesday morning men's Bible study for like 30 years or something. It's been forever we've been doing our men's Bible study. Well, anyway, we used to have it at his office. And we go into his office that day, and he's sitting there. We come in, and he can't wait to tell us what has happened. His eyes are like this, and he's excited. And we're like, what's up? He goes, I gotta tell you guys an amazing thing. And we're like, what happened? He goes, well, this lady came in a few weeks back, and she was really ill and not feeling well. And he happens to be a urologist. And if you know what a urologist, they're plumbing doctors, okay? That's all I'll say. But anyway, she had cancer of the bladder, bladder cancer. Her bladder, he said, was eaten up with cancer. She wasn't doing well. He basically said, there's nothing we can do for you with stage four cancer. Go home, get your stuff in order, and basically say goodbye to your family, and you're a goner, he basically told her. And so, you know, he'd done all the tests and there was nothing they could do for her. So she went home. But what she did is she went to her church. I don't know where she was going to church or any of that, but she went to her church and they did what James chapter 5 says. They anointed her with oil, they prayed over her. And so she had another appointment with Dr. J, which was like the day before, Tuesday. We're meeting on Wednesday. She comes back into the office, and he does an examination on her, and he looks at her, her bladder, and he said this to us, her bladder was like the bladder of a baby. It was clean, there was no cancer whatsoever. He said, God did a miracle! And he goes, I saw it with my own two eyes, and I didn't believe in miracles, you know? And he was so excited, and it just reminded me of this verse right here, where we see those words, right? So cool, that his flesh, you know, the flesh of a, it'd be stored like the flesh of a little child and he was clean and same thing like Jay described that lady's, her bladder or whatever, it's kind of cool. Verse 15, and he returned to the man of God, he and all his aides, and came and stood before him. And he said, indeed, Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel. Now I believe he said this probably in the context of his paganism. I'm sure if he was a idol worshiper, what we would call an idol worshiper, he had many gods like they did. They weren't monotheistic, they were pantheistic, or is that the right word? Is that the right word? Huh? Polytheistic. I knew it started with a P. Thank you. You gave the healing of the mind. Polytheistic. They were polytheistic. They worshiped many guys and I'm sure he probably had done everything he could have possibly done. When you get in a situation, I'm going to talk about this on Sunday, it's amazing when we get in difficult situations. where we get bad news or something, all of a sudden, man, we start praying like crazy, don't we? Everyone's praying for us, and we're all praying, and we get serious about prayer. Well, I'm sure he was already serious about prayer, and nothing had worked. Then they hear about this prophet. Then they go all the way to Israel. Then he tells them to wash in the river and he goes, nah, stupid idea. But he does it anyway. And now he shows back up. And this is so amazing, this testimony. And he returned to the man of God and he and all his aides and came and stood before him and said, indeed now I know there is no God in all the earth except in Israel. Now therefore please take a gift from your servant. But he said, I love this. Remember, he came with a lot of gifts. We better hurry. But he said, before whom I stand, he said, I will receive nothing. And he urged him to take it, but he refused. He came with a ton of gold and silver and all this stuff. And he refused it. So Naaman said, then if not, please let your servant be given two mules I mean, two mule loads of earth, for your servant will no longer offer either burnt offering or sacrifice to other gods, but to the Lord. And so, yet, he says, in this thing, may the Lord pardon your servant. When my master goes into the temple of Rimon to worship there, and he leans on my hand, and I bow down in the temple of Rimen. When I bow down in the temple of Rimen, may the Lord please pardon your servant in this thing. He goes, look, I'm in a bad place, I gotta go back, and my king, my boss, is gonna make me go to his worship service with him. He goes, may God forgive me for that, because I know there's only one God. It's the God of Israel. Then he said to him, go in peace. So he departed from him a short distance. But remember this servant, this is Elisha's servant. But Begazi, the servant of Elisha, the man of God said, look, my master has spared Naaman, this Syrian, while not receiving from his hands what he brought. But as the Lord lives, I will run after him and take something from him. So he gets greedy here. And he thinks, man, we could have been rich, you know? Gahazi says, but Elisha didn't take anything. So Gahazi pursued Naaman. When Naaman saw him running after him, he got down from the chariot to meet him and said, is all well? And he said, all is well. My master has sent me, saying he lies. My master has sent me saying, indeed, just now two young men of the sons of the prophets have come to me from the mountains of Ephraim. Please give them a talent of silver and two changes of garments. So he's not asking for a ton, but he's still asking for something. And he's lying because Elisha didn't send him. So Naaman said, please take two talents. And he urged him and bound two talents of silver in two bags and two changes of garments and handed them to two of his servants and they carried them on ahead of him. When he came to the citadel, he took them from their hand and stored them away in the house. Then he let the men go and they departed. Now he went in and stood before his master Elisha. Isn't this cool? You know, Elisha didn't know he did this, but God shows it to him. Elisha said to him, where did you go? Gehazi. And he said, your servant did not go anywhere. Liar, liar, pants on fire, right? Well, his body's about to be on fire in a minute. And when he said to him, did not my heart go with you when the man turned back from his chariot to meet you? Elisha's like, I was there. I saw it all, God revealed to me what you did. Can you imagine his heart, that guy, the servant, his heart pounding at this moment? He's busted, he totally lies about all of it. He says, it is time to receive, it is time to receive money and receive clothing, olive groves and vineyards, sheep and oxen, male and female servants, or is it time, not it is time, is it time? He asks him, he goes, why did you go do that? Why'd you go do what you shouldn't have done? Then then he pronounces, an opposite of a good miracle on him, a bad miracle, right? Verse 27, therefore, the leprosy of Naaman shall cling to you and your descendants forever. And he went out from his presence, leprous, as white as snow. Aye, aye, aye, aye. Don't mess around with God, right? Remember in the book of Acts, Ananias and Sapphira, It's kind of like that, struck dead for lying to the Holy Spirit. Scary stuff, let's pray. Father, we thank you for this time in your word and we thank you for these amazing stories and miracles, cool things and scary things. Lord, I pray that we would have all of us a healthy fear of you. Help us by your grace, Lord, to live and walk in the light and not in the darkness. And Lord, deliver us from the evil one and temptation when he brings temptations to us, to do the wrong thing like Hazi did. Help us, Father, to give you all the praise and all the glory, because that's where everything that good belongs. It belongs giving you the praise and giving you the glory. Help us to always remember that, in Jesus' name. Amen. God bless you guys. Let's stand up and sing one last song. I know it's past your bedtime by three minutes, 8.03, but let's sing this song anyway. The Aaronic Blessing. Here we go. The Lord bless thee, and keep thee. the Lord make his face to shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee and be gracious unto thee the Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace. God bless you guys. Have a great rest of the week. Maybe we'll see you tomorrow or Saturday at the funeral services. God bless.