(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Men, 2 Kings 5, we have a story of Naaman the Syrian, and this story is such a beautiful picture of salvation through Jesus Christ. Some of these Old Testament stories obviously have great literal interpretations and had literal meaning to the people who read them back in those days, but ultimately, all of the teachings of the Old Testament, all of the scriptures of the Old Testament are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come. And the Bible says of Jesus Christ, to him give all the prophets witness that through his name, whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins. And so all throughout the Old Testament, we're going to have lots of pictures that are pointing us toward salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us. We are saved by faith, not by works. And this is a great chapter filled with a lot of great illustrations of that. So starting out at the beginning in verse number 1 of chapter 5, now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and honorable because by him the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria. He was also a mighty man in valor, but he was a leper. Now the first thing I want to point out is that leprosy is often a picture of being not saved in the Bible because leprosy can be a picture of sin and leprosy is a disease that would ultimately lead to someone's death, right? This is a fatal, contagious, horrible disease that we read about throughout the Bible. And so that's the picture here with Naaman. He's a great man. He's honorable. He's a great warrior. He's a good guy. God has even used him to deliver Syria and so forth, but he's a leper. And the first point that we can draw from this is it doesn't matter how good of a person you are, right? It doesn't matter how great you are in whatever the area or even how religious you are. You still need to be saved through Jesus Christ because you are a sinner, right? Every single person is a sinner. The Bible says for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. So even a great man like Naaman who has a lot of achievements and he's very honorable, he's a good person, quote unquote, what we would look at as a good person. He is still a sinner and he needs to be saved. And that's symbolized here by the fact that he has leprosy says in verse two and the Syrians had gone out by companies and had brought away captive out of the land of Israel, a little maid. And she waited on Naaman's wife and she said unto her mistress, would God my Lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria for he would recover him of his leprosy. So salvation is available for Naaman. He has this fatal skin disease, but salvation is available. And how does he find out about it? Because this little girl tells him, right? And this goes to show how God can use anybody to preach the gospel, to plant a seed of the gospel or to win people to Christ. Even a little child, right? A young girl, a young boy, man, woman, boy, girl can all be used by God to give the gospel. We should all as Christians be sharing the gospel with people that need to hear it, which is the vast majority of people that need to hear it that aren't saved. You know, my grandpa got saved partially through a little five year old boy. He moved into a new neighborhood and when he moved into this neighborhood, a little five year old boy came over to him and preach the gospel to him and was reciting Bible verses from memory to him. And my grandpa was so impressed by this little boy that he ended up going and visiting his church that Sunday. Cause he said, I want, you know, I want to go to the church where this kid goes because they're obviously teaching him a lot of good stuff. Then he went to church that Sunday, two days later, the pastor and the deacon came over to my grandpa's house and my grandpa and my dad both got saved on the same day from the pastor coming and knocking their door. But why did he knock their door? Because they had visited the church. Why did they visit the church? Because a five year old witnessed to my grandpa's that goes to show that God can use the foolish things of this world to confound the wise. God can use small things in a great way. And so this young girl is the one who first plants the seed with Naaman about how he can be saved. Obviously you have to understand throughout the sermon, we're talking about a literal story about a guy who literally needs healing from a skin disease, but I'm going to be constantly using this as a picture of spiritual salvation. So try not to get confused cause I'm going to conflate those two things as I go because that's the whole point of the sermon. So look at verse number four, it says one went in and told his Lord saying, thus and thus said the maid that is of the land of Israel is a, Hey, this little girl is saying that, you know, salvation is available for you in Israel. If there's a prophet that's in Israel that can heal you. And so it says in verse number five and the king of Syria said, go to go and I will send a letter under the king of Israel. And he departed and took with him 10 talents of silver and 6000 pieces of gold and 10 changes of Raymond. And he brought the letter to the king of Israel saying, now when this letter is come under Behold, I have therewith sent name and my servant to thee that thou mayest recover him of his leprosy. So the king of Syria, you know, this is an important guy in his army. He'd love for this guy to be healed of his leprosy. So he says, okay, well let's send you to the king of Israel and we're going to send you with a whole bunch of money and all this money and you're going to go to the king and, and then, you know, he's going to take care of you. But look at verse seven, what the reaction is from the king and it came to pass when the king of Israel had read the letter that he rent his clothes, meaning he tore his clothing and said, am I God to kill and to make alive that this man to send unto me to recover a man of his leprosy wherefore consider I pray you and see how he seeketh a quarrel against me. So the king thinks that the king of Syria is just messing with him, sending him this huge amount of money and saying, you need to heal this guy of leprosy, which is physically impossible to do. And he thinks that the guy's just trying to pick a fight with him and just trying to mess with them and then use this as an excuse to invade Israel or something. So the king of Israel is really upset. He rents his clothes and so forth. But again, we want to find the symbolic interpretations and tie this in with salvation. You know, a lot of times when people realize that they're not saved and they, they realize that, you know, salvation is available and that, you know, Christ is the answer and they might just vaguely be aware of that, but they don't really know exactly how to be saved. They could often go to the wrong source and try to procure salvation the wrong way, right? Because a lot of people, when they first realized that they're not saved and they realize, Hey, I need to do something about this. I need to find Jesus, whatever that means, I need to find God, you know, and they end up trying to do it by works. They try to buy their way in, right? They try to earn their salvation or pay for their salvation and then they'll go to some bogus church that can't heal them. They can't save them, right? So they go to the wrong place and they try to do it by the wrong means. This is sometimes a step though toward getting saved. I mean, I bet there are a lot of people in this room that are saved now that would say, Hey, earlier in life I was looking for God. I was looking for Christ in the wrong place. You know, I was in the Roman Catholic church for a while or I was in, you know, a charismatic church for a while or I was over here at, you know, at whatever the religion seeking God but looking in the wrong place and trying to do it by works, trying to earn your way to heaven by being good or keeping commandments or whatever. And so that's what we see in the story here. Now in verse eight it says it was so when Elisha, the man of God, this is the guy who actually has the right answer that actually has salvation. And it was so when Elisha, the man of God, had heard that the king of Israel had rent his clothes that he sent to the king saying, wherefore is thou rent thy clothes? Let him come now to me and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel. Now notice that Elisha is the one taking the step here to reach out to Naaman, right? Because Naaman's in the wrong place and he's not getting the answer that he needs and so Elisha reaches out to him, okay? Well, you know, that could picture the fact that we as God's people who have Christ who are saved, you know, it's our job to go seek and save that which was lost. So Jesus Christ, when he was on this earth, he said that his mission was to seek and save that which was lost. And then he said, as the father has sent me, so send I you. We have the same mission, not to wait for the unsaved to come to us, but rather that we would go and seek the lost and actually reach out to them and go grab them. You know, it's funny, we'll be out soul winning and knocking doors and some people are irritated by this or they're bothered by the fact that we're out there preaching to people and this is what sometimes they'll say to us, hey, if these people want to come to your church, you know, they'll come. But the problem is they don't know what they don't know. They don't know what they need. We have to go and preach them the gospel and find them. We can't just sit around waiting for them to find us. And a lot of churches today have what I call the, the little Bo Peep soul winning program, which is leave them alone. And you know, little Bo Peep has lost her sheep and doesn't know where to find them. Leave them alone and they'll come home wagging their tails behind them. No, they're not. They're not going to. We have to go out and find the lost sheep. We have to go out and seek and save the lost and not just wait for them to come to us. And so we see Elisha here being proactive and seeking out the lost and reaching him. So then it says in verse nine, so Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot and stood at the door of the house of Elisha and Elisha sent a messenger unto him saying, go and wash in Jordan seven times and thy flesh shall come again to thee and thou shalt be clean. But Naaman was Roth. Now he's angry. Now get the picture here. Naaman's a really important guy. He's a top general in the Syrian army and he comes out with all kinds of a procession of, he's got horses, he's got a chariot, he's an important person and he pulls up to Elisha's house and Elisha doesn't even come downstairs and greet him personally. He sends a delegate, he sends a servant, he sends someone else instead of going out personally to meet him. And this offends Naaman because Naaman thinks that he's pretty important. Now there are a few different things we can learn from this. Number one is that God's not a respecter of persons. God's not impressed by horses and chariots. He's not going to treat someone better or worse based on what kind of car they drive. The chariot equivalent in 2023, right? He's not really impressed by this guy's status or rank or whatever. He just is going to treat everyone the same. But if we want to take a spiritual significance here, because we're looking for the symbolic meanings in the story here, is that you could say that Elisha represents Christ, right? Christ is, obviously when he was on this earth, he was physically here seeking and saving that which is lost. And obviously even now in heaven, he's not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. He doesn't do it himself though, rather he sends us as his messengers to go preach the gospel, right? Christ is not knocking any doors in Phoenix today. But rather he has us as Christians in this world to preach the gospel and to be his messengers. And in fact, if you think about it, the unsaved man doesn't have access to God the way that the saved man does. We can get on our knees and we can boldly enter the throne of grace through prayer and find grace to help in time of need. We talked about this in a recent sermon, how the Bible says that we have access by the faith wherein we stand. And so we go to the Father through Jesus, right? But the unsaved don't have that access into the most holy place that we have. So Naaman's out in the cold here, but he's given the instructions of what he needs to do to be saved and he's just given them by a servant, just by an ordinary guy. And this makes him mad because he wants to hear it directly from Elisha, but no, he gets a messenger. And you know what? God uses us as messengers to preach the gospel to the lost and maybe we're not important or we're not that cool or we're not that eloquent or we're not that high in status. But you know what? What matters is the message. The message is what matters, right? And so people may despise our person, but rather they should be listening to the message that we're saying. And so the message is coming at Naaman, he's a little bit too hung up on who the messenger is and he gets upset. And so here's what he says, Naaman was wroth and went away and said, Behold, I thought he'll surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God and strike his hand over the place. Like, he wanted to be like slap him on the forehead or something. Strike his hand over the place and recover the leper. Are not Abana and Farpar rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage. So he's just angry, rejecting the truth, rejecting the gospel, blowing it off. And it's funny because some of the things that he says are kind of similar to some types of things that unsaved people could say today when they reject the gospel, when they get mad, when they hear the gospel, blow off the gospel. You know, he says, well, you know, are not Abana and Farpar rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them and be clean? You know, what do you mean? Well, I'm Catholic. You know, what's wrong with the Roman Catholic Church? Is it, you know, what's wrong with the Mormon Church? What's wrong with Islam? You know, hey, all religions are basically the same, right? I mean, a river is a river. I can wash in Farpar as much as I can wash in the Jordan. I might as well wash in Abana, right? Well, I mean, look, can I go to heaven through Islam? Can I go through Buddha? And the answer is no. There are all kinds of rivers in this world, but only one of them is going to wash you of that leprosy. And there are all kinds of religions and so-called saviors and messiahs, but there is none other name given among heaven whereby we must be saved than the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. That's what the Bible says. And so he just kind of thinks all religions are the same. It doesn't matter, right, with the symbolism. He's mad. He doesn't like it. And he goes away in rage. And his servants came near, verse 13, and spake unto him and said, my father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? How much rather than when he said to thee, wash and be clean. Now, another thing we can learn from this part of the story is that just because somebody rejects the gospel, even if they get mad, it doesn't mean that they're not going to get saved down the road, right? Don't just give up on someone because they rejected the gospel one time or two times. Even if they got mad and slammed the door, it doesn't mean they're a reprobate. It doesn't mean that they're not going to get saved. It doesn't mean there's no hope for that person because here his servants come. The seed's already been planted. He didn't get saved. He got mad, but rather his servants come and they talk some sense into him. And they say, look, why are you mad when he's telling you to do something so easy? Why don't you just do it? If he would have asked you to do something really difficult, you would have done it. I mean, imagine another scenario, Elisha comes out the front door and greets him personally. This is what, this is what Naaman wanted, right? He comes down and he tells him, look, there's a special plant that's growing at the top of that mountain. You have to climb that mountain and you can't bring any food or water. You need to climb that mountain. You need to retrieve the special plant, you know, and then you have to go kill this pig or whatever, you know, and just gave him all this laundry list of, of deeds to perform, send him on a quest, you know, in order to achieve salvation. Then he would have done it because this guy, I mean, look, if you're leprous, you should be willing to do pretty much anything to be healed. Like no, you know, no task is too big to do this. And so he said, look, if he would have given you something hard to do, you would have done it. So how much more if he's just telling you to do something that's so easy, just jump in the Jordan River seven times. But again, his attitude is too easy. It's too easy. Why would, why would that work? You know, and they're like, well, why do you want to do something hard? If salvation's easy, why don't you just be thankful that it's easy? And yet today, isn't that exactly a lot of people's hang up? You preach them the gospel that salvation is by believing on Jesus Christ. They say, well, that's too easy. It can't be that easy, right? There must be more to it. You got to do, you know, you've got to genuflect and light a candle and, and burn incense, confess your sins to the priest. You got to be baptized, tatakized, sanctified, you know, you got to go through some kind of a process. And it's like, they don't want to accept just the simple fact that it's just believing on Jesus Christ because it feels too easy, right? And so his servants say, well, if it was hard, you would have done it. So why not do the easy thing and just wash and be clean. And I love the way this is worded. How much rather than verse 13, when he sayeth to the wash and be clean, just makes it sound so easy. Oh, you want to be clean wash. And this is the message of the gospel. Believe and be saved, wash and be clean, look and live. It's easy. Then when he down, so he listens to them. He didn't, you know, he didn't listen to the original servant. First he heard it from the little girl, the little girl planted the seed. Then he hears it from the servant of Elisha and then he gets mad, doesn't get safe. But then other people talk to him and finally he does what they say and it says he went down and dipped himself seven times in Jordan according to the saying of the man of God and his flesh came again like the flesh of a little child and he was clean. Now notice here that he goes and dips in the Jordan River seven times and here's the key here. He did it according to the saying of the man of God. You see, salvation, it's easy, it's simple, but it has to be according to the word of God. It has to be according to the saying of the man of God, right? What does the Bible say about salvation? The Bible says that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life, right? The Bible says, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved, right? You have to do it according to the Bible. You know, you can't just make up your own way of salvation. I mean, we were just soul winning the other day and we had this guy just literally just flat out tell us. He said, you know, I don't believe what you guys are saying. He's saying, I know that's what the Bible says, but he just flat out said, that's just not what I believe. I know it's what the Bible says. That's not what I believe. And I'm just like, well, who are you? Like who died and made you God? Like what in the world? Like how could you sit there and tell us what you believe and you're, you're, you're flat out saying, I know it's not what the Bible says, but it's just what I believe. And you know, obviously I'm kind to people when I'm out soul winning and nice to them, but you know, I kind of will say something gently along the lines of like, well, who should I believe? Should I believe what you're saying or should I believe what the Bible is saying? Like should I, should I like follow you now and listen to you or should I just go with what the Bible is saying? Because I'd rather trust the Bible than to trust you because who are you? You were born yesterday in the scheme of things. I was born yesterday in the scheme of things. Who are we? We're nothing compared to the God of the universe, the creator of the world, right? The word of God liveth and abideth forever. Thousands of years later, it's like a rock. More people are reading it than ever, right? It's always around. It's eternal. It's the word of God. It's preserved. It's something that will always be around. It will never be God. You know how many people have predicted, oh, Christianity is going to die or, you know, John Lennon said, oh, you know, we're more popular than Jesus Christ right now. The Beatles are more popular than Jesus and long after people are worshiping Jesus Christ, they'll still be listening to the Beatles. Nowadays a lot of young people are like, who are the Beatles? But everybody knows who Jesus is. And 500 years from now, people will still be worshiping Jesus Christ if the second coming has not happened or even if it has happened. But either way, they're going to be worshiping Jesus. But I'm saying, look, even if the second coming hasn't happened in 500 years, people will still be worshiping Jesus by the throngs and I doubt that that many people will still be listening to the Beatles 500 years from now. I really doubt it. And so he does it according to the word of God. He does it according to the saying of the man of God and notice that the healing is so complete that, I mean, it's not even just that the leprosy is gone. It's that this guy just has the perfect complexion now. Every pimple is gone, right? Every, you know, freckle, every, uh, age mark, sunspot, whatever. I mean, this guy has like a baby skin, the flesh of a little child. Okay. And this is just to show the completeness of salvation, right? That salvation is a complete process. It's not just that when we get saved, he forgives some of our sins. No, he forgives all of our sins and cleanses us completely. His skin is absolutely perfect from head to toe. He has flesh like the flesh of a little child and he was clean verse 15 and he returned to the man of God and all his company and came and stood before him. Now all of a sudden he has access to Elisha, right? Why? Because when you're saved, you have total access to Christ. You have total access to God, the father through Christ. And so he stood before him and he said, behold, now I know that there's no God in all the earth but in Israel. Now therefore I pray thee take a blessing of thy servant and by the way, people that are saved know that people who are saved know that Jesus is the only way to heaven. If somebody comes to you and says, well, Jesus is a way, but there are other ways as well. Just that person is not saved. People are saved. They know, Hey, Jesus is the only way. There's no other God except the true God, the one God. And he says, I know that now, now that I'm saved, I know that. Now therefore I pray thee take a blessing of thy servant. Now when he says take a blessing, he wants to give some monetary compensation, right? He basically wants to give some of that money that he brought to Elisha. And it says in verse number 16, but he said, Elisha said, as the Lord liveth before whom I sin, I will receive none. And he urged him to take it, but he refused. Now I believe that the reason that he refused is because God is using this as a picture of the fact that there's no payment involved in salvation. Want to make sure that it's not, you don't have to pay in advance to get saved, but you also have to pay afterward. It's not like, well, we're saved for free, but then afterward we have to make the payments and we have to do work in order to remain saved or in order to, you know, somehow pay back ourselves, but you can't pay it back. And by the way, this is why after you're saved, every good work that you do for the Lord, he will actually reward you for that when you get to heaven. Why does God reward you for the work that you do after you're saved? Because you think like, well, it's the least I could do. I mean, God has done so much for me and I, you know, it's my reasonable service, so therefore he doesn't have to give me a reward. I don't need a reward, but God's like, no, I'm going to give you a reward because I don't want you to think that this is somehow a back payment for your salvation. Salvation is free. We're square. Basically we owe him our lives, but the work that we do isn't to pay off a debt that could never be paid off. It's rather we're working for him because we love him and then we earn rewards afterward, but there's no payment involved in salvation except the payment that Jesus already made 2000 years ago when he died on the cross for us. And so that's why he's so vehement to refuse the money because other times profits will receive money. They'll receive offerings. Jesus was supported by his followers. The apostles are supported. You know, it even talks about how when, when Saul and his servant go to see, uh, Samuel, they, they bring a gift for Samuel and that, that was a normal practice, but I believe here the refusal of the gift is showing, Hey, you know, this was totally free buddy because it pictures salvation. And then it says, uh, in verse number 17. This is a good part coming up here and Naman said, shall there not then I pray thee be given to thy servant to mules burden of earth for thy servant will henceforth offer and either burn offering nor sacrifice under other gods, but under the Lord. So obviously this guy, he just got saved. He doesn't really know that much about the Bible or the way God is. He doesn't know everything about the true nature of God. And so he says, you know, I want to get two mules burden of earth. I want to fill up two mules with dirt from Israel so that I can basically dump out that dirt in Syria and get on my knees on that dirt and worship the true God because I'm not going to worship any other gods. This is the only God. So I'm going to bring this dirt. Now we, we know that he didn't really need to bring that dirt. Like he could have just knelt on the dirt in Syria because the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. The whole world belongs to God. He's the God of the whole earth. But a lot of these polytheistic pagans in the Old Testament and even in the classical period and even in a modern times have this idea that gods are geographical, you know, that there's the God of this area, the God of that area. And so he's like, man, I feel like when I go to Syria, I'm in the turf of these Syrian gods. And now that I know that they're bogus, you know, I want to create like this little, uh, you know, island of Israel within Syria, you know, and I'm going to make my own little Israel and I'm going to bow down and worship God in that way. Now, I mean, you know, the guy's heart is in the right place. He's just, he doesn't know everything, but his heart's in the right place with that request. Makes sense. Hey, sure. Take as much dirt as you want, buddy. But then look what he says in verse 18. Okay. This is a key point that I want to make in this thing. In this thing, the Lord pardoned thy servant that when my master goes into the house of Remen to worship there and he leadeth on my hand and I bow myself in the house of Remen, when I bow down myself in the house of Remen, the Lord pardoned thy servant in this thing. And he, Elisha said unto him, go in peace. So he departed from him a little way. Now here's the point that I want to make here is that Gehazi or sorry, not Gehazi, we'll get to him in a minute. Naman is already premeditating some sin that he's going to commit in the future. He's already premeditating how he's going to compromise in the future, right? I mean, he's saying, I mean, the guy just got saved five minutes ago, right? And he's saying, look, I'm not going to worship any other gods. I know that God is the only true God and I'm not going to worship any other false gods, but I, but, but he says, pardon, pardon thy servant in this thing. Do you see that word toward the end of verse eight? Pardon. Now look, you don't need pardon unless you did something wrong. Is pardon for people who didn't do anything wrong? No, he's saying, look, I know it's wrong. I know it's bad. I know it shouldn't be doing it, but you know what? I'm going to do it. And so, you know, forgive me. Forgive me. But when I go back home, I look, I know in my heart there's no other God but the Lord and I'm saved now, but here's the thing at my job. They require me to, you know, bow down and basically the boss going to lean on my hand when he's worshiping ribbon, you know, and I don't worship ribbon, but you know, I got to go and go through this little song and dance with him. And so, you know, pardon me when I do that. And what's, what's Elisha's response to him? His response is like, oh, that's okay if you, yeah, go ahead and sin, go ahead and compromise. He doesn't give him permission to do it. He doesn't say you're okay to do that because it's not okay. You shouldn't be bound down to a false God. Shouldn't be participating in this worship service of a false God. He doesn't say it's good, you're fine. But what he does just say is just go in peace. So he's not, he's not condoning, it's like as a pastor, people will come to me and try to kind of tell me and I'm just kind of like, okay, yeah, whatever. You know, like, like I'm not going to condone, I'm not going to condone stuff that's wrong, but I'm not necessarily going to fight with them or argue with them on every point. You know, people are going to do what they're going to do. He's not condoning it, but he's just telling them go in peace. But here's what he's not saying. All right, your leprosy is coming back, buddy, because you're not willing to turn from all your sins. I don't even know how you got healed in the first place because everybody knows that one of the main prerequisites for getting saved is you've got to be willing to turn from all your sins. No, my friend, that's not a prerequisite for getting saved and that is a false doctrine. But yet we have all these people out there saying, well, in order to be saved, you have to be willing to turn from your sins. We've all heard it before, haven't we? Well, you don't have to do any works, but you don't have to repent of all your sins. You do have to be willing to change. You've got to be willing to do the right thing or whatever. Well, let me ask this. Is Naaman willing to turn from all his sins? Has Naaman repented of all his sins? Have you repented of all your sins? Because I promise you, you haven't because you're human. I'm human and repenting of our sins is a daily thing because we're constantly making mistakes. We're constantly committing sins. We're constantly coming short of the glory of God. And here's the thing. The more you read your Bible, the closer you get to God, the more you find error in yourself and the more you find sin in yourself. So these people, when we knock on the door, they don't know jack about the Bible. They're like, well, I think I'm a pretty good person. You know what I mean? It's like, it's like sometimes people who know the least science think they know a lot about science. What's that effect called? The Dunning Kruger effect. Is that what it's called? Somebody, can I get a witness? Dunning Kruger, where like the more you learn about something, the more you realize you don't know. And then the people who are know it all, ironically know the least Dunning Kruger effect, right? So basically you have a, you have sort of a spiritual Dunning Kruger morality effect where basically the people who know the least about the Bible, they think they're the most righteous because they don't really know what it means to be righteous. And then the people who know more about the righteousness of God, they see all the error in themselves. They see all the sin. They see all the mistakes that they're making. They see their weakness and inadequacy and it keeps them humble for God. And so this, this idea of repent of your sins to be saved, turn over a new leaf to be saved. Really? Because I thought Jesus paid it all. I thought the blood of Jesus Christ, God's son is what we are relying upon for our salvation, not self reformation or be, well, you don't have to turn from your sins cause that'd be works. You just have to be willing to turn from sin. Well, what if I'm just willing to be willing? Will that work? How many steps removed can I get? And look, what's so silly about this is that then people will just say like, well, you know, you just have to realize that sin's bad. Everybody knows sin's bad. You think we're stupid over here? Like everybody on this planet knows sin is bad. Well, you just have to acknowledge that your sins have offended God. Everybody knows that. And look, when we go out soul winning, when we're preaching the gospel, one of the, I'll tell you what we first teach people. The first thing we teach people is, look, we're all sinners. You've sinned. Number two, we all deserve to go to hell because of our sins. I mean we do because look, how can they be saved if they don't even know what the problem is? You're not even, you're not going to need to jump in the, in the river. If you don't even realize you have leprosy, right? First he had to be diagnosed with leprosy. And so we tell people, you're a sinner, you deserve hell. But the good news is that Jesus Christ loves you and has died on the cross for your sins. He was buried. He rose again the third day and you have to fully trust him as your savior. You have to believe on Jesus Christ in order to be saved. And so it's not by works that we're saved. And by the way, turning from your evil ways is works. The Bible literally says in Jonah chapter three verse 10 and God saw their works comma that they turned from their evil way and God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them and he did it not. Why did God not destroy Nineveh? Because he saw their works. He saw their works and what were their works? That they turned from their evil way. Now here's the thing about that. Getting the sin out of our life is hard work. You know, if someone's addicted to cigarettes or alcohol or drugs or gambling, that's gonna take some work in order to get that sin out of their life. And whatever other sin, even other sins that aren't necessarily usually classified as addictions, right? Even to just get the lying and stealing and cheating and wicked thoughts or whatever it is, out of our heart is gonna take work, okay? And that's something that we work on every day that I work on and you work on. And you know, January 1st gonna roll around and we're gonna have a bunch of New Year's resolutions and we're gonna work on those things. But guess what? Salvation is not by work. Salvation is by faith, not of works. And so look, I want you to turn from your sins. I want to turn from my sins. That's something that we're constantly working on, growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as we try to be more and more conformed to the image of Christ. But when it comes to heaven and hell, it's not based upon self-reformation, cleaning up your life, being willing to turn from your sins. Otherwise Naaman would still have leprosy because Naaman is not ready to turn from all of his sins. Naaman right out of the gate is starting out his Christian life by saying, I am going to compromise in this way. I am going to be sinning when I get home. I just got saved and I'm already telling you I'm gonna continue to sin. I feel bad about it. Now here's the difference. When you're saved, you feel bad about your sins. A lot of unsaved people are just out there brazenly sinning and don't even care. When you're saved, you have a conscience about it. You feel bad about it. And that's why he has to like tell all this to Elisha. Elisha didn't even ask. Elisha is like, what are you going to do about Remen? He doesn't care, but rather this guy has to just get it off his chest. He's like, look, I know I shouldn't be doing this. And we've all had those conversations with Christians where they have to kind of unload on us and say like, hey, I know I shouldn't, but I'm doing this. You know, confessing our faults one to another is something that we tend to do as human beings. And so people will come to you and tell you, hey, you know, when I go to the house of Remen, I'm going to be bound down, but I don't want you to get the wrong idea. I'm not worshiping false gods. Forgive me. I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't be doing it, but I'm doing it. Look, Naaman's not willing to turn from all his sins, but thank God he can still be saved anyway. And I don't think anybody in this room is 100% willing to turn from all your sins or you'd be perfect. You'd be walking around a perfect Christian, just like Jesus. That'd be great. But the reality is that the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. And so we make excuses and we compromise. Naaman is a human being, and especially as a new believer, you can't expect this guy to be a giant in the faith when he just got saved five minutes ago, right? Christian growth takes time, but I love the fact that he's already premeditating compromise. He's already premeditating the fact that he's going to do something wrong because this is a great verse to show the error of these people are claiming that you have to be willing to give up all your sins in order to be saved. So what, so I guess Naaman, as he was jumping in the river is willing, but he's like, meh. It's bogus, my friend. Either it's whosoever believeth or it isn't. I mean, look, anyone who has all of their faith and trust in Jesus Christ is going to heaven. It's that simple. Now I hope that they want to live for God, but the Bible doesn't say whosoever believeth in him and turns over their whole life to Christ and is willing to live for God and is willing to be a new, you know, a new, uh, a new, uh, person in the new year starting January 1st. No, it doesn't say that, right? It says faith. It says believe. It says that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shall believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved for the heart man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Goes on a few verses later to say for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. So it's not based upon how good you are or how good you're willing to be. Our righteousnesses are as filthy rags to God. Salvation is a free gift by grace through faith purchased by the blood of Jesus. It's easy to be saved. It's as easy as jumping in a river seven times. It's as easy as opening a door. It's as easy as taking a bite of bread. It's as easy as taking a drink of a glass of water. Okay, that's what the Bible compares salvation to. It's 100 percent by faith, but yet the majority of people in this world are not saved. Even the majority of people who claim to be Christians are not saved because they're trusting the Catholic Church to save them. They're trusting the sacraments. They're trusting confessional booths and they're trusting sacraments and communion and last rites and fat Tuesday and Ash Wednesday and Good Friday to save them, right? Or they're trusting Islam or Buddhism or Hinduism. Look it's easy to be saved, but you have to still do that one easy thing. Doesn't matter how easy it is if you don't go in the Jordan River you're not saved, right? And so for us, of course, we have to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ in order to be saved just like Naaman had to go in that Jordan River in order to be healed of his leprosy. And so go in peace. Go in peace. He's still healed. He's still going away. A saved man physically and spiritually both. He's going in peace even though he's not perfect. He's forgiven, right? It's like the bumper sticker. Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven. Amen. That's true. Verse 20, but Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, the man of God said, behold, my master had spared Naaman the Syrian in not receiving at his hand that which he brought, but as the Lord liveth, I will run after him and take somewhat of him. So he's now Gehazi, the wicked Gehazi is going to go and try to take money from Naaman, okay? Now it's funny how he says as the Lord liveth, like he brings the Lord into his sin when he's going and he's going to lie to Naaman. He's going to deceive Naaman in order to get money from him. And what you could say that this pictures is that it pictures the people who are trying to teach that salvation is to be paid for, right? They are trying to add works or, or trying to add some kind of a, a component of us having to earn our salvation. And so of course, to make a long story short, we already read the chapter before the sermon, but Gehazi is cursed by God for doing this thing. And he ends up actually becoming leprous from head to toe, right? So this is the picture of the unsaved false prophets who are trying to add payment to salvation saying you have to earn salvation, you have to pay for your salvation. And look, the devil is tricky about how he does this, okay? Obviously the devil wants to trick people and the best way to tell a lie is to make it as close to the truth as possible. Devil's not going to come at you with a pitchfork and horns and a red tail. He's going to come at you transformed into an angel of light and his ministers will be transformed into the ministers of light. So obviously the devil is going to make things sound good and he's going to say, well, yeah, of course salvation is by faith. You know, the true gospel is that Jesus paid it all. It's through faith in his blood. We just put our faith and trust in what he did for us on the cross. Salvation is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. But he'll come at you and say, well, it's not of works. And look, I can't even count how many people, I mean, we're talking literally hundreds, yay, thousands of people that have said to me, well, it's not by works, but you do have to keep the commandments. It's like, what did you just say? Well, it's not by works, but you know, you do have to be a good person. I mean, you do have to live a good life. I mean, you do have to go to church. You do have to do the sacraments, you know, it's not by works. But you do have to stop drinking, stop smoking, stop gambling, you know. Well, it's not by works though. That is literally works. What do you think the Bible means when it says works? Look, there are two kinds of works that the Bible talks about, good works and the works of the law. Good works are doing good deeds, helping an old lady across the street, carrying someone's groceries, right, feeding the poor, whatever. Those are good works, but that's not the only kind of works that the Bible talks about. The Bible talks about the works of the law, the works of the law. That's what it talks about more in the New Testament. When the Bible is saying salvation is not of works, it's saying you don't have to follow the laws of God to be saved. You don't seek God's law or you don't seek salvation by following God's law, but by faith, right? We're saved by the blood of Jesus, not by works of righteousness, which we have done and not by the works of law because the Bible says by the works of law shall no flesh be justified in his sight. And what are the laws of God? Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not covet. Hey, following those rules isn't going to save you. Following the other five isn't going to save you either because by the works of the law, there should no flesh be justified in his sight. We are, we are saved by grace through faith, not of works. And so don't let the devil deceive you or trick you. Uh, obviously I'm talking to a crowd that's virtually all saved here. And so what we need to do with this message is share this message with other people. But you say, well, why do you, why preach such a specific sermon about salvation to a crowd that's mostly saved? Well, you know, we do need to hammer these things even amongst our saved brothers and sisters because let me tell you something, the best way to be an effective witness for Christ, the best way to be an effective preacher of the gospel, the best way to be effective at soul winning is for you to be 100% sure about your own salvation and what it means that you're saved. How are you going to share it with other people if you're shaky on it? Because even people who are saved, who have truly been saved can sometimes get a little bit shaky or watered down or confused because they've been listening to the wrong people or they haven't been going to church or reading the Bible, they're just kind of out of it. And you know, you'll knock on people's doors that are saved and they'll give you the right answers, but it's like, it's almost like they have to think about it for a second and they're kind of like a little bit confused and stuff and sometimes you have to kind of shore people up. You know, the, the, the first thing to do to become someone who can effectively preach the gospel to others is to make sure that you are saved and to also make sure that not only do you know how to be saved because you're saved, but that you're able to articulate it well, that you'll be able to be able to communicate. And look, when we first learned something, let's say we first learned a math concept or a language concept. When you first learn it, you're like, okay, I get it. I have the gist of it. Okay, get up and explain it to the class. It's like, well, I mean, I don't know if I'm ready to explain it to the class, right? But here's the thing. If you really have it down, Pat, you can explain it to the class. And so look, don't just know a thing. Know that you know it. Don't just be saved, but know about salvation and be able to articulate it. Have the verses ready, have the arguments ready and be ready to preach Christ to a lost and dying world. And so we need to be shored up on these things and of course there could be people among us who aren't saved. Maybe people are new to church and they're not saved or children growing up, they need to be hearing the gospel. We need to share this message with other people so that they can understand the simplicity of the gospel. And you know, not only that, it's good every once in a while to just sit back and just marvel at how beautiful our salvation is and a marvel at God's word showing us his salvation in so many places, even in the book of second Kings, we see powerful message of salvation. And so let's remember today that salvation is of the Lord. It's through faith in Jesus. Let's share that message with other people. Maybe around Christmas you're going to be around people that you're not normally around. Maybe you could share the gospel with a lost loved one today or tomorrow. And if there's anybody here who's not saved, then talk to somebody because virtually everyone around you here knows how to be saved. So just close your eyes, reach out and grab somebody and ask them how to be saved. And 99% they'll be able to tell you, let's borrow heads and have a word of prayer. Lord, we thank you so much for this great story in the Bible, Lord, and not only for its literal meaning, but also for its symbolic spiritual significance. Lord God, thank you for making salvation easy and not making us do some hard thing, but rather just telling us to wash and be clean. Bless the rest of our day, Lord. Bless our services tonight and all the other activities that we do throughout the day. May it all honor and glorify you and in Jesus' name we pray, Amen.