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How Bad Do You Want to Be Cleansed?

July 8, 2007

Bob Bradley

_________________________ 

II Kings 5:1

 

1 Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master, and honourable, because by him the LORD had given deliverance unto Syria: he was also a mighty man in valour, but he was a leper.

 

The scripture tells us something here about a fellow whose name is Naaman.  He is captain of the host of the King of Israel.  Naaman, as far as position goes, has a very high position in authority in the Assyrian government.  As you look at Naaman, the Bible says that he was a great man with his master.  In other words, he was a fellow that was very obedient, worked hard, followed orders, and an outstanding citizen.  It continues on here that he was a mighty man in valour, which means that he was a very brave individual.  It tells us that by his hand the Lord had given victory to Syria. 

 

He is a brave fellow, he is in the army, he has a high position, he is an honorable man, and he is a very well respected individual.  However, the Bible tells us something about him here that changes all that, it changes his destiny actually. 

 

It goes on to say, but he was a leper.  It tells here that he was an honorable man, a man of great courage, a man who was very obedient to his master, and a man, as far as being faithful in his duties where the King was concerned, he was a great man.  However, he was a leper.  With all the things that he may have been and all the things that he was; he could not undo the fact that he was leper. 

 

He was in the army, he was a great man, he was an honorable man, the Lord had used him to give victory, and he was a very courageous man, yet he had something here that all those positions, all those titles, and all those things that he may have done, he could not overcome.  He had a sickness; he was a leper.

 

If you remember vacation Bible school, Sister Joyce dressed up like a leper.  That stuck with me for a long time.  She did a great job with that. 

 

He was a leper.  He had a disease that he could not get rid of.  He had a disease that even though he did all these other things, even though he was second in command in all of Syria, yet he had a disease that was killing him.  He had a disease of leprosy that was going to kill him.  Leprosy, as we talked about many times before, was a skin disease and as it progressed, your limbs would just rot off, fall off, and after awhile, you died because of this horrible disease that you had.  This fellow here is in that shape.

 

The Bible says:

 

2 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.

 

This little girl is going to play a great big part in this story.  The Bible says that the Syrians had gone over into the borders, in the land of Israel where they kidnapped this little girl.  They brought her back into Syria and gave her unto Naaman.  He then gives her unto his wife to wait upon his wife, or to be the servant in his house. 

 

Here this little girl is a long way from home.  We do not know anything about her.  We do not know her name.  I cannot tell you much about her.  However, I can tell you one thing about her is that she knew the power of Almighty God.  I can tell you that because of what she is going to do here.  Even though she had been kidnapped, even though she had been stolen away and taken to a foreign land, she still could remember and did remember that there was a God in the land of Israel, and that there was power in His name.  She knew that. 

 

The Bible says:

 

3 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.

 

This little girl who is a long way from home, a servant in a foreign land, she is not with her family, being separated from them, but as she looks at Naaman, she had compassion on Naaman.  She knew he was sick. She knew he had a deadly disease, but she also knew that there was a God in the land of Israel.  She knew that there was a God that could heal him if Naaman would just go over there and be where the man of God was at; she knew that Naaman could be healed. 

 

Wouldn't that be a great testimony?  That is a great testimony.  We need more people like this little girl, because she was telling her master—even though she was in a foreign land, even though she had been kidnapped—she was saying, “I know you are dying.  I know that you have a disease that you cannot do anything about, but I also know there is a God in the land of Israel that can heal you.” 

 

We need to be telling people today, "I know you are a sinner.  I know that you need help.  I know that you are dying, but there is a God in heaven that can save you."  We need to be telling people that. 

 

This little girl was not letting her circumstances stop her from telling people how good God is.  Even though she was there, even though she was away from home, even though her family was not there, she was telling Naaman's wife, "Hey, there is help for Naaman."  We need a bunch of little girls and boys like that, even though circumstances may not be good in our lives, and many times they are not. 

 

Not everyday is a pleasant day on planet earth.  Visit the hospitals, or go around and visit our dear sisters and brothers that cannot get up and about and you will understand that.  They will tell you quickly that not everyday is a good day.  Some days are better than other days, but some days are filled with pain.  Some days are filled with agony.  Some days are filled with sorrow. 

 

We need above all that to tell our loved ones who are dying without any hope, that there is a God that sits upon the throne in heaven and He is able to help them.  We should be telling people that.  Do we care? 

 

It shows me that this little girl cared about her master.  She cared about how her master was, how he felt, and so forth. 

 

4 And one went in, and told his lord, saying, Thus and thus said the maid that is of the land of Israel.

 

One hears what is going on and he goes in and tells Naaman, "I've just been told by this little maid that we brought out of the land of Egypt that if you would go over and see the man of God that is in the land of Israel then you can be healed."  That would take a lot of faith on anybody's part to do that, first.  That would take a lot of faith on an individual's part to go in and tell Naaman, "If you will just go over and visit the prophet that is in the land of Israel, you can be healed."  That would take a lot faith on this man's part to even go in and tell Naaman that. 

 

This man did not know anything about the man of God.  He did not know anything about the God of heaven.  The only thing that he knew about the God of heaven is what this little girl had told him.  This little girl's testimony was a testimony that could be believed.  There is no doubt that is true because of how she lived, what she did, how that she had a concern and how that her life was filled with compassion. 

 

Sometimes the reason that people do not have any confidence in our testimony is because of how that we live, how that we act, and where that we go.  Many people do not have any confidence in our lives because we just live like they live.  However, this little girl's testimony about the God of heaven was a very credible testimony.  People believed her.

 

When you tell people today that Jesus loves them and will save them, do they believe you?  Do they pay attention to you?  They will pay attention to you if your life is different from what the world is.  They will pay attention to you, if your life is different from what their life is.  People will listen when our lives are different, when we are living a life that we should be living, people will listen.

 

When Naaman hears that there is help in the land of Israel for him, do you know what he does? 

 

5 And the king of Syria said, Go to, go, and I will send a letter unto the king of Israel. And he departed, and took with him ten talents of silver, and six thousand pieces of gold, and ten changes of raiment.

 

Naaman, when he gets the word that there is help for him in the land of Israel, the word gets to the King and he says, “That is fine, I will send you, I want you to go.  I want you to get some help."  The Bible says that he sends a great big offering.  He sends some gold, he sends some silver, and he sends a change of raiment. 

 

He thinks that the favor of God can bought with things or with money.  It cannot be bought that way.  However, this King of Syria, was just a heathen man.  He did not know anything about God.  He wanted his servant healed.  He wanted a man that was under him, he wanted him healed.  Because of the testimony of this one little girl, he is going to send Naaman over into the land of Israel.  He gets the gold, silver and raiment together and they start out on their journey. 

 

I have thought about this for many years.  There was a caravan of them coming.  No doubt, they were riding horses.  They were carrying all kinds of goods.  They were going to the land of Israel. 

 

We hear about what God can do when somebody testifies unto to us about what God can do then we need to believe it.  When we know that it is true, we also need to act upon it. 

 

When we invite people to come to church and tell them that Jesus will save them; do we really believe that?  We should believe that because if we do not believe that then we are just wasting our breath.

 

Naaman believed that he could get some help in the land of Israel. 

 

Do you think that God can help you with the problems that you have? 

 

Do you really think He would save you if you were lost? 

 

Do you really think that God can save you? 

 

He has saved us.  He has saved people just like you and just like me.  There are people all over the world that have been saved.  We must believe that.

 

Naaman and his company believed that.  The King even believed that.  They load up their stuff and they take off. 

 

The Bible says:

 

6 And he brought the letter to the king of Israel, saying, Now when this letter is come unto thee, behold, I have therewith sent Naaman my servant to thee, that thou mayest recover him of his leprosy.

 

Here comes Naaman.  He brings the letter from the King of Syria. The King sent a letter by Naaman to the King of Israel and he is telling him that he is sending his servant along with bounty.  The King of Syria is saying, "I am sending you the gold, the silver, and a change of raiment.  I am going to pay you for what you are going to do here.  I want you to heal my servant." 

 

He was going to the wrong individual.  He did not understand what he was doing. 

 

Do you know what we do many times in life? 

 

We look at all the wrong things.  We want help and we know that we need help, but we look to all the wrong people many times.   You can come to me with your problems and I can tell you the very best I can.  I will give you the best counseling that I can, but when it comes to saving you, my hands are just too short.  I cannot do that.  I cannot do a lot of things. 

 

He goes to the wrong man here.  Do you know where we need to be looking at today?  Instead of looking to men, we need to be looking to the God of heaven because He is the one that can and will change our lives. 

 

Here Naaman is and his company, they come to the King.

 

7 And it came to pass, when the king of Israel had read the letter, that he rent his clothes, and said, Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man doth send unto me to recover a man of his leprosy? wherefore consider, I pray you, and see how he seeketh a quarrel against me.

 

In other words, he reads the letter, and he reaches up and tears his garment, showing disgust, showing grief, and showing that he was questioning what was going on.  He was saying, "...Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man doth send unto me to recover a man of his leprosy?  wherefore consider, I pray you, and see how he seeketh a quarrel against me."  When the King of Israel reads the letter that was sent to him from the King of Syria, he thinks that he is trying to pick a fight with him.  He thinks, when he reads the letter, that he wants him to recover Naaman of his leprosy.  He thinks that he is just picking a fight with him. 

 

8 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 hast thou rent thy clothes? let him come now to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel.

 

When the King of Israel reads the letter and rent his clothes, he gets all upset and thinks that the King of Syria wants to fight with him, and wants to start a war with him.  However, when the man of God heard what went on, he said, "just send him here to me and he is going to know that there is a God in the land of Israel.  He is going to know that there is a prophet in the land of Israel." 

 

We need more like that today.  Do you know what Elisha knew?  Elisha knew that God was going to heal this man.  We need to know today that when I get on my face before Almighty God, when we take our loved ones before God in prayer, I need to believe that God is going to save them.  I need to believe that God is able to save them.  I need to believe that if we will just simply believe him that they will get saved. 

 

Do you know what we do many times? 

 

We go through the motions and we make a lot of racquet sometimes, but I do not believe sometimes when we pray that we really believe that God is going to do what God said He would do. 

 

Elisha, the man of God says, "... just send him on over here.  He is going to know that there is a God in the land of Israel, there is a prophet in the land of Israel." 

 

Today, there is still yet a God in heaven.  He is still yet alive today and He i s still yet healing people today.  He is changing people's lives.  We do not see much healing today, but that is not God's fault. 

 

There are many ailments that I have in this flesh because of my stupidity.  Many of your ailments that you have today are because of your stupidity too.  Do not misunderstand.  I know that many of us have problems and sicknesses that we did not create.  Some of the things that we create, or the physical problems that we have, we created them.  Some of it is because we eat too much.  Some of it is because we do not rest enough.  Some of it is because we think that if it is not done today that there is no tomorrow.  They work 20 hours a day.  We cause ourselves many problems. 

 

I cannot do some things.  I have asked God to do many things in life, to do with the physical part of things.  I have asked God to help me in many areas.  There have been times in my life when physical ailments have been so that I thought that I was going to have to quit and I mean that.  I thought that I was just going to throw my hands up and just quit because it just got to the point that I could not do much.  The Lord showed me some things that if you would just do this then I can do this.  If I am doing something, that is killing me, God is not just going to come down and zap it all away and it is going to be gone.  If it is just taking food from the plate and putting it in my mouth that is killing me, I can quit doing that.  (That is just an example.) 

 

If you want to use tobacco, that is your business.  It will not you from going to heaven, but it just might get you there a little quicker.  The things we do many times prevents God from doing the things that God wants to do for us.  We could mention a bunch of things, but I am not.  However, if we would change in our own lives things that we can change, things that we have the power to change, then many of the problems that we have physically we would not have today.  Many times, we shorten our lifespan by doing crazy things.  When we lay upon our deathbeds, we always want to blame somebody else, but we should just blame ourselves because we brought it on ourselves. 

 

Here Naaman is and when Elisha hears what the King of Israel has done, he said just send him over here.  He said there is no reason to get upset.  Everybody is going to be fine.  Just send him over here to me and he is going to know that there is a prophet in the land of Israel. 

 

9 So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha.

 

Picture this in your mind.  He leaves the King's palace, the King's house, and he is coming now to Elisha's house.  He is coming with many people.  He is coming with the silver, the gold and the changes of raiment.  He is coming with all these things and he comes right over to Elisha's house, right where Elisha is.  No doubt, Naaman had some issues that he was going to need to deal with now.

 

10 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.

 

Now here the man of God has just sent out a servant.  He did not come out and visit Naaman whatsoever, the only thing he did was send a servant out saying, "If you want to be healed, you just need to go and dip in the Jordan seven times."  That may not make sense to Naaman, and that may not make sense to you and I.  Naaman knew that he came all this way to see a man about getting healed.  Now he heard the very thing that he needed to be healed and he flies into a rage.  He gets mad.  He gets all upset. 

 

Many times in life, in our dealings with God and His dealings with us, God tells us what he expects out of us, and what He expects out of us if we are going to be clean, if we are going to be saved, if we are going to be Christian people.  He tells us what we need to do.  We do not like to hear that. 

 

Naaman had a problem with pride.  Many times, we do not think that we will ever come to an altar and bow down; we will not come anywhere and pray.  However, there come a time in Naaman's life that he had to deal with pride.  Naaman said here, "Hey, he didn't even come out."  If you read on down through the scripture, it says that he went away saying, "...I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the LORD his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper."  Naaman said, “Surely, Elisha is going to come out here and wave his hands over me; he is at least going to do something.”  However, Elisha did not do that. 

 

When God speaks today, we need to listen unto Him.  When God speaks today, God has the message that we need to hear.  When we hear that, we need to be obedient to what God says.  When we do that then there is a blessing there.  Instead of getting mad, as Naaman did, who was upset over something that he should not have been upset about.  He told him to go over in the Jordan and dip seven times.  That is all you need to do Naaman if you want to be healed of your leprosy. 

 

It sounds simple, doesn't it?  It is simple.  There is nothing complicated about being saved if we will just listen to the voice of God. 

 

The Bible says that Naaman goes away mad.  Naaman says, "Are not the rivers that are up in Damascus a whole lot cleaner than this Jordan River which is dirty and muddy?  Why can't I go up there and dip up there in those rivers?" 

 

When God says that this is what we need to do, then this is what we need to do.  The sad thing today is that many of us are doing things today that God did not tell us to do.  We are doing things and going in directions that God has never led us.  We get ourselves into a mess. 

 

13 And his servants came near, 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 then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?

 

I do not know how much has lapsed.  After a while here the Bible says, "And his servants came near, 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 then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?"  In other words, he is just asking you to do some simple thing.  If he had told you to do some great task, you would have done it. 

 

We could tell men today to go climb a bridge, jump off a mountain, or do some spectacular thing, if they wanted to go to heaven.  We would have people lined up today to do things like that.  Jesus is simply saying, "Come, all ye that are heavy laden and I'll give you rest."  He is just simply saying that. 

 

It is a very simple command that He gave to Naaman.  Go wash and ye can be clean. 

 

The Bible says:

 

14 Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.

 

That was simple.  Naaman gets mad and upset, and he does not want to do it.  Maybe it is because of his pride.  However, after a while, Naaman wanted to be healed very badly and he got to the place in his life that if it took dipping in an old dirty river, in front of a bunch of people, he did not care because he wanted to be clean. 

 

The question is, "How bad do you want to be clean?" 

 

Naaman was willing to lay it all aside.  His pride, his authority, his valour and all the things it says about him, he put aside for the moment and he took a very simple command from a fellow that he did not even meet through a servant that he did not know and yet he was obedient and he was cleaned. 

 

God is still yet speaking.  God is still yet calling.  God still yet wants to save people.

 

The Bible says:

 

15 And he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and came, and stood before him: and he said, Behold, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel: now therefore, I pray thee, take a blessing of thy servant.

 

He comes back and tells Elisha that I was cleansed, and I know that there is no God anywhere else except in the land of Israel.  That is a great testimony by Naaman. 

 

16 But he said, As the LORD liveth, before whom I stand, I will receive none. And he urged him to take it ; but he refused.

17 And Naaman said, Shall there not then, I pray thee, be given to thy servant two mules' burden of earth? for thy servant will henceforth offer neither burnt offering nor sacrifice unto other gods, but unto the LORD.

 

The man of God, Elisha, would not take the offering that Naaman wanted to give him so he said, "Hey, will you just give me some dirt from your property so that I can take it back over into Syria and I can build an altar there that I can worship the God of Israel over there."  That is a great testimony that this man has been cleansed.  This man's life has been changed.  Naaman heard about the God of heaven from a little girl that was kidnapped out of the land of Israel and there was waiting upon him.  He hears this message by some of his servants and he is obedient to that.  In other words, he believes that if he just goes to the land of Israel that he can be healed.  We know that he goes to the wrong place first.  However, he finally gets to where he can be healed.  He does all that simply by faith.

 

Do you know what you have to do friend?  If and when you get saved, it will be because you have heard the Word of God.  You have heard that God will cleanse you, that God will save you, and that God will clean you up.  Do you know what you will do?  You will make a step by faith just like Naaman did.  The same type of faith that Naaman exercised, you will have to do the same before you will ever get saved.  Because God speaks and God expects us to respond.  When God speaks then we must respond in the way that God says.  That is up to us. 

 

Do you know what Naaman could have done? 

 

He could have went back home, he could have went on back up the road and he could have dipped up there in the rivers that were in Damascus and he could have drowned himself up there and he never would have been cleansed from his leprosy.  The reason that he was cleansed—there was no cleansing water, there was no cleansing virtue in the Jordan River—the  cleansing took place when he was obedient to what God's man told him to do.

 

God is speaking tonight.  God is calling tonight.  God is telling you tonight that you need to get saved.  It is up to you now.

 

The command to Naaman was "...go dip in the Jordan and you can be healed." 

 

Jesus is calling and telling you tonight that you need to come to Him.  Come with a broken heart and a contrite spirit.  Come to Him knowing that He can cleanse you and knowing that He will save you tonight.

 

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