Heroic Lepers (Part A)

Well, the thief doesn't have a conscience towards you. He doesn't care about you.

He or she wants what they want from you. And conscience, conscience can be compared to a window that lets light in God's truth, that is, metaphorically I'm speaking. But if we persist in resisting God's truth, the window gets dirty and dirtier until finally none of the light from God can get through. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of 2 Kings.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of 2 Kings chapter 7 as he begins his message, Heroic Lepers. 2 Kings chapter 7.

Now, remember where we are from last session. There was a severe famine in Samaria. Cannibalism had made its ghoulish appearance. In chapter 6, in verse 31, we read about the anger of the king towards the prophet of God, blaming God for the famine, never mind their idolatry. And at the 33rd verse of chapter 6, it says, While he was still talking with them, there was a messenger coming down to him, and then the king said, Surely this calamity is from Yahweh. Why should I wait for Yahweh any longer? And so, evidently, though it's not said, the prophet Elisha had mentioned that it was going to end soon, and the king ran out of patience. And so he's pretty angry at the whole thing. And so he barks at the prophet, How much longer?

I've waited long enough. Like he could do anything about it anyway. I mean, it was a waste of energy. Getting angry at God wasn't going to stop the famine. So severe was the famine that when the food finally came available, starvation ignited a stampede, and we'll get to that at the end. Included amongst the starving people in this city and the vicinity of the city were these four lepers that we're going to get to in a little bit. We wince at the word leprosy, and rightfully so. We don't wince at the word hero.

We delight in that word. These lepers are going to be heroes because they saved the city, a city that forbade them from entering. They could not go into the city being lepers, according to Jewish law, and that was one of the things that would have been upheld in spite of their ideology. The conscience of these outcast men, these four lepers, will make all the difference. Conscience made them heroes, and conscience is a big deal. That inner voice that is connected to God is not always. There are people that are atheists.

Some of them have some sense of conscience because they know that they would not want to be victimized by certain behaviors themselves, and so they feel some compassion towards others, but humans without conscience are like beasts, create a lot of problems. Paul, speaking about the end times, said something, and when he talks about the end times, these characteristics of people, he's not saying these things don't exist now, but they will be present when the end comes. He's not saying that. He's saying these things exist now, but when the end comes, the great tribulation, they're going to be really bad.

They're going to be exaggerated. So he writes, speaking lies in hypocrisy about those who, in the end times, and even today, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, 1 Timothy 4, verse 2. We think about those without a conscience, such as that Chairman Mao, that vile man of China. Because of Mao, you had one of the greatest man-made famines in human history.

It's estimated somewhere between 10 to 30 million of his own people will starve to death because of his introduction of communism, his plan, his vision for China, care about his people. No conscience was there. Stalin, probably the greatest mass murderer of them all, starved the people in the Ukraine, taking the food away from them, taking the farms away from them.

It's estimated over 8 to 10 million people died from man-made famine. Stalin was punishing them for complaining. No conscience there.

Then you have the crybaby cancel culture. They have no conscience either. They don't care what they do to others. They just care about their agenda. Poorly thought-out agendas at that. Defund the police. Defund the criminals. That doesn't make any sense. To defund law enforcement, for example, that's just one of their many problems.

That cancel culture that wants to force others to celebrate their perversity and their stupidity, or pay. Because they have no conscience, and they target the children because they have no conscience. There's nothing in their head that says, don't do this.

This is wrong. To them, what is wrong is not getting their will. Then, of course, there's always the murder of the unborn.

I'm not talking under those circumstances where life and death is at risk. I mean those who just opt out of having the child, and where is the conscience there? So conscience is a big deal, and that's what we're talking about in this chapter, because were it not for conscience, these four lepers would have let the city die.

They saved the city single-handedly in that sense. Conscience, memory, and reason. God's three hounds that bark at the soul to say, that is wrong. In this seventh chapter, the word gate appears eight times.

And I think it's significant, because if the conscience, if the gate of the mind is closed, if the gate of decency is closed, then nothing from God can get in. Luke's Gospel, chapter 13, verse 24, strive to enter through the narrow gate, for I say to you, I say to you, many will seek to enter and will not be able. Then John, chapter 10, verses 7 through 10, and Jesus said to them again, Most assuredly I say to you, I am the door of the sheep, and all whoever came before me are thieves and robbers.

But the sheep did not hear them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and go out and in and find pasture. The thief does not come except to steal, to kill, to destroy.

I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly. Well, the thief doesn't have a conscience towards you. He doesn't care about you.

He or she wants what they want from you. In conscience, conscience can be compared to a window that lets light in. God's truth, that is, metaphorically I'm speaking. But if we persist in resisting God's truth, the window gets dirty and dirtier until finally none of the light from God can get through, potentially defiling the conscience. Titus, chapter 1, verse 15, To those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but even their mind and conscience are defiled. Nothing from God is pure. They may create their own standards of purity, but that doesn't fly with God.

In fact, that's the problem. When man creates his own standards of purity, he's creating his own religion, and he's blocking out the truth, the truth of God. Well, with that introduction on the conscience, maybe we will be more conscious of what comes out of the lives of these four men who are outcasts. Verse 1, Then Elisha said, Hear the word of Yahweh. Thus says Yahweh, Tomorrow about this time a seth of fine flour shall be sold for a shekel and two sets of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria. Well, the prophet is making a prophecy, a prediction of the future.

He is saying that there is going to be an instant economic recovery. The food will flow again, and it will cancel their desperate need. It will also cancel out the cost of the price of a donkey's head for food, which was an unclean animal, and the dove dung likely again for fuel that we read about in chapter 6.

It will cancel all that out. The gate, the gate of the city, was where the government affairs were conducted, and in most of the cities there were markets and vendors set up within a plaza or outside the wall of the gate. This was common in the ancient world. And this is, well, let's go to verse 2. So an officer whose hand the king leaned answered the man of God and said, Look, if Yahweh would make windows in heaven, could this thing be? And he said in fact, now the prophet is answering him, You shall see it with your eyes, but you shall not eat of it.

He is evidently a high-ranking assistant to the king. Why didn't he just keep quiet? Why didn't he just let the prophet say, Tomorrow this famine is going to be gone? Because the devil is ever ready to sow seeds of doubt. When he has a lie, he can't wait to tell it. But he has to use people to do it. And this is one of the problems with gossip.

This is one of the problems with talking too much. That doesn't pertain to pastors and the pulpit talking too much. Anyway, this phrase here, would make windows in heaven, refers to rainfall. We get that from Genesis 7 and 8. God opened up the windows of heaven and the rains came. So his objection is that even if God sent heavy rains today, there'd be no grain tomorrow.

How do you reverse a famine overnight? That's his point. And it is loaded with unbelief. Again, it is not an earnest unbelief.

I don't know how that's going to happen. Nicodemus was earnest. How can a man be born again? He's conversing with the Lord. He's not being obnoxious as some people can be when they object. His objection would have been valid had it not been directed at Elisha. A man of his stature, of his accomplishments with Yahweh, you don't question his prophecies. We would think people were ready to believe whatever Elisha said to him because of the things that they had witnessed him do.

But that is not how it works. And Christ faced the same thing. John's Gospel, chapter 12, verse 37, But although he had done so many signs before them, they did not believe him. And those signs that Jesus did, too numeral to list, they included his teaching and his behavior. Here in verse 3 at the bottom it says, And he said, the prophet, in fact, you shall see it with your eyes, but you shall not eat of it.

This is his second prophecy. The first one is, tomorrow there's going to be food. The second is, you're not going to eat it. The price of hostile unbelief. There is a price. Sometimes it's paid the next day, instantly, or at the end of life.

But it is a debt. Hebrews, chapter 3, verse 12, Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. Well, contrary to what many doctrines hold, that, oh, you can't depart from God once you have come to him, well, that's not what the Bible says. Unbelief clogs the flow of blessings.

It's just that simple. And we who believe in Christ receive him. We fight, we resist unbelief. Verse 3, Now there were four leprous men at the entrance of the gate, and they said to one another, Why are we sitting here until we die? So the scene now shifts to outside the city, but still within the vicinity of the city. And that's why it says, at the entrance of the gate. They're not able to come in. These four lepers, they pretty much lived in isolation because of their diseased skin. They had the social distancing before, you know, it became such an issue for us here in the last two years.

Nobody had told them about Elijah's promise for food. This is an independent scene. And lepers, they live isolated from the city, according to the law, Numbers 5 and Numbers chapter 12, other places too, but those are two places to say that they can't come into the city. These four men banded together by reason of their shared misery. You know, misery loves comfort. And we get comfort from companionship. Being with somebody does not qualify as companionship. You can just be saddled when someone, you know, being in jail because you're with a lot of people, for example, doesn't mean they're your companions. Companionship is friendship.

Anyway, and they said to one another, why are we sitting here until we die? It's a rational response to a desperate situation. What do we have to lose? It's proactive.

Let's do something. And you have to like these men for how they go about this venture of faith and hope. It's with reason and it's with risk.

And they've calculated all of this. Verse 4, if we say we will enter the city, the famine is in the city and we shall die there. And if we sit here, we die also.

Now, therefore, come, let us surrender to the army of the Syrians. If they keep us alive, we shall live. And if they kill us, we shall only die. Well, we go into the city where they're not welcomed.

There's nothing there. So that won't work. Only hope is to go to the enemy for food. They're just trying to survive. And they factored in this venture forward with reason and hope, they factored in.

They're totally aware of the risk. The Syrians may kill us. If pitiful lepers can reason, why do so many Christians seem to pass, routinely pass or opt out of reasoning? You know, I think the emotions are a big part of the problem in humanity.

The people letting their feelings do their thinking is just almost always a problem. Verse 5, and they rose at twilight to go to the camp of the Syrians. And when they had come to the outskirts of the Syrian camp, to their surprise, no one was there. Well, at twilight, that would cover their exit. It would obscure their departure from the vicinity of the city. I mean, someone may have spotted them going towards the Syrian army and said, hey, these guys are spies. They're going to tell the Syrians how bad conditions are, where the best place to attack, and they could have been, again, mistaken for spies. And at twilight, obscuring their departure. You know, at twilight, that's the worst time to be on a bicycle on the road because cars, you know, it's harder to see things at twilight.

Moving in the shadows. So here, they have embarked on a heroic journey and know it not. They have no idea how God is going to use them. Again, just trying to survive.

Well, that's true of other people, too. There are people just trying to survive, and then God uses them. And when they had come to the outskirts of the Syrian camp, well, when they came to the outskirts of the Syrian camp, there's no sentry. And to their surprise, no one was there. No sentry on the post.

Fortunately for them, Archie and Jughead were sentries that particular day or night. Sentries are not posted so they can flee at the sound of the enemy. They're posted to sound the alarm and begin the resistance.

Here, we have complete opposite. We have the sentries there. Here's something, and they spread panic throughout the camp. Of course, God is in this. So to their surprise, no one was there. It's almost comical. Here they are, ready for death.

To get there mentally takes a lot of energy. The resolve. Okay, we're just going to die if they don't give us food. And there's no one there. The look on their face is like, huh?

It appears that the food was still just served. Well, let's just read it, verse 6. For Yahweh had caused the army of the Syrians to hear the noise of the chariots and the noise of the horses, the noise of a great army. So they said to one another, look, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians to attack us. Maybe God used those chariots of fire that he let Elijah's servants see.

Maybe he used them to make some noise, divinely magnify the noise from the spirit realm, or maybe he magnified the noise of the lepers making their way. It was miraculous, so it's not going to figure it out. But they have this terrified reaction. And the lepers, again, are oblivious to this. They don't know what's going on. Clearly, at some point, the Syrian side of the story works its way back to Israel, which is common.

I mean, you know, people talk and tell the story. The fate of the commanders who fled and then get to Syria and learn that the Hittites and the Egyptians were not hired, what was their fate? They were probably executed. Well, coming back to this, so they said to one another, look, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians.

And God will confuse his enemies, and the Bible teaches that very clearly in Genesis, in Kings, in Isaiah, in Samuel, Zechariah, in the New Testament, the Thessalonians, very clearly God will confuse the enemy. But the Syrians felt surrounded. The Hittites are from the north.

The Egyptians are from the south, and that's what they're saying. They've hired the Egyptians and the Hittites, and we're boxed in, and they've probably fled to the east to get to the Jordan, and there a highway led up towards Damascus or Syria, and that would have been their escape route. Verse 7, therefore, they arose and fled at twilight and left the camp intact. Their tents, their horses, and their donkeys, and they fled for their lives.

And so they were in complete panic. It's at the same time, at twilight, they fled as the lepers, which is why I'm saying maybe God amplified the footsteps and the clinking around of the lepers. You know, maybe they had clay pots for their water, you know, like canteens with them, or just whatever.

But it happens before it's fully dark. It's interesting also that what the Jews lost to the famine, they're regaining the horses and the donkeys, for example. The Lord defeated the Moabites in chapter 3 when the three kings went out to the desert, and Elisha brought water. Well, miraculously gave them water in the desert, and the Moabite kings saw the reflection, saw the water, thought it was blood, and then they carelessly, recklessly went down to take the spoil, and the Jews and both the kingdoms and the Edomites were lying in ambush, and they sprung out and they defeated the Moabites there. And so the Lord defeated the Moabites by a miracle of sight, perception, and fearlessness. They weren't afraid, not fearlessness, but I'm really not using that word as proper as I want, but it's going to fit in with what I'm going to say, so I'm going to use it this way. It was not fearlessness in the sense that they were courageous. It was, in the way I'm using it, is they were unafraid because they thought, by perception, that the enemy had wiped itself out. Here, the Lord is defeating the Syrians by a miracle of sound, not sight, and perception, and fear. So that's kind of an interesting formula that God has used in two different situations, some of the same ingredients and some different. Verse 8, and when these lepers came to the outskirts of the camp, they went into the tent and ate and drank and carried from it the silver and gold and clothing and went and hid them.

Then they came back and entered another tent and carried some from there also and went and hid it. Super jackpot. These guys are just there eating. You can see them with a drumstick in one hand and robes in the other, and this is incredible. But for this leprosy, life would be great, just in time for dinner.

What are the odds? This is almost comical, but still, they're not heroes yet. They're heroes to be as they gorge themselves and loot the enemy with a plunder.

They pillage the camp. Their excitement levels must have been off the proverbial chart. Could you imagine them? I can't believe this. I can't believe this.

Ira and me either. This is amazing. They're just hoarding everything as much as they can carry. You've got to hide this stuff. They're going to sell it, I'm sure. It's going to be the best-dressed lepers you've ever seen. Is that Syrian silk? Yes, it is. Well, they're shuttling back and forth from the Syrian camp to the hideout. And remember, this is an army of food. It's food for an army. Therefore, it's food for a city. It's a perfect match.

It's going to be more than enough to go around a surplus of food. Verse 9, Then they said to one another, we're not doing right. This day is a day of good news, and we remain silent. If we wait until morning light, some punishment will come upon us. Now, therefore, come, let us go and tell the king's household.

Conscience steps forward. They could have just been like, you know what? They won't let us into the city. I ain't giving them anything. Not a trace of that.

They couldn't think on an empty stomach. Now that they're full, the faculty is returning. Thanks for joining us for today's edition on Cross-Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia.

We trust that what you've heard today in the book of 2 Kings has been something to remember. If you'd like to listen to more teachings from this series, go to crossreferenceradio.com. Once more, that's crossreferenceradio.com. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast too, so you'll never miss another edition. Just go to your favorite podcast app to subscribe. Our time is about up, but we hope you'll tune in again next time as we continue on in the book of 2 Kings. We look forward to that time with you, so make a note in your calendar to join Pastor Rick as he teaches from the Bible right here on Cross-Reference Radio.