Heroic Lepers (Part B)

They reasoned they had to do something and they were willing to take the risk because it was worth it and they accepted the consequences. Heroic lepers are used to preach the gospel to save, not cities, but souls. Because to God, it's about individuals. Individuals are worth more to God than cities.

And in the great tribulation, whole cities will be destroyed, but there will be souls that will be saved. 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. Today, Pastor Rick will continue his message called Heroic Lepers in 2 Kings chapter 7. Verse 9, Then they said to one another, We are 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. And so here, these men, in spite of their awful disease, their outcast status and their suffering in life, they still fear and revere God. I mean, that's a hard place to be when you think maybe you've been dealt a dirty hand in life, and yet you still, in purity, love the Lord. Where they say if we wait, here in verse 9, until morning light, some punishment may come upon us, that is telling us the conviction is very strong.

These are decent men. Perhaps the fact that they were smitten with leprosy for whatever, just again, the deal of life they got, may have heightened their sensitivity to being punished. You know, like, we've already got leprosy, and we feel guilty about this.

Let's not make things worse. Maybe some of that was going in this, but God graciously allowed them to feast in pillage before opening their eyes. The grace of God is twofold here.

It's graciously letting these men satisfy themselves, amass them first choice on the wealth, because they couldn't take it all, and then graciously opening their eyes. The fear of God moved them to do what was right, not the terror of God. His enemies face that. This is a reverence. There is a terror element to it that can be activated amongst his people also.

I think Peter was a little terrified of Christ when there at the Galilee, he said, depart from me for I'm a wicked man, a sinful man. Now, therefore, come, let us go and tell the king's soul. So the decision, this decision, now they're heroes. And this decision saves the city, because their conscience was alive, not seared with a hot iron. Conscience enough still, but they still had to act on it. It wasn't enough to say, this isn't right, we're gludding and feeding ourselves like this, and people are in the city starving and cannibalism going on there.

That's not enough. You have to take the step toward the city and get there, and this is what they do. Yeah, we can't keep the gospel to ourselves. Can you just like, you know, I'm saved, tough luck for you.

Well, then you probably wouldn't be saved. Verse 10, so they went and called the gatekeepers of the city and told them, saying, we went to the Syrian camp, and surprisingly, no one was there, not a human sound, only horses and donkeys tied and tents intact. Verse 11, and the gatekeepers called out, and they told it to the king's household inside. So here this band of begging lepers, who are again brothers in the cause, they were likely familiar to the guards, and the guards don't doubt them.

Well, they may, but at least they take them seriously enough to pass the word up the chain of command. This was big news. Everybody had hoped for it, and so it reaches the king. Verse 12, so the king arose in the night and said to his servants, let me now tell you what the Syrians have done to us. They know that we are hungry. Therefore, they have gone out of the camp to hide themselves in the field, saying, when they come out of the city, we shall catch them alive and get into the city.

Well, typical, likely, again, Jehoram, impetuous, impulsive, irritating, and just ready to not believe. You know, I've said it several times, you know, God has led us to the wilderness to kill us, and just, you know, just always negative, and it's actually dim-witted. Yeah, they've, the whole army is hiding in the bushes. It just doesn't make any sense. You know how hard it is to hide an army?

It's hard enough to hide a fire team. You just, you know, don't sneeze. He's a negative numbskull, and I don't say that with disrespect, just absent of respect. He has no right to be so quick to doubt.

He has no right to, he should have, like, well, let's look into this, and he's not going to be the one that takes the next step, especially since the lies of the prophet's words, and not even a day old, had said God was going to provide food, the famine would end. His brand of skepticism has a paranoid taste to it, and we need to guard against that, because that is the taste of poison. It's one thing to be cautious, it's another thing to have a paranoia that is unfounded. I mean, if you, certain neighborhoods you go in, you have a heightened sense of security, hopefully, but that doesn't mean you go to certain other neighborhoods, and you decide everything's fine here, no problem.

You still have to always be a little bit on guard wherever you go. Verse 13, and one of his servants answered and said, please let several men take five of the remaining horses which are left in the city. Look, they may enter, pardon me, they may either become like all the multitude of Israel that are left in it, or indeed, I say, they may become like all the multitude of Israel left from those who are consumed, so let us send them in sea. So here is a man close enough to the king, desperate enough, and brave enough to speak up with reason and counter the king's paranoia. And essentially he's saying, unless we do something we're going to die like all the other dead things in the city. What can, what's the harm in verification of what these men have said?

What do we have to lose? Verse 14, therefore they took two chariots with horses and the king sent them in the direction of the Syrian army saying, go and see. Now the King James version says they took two chariot horses, but that's not accurate. The Hebrew literally is two chariots of horses. Two chariots with horses.

And this would account for him saying, let me take, you know, five men. And, you know, he couldn't just take two horses and let the other three guys run behind or, come on, keep up. Anyway, it's likely they took four horses and four to six men to go with them, but they're taking chariots. The horses are pulling chariots, which I find puzzling because I would think the chariots would limit the mobility and the stealth and speed and it'd just be better to just take a horse.

But they didn't ask me and it turns out they didn't have to. Maybe you could answer why they took chariots instead of just going on horses. Anyhow, coming back to verse 15, and they went after them to the Jordan and indeed all the road was full of garments and weapons which the Syrians had thrown away in their haste, so the messengers returned and told the king after they ate. You know what, just a little snack on the way, okay? It's a little jerky, camel jerky.

Anyway, it's a little disgusting, that's what it is. From Samaria to the Jordan, where the route that it says here, they went after them to the Jordan, which you cross the Jordan, there's a highway going up north or south, there's a highway running along the east there, so about almost 30 miles or so. And so this is taking time, it's going to be morning by the time all of this ends up back in the city. But this retreat, it was not a retreat, this was an unorganized and shameful mass desertion from the battlefield. You see how something similar like this in the Gulf War and that highway of death, where those Iraqi troops had plundered, had molested, they were criminals, and they were also cooked.

Before it was all over, the allied forces just destroyed them, and the road was littered with burned out vehicles. So anyway, this is a similar situation. There's a better way to withdraw. Professional troops don't withdraw this way. They handle bad news a lot better than this, and I want to take a moment to add, and I'll hopefully say this Sunday, this past Sunday, we had no music worship, and I think the congregation handled it like professional Christians. There was no complaining, there was no whining.

You know, a lot of places people are going to get their shots in, and it just was, what a blessing it is, little things like that. There's a way to handle things that go wrong, a wrong way and a right way, and that's true whether it's military or church or an individual. Anyway, many Christians, well let me put it this way in a positive way, I think, may we Christians not litter a retreat route with our armor by discarding it, as these men did. May we take up the armor of Christ and never discard it until we go to heaven.

I see that lesson in this. As I read this, you know, the Bible is never, the Bible never says there's no spiritual content here, just read the story. It's always something there spiritually, that's why we have this book.

It's a spiritual document, it is a sword against spiritual evils that show up in the physical, material world. And as I read this, I don't want to do with my armor what these men were doing with their armor. And you meet Christians like this, you know, they're talking, I love the Lord and singing in the church and then pressure comes their way, they just throw their armor away and it's like, man, what happened?

They just crumbled. Well, verse 16, then the people went out and plundered the tents of the Syrians, so a seth of fine flour was sold for a shekel and two setsh of barley for a shekel according to the word of Yahweh. Well, they didn't have to post this on the evening news. Once one person found out that there's food in them yer hills, it was just this mass accident, everybody, the word just spread. And it should be that way with good things too.

You know, once you tell people if it's good news, especially to share it, don't hide it, divide it. God rescued this city when it didn't deserve to be rescued. I wonder what happened to the cannibals, what happened to the two cannibal women?

They didn't deserve to be rescued. Only God could have delivered this city from this siege, there was nobody else to come to their rescue. Now there was food enough to feed the city from an army.

The standards of measurements are secondary and suffice it to say that there were drastic changes in the price of flour. In fact, there was flour now. Verse 17, now the king had appointed the officer whose hand he leaned to to have charge of the gate, but the people trampled him in the gate and he died, just as the man of God had said, who spoke when the king came down to him. So, now he's going back and telling him, well this is what Elisha said, this is the officer from verse 2 that injected doubt into the prophecy.

You know, if it should pour down rain, how are you going to have food tomorrow? So in a desperate rush for the food, because of the level of starvation, the city, they stampeded and he was in the way. And he died, as it says here. He should not have doubted the prophet.

Had it, again, been just somebody else saying, maybe we'll have food tomorrow, and he mocked them for that, that would have been one thing. But this was an official prophecy from the man of God, under horrific conditions, with starvation in the city. He says, just as the man of God said. So, it is very sad, and it is sadder still that the world mocks Christianity, much because of fake Christians, pseudo-Christians.

They'll say, you know, they just hate Christianity because of what the fake Christians are doing and saying. And we are the man of God, and in the end it's going to be just as we said. You will stand before the great white throne of God as a sinner doomed forever, or you will stand before the bema seat of Christ, and be in heaven with him forever.

It will be just as the children of God had spoken. Verse 8, and do you believe that? Ask yourselves, do I believe the message that I, okay, so let's just say a pastor goes into the pulpit and he preaches a great sermon on trusting God and loving God and persevering. Does he believe it? Or is he just saying, well, I don't believe it so much anymore, but maybe you can do something with this. You know, he has to believe it himself. It has to be something that he is consuming and taking in. He's communing with Christ on the truths of Christ, because Christ is the truth. Verse 18, so it happened just as the man of God had spoken to the king, saying, two septs of barley for a shekel and a seth of fine flour for a shekel shall be sold tomorrow about this time in the gate of Samaria.

Again, the standards of measurement don't matter. The point is, everything is going to be cheap and plentiful. Then, that officer had answered the man of God and said, now look, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, could such a thing be? And he said, in fact, you shall see it with your eyes, but you shall not eat of it.

And that's, of course, he's trampled. But I want to go back to the part about they're selling the flour. Well, there are people that couldn't make it out there. The whole city campaign, there was, you know, but so there were those that could bring back large quantities, and they set up markets, and they sold it at a discount.

They wanted to move it, get the money, and I'm sure there was some element of compassion there also. So, that was, that's what's going on in verse 18. And in verse 19, it is evident that it was mockery of the prophecy, and we've seen this before, the stern hand of the prophets, you know, smite me, no I won't, and then, okay, a lion's gonna kill, get you for not doing what the prophet told you. This does not mean that God caused the man's death. It does mean God did not stop the man's death, nor interfere with it. Verse 20, so it happened to him, for the people trampled him in the gate and he died. And so the writer is just really driving this point home that this guy was trampled, and we got it up in the earlier verse, and then we're getting it several times in the end. It's better to doubt the doubts about God than to doubt God.

That's something to think about. When you feel a doubt coming up from God's word, you, Satan whispering in your ear, you see, the Bible's not trustworthy. You know, you can just ask Satan, what do you call trustworthy? And that's the, actually the second question, the first question to Satan would be, who cares what you think? You have forfeited any right to judge, and there's no doubt about an evil entity, an evil personality. I don't see, you know, you look at the people who worship Satan, it's so stupid, is it not? Where did you even get the knowledge of Satan from the Bible? Then how is it that you take from the Bible that you believe in a Satan who is defeated in the Bible and side with him and expect this to go well with you? It is crazy the things people will believe in once they reject Jesus Christ. And sometimes you'll find people that, you know, they're coming to Christ, they're almost there, then they stop and turn and go believe in the dumbest stuff with no proof, no validity to it.

It is very real, the spiritual war, it's not all about reason. That is part of it, but it is not enough. Ephesians 6-11, put on the entire armor of God.

So you can't just say, well, I'm going light today. I'm going to leave the breastplate, I'll take the shield and the sword. That's not what God is saying. Look, you need to be ready for everything. There is no light armor with God.

You need to be body armor total. And he continues, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. I mean, he's clever, he knows people, he knows what sinners will and will not do. God does not side without doubts.

That doesn't mean he slams us. He certainly doesn't side without doubts about his word. But he does hope to find us resisting the doubts when we face them. So when I come across an apparent discrepancy or a contradiction, I've learned, okay, I'm going to crack this nut. I am not going to side with the doubt because there's been too many victories for me to do otherwise.

I've had too many of these experiences where, oh, okay, and I find the answer. So, you know, why would I not trust, why would I classify the trustworthy as untrustworthy simply because I encounter resistance? Well, I'm supposed to resist the resistance. Therefore submit to God, James 4-7. Resist the devil and he will flee from you so that he can regroup and attack you again and find you in full armor.

This is a cycle. You're not going to get away from it in this life. There are no permanent victories in this life.

There are repeated victories and they are worth it. And you don't have a choice. Well, you have a choice, but the alternatives are just repulsive. Perish that. Side with things that you don't want true.

Memorials are critical. If God has done something for you, try to never forget it because Satan wants you to forget it. And if you remember, if you remember, wait a minute, I remember God did this for me and it was no one but him. Why am I doubting him?

Because those things aren't turning out how I like? Well, that's not grounds to doubt God. God's word always leaves us uneasy with disbelief. It needles us.

It's supposed to. The apostate gets seared with a hot iron conscience and just shuts down. I'm done. God didn't turn out for me the way I wanted him to turn out. Paul talks about this in Romans chapter 1, that God gave them over to their lusts because they did not want God. They wanted to box God out.

He was too, too many restrictions, too many rules. You mean I can't, I can't smoke pot? We should put a sign outside over here. Keep off the grass.

I mean, what grass? All right, for those of you who don't know where we are, then it's an inside joke. Here's another inside joke. Back to this. I'm almost done. I see that we have time so then I get to preach. In the end, are not all believers heroic lepers? Aren't we all lepers before we come to Christ? We're unclean.

We have something wrong with us that is deeper than the skin, that separates us from God and should separate us from each other. But because of Jesus, because of what he has done, we become heroic when we share the gospel, when we live the Christian life, when we build up each other instead of stripping each other down. All of us are heroic lepers or have the opportunity to be. But again, one of the critical things that made these men heroic was their ability to reason and to risk.

They reasoned they had to do something and they were willing to take the risk because it was worth it and they accepted the consequences. Heroic lepers are used to preach the gospel to save not cities but souls because to God it's about individuals. Individuals are worth more to God than cities and in the great tribulation whole cities will be destroyed but there will be souls that will be saved from those cities. Well, let's pray. Our Father, again as we are exposed to these truths from your word, may we beat the doubts as many times as we need to beat them. May we smack them down every single time because a resolve to trust in you. For you have made yourself real to us and may we not take the foolish step of trying to pretend that what you have made real somehow has not happened. May we continue in the faith.

In Jesus' name, Amen. 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.