Seven Dips to Forgiveness

Now Naaman will respond to the servant's message again as a typical illustration of humanity to this day.

Look at verse 11. You're the leper, you know, some hocus pocus. I thought that'd be how it'd happen.

I imagine that that's how you cure leprosy. I thought it would come the way I imagined it would. All of us have been in situations that were difficult and even miserable.

Everyone can relate to that. But what if the solution to what you were facing was just too bizarre to believe? What if God wanted you to do what felt strange and awkward? Well, we're going to look at a story like that today. God often called His prophets in the Old Testament to do impossible and sometimes even bizarre things in order to reveal His glory. This is Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey.

Stephen continues his series on the life of Elisha with this message called Seven Dips to Forgiveness. There are certain words in the English language that conjure up immediate thoughts and mental pictures and images that carry with them without hearing any other word associated with it its own volume of meaning. Some words bring vivid colors. They create their own sense of emotion as soon as you hear the word.

There are other words that do the opposite. That is, they bring despair. There is a word that we don't hear very often but it carries with it that gloomy horror that we immediately recoil from. It is the word leprosy. Although we don't know all the facts and our minds are probably a little foggy as to why, that word immediately conjures up images in our minds and hearts.

It automatically warns us, unclean, stay away, don't touch. I was reading in preparation for this study again, I remembered a chapter in a book I have entitled Where Is God When It Hurts by Philip Yancey. Philip Yancey had a number of conversations and visits with a doctor by the name of Dr.

Brand, a man who spent his life in India working in leper colonies. Let me try to clear a little of the fog that was in my mind at least in regards to leprosy. Yancey writes of what he discovered through Brand's conversations in life, we have been conditioned to view leprosy as one of the most cruel diseases imaginable. It is cruel but not at all the way other diseases are.

It primarily acts as an anesthetic numbing the pain cells of hands, feet, nose, ears and eyes. Most diseases are feared because of their pain. What makes a painless disease so horrible? Well, for thousands of years people thought leprosy caused the ulcers on hands and feet and face which eventually led to rotting flesh and loss of limbs. Mainly through Dr. Brand's personal research, it has now been established that in 99% of the cases, the destruction physically follows solely because the warning system of pain is gone.

How does the decay happen? Well, in villages of Africa and Asia, a person with leprosy has been known to reach directly into a charcoal fire to retrieve a dropped potato. Nothing in his body told him not to. Patients in India would work all day gripping a shovel that had a protruding nail or extinguish a burning wick with bare hands or walk unknowingly on splintered glass. On one occasion, Dr. Brand tried to open the door of a little storeroom but a rusty padlock would not yield. A patient, an undersized malnourished 10-year-old, said, Let me try, sahib doctor, he offered and reached for the key. With a quick jerk of his hand, he turned the key in the lock. Brand was dumbfounded.

How could this weak youngster out-exert him? Then his eyes caught the tell-tale clue, a drop of blood on the floor. Opening the boy's fingers, Brand discovered the act of turning the key had gashed a finger open to the bone, yet the boy was completely unaware of it.

To him, the sensation of cutting his finger to the bone was no different from picking up a stone or turning a coin in his pocket. The heresy, we can conclude, is death by degrees, bodily injury, physical scarring, ignorant abuse, a thousand different disorders, all because the person cannot feel the sensation we call pain. There is a very brief biography of a man with this disease in the Old Testament. We have been studying the prophet Elisha's ministry and their paths now intersect with this leper. We're not told in the book of 2 Kings 5 why this man had leprosy. We're only told that he had it, and we will learn as God crosses his path with the healer some wonderful lessons that are true then and to all of humanity today.

So let's pick our study back up where we left off. If you'll turn to 2 Kings 5, let's begin with verse 1. Now Naaman, captain of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man with his master and highly respected because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram. The man was also a valiant warrior, but he was a leper. Now the Bible doesn't give us any chronological clues, but we can sort of deduct from this, from his life story, that his leprosy did not surface until later in life. In fact, until this point here.

The brief description of Naaman delivers one very clear message. Apart from his current condition of terminal leprosy, he had had it made. He was at the top of the heap.

He was the respected, trusted confidant of the king, his personal friend. Because of his victory over Israel, that the Bible just briefly implies, he would be every soldier's idol. The prophet Jeremiah is writing rather specifically and almost slowly. He wants us to pick up probably the contrast between the highest achievement that this man had won and now his hopeless despair. Just let your eyes wander over the description again in verse 1.

Notice the phrases. A great man, highly respected, a valiant warrior, but then this shocking declaration, a leper. A valiant man who would soon be unable to grip his sword. A trusted leader of soldiers who would soon be unable to grip the horse with strong legs.

He would, as captain of the army, be unable soon to lead the charge up some windswept hill. He was now a leper. Of all the titles that had attached to this great soldier, the title that he would go to his grave with, that everyone would remember is the title now, Naaman the leper.

Now in the course of his skirmishes, they take some captives. One of them is a young Israelite girl and verse 2 tells us that she becomes the personal attendant of Naaman's wife. In verse 3, she said to her mistress, look there, I wish that my master were with the prophet who is in Samaria, then he would cure him of his leprosy. At our next discussion, I want to, Lord willing, take a closer look at this little girl and contrast her with the other servant in this chapter, the servant of Elisha Gehazi. But for now, it's at least amazing to our thoughts as we study this that this little girl, would it all be concerned for her abductor? And so she, the text indicates, in a nagging fashion says, oh, I wish my master could go to Israel.

There's a man there that could cure him. It must have been so unusual to Naaman and his wife that she even cared that that probably gave some credibility to her message. And they believed her and made plans to go. So Naaman went in and told his master, the king saying, thus and thus spoke the girl who is from the land of Israel. Then the king of Aram said, go now and I will send a letter to the king of Israel. And he departed and took with him 10 talents of silver and 6,000 shekels of gold and 10 changes of clothes. At this point, the analogy becomes very clear.

God told us the Old Testament was given for our example and instruction and some passages are just really obvious. Naaman becomes a perfect example of humanity here, lost, diseased, with an incurable sin. His plan for physical healing now provides a perfect illustration for what people are doing to this day for spiritual healing. And he makes a couple of typical rational errors.

Number one, the first error is this. Healing can be bought with good intentions and valuable gifts. There isn't any doubt that Naaman had good intentions. Your Bible tells you that the gift included 10 talents of silver. That's approximately 850 ounces in today's market. He was bringing along about $40,000 worth of silver. I learned that a shekel of gold weighed 0.4 troy ounces. He had 2,400 ounces at $500 an ounce.

This man is carrying with him about $1.2 million. He's about to discover you do not buy cleansing. It is a gift from God. The second mistake he made, I believe, was in believing that healing could be provided by somebody else. Look at verse 6. And he brought the letter, note this, to the king of Israel, and now it's going to quote directly from the letter, quote, and now as this letter comes to you, behold, I have sent Naaman my servant to you that you may cure him of his leprosy. Now the servant girl had clarified there was a prophet in Israel. You go to the prophet and you can be healed. Well, evidently these pagan idolaters believed that if a prophet, you know, somebody down there pretty low in the spectrum could heal, then certainly the king would have access to that magic wand and the king could heal at will. Verse 7 strongly fortifies that implication because of the king's response. It came about when the king of Israel read the letter that he tore his clothes and said, am I God to kill and to make alive that this man is sending word to me to cure a man of his leprosy?

In other words, I can't do that. And the next phrase indicates if I tried and failed or if I don't try and therein fail, we're going to start a full scale war between us and Syria. We're dead. So he's ripping his clothes and lamenting and the word finally makes it to Elisha. When it happened that Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, that he sent word to the king saying, why have you torn your clothes? Now let him come to me and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel. Great words. Why would God be so limited to provide healing through the agency of just one prophet?

Why be so narrow? You see, the world today resists the exclusive statement by the greater Elisha who said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one, the original indicates, not even one can come to the father except by me. Does that mean if you believe in Buddha, you are wrong? According to his statement, yes. Does that mean if I follow the Dalai Lama that I am wrong? Yes. Does that mean if I create my own religion that makes me feel comfortable or a superstition that creates a heaven of my own making, are you saying that I can be lost forever?

Yes, I am. Well, imagine the splendid entourage that now pulls up in front of this prophet's humble little hut. I can just imagine the rumbling of the chariots made his house shake and dishes fall off the little shelves. Well, verse 9, so Naaman came with his horses and his chariots, imagine that, and stood at the doorway of the house of Elisha and Elisha sent a messenger to him saying, go and wash in the Jordan seven times and your flesh shall be restored to you and you shall be clean. Imagine, famous, powerful, idolized Naaman doesn't even get a personal handshake from the humble prophet. It's as if Elisha is implying that where God is concerned, he is no respecter of persons. It doesn't matter if you are wealthy or poor, whether you are idolized or unknown, the ground is level and that message was communicated. Now Naaman will respond to the servant's message again as a typical illustration of humanity to this day with a couple of responses.

Let me summarize response number one this way. I think healing should come the way I imagined it would. Look at verse 11. But Naaman was furious and went away and said, behold, circle these next words, I thought, I thought he will surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper. You know, some hocus pocus, come out with his long robes and maybe a few candles or something and wave his hands in the air and chant to his God and you're healed. I thought that'd be how it happened.

I imagine that that's how you cure leprosy. I thought it would come the way I imagined it would. Response number two, I'll summarize this way.

I think something from my past should really be good enough. Look at verse 12. Are not Abana and Farpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?

Could I not wash in them and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage. The rivers of my own world will do as good as the muddy water of this insignificant prophet. He's not going to have anything to do with this silly prophet and his muddy water. Look at verse 13. Here's the hinge verse. Then his servants came near, this is classic, and spoke to him and said, my father, had the prophet told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it?

How much more than when he says to you, wash and be clean. What simple, profound perception into the human heart these slaves have. If the magic formula had been, Naaman, go conquer a kingdom. All right, I'll do it. Naaman, give your life on some battlefield. I'll do it.

Naaman, give me $1.2 million. I'll do it. You'd do that. Why not a bath in that muddy water? What's so hard about that? I'll tell you what's hard about that. It takes the loss of all pride and pretense to say to God, I'm nothing. So, verse 14, he went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan according to the word of the man of God. Now stop here.

Don't go any further. I want you to imagine this scene. Here's this magnificent man. And he takes a breath and he goes under the murky water completely. He comes up quickly, wipes the water from his eyes and he looks at his ulcerated hands. No change. He goes under again the second time. Comes back up. Everybody's watching breathlessly.

He looks again. No change. The third time, under, up. The fourth time, under, up. Fifth time, under, up. No change. Nothing's happening.

The sixth time, under and up. Nothing. What was racing through his mind, we are not told. But I have every reason to believe that he took a longer breath than ever before and he went under knowing this was it. If this doesn't work, I'm dead. If this doesn't heal, I won't last much longer.

I will be Naaman the leper. But he obeyed even after six what he would consider failed attempts. He went under the seventh time.

I think he stayed under a long time. And he came bursting to the surface, gulping breath. The servants, the retinue, the soldiers that are there look carefully, closely. He wipes the water from his eyes and he looks at his trembling hands. And the Bible says, and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child and he was clean.

Wow. This leper taught me a few lessons I want to share with you. For those of you that have taken the bath, according to God's prescription for healing spiritually, you will understand if there are those this morning here who are struggling with God's prescription. You mean, Lord, I'm to lay everything of myself aside? What about everything I've done or am doing? What about what I just gave? What about my morality?

What about my standing and my position? Oh, my friend, I have to tell you, you are spiritually like I was, a leper. And there are three lessons this leper can teach you. First of all, it is much easier to work for our spiritual healing than it is to simply receive it.

If it were hard, there would be people standing in line, matching up. I shared a story with you some time ago. I apologize for repeating it, but it came back to my mind. Gary Tolbert told the story of a pastor about a little boy who with his family came to see the Washington monument. He stood there, this little kid did, in amazement, looking at this monument, and then he saw a guard standing nearby. He walked over to the guard and he said, sir, I want to buy this thing. The guard said, how much do you have? He reached into his pocket and he pulled out a quarter.

I got 25 cents. The guard said, son, that's not enough. The boy sighed and reached back in. He said, I thought you'd say that. And he pulled out the 9 cents he'd been hanging on to. He said, here, I got 34 cents.

The guard said to him, son, you need to understand a few things. Number one, 34 cents isn't enough. $34 million wouldn't be enough. Second of all, you need to understand that the Washington monument is not for sale.

But you also need to know that if you're an American citizen, it already belongs to you. The truth is, when it comes to forgiveness and cleansing, you cannot buy it. To try to buy it from God would be like that kid trying to buy the Washington monument with 34 cents.

It's not for sale. But if you've come to Jesus Christ in faith, claiming his cure and his method, he discovered then that forgiveness is already yours by virtue of your faith. Second thought or lesson that I learned from this leper, it is difficult to accept a plan of salvation of which we were never consulted nor fully understand. You mean to tell me that God has a plan for me and he never asked me what it would take? That's right. He has this plan of salvation and he never asked my advice?

That's right. See, that's Thomas' point when he understands all of a sudden his ignorance along with the other disciples as Jesus is talking about going to the Father and Thomas blurts out, Lord, we don't know the way there. How are we going to get to the Father? And Jesus Christ told Thomas and the others, I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

You come to me and you get to the Father. I think that's why Jesus Christ is referred to most often as Savior, not helper, not give you a little power to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. Savior. A Savior saves people who are lost and cannot save themselves. Maybe you've said, Lord, I want you to help me get into heaven. He takes lepers only who say, Lord, I can't get into heaven by anything I do or give or say or become. I want you to become my Savior like a drowning man who can't save himself. I want you to save me. Third point or lesson I learned from this leper is this.

It is impossible to experience God's forgiveness without following God's plan, God's method, God's cure. I walked into this study with a question mark, many question marks typically. One, because I'd known the story for some time, was why was Naaman told to go under the water seven times? Was that just some figure that Elisha pulled out of the hat and said, I think that really embarrassed him good enough to go under seven times.

That'd really get him wet. All right, Naaman, you go under seven times. Well, I pulled out all of my Bible encyclopedias and dictionaries and was reading on the subject of leprosy.

And I found an interesting point. In the Old Testament system, if a person had leprosy, they were to go to the priest. If they claimed to have been restored or healed, there was a simple practice. The priest was to take a bird and kill it and empty the blood of that bird into a basin and then take running water and pour it into the basin and make a mixture. And then that priest was to anoint that leper with this water seven times. Seven dips for forgiveness.

Seven times for cleansing. Ladies and gentlemen, I invite you this morning not to a river filled with water, but to a fountain filled with blood. Drawn from Emmanuel's veins and sinners plunged beneath that blood, lose all their guilty stay.

Have you been there? If you have, then the Apostle John writing in the last book of the New Testament, the final chapter of God's story, writes to them in Chapter one of God, who is the Holy One, the one who loved us and washed us from our sins by his blood and has made us to be a kingdom of priests to God and my father. Christ says to whom be glory and dominion forever and ever. Thanks for joining us today here on Wisdom for the Heart. Wisdom for the Heart features the Bible teaching ministry of Stephen Davey and is a ministry of Wisdom International.

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