Spiritual Leprosy

If you like a title to our sermon study today, the title is Spiritual Leprosy.

If you have your Bibles, let's turn together to 2 Kings chapter 5. We're going to begin in verse 1. In 2 Kings chapter 5, we're going to read verses 1 through 14. This will be the section of study for our morning here today. We are going to initially here divert from our studies in the Gospel of Luke. In the Gospel of Luke, we are coming to a moment in which Jesus heals 10 individuals with leprosy. I thought coming to that moment, I'll take advantage of that opportunity to turn here to 2 Kings 5 and come to perhaps what is the most well-known leprosy healings in all the Bible. The healing of the leper, Naaman.

Before we begin here, let me tell you a little bit about leprosy. It's quite an interesting topic in Scripture. The diseased leprosy is mentioned some 40 times in the Bible. Thank you! 40 times in the Bible. Did you know that? The reason why leprosy is talked so much in the Bible is that, simply stated, it is a symbol of sin. The disease of leprosy, this physical disease, points us to our spiritual disease, that of sin. We might state it this way.

The skin condition associated with biblical leprosy can be seen as a physical manifestation, symbolic of sin and impurity. In the Bible, leprosy carries significant symbolic meanings that go well beyond the physical manifestation. We're going to read a little and talk a little bit more about that in just a moment. But this man, Naaman, had this physical condition, and we're going to see that it actually pointed to a spiritual disease that he also had. We're going to look at his journey. We're going to look at this man, and we're going to see his journey to healing, with all of it pointing us to none other than the great healer, Jesus Christ himself. So let's get started. I'm excited for this story. We're going to begin reading here. 2 Kings 5. Let's begin in verse 1 here. 2 Kings 5, beginning in verse 1. Now, Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, he was a great man, an honorable man, in the eyes of his master, because by him, by Naaman, the Lord had given victory to Syria. He, Naaman, was also a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper. And the Syrians had gone out on raids and had brought back captive a young girl from the land of Israel. She waited on Naaman's wife. Then she, the servant girl, said to her mistress, Naaman's wife, If only my master were with the prophet who was in Samaria, for he would heal him of his leprosy.

Verse 4. And Naaman heard this, no doubt, and went in and told his master, his master, saying, This is the king, he's telling the king, Thus and thus said the girl who was from the land of Israel.

Then the king of Syria said, Go now, Naaman, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel. So Naaman departed and took with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten changes of clothing. Then he brought the letter to the king of Israel, which said, Now be advised, this letter comes to you, that I have sent Naaman my servant to you, that you, you the king of Israel, may heal him of his leprosy.

And it happened when the king of Israel read this letter, he tore his clothes and said, this is the words of the king of Israel, Am I God to kill and make alive, that this man sends a man to me to heal him of this leprosy? Therefore please consider and see how he seeks a quarrel with me. So it was when Elisha, the man of God, heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, that he sent to the king, saying, Why have you torn your clothes? Please let him, Naaman, come to me, Elisha, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel.

Verse 9, Then Naaman went with his horses, his chariot, and stood at the door of Elisha's house now. And Elisha sent a messenger to him, and he sent a Naaman, saying, Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored to you, and you shall be clean. But Naaman became furious, and went away, and said, Indeed, I said to myself, He, Elisha, shall surely come out to me, and stand, and call in the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over this place, and heal the leprosy. Are not the Abana and the Farpar the lands of Damascus far better waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean? So he, Naaman, turned and went away in a rage. Then Naaman's servants came near and spoke to him, and said, My father, if the prophet had told you to do something great, would you not have done it? How much more then, when he says to you, Wash and be clean? So, verse 14, He, Naaman, went down and dipped seven times in the Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God, and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. The stuff there. Quite a story. There you have it. What a remarkable story. And if you look back in history, you can know a little bit about this place in which this is taking place. This was a wonderful area. It was a delightful, colorful country here.

Damascus was the main city. It was a city of wealth and leisure, cultural attractions abound.

This city, Damascus, was beautiful with beautiful art to the enjoyment of music. You would have found two rivers which flowed down the center to the city. It began in the mountains of Syria setting down a very beautiful, beautiful flow down into the fruit, a brutal oasis of trees into the low land where Damascus was located. And this is where you would have found Naaman. He lived in this desirable place here. We have a terrible place here. Of Naaman, we see he had power. He was a commander. You know, so that's really the highest in command, not a sergeant or private. Commander of the King's army. Prostigious position. A great man, a great man as far as the King is concerned. And if the King thinks you're great, that's saying something. The King would have had a sphere of influence over all of this area. And this is how the King looked at Naaman. He was great and an honorable man. Why? Well, we're told that the Lord gave him victory over Syria, or gave victory to Syria. So the King looked at him as powerful, prestigious, with respect. Naaman had possessions. If you look at verse 5, I won't try to put a value to it, but this would have quickly, the value of these possessions here would have quickly risen to hundreds and hundreds of thousands. Even just an ounce of gold here on the market, with the amount of gold that's mentioned here, you would quickly get to three-quarters of a million dollars in the value of the possessions. Silver, fine garments. So this is the man we're talking about, and this is the area in which he lived. Power, prestige, respect, possessions, valiant, highly regarded. But, a little three-letter word there at the end of verse 1, if you read too quickly, you might read over it, but he was a leper. He was a leper. So despite all that Naaman had, this one aspect of his life cast long dark shadows over it all. All of his proud achievements dimmed by this one factor, this disease of leprosy. And this disease to this great commander would have began to spread, and it began to spoil, and it began to isolate and separate. It was an ugly condition. So despite all of his opportunities, all of this was now being overtaken by this one problem, and there wasn't anything he could do about it, about this disease of leprosy. It was spoiling his life. So you could say this, this, and this about Naaman, but inevitably it would be moving toward that three-letter word. But, he was a leper. And soon, and very soon, this would have been isolating, and he would have become an outcast. Let me read to you about this disease of leprosy here. This is a quote from an Old Testament scholar speaking about leprosy from R. K. Harrison. That's pretty interesting. Listen to what he says and records about this disease. This is from an excerpt from the book of Leviticus, a commentary by R. K. Harrison.

A diagnosis of leprosy was in effect a death sentence to ancient Israelites. Once a man was branded a leper, he had to adopt a posture of a mourner, tearing his clothes, allowing his hair to become unkempt, covering his beard and mustache, and always crying out, unclean. He had to live outside the camp and live there in the company of other lepers. His existence was nothing more than a living death. Unless there was a quick remission to the disease, the victim of clinical leprosy knew that their condition was going to be a lengthy duration of a loathsome nature and would prevent any contact with society. Most of all, the leper would be cut off from spiritual fellowship with the covenant people, and in a real sense, the individual would be without hope and without God in the world.

So here is Naaman waking up every morning and seeing his skin changing before his eyes, seeing his skin defile him, and it just suddenly was putting everything in perspective for Naaman. Suddenly, all that we read has a completely different perspective to it, doesn't it? His status, his position, his possessions. None of it could deal with this particular problem.

And make no doubt, here before us in the story of Naaman is the classic Biblical symbolism of the condition of men and women this morning, because all men and women today find themselves suffering from the condition of spiritual leprosy. Spiritual leprosy. This is the picture.

This is the symbolism that's being painted for us in this Old Testament picture here. The condition of spiritual leprosy is what the Bible calls sin. The physical condition faced by Naaman is a picture of our spiritual condition faced by each one of us. When man looks into the mirror, man today is not as God intended. The Bible is absolutely clear. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and it was perfect.

God planted man and woman in the garden. It was good. No disappointment. No unhappiness. Nothing wrong at all. It's as wonderful as it gets in the Garden of Eden. But when you read the early chapters of Genesis, we see that sin entered into the human condition, and it began to spread, and it began to spoil, just like a disease across humanity. Suddenly, there's death. Suddenly, there's murder. Suddenly, there's absolute chaos. Suddenly, humanity is robbed of its wholeness, its completeness, and its perfection. And that is why, then, this morning, when each of us describe our own life, like Naaman, we say, I've been here.

I've achieved this. I've earned this. I visited here and there. But all of us are also heading to that three-letter word. But without a cure to my sinful, diseased condition, ultimately, I am without hope. And so, the story of Naaman leads us to the fact of our condition today. And though Naaman's condition then, through Naaman's condition then, were led to the awareness of our own spiritual leprosy condition. And you'll notice this condition is no respecter of persons, right? And that's what the Bible says.

All have sinned. All have fallen short. And it is because all have turned away from God. And it says all because it's all-inclusive. And sin spoils everything. Naaman could have tried to deaden the pain with all of his possessions, tried to deal with it with all of these physical means. But none of it had this answer. And eventually, he realizes what he has to do. He has to truly seek a cure for this disease. And that search, of course, is wonderfully recorded for us here in this short passage.

And what we're going to uncover today is in Naaman's search for the answer in finding the physical healing from leprosy. We're going to actually uncover the answer to finding the cure for our spiritual leprosy, the condemnation of sin leading to death. Now, you'll notice in quite a remarkable way, this search begins with the spoken word of a lowly servant girl. Did you notice that there in verse 3 here? The servant girl, an exile into the country, the very opposite of all that Damascus was putting forth in materialism. She now comes to Naaman's wife there in verse 3 and speaks of the cure.

And evokes the instruction that the cure is going to be found in the prophet of God, Elisha, there. So, the road to the cure begins with a small word from a seemingly irrelevant servant. Side note, not to divert too quickly, just so you know, there are no irrelevant men and women put forth in purpose in the purposes of God. God delights to take the lowly in society, a servant girl, a servant woman, and use them to bring about radical change in the society around them.

So, this is the first thing to point out. God's strategy is to use a servant girl to revolutionize this powerful man, Naaman. And that's going to be a key in our study today, a key in finding the cure to our spiritual leprosy. This was a catalyst moment for Naaman, and the catalyst in bringing about the healing to Naaman, first and foremost, is going to be in him discovering humility and the breaking of his pride. And if you want to know the key element for us in discovering the cure to our spiritual leprosy, sin, it's going to begin with the breaking of our pride. That's going to lead to the cure. So, to Naaman's credit, he listens.

He probably listened to the word of his wife coming from the servant girl, but he did know where it was coming from. So, I'm going to give Naaman a little bit of credit here. He begins to move a little bit toward humility here in the fact that he just didn't dismiss the words from the servant girl. But he's not quite there yet, because you'll notice verse 3, when the servant girl said to her mistress, if only my master Naaman were with the prophet who was in Samaria, then he would heal him of his leprosy.

You'll notice while he listened, he didn't quite take the advice of the servant girl, because verse 4, we're told that Naaman went in, and rather than go to Elisha, he told his master, which would have been the king of Syria, Naaman went to his king, saying, verse 4, Thus and thus says the girl who was from the land of Israel.

So, right off the bat, you see a little bit of humility creeping into Naaman's experience, but you still see the wall of pride here. And then, in all pride in its glory, the king of Syria, verse 5, says to him, Go now, and I, king of Syria, will send a letter to the king of Israel. Right? So, the prideful king of Syria said, I'm going to take care of this for you, Naaman. Don't worry about it. I will pin a letter to the king of Israel there. So, you go get the silver, go get the gold, line up the chariots. I'm going to write this wonderful letter. We'll get this taken care of here. Verse 6, so, Naaman does this, and Naaman arrives to the king of Israel with the letter, and all this pomp and circumstance here. Verse 6, so, he brought the letter to the king of Israel, verse 6, which said, Now be advised this letter's coming to you, king of Israel, that I, king of Syria, have sent Naaman, my servant, to you, king of Israel, that you may heal him of his leprosy. You see? So, that's not what the servant girl said to do, right? He said to go to the prophet Elisha. But, this is man going to man. This is king to king, right? Man and its power, right? That's how we solve this problem here, through one king to another earthly king here. So, this is still being consumed with status, right? Naaman still wants to deal with it his way, his way.

And to give him a little bit of leniency, you know, it does involve a little bit of confidence to reach the level that Naaman reached, no doubt. A little bit of confidence in your own gifts, in your own skills, and be able to display those things. But he let that then move to taking credit himself and his own pride. Because, notice the end of verse 1, Naaman shouldn't have taken any pride. Because, look what we're told. It says that verse 1, the LORD gave Naaman victory to Syria, right? The LORD did. So, unfortunately, Naaman didn't recognize where the actual victory comes from. All of it was a provision from God. But he hadn't recognized that yet. So, the latter part of verse 5, here, look at all that Naaman brought with him, departed, took with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, ten changes of clothing there. Brings it to the king of Israel, verse 6 again. The king of Israel was very troubled by this, by receiving this letter here. And as we see in verse 7 and all, he tore his clothes and basically was saying, Who am I? Why would you come to me? The king says.

I can't cure this leprosy.

This must have been very convicting to Naaman. So, in verse 9, he finally arrives and goes to Elisha. So, he takes all the workings of pride and all that was with him. And finally goes to Elisha, verse 9, Then Naaman went with his horses, his chariot, and stood at the door of Elisha's house. This is the place again that he should have come first. Pride would not allow it until now. And then I love the beginning of verse 10. So, Elisha sent a messenger out to him. That would have pricked Naaman's pride beyond belief. And we're going to see that in just a moment that Elisha himself wouldn't come out. Show him that respect. Verse 10, Elisha sent the messenger saying, Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh should be restored to you, and you shall be clean.

So, let's think about this a moment.

This was the instruction. As we read, Naaman didn't accept this instruction to begin with. Go and wash. Look at all that I brought. Naaman was ready to still solve this by his terms. If the prophet Elisha would have sent the messenger to say, We'll tell you what, Naaman, we can work with you. I can help you here. It's going to cost you your gold. I am going to take a certain measure of your silver. I want three of your outfits. I always wanted one of those chariots. I'll take one of those. I think that'll do us. Naaman would have been like, Okay, finally, we're getting somewhere with this. We're going to solve this issue. But no!

Elisha makes no demands on his earthly wealth.

Rather, the instruction is this humble, fulfilling act to go and wash, and your flesh shall be restored to you, and you shall be clean. And he is furious. Name it as furious. Verse 11. There at the middle of verse 11. Indeed, Naaman said to himself, He, Elisha, shall surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of God. He was supposed to come out and put on a big display here and wave his hand and, you know...

And by any way, go wash. I shouldn't have to wash in any river. Surely, verse 12, the Abana and the Far Par, these rivers of Damascus, they're far better than the waters of Israel. At the very least, you should have me go wash in those rivers. Right? Could I not wash in them and be clean, he says? So he turns away in rage here. He doesn't even come out to me. He doesn't even wave his arms around, you know, to give me honor in that way and command the leprosy to be gone. Perhaps the ceremony.

Surely he will come out, he says, stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, you know.

And you would have thought that Naaman would have been prepared, at this point, to do anything. He was seeing his skin defile before his eyes, and he would have been prepared to do anything for healing.

But he wasn't. He wasn't. Could I just not wash in them? You know? Couldn't you just come out and wave your hand over this place? No! The answer is no.

Why?

Because Naaman, you can't do it your way.

You can't just wash in any waters you want to wash in. Why? Because that's not the instructions. The instructions are the instructions.

So that the only way you can be cleansed...

There's only one way to be cleansed. That's by following God's instructions. You can't do it your way. So I want you to be thinking about our spiritual leprosy. Perhaps there is a scab of sin that you're having difficulty finding the cure to. First and foremost, take an analysis of yourself and ask yourself, am I willing to do whatever it takes? Am I willing to bend myself under the instructions of God? Or am I consciously or unconsciously still trying to solve it my way? And I'm trying to preserve something of myself rather than bow in lowly humbleness to the one who can provide the healing.

So he goes off in a rage here.

And again, you'll notice it's not through kings. It's not through those possessions that man deems as the solutions.

The solution, the word, comes from the servant, the lowly servant. And it comes again from his servants. Look at verse 13. So Naaman rushes off in a huff. And verse 13, here's his servants, again, coming near to him. They were probably putting themselves in harm way to be so bold to talk to their master in this way. Verse 13 says that they told him, My father, Naaman, if the prophet had told you to do something great, would you have done it? Would you not have done it? Then how much more then, when he says to you, Wash and be clean? You see here.

Yeah, you would have easily given him all the possessions and participated in some ceremony, with all the pomp and ceremony there. You would have done that, the servants say. But he's asking you to wash and be clean. Why wouldn't you be willing to do that?

So it is now that Naaman is beginning to find the humility to bow under the instructions that are given. And so verse 14, I'm sure this was very humbling. What a humble act here, that he had to dig deep to go down and to dip seven times in the Jordan. And to admit to all those that were washing, that he was wrong, and that he's now bowing himself under the instruction of the prophet of Elisha, and even bowing under the instruction of the servants, the servant girl to begin with, and now his servants. Incredible humility here that he finally was able to achieve. And so it's an incredible story here. He goes, verse 14, and dips, according to the saying of the man of God, and in that moment his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.

So no amount of chariots, no amount of gold, no amount of silver could cure his disease. And again, just so we understand, Naaman is the picture to us of modern man and woman consumed with ourselves until someone comes along in the journey of our lives and reveals the scabs of spiritual leprosy to us. Scabs not of a physical nature, but spiritual scabs. And we look down upon these scabs on our hands, and we look at our face in the mirror, and we have to make a decision.

How far are we willing to go to cure scabs of jealousy, scabs of lust, scabs of anger, scabs of deceit, scabs of pride? What are your scabs?

The spiritual leprosy. We need healing. It's isolating us from God, alienated him from us, destroying our ability to be all that God wants us to be. And like Naaman, God wants us to begin a search.

And the cure to our search to spiritual leprosy also comes from a servant. A servant, not a servant girl, but a servant son of God.

A servant savior who rode in, not on a chariot with gold and silver and fine robes, a servant who rode in in humility on a donkey. And like Naaman, we have a choice to either immerse ourselves in our own solutions and try to deaden the pain ourselves, or the choice to come to the one who will provide the remedy we seek. And this is the good news that's unearthed in this story of Naaman here. And I'm so encouraged by him. It took quite a bit for him to no doubt come out of that chariot and to humble himself in this way. And it's going to take a lot from us, too. It's not easy. There are some spiritual scabs that we have that the cure is only going to come from an absolute breaking of our pride. An absolute breaking of our pride. That's where the solution is going to come from. And it's going to come bowing before God, asking him to give us cleansing, not in the waters of a river, but in the rivers of blood, which flowed down the side of Jesus Christ at his sacrifice. This is where the cure comes from.

And this is the cure that Jesus Christ brought with him. And so when you begin to read the Gospels and you see these numerous encounters by Jesus with these lepers who found themselves alienated and isolated and unable to provide healing themselves, you find these are some of the most dramatic healings in all the Gospel.

And it points directly to the journey that you and I need to take.

What scar of spiritual leprosy do you need to bring to God today? Take full ownership of it. Get on your knees. Bow your head. Present it to God. Don't offer any excuse for it. Just present it in all of its ugliness, whatever sin it may be, wherever you're missing the mark. And give it to God and say, I'm so sorry and I want forgiveness. Would you wash me with the blood of your son, Jesus Christ? I don't even know where to start, Father, but that's where I'm going to start in humility. This is the common factor in all of the healings of lepers in the New Testament. And as we begin to work toward a closing, I just want to turn you to that leper healings that I referenced at the beginning. Jesus Christ did heal 10 lepers all at once, but only one displayed the humility that we see displayed in name in here. I referenced it from the beginning, but this healing occurred in Luke 17, beginning in verse 11. So if you'd like to turn there now, Luke 17, beginning in verse 11, I just want to show you and provide to you this one of the moments of healings of lepers. And like Naaman, we find the key factor in these healings is humility. I just want to show you this as we conclude. This will set the stage for you as we come to more leper healings throughout the Gospel of Luke as we go through it. Luke 17, beginning in verse 11, it so happened that he, Jesus, went to Jerusalem, and he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. Then he entered a certain village. There met him ten men who were lepers, who stood far off. They lifted up their voices and said to Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. Verse 14, so when he, Jesus, saw them, he said to them, this is familiar, go show yourselves to the priests. And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed. And verse 15, one of them, one out of the ten, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, fell on his face at his feet, at Jesus's feet, giving him thanks, and he was a Samaritan. So Jesus answered and said, were there not ten cleansed? But where are the other nine? Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this one foreigner? And he said to him, Jesus said to him, arise, go your way, your faith has made you well.

So it's not even about the actual physical healing. We're talking about faith matters here, spiritual matters, spiritual leprosy, thanksgiving here. And I think that phrase is so relevant to us today. Through our calling, and our acceptance of that calling, and our baptism, and our made possible through repentance, and the cleansing that Jesus Christ's sacrifice brings to us. Today, we have cleansing available to us. So on our way, see these lepers didn't even make it to the priest. As they went, they saw their skin begin to heal. Same with us. We have cleansing available to us today. The cleansing blood of Jesus Christ placed on us. We can receive forgiveness today. So what's our response? What's our response? Are we convicted like this one man, this one foreigner? Stops in his tracks, returns to give Jesus Christ thanks. Yes, we do want to get to the priests. The priests would have proclaimed them well, and they would have been able to go into society at that time, see their friends, see their family, start participating in life again. But this one leper says, oh no, we need to thank today the one who's given us cleansing today. And so not thinking of himself in that proclamation, he returns to Jesus Christ to show his thanksgiving. You all go ahead, and he comes back, verse 16, and falls on his face at his feet, giving him thanks. So this is our response. This is our posture. We have an opportunity to be healed today and allow that then to create in us this kind of response. Thanksgiving, gratitude, humility, and let that manifest in our lives from this point forward. This is who we are today. We have been made clean, and we give praise and thanks for that. And likewise, Jesus Christ says to us every time we go to him and the Father and humbly repent and ask for forgiveness, he says to us, arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well. Your faith has made you well. So, in conclusion, this is our story. This is our story. Let us be humbled. Let us to take this story of Naaman, and let us bow and go to the one who provide the healing like the one leopard. Let us be humbled and grateful that we have been made clean by the waters of grace and forgiveness, made clean today of our spiritual leprosy.