2 Kings 5: 1-15<\/p>\n
Imagine a doctor accidentally stumbles upon a cure for a dreaded disease.\u00a0 He\u2019s excited about the prospect but then he says to himself.\u00a0 It\u2019s too much trouble to get this treatment approved by the Food and Drug administration.\u00a0 And what if someone sues me?\u00a0 So he keeps it to himself.<\/p>\n
Sound a bit far-fetched?\u00a0 Maybe.\u00a0 Yet I know someone who knows the cure to something far worse than cancer or heart disease.\u00a0 He knows where that cure is to be found.\u00a0 He has experienced it himself and knows its joy.\u00a0 Yet all too often, he keeps it to himself.\u00a0 He remains silent when he finds himself with others in desperate need of that cure.\u00a0 Do you know such a person?\u00a0 You\u2019re looking at one.<\/p>\n
This morning we meet someone who spoke up.\u00a0 She was a young girl whose name we don\u2019t even know.\u00a0 In some ways, she had plenty of reason to mind her own business, to remain silent, to avoid making trouble for herself. Yet\u00a0 she passed on what she knew and believed in her heart.\u00a0 For in more ways than one, she knew the cure to a terrible condition \u2013 and so do you.\u00a0 So we say:<\/p>\n
YOU KNOW THE CURE \u2013 PASS IT ON!<\/p>\n
I.\u00a0 It comes through a simple message.<\/p>\n
II.\u00a0 It produces remarkable results.<\/p>\n
It was about 850 BC, almost 3000 years ago in a small country called\u00a0 Aram just north of Israel.\u00a0 Today we call it Syria.\u00a0 Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the Lord had given victory to Aram.<\/span><\/p>\n So things were going well for Naaman.\u00a0 He was known for his bravery and probably richly rewarded by his king. But his world came crashing down in this one little word.\u00a0 Leprosy.\u00a0 Naaman had leprosy.<\/p>\n The Hebrew word for leprosy can mean a number of skin diseases including that one that is most feared.\u00a0 So to find a patch of leprosy on yourself was a frightening thing \u2013 frightening for you and for those around you that feared catching it from you.\u00a0 For there was no cure, no remedy for leprosy.<\/p>\n Of course today there are powerful antibiotics now used to treat leprosy.\u00a0 The same can be said for many other diseases once thought to be incurable.\u00a0 We have been blessed to find so many cures.<\/p>\n But there is one dreadful disease which no work of man has ever been able to cure.\u00a0 It\u2019s inherited and not just by some, but by all. And sooner or later this disease puts us in the grave, every last one of us.<\/p>\n Well by now you guessed what I am talking about.\u00a0 Sin.\u00a0 The sin that clings to us from birth.\u00a0 The sin that enslaved my heart and caused me to enter this life not as God\u2019s friend, but at odds with him.\u00a0 And even now, we see this disease show itself in so many ways.\u00a0 The selfishness, the anger, the impatience, the lack of self control that pulls so hard against my godly desires.<\/p>\n Well left untreated, unforgiven, this disease will do something far worse than the leprosy which causes toes and fingers to fall off.\u00a0 Left untreated, it will cause God to say to us one day, Depart from me<\/span>.<\/p>\n Naaman, had no place to turn.\u00a0 No pagan priest, no physician, could offer him any hope of a cure. But there was this young girl. Her name is not recorded.\u00a0 We know very little about her but that she served the Lord in a small, yet wonderful way.\u00a0 And here its amazing how the Lord worked. A raiding party from Aram had taken \u00a0this young girl captive from Israel.\u00a0 They took her away from the loving arms of her family and made her a slave. So imagine how she must have felt with her life so changed.<\/p>\n But the Lord was at work even here.\u00a0 He was at work as he is in all of our lives.\u00a0 He had taken this daughter of Israel and brought here to this time and place in Naaman\u2019s household. For unlike so many in the Israel of her day, this young girl knew the LORD. She knew what the Lord had done through his prophet Elisha.\u00a0 So when she heard about Naaman\u2019s dreadful disease, she approached his wife and told her:\u00a0 \u201cIf only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n You and I can learn a lot from this young girl.\u00a0 She recognized a need for the Lord\u2019s help. She was confident that with the Lord there was a cure. \u00a0And notice something.\u00a0 Here she gave no sermon.\u00a0 She spoke only a few sentences, a simple message<\/strong> that expressed her faith. But it was a simple message<\/strong> God would use to make all the difference in Naaman\u2019s life and later on in the lives of others.<\/p>\n Well God has used a simple message in our lives too.\u00a0 We call it the gospel, the good news. But that simple message pointed us to more than a prophet. It pointed us to Jesus, the Son of God. It pointed us to Jesus who brought us the cure for our dreadful disease of sin. He didn\u2019t discover it in a laboratory.\u00a0 He won it for us on a cross of grief and shame. The cure for our sin.\u00a0 The only cure — God\u2019s forgiveness.<\/p>\n So think about it. Think about this young girl with her simple message. Don\u2019t you have the same?\u00a0 God has given you a simple message that points people to a cure found nowhere else.\u00a0 It points people to Jesus.\u00a0 So we say: – You know the cure- pass it on.<\/p>\n You can see what a highly regarded commander\u00a0 Naaman was in the eyes of the king he served. When Naaman requested leave to seek the prophet\u2019s help, the king said:\u00a0 By all means, go!<\/span> And more than that, look what the King sent along to promote Naaman\u2019s cause. He sent a letter to the king of Israel with gifts equaling 750 pounds of silver and 150 pounds of gold.<\/p>\n So off Naaman went.\u00a0 Directed by a simple message of a slave girl, he set off to find a cure for his leprosy. Think about that.\u00a0 Isn\u2019t that the case with us.\u00a0 A simple message has directed us to the cure<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0 A simple message of a cure that produces remarkable results<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Of course, here we see what often happens.\u00a0 That message of a cure is met with unbelief. Start with \u00a0the King of Israel who should have known better. He read the letter and became suspicious. His heart lacked the simple trust that servant girl had in the Lord and his prophet Elisha.\u00a0 So the king tore his robes in anger and sent Naaman away.<\/p>\n But also look at Naaman.\u00a0 When Elisha heard what had happened, he sent for Naaman:\u00a0 9 <\/sup>So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha\u2019s house. 10 <\/sup>Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, \u201cGo, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed<\/span>.\u201d<\/p>\n So Naaman jumped right in the river, right?\u00a0 No, he went away angry.\u00a0 What!\u00a0 You send me your messenger!\u00a0 I\u2019m mighty Naaman.\u00a0 You tell me to wash in that measly Jordan river when we have the rivers of Damascus.<\/p>\n Naaman refused to believe that such a simple thing could produce such remarkable results.\u00a0 And you know, that\u2019s how the world is.<\/p>\n You see, the Lord has chosen to come to us in simple unimpressive ways.\u00a0 He came in a manger, a feedbox for animals, born our brother, of a poor virgin.\u00a0 He came as a poor wandering Jewish rabbi.\u00a0 Then he came to a terrible end on a Roman cross.\u00a0 That\u2019s how God came to us.<\/p>\n And what about now?\u00a0 He comes to you this morning through the preaching of a weak imperfect pastor.\u00a0 He comes to you today in a small piece of bread and a little bit of wine.\u00a0 Yet in that message of a crucified and risen Christ is God\u2019s power to save us. \u00a0And with that little bit of bread and wine, Jesus gives you histrue\u00a0 body and blood with pledge of God\u2019s forgiveness.<\/p>\n Yet \u00a0what does the world see?\u00a0 It sees something so simple, unimpressive.\u00a0 And so like Naaman, people often go away disappointed with the cure.\u00a0 Go to a prophet who then tells you to wash seven times in the river.\u00a0 Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved?<\/em> The world often goes away like Naaman.\u00a0 Unimpressed.<\/p>\n But witness the remarkable results. Thankfully Naaman\u2019s servants calm him down.\u00a0 They convince him to do what the prophet said. \u00a014 <\/sup>So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy<\/span>. \u00a0And that was just his body.\u00a0 Witness the remarkable results in his heart.\u00a0 He went back to Elisha and told him.\u00a0 \u201cNow I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel<\/span>.\u00a0 But hold on for the rest of the story.<\/p>\n In 1887, some tablets of stone were discovered in Egypt.\u00a0 We know them as the Amarna letters.\u00a0 There we learn that the right hand man of a certain Pharaoh was Naaman who returned to Egypt after being cured.\u00a0 Now here\u2019s the amazing thing.\u00a0 Every other Pharaoh believed in many gods.\u00a0 But this Pharaoh worshipped only one, Aton.\u00a0 That\u2019s the Egyptian name for what the Hebrews called the Lord.<\/p>\n How did this Pharoah come to know the Lord?\u00a0 It\u2019s obvious.\u00a0 Naaman must have told him.\u00a0 And just think of where it all started.\u00a0 That young slave girl. That simple message of a cure that she was willing to share.\u00a0 Such remarkable results.<\/p>\n This day some of us have special reason to thank God for a cure.\u00a0 My wife had an amazing procedure which restored her heart from a dangerous heartbeat that could have given her a stroke.\u00a0 Some of you have had eye surgery where the cloud of cataracts has given way to seeing once more and sometimes like a teenager.\u00a0 Remarkable results.\u00a0 Remarkable answers to our prayers.<\/p>\n Yet as wonderful the skill of the surgeons or the power of our medicine to bring healing, it is nothing compared to the CURE that Jesus has brought to our lives. Where there was guilt, there is now forgiveness.\u00a0 Where there was terrible distance between us and God, we enjoy peace and the promise of his enduring love.\u00a0 And where there was a dreadful dead end, there is life, the bright shining prospect life with God.<\/p>\n That\u2019s the cure we have in Jesus.\u00a0 And you know it.\u00a0 You know Him.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0You know the cure.\u00a0 So like the servant girl, pass it on. Pass it on dear friends while there still is time. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 2 Kings 5: 1-15 Imagine a doctor accidentally stumbles upon a cure for a dreaded disease.\u00a0 He\u2019s excited about the prospect but then he says to himself.\u00a0 It\u2019s too much trouble to get this treatment approved by the Food and Drug administration.\u00a0 And what if someone sues me?\u00a0 So he keeps it to himself. Sound a bit far-fetched?\u00a0 Maybe.\u00a0 Yet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermon"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":279,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277\/revisions\/279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}