Never Compromise! Your Bad Example Will Bring You
Shame! Kelly Durant 8-19-12
2 Kings 5:1-18 1 Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king
of Syria, was a great man with his master, and honourable, because by him the
Lord had given deliverance unto Syria: he was also a mighty man in valour, but
he was a leper.2 And the Syrians had gone out by companies, and had brought
away captive out of the land of Israel a little maid; and she waited on Naaman's
wife.3 And she said unto her mistress, Would God my lord were with the prophet
that is in Samaria! for he would recover him of his leprosy.4 And one went in,
and told his lord, saying, Thus and thus said the maid that is of the land of
Israel.5 And the king of Syria said, Go to, go, and I will send a letter unto
the king of Israel. And he departed, and took with him ten talents of silver,
and six thousand pieces of gold, and ten changes of raiment.6 And he brought
the letter to the king of Israel, saying, Now when this letter is come unto
thee, behold, I have therewith sent Naaman my servant to thee, that thou mayest
recover him of his leprosy.7 And it came to pass, when the king of Israel had
read the letter, that he rent his clothes, and said, Am I God, to kill and to
make alive, that this man doth send unto me to recover a man of his leprosy?
wherefore consider, I pray you, and see how he seeketh a quarrel against me.8
And it was so, when Elisha the man of God had heard that the king of Israel had
rent his clothes, that he sent to the king, saying, Wherefore hast thou rent
thy clothes? let him come now to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet
in Israel.9 So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot, and stood at
the door of the house of Elisha.10 And Elisha sent a messenger unto him,
saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to
thee, and thou shalt be clean.11 But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said,
Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the
name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the
leper.12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the
waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went away
in a rage.13 And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My
father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have
done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?14
Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the
saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a
little child, and he was clean.15 And he returned to the man of God, he and all
his company, and came, and stood before him: and he said, Behold, now I know
that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel: now therefore, I pray
thee, take a blessing of thy servant.16 But he said, As the Lord liveth, before
whom I stand, I will receive none. And he urged him to take it; but he
refused.17 And Naaman said, Shall there not then, I pray thee, be given to thy
servant two mules' burden of earth? for thy servant will henceforth offer
neither burnt offering nor sacrifice unto other gods, but unto the Lord.18 In
this thing the Lord pardon thy servant, that when my master goeth into the
house of Rimmon to worship there, and he leaneth on my hand, and I bow myself
in the house of Rimmon: when I bow down myself in the house of Rimmon, the Lord
pardon thy servant in this thing.
2. Mark Twain, the famous American author was told a story
about a man that had 2 wives, and since in the Bible there were men with more
than one wife before, they wanted to know where it proved it was wrong. It
answered, “That is easy, Jesus said that no man can serve two masters!” Ha!
Well, we all know Jesus meant in Matt 6:24 that you cannot serve God and mammon
at the same time. Mammon was the pagan god for riches at that time, but to
apply it to be subservient to more than one woman can also apply! You will
either hate the one or love the other; people either love God, or they love the
sin of the world! Which one will it be?
What if I were to say I am pro-Israel and pro-Iranian? Or
that I am pro-life and pro-abortion? Absurd,
right? To make a conflicting statement doesn’t make any sense does it? it just
makes me a fool! But believe it or not, there are people who live their lives
within illogical and crazy damaging contradictions in their actions and they
don’t even notice! Quite often others see them clearly while the people living
out these hypocrisies do not! We have a duty to point out hypocrisy, Jesus did!
3. Today we read a story about a Naaman, the second in
command to the King of Syria. Imagine what it must be like to live with
leprosy? I cannot imagine the suffering of slow dying process in this manner;
and the worst part was in ancient times you were usually banned from the city
since it was such a visibly ugly disease. Naaman was the Minister of Defense of
Syria, the top general that was suffering. He got word that a prophet in the
land nearby in Israel, Elisha, could miraculously heal him and he decided to
call on him since the Syrian gods were not healing him and never can any other
so-called god do anything for anyone. He got word to travel to the Jordan River
and he got ready with his men.
Did you notice how in the story, he was proud and did not
want to submit and commit to what Elisha asked? He even got ragingly mad but in
the end he did submit. At first he complained that he had to travel far over to
the Jordan River, after all, the other rivers closer to him were clearer and
less muddy.
He was proud, he got angry, and his life was steeped in a
pagan belief system but he did respect the words of God’s anointed, Elisha. Many
people today have serious problems but still they will not submit to any of
God’s commands because it implies that they are required to sacrifice their
comfortable life. So many people today, contrary to Naaman, never obtain
blessings and rewards from God. Their faith and submission never gets honored
by God because they don’t do anything to prove they practice it!
4. He then complained that Elisha was not there at the river
to meet him personally. He almost went back, after all he was an important
dignitary and not accustomed to being unattended to. But if he would have gone
back he would have remained a leper and we would not be discussing this story
today!
And Elisha told him to bathe in the river not just one time,
but seven times! It seemed like a crazy thing to ask, but in the end Naaman
decided he would try it. He had some wise friends by his side that said what
have you got to lose, we are already here? He bathed seven times and then what happened?
A miracle! God restored his skin new as a baby’s skin and blessed him for
obeying! How illogical at the time it seemed to obey these strange commands!
5. Naaman was very happy and met up with Elisha and wanted
to give him a reward of some kind but Elisha said no thank you. Naaman wanted
to honor the god of Elisha. It seems crazy that Naaman then got 2 mules to
carry some dirt of Israel, dirt which he considered as holy, back home. He
wanted it to build an altar for God, to worship God with a burnt offering as
Elisha did. Naaman wanted to recognize and give homage that there was no other
God in existence except the God of Israel!
Imagine if that were you! If you saw your own skin made new?
Many of us have seen miracles, but one like this would really make you praise
God! He was converted!
6. Naaman offered Elisha money. Take note also that Elisha
did not take advantage of the situation to get any material riches for himself
for this miraculous healing. Later in the story, however, Gehazi, Elisha’s
servant followed Naaman and caught up with him to accept money from him for the
healing, and this displeased God so much, Gehazi himself was struck instantly
with leprosy!
God expects our obedience and our submission, but God, and
no man of God, wants to be paid off for God’s works. What God really wants back
is our love, faithful honor of Him, and obedience.
This is contrary to a certain televangelist (I will not
mention his name) who after a sister I knew in Atlanta wrote him and wanted to
thank him because in his service she was healed from cancer and wanted to know
how to thank him. She wrote “I was healed, how do I thank you”?
What she got back was a terrible reply. Do you know what request she got back in
return? The letter said, well since you were healed and this saved you $40,000
or $50,000 in medical bills, you should now send this money to me and my
ministry! I personally fear for those who abuse in the name of God! And you?
7. The story seems good so far, Naaman is healed, Naaman is
proclaiming to his servants that the God of Israel healed him, and he is on his
way praising the true God back home, then what? He realizes that to enter back
into Syria he will need to go into the temple of Rimmon with his King. Rimmon
was the Syrian God of the storms, comparable to Baal, who was the evil pagan
god at that time. And he asks to be forgiven of Elisha that he will go into
that temple?! It was that or loose his position of power!
Why wasn’t he capable of just recognizing the god of Israel
only, after such a miracle? The problem is he was remaining compromised with
his system, the one pagan one that was of his people’s culture.
The god Rimmon never did any miracles for him or anyone! Naaman
knows Rimmon is false. The problem is he allowed himself to stay enslaved by
the influence of those around him. He was a dignitary, and obviously he could
not be seen rejecting what his culture worshipped and accepted! He was afraid
of being himself rejected and made fun of for sticking to just the god of Israel
as the only god.
8. What a poor testimony he turns out to be, right? He
wanted to be seen worshipping both gods! The people must have been very confused
and thought, well was it Elisha’s god, Jehovah, who healed him, or was it Rimmon?
Today many Christians walk in the same shoes as Naaman did! They
are in the world, participating in the sins of the world, and yet also claiming
to be Christian! Doesn’t it make you mad? It makes God mad!
Almost everyone complains, “Oh, Christians are hypocrites!”
In part they are right, sadly many Christians are hypocrites! The idea repeated
over and over in the O.T. and the N.T. is that God Jehovah is the only true
God, and Him only shall you serve! The idea is to not be a hypocrite but pure
and holy as God will not permit our selves by our own absurd choices to be
lukewarm, neither of god, nor of the devil.
Revelation 3:16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor
hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
In the culture here people worship the flesh, covet the
lifestyle of beautiful actors & actresses, and lust for their riches while
worshipping in church. In Miami, people in adultery, drugs, the vanities of
plastic surgeries, and Santeria abound and they still go to church. Personally, I would rather spare myself the
public embarrassment and the anger of God for being a hypocrite, and you?
9. This lesson of today is that you are either 100% totally
for God in total obedience, or against Him! It is either black or white, you
are either darkened and crimsoned stained with sin, or you are pure white, and
you decide moment by moment what state you are in by what words and actions you
are mixing into your soul, either the things of God, or the sinful things of
the world that invite God’s wrath.
Consider these verses as they expose how God despises
compromisers:
Joshua 24:15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD,
choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers
served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites,
in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.
Matthew 5:13 Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt
have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for
nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.
I John 3:9-10 9
Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in
him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. 10 In this the children of
God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not
righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.
In the end, no Christian can ever think it is okay to hold
onto some sin they may like, a sin which contradicts God’s commands, one that
feeds pride and the flesh. Never can anyone be allowed to believe that there is
no problem for God to accept some unclean area in our lives. People always
justify their words and actions in their own minds. They may say, well, my
parents did it, my culture accepts it, I have to do it because it is what the
people around me expect.
Leviticus 19:2 Speak
unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye
shall be holy: for I the LORD your God am holy. We don’t have our identity from Cuba, The
U.S.A., or from any other place because we as Christians belong to the nation
of the holy celestial new-Jerusalem. Jesus confirms we should be holy as in
Matthew 5:48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is
perfect. Are you and I trying as hard as we can even though we know we still
have faults?
10. There is a heavy war between the flesh and the spirit in
each of us and you have to fight hard, pray hard and choose God’s way moment by
moment day by day, because if not then by default you and I will be falling
into our own rebellious way, allowing your own sin to kill us! We must never
compromise and mix God with our own ways of things or their will be hell to pay!
How many of you have seen people die from a sin they could
not let go of? How many of you have known people who have died from using alcohol
or too many drugs? I have! Or known some shunned wife that kills her husband
for cheating, or heard of someone who was theif and he was killed while in the
process of robbing? In my life I have witnessed dozens of these cases!
All around the world, all day long, people are dying before
their time caught in their sins because… Romans 6:23 is true, For the wages of
sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our
Lord.
11. Jesus made it clear in Luke 11:23 He that is not with me
is against me: and he that gathereth not with me scattereth. It is a pity many
people accept and live with the irrational contradiction that they can have
both worlds, the one of the flesh, and the one of the spirit, and believe everything
is fine.
In the entrance gates at the bottom of the silver and
mineral mines in South America the native Indians have a shrine of saints where
all who enter are expected to render homage. Usually on them you see the Virgin
Mary or Jesus for protection, but also you see a statue of the devil for
protection (since the underworld supposedly belongs to the devil) and you are
supposed to ask protection from them both?! It does not work that way! God is
forcing us this day to choose!
I recall that when I would go to the homes and pick up some
of the so called Christian Koreans for the Christmas work that they would still
have Buddha statues in the corners of their apartments. How confusing is that?
Their love was for the things of this world and of their own culture more than
that of Christ. They only wanted to use god and the Salvation Army as a lover,
while remaining married to their old idols! How will God react then? Please note,
the majority of them are not hypocrites, but the few who are shock you! It is
the same in any culture!
12. Is it clear now? God will not have anything to do with
compromisers! God’s wrath is against those who claim Him, yet nothing of what they
live glorify Him! What do you still accept from your culture? How sad it is for
God and for the true Christians that the world always seems to have a large
population of compromised, undedicated, comfortable, disloyal, sinful so called
Christians that provoke others to stumble in the faith! They create conflict in
the churches, they embarrass real Christians by their actions.
Don’t be one of them! Ask God to reveal to you this day your
dark corners! What sins, what secrets are burning fuses in your spiritual life?
You will have no eternal life without renouncing your sins. Flesh and blood will not inherent eternal
life and sinners will not stand in the congregation of the righteous. Let the
fire (the Holy Spirit!) pass into your heart. You decide to allow God to burn
away all worthlessness and stuffing and straw in your life, so that all which
remains will be purified gold!
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