But He Was A Leper

Namaan had too much pride to accept the fact that the prophet wouldn’t even come out to see him, and it really got bad when all he told him to do was go dip seven times in a muddy river. How could that heal leprosy? All that mud might even make it worse.

It doesn’t make sense to the world for a Christian to put blind trust in the power of the blood of Jesus to wash away our sin, but that’s the only way to get deliverance from eternal death and obtain eternal life. Whether it makes sense or not, it is God’s way, and it’s the only way that works.

2 Kings 5:14 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.

Namaan finally humbled himself, got down off of his chariot, took off his royal robes, his medals and prizes of the flesh, repented of his anger at the prophet and obeyed God. He started dipping and I can just imagine what he might have thought with every dip.

Each time there was more mud in his eyes and hair. Each time he became more doubtful that it was going to happen. With each dip the water got even muddier.

It’s never a pretty or comfortable thing to bear our sins to the Lord and confess that we are a sinner. It’s never easy to allow the hidden recesses of our heart to be revealed for the filth that is hiding in there.

James says that the heart is very deceitful and who can know it. Your heart lies to you. You can’t trust it, ever.

How many times do you have to go back to be cleansed by the blood of Jesus? With each passing day the mud of the world gets into your heart, your mind and your spirit and you have to back and be “Dipped” again. It’s a never ending process of going under the blood and having your leprosy of sin cleansed by its power.

Namaan went down once, twice, then five, six times and still nothing happened. When God says 7 times, 6 won’t do. You have to go all the way. You can’t live for Jesus for 60 years then give up and live for the devil in your last days and make Heaven your home. You have to cross that finish line to win. Quitters don’t win and winners never quit. It’s either all the way or nothing at all.

On that 7th time, everything changed. The leprosy was healed. Namaan was delivered. He was given a new lease on life.

7 is God’s number of completeness. If you want God’s best then you have to allow God to be your all in all, your everything, and then you will find completeness in him.

Yes, Namaan was a great man by the world’s standards, but he was a leper. Don’t let the accolades of the world fool you. Don’t let silly preachers tell you that you can get to Heaven with sin in your heart. Don’t let your own heart lie to you and tell you it’s all right when sin still reigns in your heart. Give it all to Jesus, hold nothing back. That’s the only way to get rid of the leprosy, the sin, the sentence of death in your life.

Every one of us can identify with Namaan in one or another. I see Namaan’s walking into the church nearly every week, people who still carry their load of sin, that sentence of death for sin, in their hearts. Why not be washed in the blood and made whole today?