Sin Left Alone Will Decay & Rot
-The change from Fresh - To Rotted is gradual
- Fruit abandoned will decay & rot over time
- Bacteria all around us does it’s work
- They need to be feed to survive.
- They grow on and in the food causing it to decay or rot.
- To be fresh & useable
- Fruit needs to have it’s environment changed
❶ A Respectable Life
- Had almost all a man could wish - v.1 & 5
- Position – Captain (Commander)
- Trained, Disciplined, Leader
- Top of his profession
- Greatness – Fame, Influence
- v. 5 King sent a reference for him
◆ Honorable – Fairness, People liked him
◆ Successful – Delivered Syria
◆ Mighty man of valor – Brave, man of action
◆ Wealthy
- Price for silver = $17.65 oz.
- 750 lbs of silver = $211,800
- Price for gold = $1,237.27 oz.
- 150 lbs of gold = $2,969,448
- Average good suit price $200
- Oxxford or Hickey Freeman all over $500
- Armani suit is over $1,500
- Gucci suit = $2,000
10 new suits = $10,000
Total worth = $3,191,248 ($3.1/4 million)
❷. A Contaminated Life
- “BUT” – He was a leper
- LEPROSY - Latin meaning defilement
- "Hansen's disease" - (Gerhard Armauer Hansen – Norway)
- Putrid smell of rotting ulcerous sores
Begins as small, red spots on the skin. And spreds over the body turning white
- Hair begins to fall out - first from the head, then from the eyebrows.
Can’t stand themselves
- As it worsens, finger nails and toenails become loose; they start to rot and eventually fall off.
- The joints of the fingers and the toes begin to rot and fall off one piece at a time.
- Gums begin to shrink and they can’t hold the teeth anymore, so each of them is lost.
- Leprosy keeps eating away at the leper’s face until literally the nose, the palate, and even the eyes rot - and the victim wastes away until death.
- Sin is compared to Leprosy a living disease
- Seeping crawling poisoning destroying
- Very few people plan to mess their lives up with sin.
- They begin by wandering away from God and step by step they fall into disobedience
- Sin starts off small and finishes big
- We choose – Our choices change us
- It has a dominating power
- Proverbs 23:7KJV
7 For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee.
- The lovers of are lorded over by it
- All who are not save from it are under the curse of it
Galatians 3:10KJV
10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.
--- Deut 27:26
- Those under grace have escaped its bondage
❸. A Desperate Life
- Naaman = Pleasant, Delight
- We are created in the image of God
- Sin has made us putrid, loathsome & vile
- v. 3 - Message needs to be given
- v. 5-6 – Our solutions will be of no avail
- v. 7 – Leading to total frustration & helplessness
- Fear
❹. A Solution for Life
◆ v. 11-12 - Abandon Pride
- v. Rivers at Damascus
- River Abana = Life
- River Pharpar = Swift
◆ v. 13- Be Obedient
◆ v. 14 - Act in faith
◆ v. 15 – Give Praise to the Lord
1 John 1:7 …. the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
2 Corinthians 5:17KJV
17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
