From His Heart

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Today we're going to learn that miracles come and it's not that complicated in the way in which they come. God is not asking us to figure out some massive formula, E equals MC squared, explain that and then this miracle can come. That would be complicated, right? He's asking us to just simply trust and obey.

Now, here's our question: could it be that the answer to your big problem, whatever your big problem is, could it be that the answer is more simple than you think? It's not that complicated.

Larry Nobles: Did you know that bad things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people, too? We all fall into one of those two groups. But do you go to great trouble to figure out why you're in trouble or how to stop getting into trouble? Well, you might want to stop that now because you're going to discover how God is ready, willing, and able to work a miracle in your life. The question is: how do you get that miracle?

This is From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve. Thank you for joining us today for a message to help you get out of trouble. And "It's Not That Complicated," that's also the title of the message from Pastor Jeff's five-lesson series, Got Trouble? What to Do When You Don't Know What to Do.

For more information about how to get this important series and similar resources like it, just go to fromhisheart.org, click our Resource Center tab. First, open your Bible to the book of 2 Kings as Pastor Jeff begins to simplify troubles with the lesson "It's Not That Complicated."

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Facebook is a very, very popular social media website and thing on the internet. It hit the internet in February of 2004 and it just blew up. Once it came to the internet, it was just people starting joining Facebook like wildfire. We have gotten certain phrases from Facebook that have made their way into American life and culture. One of the phrases has to do with relationship status on Facebook where it says relationship status: it's complicated. They even made a movie out of that: It's Complicated.

Well, did you know that lots of people, that's how they approach life and that's how they look at life? They say, "Oh, life is so complicated." But I want to share with you today that it's not all that complicated. Life was not designed to be complicated, but that's kind of how we are with life. We take something that's not supposed to be so complicated, and we make it so complicated. How much air in the tires and how many revolutions your tires make? Who could figure that out? It's not that complicated.

God didn't set up life to be that complicated. Now, we're in a series called Got Trouble? What to Do When You Don't Know What to Do. Today we're going to learn that miracles come and it's not that complicated in the way in which they come. God is not asking us to figure out some massive formula, E equals MC squared, explain that and then this miracle can come. That would be complicated, right? He's asking us to just simply trust and obey.

Now, here's our question: could it be that the answer to your big problem, whatever your big problem is, could it be that the answer is more simple than you think? It's not that complicated. We're going to look at the story of Naaman the Syrian in 2 Kings, chapter five. I want to share with you three discoveries from this passage.

Discovery number one: we all have trouble in life. We live in a fallen world. Job, who had lots of trouble, Job 14:1, "Man who is born of woman is short-lived and full of trouble." He said in Job 5:7, "Man is born for trouble as sparks fly upward." Jesus said in John, chapter 16, told the disciples, "In the world you have tribulation." You have pressures and problems and trouble. But be of good courage; I have overcome the world.

So, we all have trouble in life, and so did a man named Naaman the Syrian general. Look at 2 Kings, chapter five, verse one: "Now Naaman, captain of the army of the king of Aram, which is another name for Syria, was a great man with his master. He's a great man and he is highly respected because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram."

Did you know that Jewish legend said that Naaman was the one who shot his bow and just by random, that arrow came and hit Ahab in a crease in his armor, in an opening in his armor, and killed him? They credit that arrow shot to Naaman. So, he is given victories by the Lord to Aram, and the man was also a valiant warrior, but he was a leper.

Wow. I mean, lots of good in his life, this guy Naaman the Syrian general, number two man in Syria. Lots of good things that the scripture says, but it says, "And all these good things... ah, but he was a leper." That's a bad thing. You talk about trouble; that's big-time trouble.

Now, amid all the good, there is always some bad. In everyone's life, this is true. Amid all the good, you can always find some bad. Look at the good again: a great man with his master. He's great, he's noble, he's important, he's mighty, he's a man of character. He's highly respected and some way, somehow, this pagan guy, the Lord is blessing his life. And he's a valiant warrior. He has courage. But in all the good, there's some bad. He's a leper.

Leprosy is big-time bad. It is a serious disease. It is an incurable, at that time, an incurable disease. It was a terminal disease. It was a loathsome, humiliating disease as your flesh began to rot away. It's a disease of the flesh and of the nervous system. You go online and go Google images and look up leprosy and see... I didn't want to show any of those because it's just too gross.

That's the disease that Naaman had. It gets progressively worse and there's no cure for it, and so he's got lots of good in his life, but amid all the good in anyone's life, there is always some bad. In everybody's life, you have good and then you always have a little bad, some bad. Maybe for some, you say, "Well, I have a little good and a lot of bad." Everybody's got some bad in their life. Amidst all the good, there's always some bad.

Amid all the bad, you just look at the bad now, amid all the bad, there is a God who can work miracles. Great news. Verse two: "Now the Arameans had gone out in bands, they had little marauding bands and they would go out like little terrorist groups, and they had taken captive a little girl from the land of Israel and she waited on Naaman's wife. And she said to her mistress, 'I wish that my master were with the prophet who is in Samaria! Then he would cure him of his leprosy.'"

Just a little Jewish girl who was taken in this raid that they did, taken back to Syria. She is now the servant to Naaman's wife and in Naaman's house. Let me tell you, this guy Naaman, he was a special kind of guy. He had an impact on this little Jewish girl because you would think, "Man, they've taken me captive; I hope you die of leprosy, Naaman." But she didn't have that kind of attitude.

She was a spokesman for the Lord and she said, "Oh, if Naaman could go to the prophet who's in Samaria." Samaria is the capital city of Israel, the ten tribes that made up Israel, the northern kingdom. That's their capital, Samaria. If he could just go to Samaria, there's a prophet there, Elisha, and he would bring healing. He could cure him because he has a connection with Yahweh God. Oh, if he could just go there.

So, there is some good news because they tell Naaman about a God, the God of Israel, Yahweh, who can work miracles. So, the first discovery that we learn today is trouble: we all have trouble. And there's always some bad, but there's a God who can work miracles.

Second discovery: we all want our trouble to go away. And isn't that just true? That's just the way we are. No one likes trouble. We want trouble to get out of our lives, just go away. "What do I need to do to get rid of this trouble?"

Now, especially when the trouble is physical. We don't want it and we want to do whatever we can to get it out. Remember Paul had a thorn in the flesh? That was trouble to him. It was like a stake being driven through him. We don't know exactly what it was. I have a sneaking suspicion it was the fact that he was losing his hair. That's big trouble for a guy. He prayed three times that it might depart from him. We don't like trouble; we want trouble to go away.

Verse four: "And Naaman went in and told his master, his master was Ben-hadad II, his master was the king of the Syrians, king of the Arameans. And he went in and told his master saying, 'Thus and thus spoke the girl who is from the land of Israel.' Then the king of Aram said, 'Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel.' And he departed."

We want trouble to go away and we will go to great lengths for that trouble to go away. He tells him, "Go to the land of Israel, go to Samaria." You know how long a trip that was? A hundred miles. A hundred miles on a horse. And that's a long ride by anybody's standards. And so, he is going to make this long journey on a horse because a slave girl in Israel said there's a prophet there in Samaria who can cure you of your leprosy.

We'll go to great lengths. If you're sick here today and you have some disease and there's no cure for your disease and you hear about some experimental drug in Sweden or in Norway or somewhere else, you'll get on a plane and go. You'll do whatever you need to do. You'll go halfway across the world if that's what it takes because you want that trouble to get out of your life.

So, we'll go to great lengths and we will spend lots of money. Verse five again: "Then the king of Aram said, 'Go now and I will send a letter to the king of Israel.' And he departed and took with him 10 talents of silver and 6,000 shekels of gold and 10 changes of clothes." Wow, that's a lot.

Now, you know how much that is? Ten talents of silver is 750 pounds of silver. 750 pounds of silver in today's money is worth about $378,000. If somebody gave you that much silver, that's what you could sell it for, about $378,000. And then it says not only did he have that much silver, 6,000 shekels of gold. That's 150 pounds of gold. That's worth about $3.3 million in today's money.

He's not bringing a little bit from my savings; he's bringing a lot. And he has 10 changes of clothes. He's got 10 Armani suits with him. I mean, just the best, right? So, I added it all up. He's got the equivalent of about $3.7 million that he's taking with him to Samaria to hook up with the prophet to buy himself a miracle.

We'll go to great lengths to get trouble out of our lives. We'll spend lots and lots and lots of money to have trouble get out of our lives. I heard one preacher say one time, "It's so true." He said, "Men spend their health to gain their wealth when they're young, and then as they get older, they spend their wealth to gain their health back. And they burn the candle at both ends."

Well, Naaman is going to do whatever he can and the king who loves this guy, he's going to finance this whole deal because he wants him better. So, we'll go to great lengths, we'll spend lots of money, and we will do difficult things.

One of the things that we're going to learn in this story is when Naaman, the leprous general, comes to Elisha, Elisha tells him something that's not hard to do, and he doesn't want to do it. But he was all ready to do something hard and something heroic. "Man, tell me what you want me to do, Elisha. You want me to go tackle a dragon and slay a dragon? I'll do it. I'm mighty in valor. I'm strong and courageous and I can handle that. You want me to get you the head of Medusa? You remember in Greek mythology, Medusa, the lady that had snakes for hair, the lady that if you looked at her, you'd turn to stone?"

He's ready to do that kind of stuff. And people today, this is the way we are. It's nothing wrong with it, nothing bad about it, but we'll go to great lengths, we'll spend lots of money, we'll do whatever it takes, so to speak, to get better, to get our trouble to go away.

Larry Nobles: Sometimes we really do go to great trouble to find an end to our troubles. But are good solutions really that complicated? Stay with us; Pastor Jeff continues with a third discovery to this revealing passage of scripture in just a moment.

Now, if you are experiencing great trials in your life right now, there is a high probability that money may be in the mix, or maybe I should say the lack of money may be in the mix. In Ecclesiastes, chapter five, verse 10, it says, "He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity."

Proverbs, chapter 11, verse 28 says, "Whoever trusts in riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf." If you want to flourish in this short life we have, Pastor Jeff has a brand-new three-lesson series that's right on track. It's called God and Money: What the Bible Says About Managing Money.

And this series is our gift of thanks to you for your support to From His Heart of any amount. The lessons include "The Love of Money," "When You Forfeit a Blessing," and the lesson "Managing God's Money." All three will recalibrate your mind and your heart toward the things of God, and He will deliver a miracle change in your life.

To get this series on CDs, DVDs, a USB flash drive, or MP3 download, take your pick, just call 866-40-BIBLE (866-402-4253) or go to fromhisheart.org. And thank you so very much for allowing From His Heart to come into your car, your home, or wherever you're listening, and receive these good messages. Together, we're reaching the world with truth, love, and hope. God bless you.

Now, let's get back to part one of today's message: "It's Not That Complicated."

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Discovery number three: we all have to come to grips with God's simple answer. So, we have trouble: you have trouble, I have trouble. You may not see my trouble; I may not see your trouble. We tend to look on the outside of people and say, "Oh, well, so-and-so doesn't have any trouble." Everybody's got trouble. Everybody's got bad things. We want them out of our lives, but we have to come to grips with God's simple answer. Look what happens; let's go verse six and beyond.

It says: "And he brought the letter, he's got this letter from the king of Aram, he brought the letter to the king of Israel. Jehoram is the king of Israel. Jehoram is the son of Ahab. And he brings it to him saying, 'And now as this letter comes to you, behold, I have sent Naaman my servant to you that you may cure him of his leprosy.'"

Jehoram is a pagan king. His dad was Ahab, a terrible, horrible pagan king. His mother was Jezebel; she was awful. Verse seven: "And it came about when the king of Israel read the letter that he tore his clothes and said, 'Am I a God to kill and to make alive, that this man is sending word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? But consider now and see how he is seeking a quarrel against me.'"

He remembered that this guy's dad, Ben-hadad I, had a dad named Ben-hadad II, and Ben-hadad I picked a fight one time with Jehoram's dad, who was Ahab. And so, he's saying, "Hey, this is just like it was when his daddy did that to my daddy." To quote from Braveheart, William Wallace, "This guy's trying to pick a fight." That's what he thought. He's trying to pick a fight here. And so, he freaked out and he tears his clothes. It's a sign of anguish; it's a sign of distress.

He never once thought about Elisha the prophet because he couldn't care less about Elisha the prophet, just like his daddy Ahab couldn't care less about Elijah. Elijah dealt with Ahab and now Elisha is dealing with Ahab's son Jehoram, and both of those kings were wicked and rotten and pagan and worshipped Baal, and they didn't give two hoots about the prophet of God.

So, here is Elisha. And it says in verse eight: "And it happened when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, that he sent word to the king saying, 'Why have you torn your clothes? Now let him come to me and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel.'

All the false prophets of Baal can't do squat when it comes to leprosy. You let him come to me. He'll know that there's a prophet in Israel. So Naaman came with his horses and his chariots and his entourage and stood at the doorway of the house of Elisha.

Really important verse 10: "And Elisha sent a messenger to him saying, 'Go and wash in the Jordan seven times and your flesh shall be restored to you and you shall be clean.'" Didn't even come to the door; just sent a messenger. "You go tell him this." The great, the mighty Naaman, the Syrian general, Elisha just sends a little errand boy to the door.

Verse 11: "But Naaman was furious 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 wave his hand over the place and cure the leper. That's the way it's supposed to be done. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?' So he turned and went away in a rage."

He is spitting nails; he is so mad. The word for rage literally means or furious means to crack off. It means to burst out in rage. We talk about people going ballistic, people blowing their top like a volcano. That's what happened to him. He was so mad and he went off in a rage, which means burning anger.

Think of him, all of a sudden he's at the door of Elisha, and Elisha doesn't come to the door. Elisha says, "Yeah, go down to the Jordan." Here's the message: "Go down to the Jordan, about 25 miles away, go down to the Jordan and dip in the Jordan seven times and you'll be cleansed." He uncorked. He just lost it. He freaked out; he was so angry.

And he was angry for two reasons. Number one: he was insulted. "I've come a hundred miles on this horse and I've come to see you, and I got all this gold and all this silver and I got 10 Armani suits, $2,000 apiece, and your size. And this is how you treat me? You don't even come to the door? Do you not know who I am?"

He was insulted and he was incensed. He says, "That's not the way you do things. I don't know how long you've been a prophet, Elisha, but let me tell you something: that's not the way you deal with a guy like me. And that's not the way you cure leprosy, anyway."

That's what he thought. If you're going to get God to work in your trouble, whatever your trouble is, there is something that's going to precede His working in your life.

Larry Nobles: Well, it looks like all of this is going to end badly for Naaman, considering the way he initially responds to Elisha's simple solution to his problem. Make plans to be here next time for the conclusion to this revealing and freeing message, "It's Not That Complicated." It's from Pastor Jeff Schreve's series Got Trouble? What to Do When You Don't Know What to Do.

The series and the individual messages are available in multiple formats when you go to fromhisheart.org, click the Listen link. Our website Resource Center has hundreds of messages to watch and listen anytime from Pastor Jeff, and he has so much to offer and a lot of free materials and downloads to help you grow in Christ, especially when you go to our Why Jesus link. You'll be blessed.

That's at fromhisheart.org. Well, time has gone for now. I'm Larry Nobles and today you heard part one of the lesson "It's Not That Complicated," and we'll have part two tomorrow on the broadcast. Join us on Friday when Pastor Jeff Schreve will open up God's word and share real truth, real love, and real hope from God's heart, here on From His Heart.