Hope From the Word

Guest (Male): Material possessions seem to be the main focus of so many people. I have to get that bigger car, bigger house, nicer TV, latest phone, and on and on. Watch out, material lust will ruin your relationship with God.

Bill Luebkemann: I guess it must be that lust can really, or greed, or whatever, materialism can really drive you farther than you think. Here's a guy that was in a privileged position. He was a servant to the greatest prophet in Israel at the time, Elisha. But he was so driven by greed. He had to have this stuff. It kind of reminds me of Judas who kept the money box for the twelve apostles, but was also a thief.

He was a thief. He had dinner with Jesus whenever he wanted, personally. "Hey Jesus, what do you say we have a bite to eat?" "Okay." He had a relationship with him, walked with him and talked with him, but yet he was consumed with stealing a few greenbacks, some lousy bucks from the money box.

Guest (Male): Welcome once again to Hope from the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann from Calvary Chapel of Marlton. Today we're continuing to look at the book of Second Kings. It contains accounts of men and women who followed the will of God and those who didn't. The consequences of disobedience were disastrous, and the same is true for us today.

If you've been with us for the entire study through First and Second Kings, you've heard the account of some very brave men and women, and some other accounts of not-so-savory behavior. The topic today is greed, yet another human attribute that does nothing to benefit our relationship with God. Here's Pastor Bill Luebkemann with our study.

Bill Luebkemann: God says, "Just go down the river and wash it all off." And that blows his mind. He doesn't want to get healed that way. He wants to get healed the way he wants to get healed. The world is full of people today. They have this disease called sin and God says, "I'm offering a free cure. His name is Jesus Christ. All you have to do is put your faith in him." The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent. That's all you have to do.

"I don't want to believe. I don't want to do it that way. I believe all roads lead to heaven." But sir, excuse me, that road does not go the way you want to go. It goes another way. "Oh yes it does. Oh yes it does. I'm just going around the world but I'm still going to get to the same place. It's just a long way." You hear that all the time: all roads lead to the same place.

Somebody told me not too long ago, "There's all these bridges across the Delaware River. They all lead to Philadelphia, and you can take any bridge you want and still get to Philadelphia." Her point was there's all different ways to get to heaven. Being an expert on bridges of how to get to Philadelphia and crossing every one of them numerous times each month, I could have argued the point that they all take you to different parts of Philadelphia, some more desirable than others.

Depending on if you want to go to the airport or to Northeast Philly, one bridge or another may not be practical. Her point, of course, was that it doesn't matter how practical, you'll still get to your destination. But that's not true. No other river was going to cure this guy of his leprosy, and no other savior is going to cure you of your disease called sin, except for Jesus Christ, the only name under heaven by which a man may be saved.

This guy here thought he had God figured out. "He is going to heal me, and he's just going to come out and jump around a little bit and poof, I'm going to be cleansed." And when he gets these instructions, he is really ticked. "Man, I could have stayed home. We've got rivers at home. I didn't need to come here. I could wash in one of them." Well, excuse me, but did you try that? If they're just as good, why didn't you try that? How come you're still a leper? Lots of good questions to ask this guy.

He turned away and went off in a rage. Now, his servants were smarter than he was, and they're just his servants. He employed quality servants, this guy did. You have to give him credit for that, also. Naaman's servants went to him and said, "My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more then, when he tells you: wash and be cleansed?"

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. Look, his servants asked to talk some sense into him. They said, "If he had told you to do some complicated thing—go to the nearest hilltop, better yet, go scale the highest mountain on a sunny day when there's no clouds, and sacrifice one thousand bulls to the God of Israel.

Then when you're done sacrificing one thousand bulls to the God of Israel on a cloudless day, then come back and see me. Then we're going to give you some magic potion, and you'll rub the magic potion on your earlobes. After it's been on your earlobes for twenty-four hours, then you'll wash it off with this special solution which can only be bought at a health food store. Then you'll dip yourself..." He thought it would be something complicated.

His servants said, "If it was something complicated, you would have rushed right out and done it immediately. So why not do this?" And the guy woke up and said, "Yeah, I guess we came this far, we might as well." He saw the reason, the logic in that. He went down, dipped himself in the Jordan seven times. Actually, I think this could be translated that he lunged or jumped into the Jordan, just like the man of God had told him.

And his flesh was restored—not just restored. It didn't just go back to being like the way it was previously. It became like that of a young boy. It actually became better than new, better than it had been before he had leprosy. There was no amount of time. It didn't take a week or a month or a year. It just took the seven dips, and he was healed—a total miraculous event.

Then Naaman and all his attendants went back to the man of God. He stood before him and said, "Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel. Please accept now a gift from your servant." So now he goes back to Elisha, and this time Elisha is allowed to see him. Previously Elisha just sent a messenger out. This time Elisha sees Naaman.

Naaman says, "It's been proven without a doubt there is no God in all the world except here in Israel. Now I know it." This was the whole point of this. This was to put forth God's name, so that God's name and his greatness and his glory would be proclaimed in this place and to these people and in his word here. This guy goes back and says, "I'm convinced, I'm sold out. I know there is no other explanation for this miracle that happened."

He wants to give a gift, and there's nothing wrong with Naaman wanting to give a gift here. If it was trying to give me the gift, I would have been happy to take—well, certainly, I'll be more than happy to take your gift, just bring it right in here and put it on down. But Elisha has some reason for not accepting it. Maybe because he's a foreigner. Maybe because he wanted it clear that God doesn't charge money for his services.

Whatever reason, the prophet answered, "As surely as the Lord lives, whom I serve, I will not accept a thing." And even though Naaman urged him, he refused. Elisha said, "No, I'm sorry, I will not accept anything from you." It doesn't really say that he even explained himself. "If you will not," said Naaman—and I don't think he was rude, just that he declined the gift.

"If you will not," said Naaman, "please let me, your servant, be given as much earth as a pair of mules can carry. For your servant will never again make burnt offerings and sacrifices to any other god but the Lord. But may the Lord forgive your servant for this one thing: when my master enters the temple of Rimmon to bow down, and he is leaning on my arm and I bow there also—when I bow down in the temple of Rimmon, may the Lord forgive your servant for this." "Go in peace," Elisha said.

So Naaman is saying here, "Look, if you won't take a gift, then let me take a gift from you. Let me bring some dirt here, so I can have a piece of Israel back in my own land, so I can remember this place and this land." Now, I'm not sure if this was superstitious or just symbolic. I mean, there was a lot of superstition at this time. There's a lot of superstition today.

People have their lucky charm in their pocket or hanging on the rearview mirror of their car and they do things in a certain way. There's lots of superstitions today, and they had them back then also. They believed that gods inhabited places. We were looking at a battle a few weeks ago and the people who were fighting against Israel said, "Hey, we're losing because we're fighting in the hills and their God is stronger in the hills. But our god is stronger on the plains.

So when we come back again, let's try to get them down on the plains, and then we'll be able to win because our god is stronger there." So they had local deities associated with different areas. Maybe it's possible he thought to himself, "If I bring some dirt, then the God of this land will inhabit this dirt somehow." I don't think that's the case because he said here, it's plain to him in this verse, "Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel."

Maybe he thinks this is the way he's going to transport this God of Israel back to his land, to have some dirt. Maybe there's the superstitious element, maybe just symbolic. He wants to have a piece of Israel there to remind him: "There's my little mound of dirt there, that's part of Israel. I'm going to go kneel on that mound of dirt and pray to their God."

He says here, "I'm never again going to make burnt offerings and sacrifices to any other god but the Lord, but if the Lord will just forgive me for this one thing: my master goes to the temple of Rimmon to bow down there and he leans on my arm." The words here really don't mean physically leaning on his arm, just really means that I'm his right-hand man, so he has me with him.

"I'm there with him in the temple there and I'm bowing down too because he's bowing down. If I could just be forgiven for that when that happens." Some commentators read this and say what he's really asking for is forgiveness for when this happened in the past. But the way it seems to most naturally come across is that he's asking for forgiveness if he does it again in the future.

Elisha doesn't really say yes or no here. He just trusts him to the Lord's providence and says, "Go in peace." Look, it's not right to bow down in front of an idol, but I think maybe also Elisha knows this guy now had his first encounter with the living God and it's going to take the Lord—the Lord's going to grow him and eventually he may change his mind and not be doing that when he realizes it's wrong to bow down to another god.

After Naaman had traveled some distance, Gehazi, the servant of Elisha the man of God, said to himself, "My master was too easy on Naaman, this Aramean, by not accepting from him what he brought. As surely as the Lord lives, I will run after him and get something from him." So Gehazi, his servant now, is lusting after all those material possessions.

All those talents of silver and them shekels of gold and them sets of clothing, he's thinking, "Boy, I'd love to have some of that stuff. Man, I can't believe Elisha sent him away. I haven't had a pay raise in three years. We could go out to eat a lot with this stuff, and we could fix up the house here and be comfortable. We could be looking forward to retirement."

He's thinking, "So what? Maybe he's going to go up to heaven in a fiery chariot like Elijah did. I don't know what's going to happen to him, but maybe I'm going to be left." He's like, "Geez, how could he do that? He let him go take all that stuff. He wanted to give it to us. We could have taken it, wouldn't have cost us anything." Greed here, lust, pure and simple. It wasn't offered to him, anyway.

He forgot what his position was. He was the servant. So Gehazi hurried after Naaman. When Naaman saw him running toward him, he got down from the chariot to meet him. "Is everything all right?" he asked. "Everything is all right," Gehazi answered. "My master sent me to say: two young men from the company of the prophets have just come to me from the hill country of Ephraim. Please give them a talent of silver and two sets of clothing."

He runs after the guy and lies. He invents this fable. He says, "Look, my master just remembered, we just had some unexpected houseguests and my master here said if you could give them some of that clothing and a little bit of silver, it'd be great. It'd really help them out. We just thought of it. They just showed up, and they're good guys and everything, and you weren't that far away, so my master sent me to run after you."

Naaman, a very obliging guy: "By all means," he says. "Take two talents," said Naaman. He urged Gehazi to accept them and then tied up the two talents of silver in two bags with two sets of clothing. He gave them to two of his servants and they carried him ahead of Gehazi. Look, this is a lot of silver, so much so it took two servants to carry them. It wasn't just a one-guy load.

A talent was, I've read, anywhere from seventy to one hundred and twenty pounds, depending on whose opinion you read. What I could do with a few bars of silver—I'd rather have the gold, though. He offers one, Naaman says take two. Can you imagine what's going through Gehazi's mind? "Well, God's really blessing me here. I just wanted one, and now he's giving me two. Well, God's really blessing me. I'm going to get more."

"Man, I'm glad I came out here to get this. I can't believe Elisha didn't take it. He could have had all—he could have had all of it. I'm just going to have a little bit and God's just blessing me." Just because you get a whole bunch of lustful worldly possessions doesn't mean God's blessing anything. Gehazi here even got so much that it took two servants to help him carry the load.

He gave them to two of his servants and they carried them ahead of Gehazi. When Gehazi came to the hill, he took the things from the servants and put them away in the house. So he got to some hill, I don't know the layout here, but I get the impression that he didn't want Elisha to see him. "Oh, we're coming up to the hill now. Tell you what, guys, you can go back now. Leave the stuff here. You head back. Thanks very much for carrying this."

"I'll take over now. I don't want to trouble you too much. Appreciate all you did. You better run along now. Naaman's on his way and I don't want to hold him up any. I don't want to keep Naaman waiting. Appreciate you helping. Just leave it right here behind the hill where nobody else can see it." He took the thing from the servants and put them away and he shuttled them to his house and put them away. In other words, he hid them.

He put them in the closet or underneath a trapdoor in the floor or under a blanket or under his bed or in his mattress. He hid them. He took the things from the servants, put them away in his house. He sent the men away, and they left. Then he went in and stood before his master Elisha. "Where have you been, Gehazi?" Elisha asked. "Your servant didn't go anywhere," Gehazi answered.

Elisha didn't ask if he went anywhere. It sounds like what a little kid would say to you. "Where have you been?" "I didn't go anywhere." "Where have you been?" "I didn't eat any cookies." "I didn't ask if you ate any cookies. I asked where you've been, but thanks for telling me what you were doing." "Your servant didn't go anywhere," Gehazi answered.

But Elisha said to him, "Was not my spirit with you when the man got down from his chariot to meet you? Is this the time to make money or to accept clothes, olive groves, vineyards, flocks, herds, or menservants and maidservants? Naaman's leprosy will cling to you and to your descendants forever." Then Gehazi went from Elisha's presence and he was leprous as white as snow.

Gehazi's been walking with Elisha now for a long time. He's seen him do all kinds of things: cleanse a leper, heal the sick, fix a broken heart—well no, maybe not that, but he's seen him do a lot of things. I can't figure out why this foolish guy thought he could get away with this. This is one thing I just can't figure out. I guess it must be just this, that lust can really, or greed, materialism, can really drive you farther than you think.

Farther off-track with the Lord. Here's a guy that was in a privileged position. He was servant to the greatest prophet in Israel at the time, Elisha. Gehazi, his right-hand man, his servant. What a privileged position to be in. What an honorable place to be. But he was so driven by greed. He had to have this stuff. It kind of reminds me of Judas who kept the money box for the twelve apostles, but was also a thief.

He was a thief. He had dinner with Jesus whenever he wanted, personally. "Hey Jesus, what do you say we have a bite to eat?" "Okay." He had a relationship with him, walked with him and talked with him, but yet he was consumed with stealing a few greenbacks, some lousy bucks from the money box.

And I think if anything, that's what you have to see here, that this guy was driven by greed or the profit motive. He gave no thought to the fact that Elisha would know about it, be able to find out somehow—whether God showed him or whether he just suspected it or whether he was up on the roof watching with his binoculars or whether someone told him. Personally, I think the Lord revealed it to him. Elisha seems to have this thing where the Lord reveals a lot of things to him.

Elisha says to him, "Is this the time to make money or to accept clothes?" And then where'd all this other stuff come from: olive groves, vineyards, flocks, herds, or menservants or maidservants? Well, that could just be an example, but it could also mean the things that Gehazi was thinking about. Maybe he was in his mind thinking, "I'm going to get a business together here. I'm going to invest this money and get me some servants, and we're going to set up some vineyards and some olive groves."

"We're going to make wine and bottle that and get some flocks going, and we're going to make some money here. We're going to take this money we got and invest it and try to make some more money." Maybe this was going through his mind. I think maybe when Elisha said this, he was reading a guy's mind, or the Lord was showing Elisha what Gehazi's thoughts were. And instead, what he got was the leprosy.

So you have this guy who's a pagan who comes in with leprosy and leaves being a believer in the Lord, healed and cleansed. And you have this other guy who supposedly is a believer in the Lord who, at the end, is a leper. All driven by lust. But a very interesting story and a guy who is leading an army against the Lord, but someone who the Lord reaches out to through the most unlikely of means.

That question is asked today from time to time: if the only way to heaven is through the gospel of Jesus Christ, then what about that guy on the island? How's he going to get saved? If that gospel message is right, just tell me about that guy on the island. Like Joe Focht says, there's a lot of people really concerned for that guy on the island. I think God probably has him covered.

And here's an example of how the Lord does it. Here's a perfect example: commander of an army fighting against Israel, but God has it in his mind to save this guy. He allows him to get leprosy to drive him into that position where he needs assistance, and then through only the way that God can work—strange set of events.

A roving band of pirates steal this girl, make her into a slave from a household that homeschooled their kids and taught them how to be believers. And from there she's a missionary to this guy and he comes down and now he knows about the Lord. God can reach anybody, anywhere, whether they're in prison in Tibet or whether they're in New York City. A guy in prison in Tibet might be easier.

Maybe that guy on that island, he might be easier to reach. He's not lusting for the flat screen plasma TV and all the other fancy things carried in that magazine. Lust for electronics. So you see here God does work in interesting ways and this is sure one interesting story. In the end, the roles are reversed. The enemy of Israel's a believer and a guy who's the assistant to the prophet here winds up with leprosy.

Guest (Male): You've been listening to Hope from the Word. We're currently in Pastor Bill Luebkemann's study of Second Kings. If you'd like to hear this message again, you have several options. Visit our website at ccmarlton.org, download the Hope FM app to your smartphone or tablet, or look for us wherever you find your podcasts.

If you've been thinking about visiting Calvary Chapel of Marlton where Bill serves as pastor, we'd love to have you. Our service times are on Sunday mornings at 10:00. We also meet midweek on Wednesdays at 7:00 PM. You can also livestream from home whenever you visit our YouTube channel at Calvary Chapel of Marlton. For more information, go to ccmarlton.org. We hope to see you soon.

Before the day is done, we'd like to connect with you. Share a praise report, prayer request, or what you're learning from this series. You can easily email us from our website, ccmarlton.org, or just call us at 856-983-1662. There's more to come from Bill's study of Second Kings, and we'll have that for you next time on Hope from the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann. This program is brought to you by Calvary Chapel of Marlton.