Living Hope Fellowship Church...Sermons From the Pastor
PROUD
LEPER
by Pastor Kevin Badgley
I want to preach to you about being too proud. You can be too proud to get
saved, too proud to get healed, too proud to get delivered, and you can be too
proud to keep walking with God.
The account of Naaman is found in 2 Kings, Chapter 5. Naaman was commander of
the armies of the King of Syria, and the Lord had used him to give great deliverance
for Syria in days gone by. He was a great and mighty man of valor. He had the
highest position in the land, second only to the king. No doubt he was a very
rich, influential, and powerful man, but he had two problems.
He was being eaten alive with leprosy, an incurable disease. He was going to suffer greatly and die from this thing. 2 Kings 5:2-3 says, "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. 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." She said Elisha could cure him of his leprosy.
The king sent Naaman with gifts and presents and a great host of his men. 2 Kings 5 says, "(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."
Naaman was healed when he obeyed the words of Elisha, because he was speaking the words of God. Now, this man Naaman was a powerful man. He had money and influence, but money cannot buy your healing. Who you know cannot buy your deliverance, nor can it buy your salvation. Your friends might be the best, the greatest, the most awesome, or the best paid preacher in the land. You may be high up in your denomination, or you may be the lowest in the gutter. Either way, you may have friends that can get you something any way they want to get it. You may even have a hit man that is a friend of the mob. You may have various forms of influence.
Revelation 3:16-17 says, "So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked."
God has laid down laws and regulations according to His will, not ours, on how to get saved, healed, and delivered from the hand of Satan. He can fill you with the Spirit of God so that you can walk a sinless life before the Lord.
This account of Naaman in the Bible is true. This event actually took place in the bible. We find that he wanted the man of God to come out to him, and make a big show over him. Perhaps he wanted him to pray some long flowery prayer over him, or jump up and down and holler. Perhaps then he would accept a healing from God.
The only way he was going to get healed was to get humbled! The only way you are going to get delivered is to be humble. You are not going to get it any other way. God has chosen this way because that's exactly the way you don't want to get saved, healed, and delivered. God has chosen the foolish ways of preaching and teaching. He has chosen the foolish way of having prayer for the sick, afflicted, and the demon possessed. He has chosen the foolish ways to confound the wise, so that the wise will have to become humble. This way we all can be alike in the Lord. However, some today say, "No, I want a big show. I want to go to the biggest church. I can't get saved in this little puny church. I can't get saved under this little puny preacher. I can't get saved under this little street witnesser. I can't get saved that way; I have to go to a big church and get saved under a big evangelist's meeting. I want to get my deliverance and healing through their hands."
You better find out what God says in His Word. If He tells you to go wash seven times in a muddy old river, rather than get sprinkled by some priest wearing fancy robes, then you had better go to the river, because that's the only way you are going to get healed, delivered, or saved. God does this to humble you.
I have heard people say that they didn't want to get delivered and have the devil cast out, because it would embarrass them in front of the congregation. Many have declared that they don't come forward for deliverance from the bondage of the devil (which is going to take them to hell) because they are afraid they will act like someone who is demon possessed. They are afraid they will act like a fool at the altar.
Sometimes deliverances come immediately, but many times they are slow and agonizing. The reason is because there is pride in the unbeliever. The one who needs to be cleansed must be washed of pride before the leprosy can be cleansed. Before the devil can come out, there must be a humbling of the heart. God uses things according to his will to humble a person. The Bible declares in the book of James that God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
God deals with those who are proud, arrogant, stubborn, self-willed, and those who want a vain show. He deals with them in such a fashion that they cannot receive anything from Him until they humble themselves. That may be in front of a congregation of people, or it may be on a street corner. The Bible declares in Psalms 51:17, "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise."
You may not be getting what you need because you are too proud. It could be that you are staying where it looks pretty and sounds good (in your seat) because you want to appear just fine. Matthew 23:27-28 says, "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity."
Other people may not know that the bondage is there, but God knows. God sees right through the front you put on; God sees everything. He knows your heart, your needs, your wretchedness, your blindness, your foolishness, and he knows your leprosy.
Naaman had leprosy, and his other problem was pride. He went to get his leprosy healed, but the first thing he had to be delivered of was his pride. I know several people that are bound to wheelchairs by the bondage of afflictions in their bodies, and the reason they are not healed is because they are bound with pride.
Many are bound by religion, self-will, melancholy, or other bondages that the devil brings. Some won't give these up that they might be healed. Romans 8:18 says, "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." How are you going to have the sufferings of this present time reveal glory in you if you don't humble yourself?
That suffering he's talking about is not your affliction of bondage! He's talking about when you have your spirit broken. He means when your will, your pride, your stiff neck, your hardheartedness, and your rebellion is broken out of you so that the Spirit of God can take over. If you have these attitudes you cannot have the Spirit of God, because the Spirit of God is with a meek, humble, and contrite spirit.
God desires that you would be a willing vessel to Him, and not a stubborn, arrogant, hardheaded one. God wants you delivered, but He will not deliver, save, set free, heal, or do anything for you until you get on your face and you dip in the muddy water that God called you to get in.
Many people today are answering the altar calls of big named evangelists, so they can say, "I got saved at a "Thus and So" crusade. However, Paul taught in 1 Corinthians 3:4-7 that preachers are just ministers by whom we have believed and we are not anything; God gives the increase. Who saved you? Did Peter, James, or John save you? Did a big time evangelist save you? NO! Jesus Christ saved you. If you go to the meeting of a big time preacher that you respect highly with the intent of getting saved under that ministry because you are too proud to be saved elsewhere, God won't save you in that meeting. You are too proud to get saved in a little street corner church, or in an unknown church, or with the help of an unknown preacher, street witnesser, or a small local person. You have a "proud religion salvation," and that's not real; you'll go to hell with it.
God is telling you to humble yourself before Him. I've seen God use someone of no reputation. He used them as a means to humble a person, yet I watched as people did not listen. They disobeyed and did not get the blessing of God that they were supposed to receive.
I have told people from the Lord what they needed to do on several occasions, and yet they turned away because it was contrary to what big time evangelists were preaching. I watched other vessels of the Lord, servants of God who were hearing from heaven, speak to someone who did not listen because the vessels were not big time preachers.
Don't harden your heart against the things of God and the deliverance that belongs to you! Don't turn away just because the waters appear muddy, or because it's just not the way you would pick out for God to deliver you. You don't know what God has in store for you. You need to get down on your face and ask God to deliver you from pride so that you can be delivered and healed in your body, soul, and spirit.
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