(Read 2 Kings 7)
THESE lepers knew they were lost. They were outside the gate, and they thus wisely reasoned: “Why sit we here until we die? If we say, We will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city, and we shall die there: and if we sit still here, we die also. Now therefore come, and let us fall into the host of the Syrians: if they save us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall but die” (7:3, 4). They have the sentence of death on them, and so have you, my friend, but you may get life. Well, they conclude that they will go forth, as they think, to meet their enemies; and when they go out, expecting to meet foes — just like a poor sinner when he comes to God, whom he thinks is his foe—what do they find? A feast, and a royal one too, for all they needed was there. Sinner, you do not know what you have missed by not coming to the Saviour all these years, but if you will be wise now, you will follow the example of these simple men. They go out in the twilight (vs. 5), hoping nobody will see them, or pay attention to them. They get to the camp of the Syrians, and all is quiet. They come near a tent, and listen, but there is no sound. What does it mean? The fact is, God has cleared the scene of the enemy, and left the spoil for them to appropriate.
Can you not apply this? There is nothing to hinder your getting God’s blessing now; every foe is gone. Sin has been put away, the power of the enemy has been broken, Christ has annulled death. The Son of God has come into the prison-house of death, and what has He done? He has burst open the door, He has broken all its bolts and bars, and spoiled the lock, and it is well to remember that Satan cannot repair that lock, or put back those bars. He tells you that you cannot be saved, that you are too bad a sinner to be saved, and that you dare not come to Jesus. He tells you a lie. I tell you that you may come, and you ought to come to Christ, and if never before, you ought to come this very moment to Him. The door of the dungeon has been opened by the mighty Son of God, and all you have to do is to march out into the light of day, and feast on the good things that the love of God has provided for the needy and the lost. Appropriate what His love provides.
Whom do the lepers find in the camp of the Syrians? Nobody, not an enemy to be seen. They go into a tent, and what do they get? A good big loaf, and a nice bottle of water. They eat and drink. That is what the sinner needs―bread and water―the bread of life, and the water of life―and Christ declares: “I am the bread of life; he that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.” Come to Jesus, and your hunger shall be met, and your thirst satisfied forever, for He says: “He that drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him, shall be in him a well of water, springing up into everlasting life.”
“And when these lepers came to the uttermost part of the camp, they went into one tent, and did eat and drink, and carried thence silver, and gold, and raiment, and went and hid it; and came again, and entered into another tent, and carried thence also, and went and hid it” (vs. 8). The lepers eat and drink till they begin to feel satisfied, and then enrich themselves. They had not had such a meal forever so long. And when their hunger and thirst are satisfied, what next? Why, here is a bag of gold, and there a bag of silver; and as for clothes, they never saw such garments in their lives. So they load themselves with silver, and gold, and raiment, and go and hide their treasures. They were not only saved, but enriched. God not only pardons the sinner, but He enriches him, makes him His child, and gives him a place in Christ. Silver, in Scripture, typifies redemption; gold, divine righteousness; and the raiment tells of fitness for God’s presence. Christ answers to them all, as it is written, “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:3030But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: (1 Corinthians 1:30)). The moment I come to the Saviour, I not only get my need met, and the hunger of my soul satisfied, but all that God can give me I find wrapped up in the person of Christ, and I appropriate it.
The attractiveness of the gospel is this: that God having sent His Son into the world, and Christ having accomplished the work of redemption, the testimony of the Holy, Ghost now goes out on every hand: “Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely.” Christ is the bread of God that came down from heaven, that a man should eat thereof and not die: but that could not be till He had died, and risen again. But now that He has died, and risen again, you and I are called on to eat and drink, to take that which God provides. In Revelation 21 The Lord declares, “I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely” (vs. 6); and in Revelation 22 we read, “Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (vs. 17). I will give freely, says the Lord; let the thirsty take as freely. There is God’s side, and your side. He gives; you have only to take and enjoy. I said to a man the other night, “I will give you a book.” “Will you?” he replied. I gave it to him; and when it was in his hand, he asked me, “When am I to return it?” “Never,” I said; “it is yours. If I give you a book, you take it, and it is yours. When God makes you a present of His Son, and His salvation, what have you to do? Simply to take it.” He saw the simile, and was helped.
These four lepers were very wise men, I think. They ate and drank, and carried forth gold, and silver, and raiment. They possessed in figure what God gives us in the gospel. Christ Himself is our redemption, our righteousness, and our raiment. Believers have put on Christ. You must stand either in Adam, or in Christ. If you are in Adam, you are on your road to hell; if you are in Christ, you are on your road to glory. Do not forget this, that a Christian is a man who has a title to glory without a flaw, and a prospect before him without a cloud. The title is the blood of Jesus, and the prospect is going to be with Him forever. What can compare with that? There is nothing in the world like it, and it may be yours now, my friend, if you will in simple faith turn to Christ.
After these lepers have got their own need satisfied, and have become enriched, they begin to think of others: “Then they said one to another, We do not well: this day is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace: if we tarry till the morning light, some mischief will come upon us: now therefore come, that we may go and tell the king’s household.” They want everybody else to know what they have got for themselves. Sometimes people ask me, Why do you preach the gospel? Well, simply because I cannot help it. It is a joy to share what fills one’s own heart with gladness. The blessing is so great, and so sweet, that, when you have it, you will want everybody else to know it. Conversion is truly contagious: if it gets into a house, it is apt to spread all through it. Each blessed one wants to communicate the, blessing to his fellow.
So the lepers wake up the porter, and the porter tells the king’s household (verses 10-12). What is the news? There is plenty of food outside, and nobody to hinder you from getting it. Oh, says the king, in his wisdom, I do not believe that: I will tell you what it is: these Syrians are very crafty: “they know we be hungry,” and they have laid a trap for us: they have gone to hide in the field, and when we come out, they will catch us alive, and get into the city. God was going to relieve, these poor starving Samaritans in the moment of their deepest need, and the king thought the news too good to be true: he could not take it in.
What did the king do? He did what many people are doing today: he sent out scouts. He could not believe the good news. And yet there were those four leprous men, with beaming faces, well fed, clothed, and happy, bearing witness to what they had found outside the city. They could each say, I got my hunger appeased, and my thirst quenched; I am rich, and I am satisfied; there is abundance left; and there is not a single soul in the camp to hinder you from getting the same as I have, for God has swept all our foes out of the field. Ah, I do not believe that, says the king; the enemies are still there, they are only hiding. At this juncture one of the king’s servants says, Let us take some of those starving horses, and send a couple of scouts to see whether it be true or not. Happy idea, says the king, we will have the country scoured (verses 13-15). Away they go all the way to Jordan―some fifty miles. It took them, I suppose, six hours to go, and the same to return, so that they put of their blessing by about twelve hours at any rate.
People now are doing just the same thing. They do not believe God’s good news. They do not believe that God is giving salvation without money and without price. But, thank God, there are some who will believe it. Do you believe that God loved you enough to give His own Son for you, and that Christ has died for you? The moment you believe that, God gives you the salvation of your soul.
The scouts go off all the way to Jordan, and the people are waiting anxiously to hear the news. They had heard the truth hours before from the lepers, but they did not receive it: they were not the authorized, recognized heralds: but when these tired-out messengers come back, they just confirm the message of the lepers, and out go the people to find the reality for themselves. “And the people went out, and spoiled the tents of the Syrians. So a measure of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the Lord” (vs. 16). This is what souls have said to me often: I have been all my life in darkness, and now when I have come to the Saviour, I find it exactly as it was told: I have been all these years without salvation, and peace, through unbelief.
And now see the doom of the doubting lord. The word of the prophet came true. The king appointed this lord to be over the gate, and the people in their hurry to get to the food trod upon him, so that he died―died in sight of the relief that had come to the beleaguered city. The fate of the unbeliever is always dreadful. He had said: “Behold, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, might this thing be?” And the servant of God answered solemnly: “Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof.”
Now, my unbelieving friend, dwelling in your cold skepticism, untouched, unregenerate, and saying, I do not believe a man can be saved that way, beware lest this come upon you, to see God’s salvation with thine eyes, and yet have no share in it. By-and-by, when the Lord returns, and gathers up His own into glory, then, if still in unbelief, you will know, when it is too late, that the gospel was true, and that the way of salvation was plain, and simple; that it was not to him that worketh, but to him that believeth, that salvation came by the free sovereign grace of God. But, alas! it will be too late: “Thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof.” I do not doubt that as the sacks of flour passed through the gate, this hungry lord said to himself, “I shall have my turn presently.” But he did not get his turn: he died under the judgment of God in the very sight of salvation, “for the people trode upon him in the gate, and he died” (vs. 20). Oh, do not you be like him; turn to God, believe in Jesus, and get God’s salvation now.
“O say, hast thou been to the Saviour,
Who life everlasting will give?
He asks nothing hard of thee, sinner,
‘Tis only to trust Him, and live!”
W. T. P. W.