Which Way to Pray?

Some years ago I was in the Middle East and wanted to purchase a Persian rug. From a previous trip I already had a nice large area rug, so I was just looking for a small throw rug. I picked one out, rolled it up, and brought it home. When I unrolled it, I unexpectedly tripped over something. Upon inspection, there was a small compass strategically glued to one end of the rug. I realized that it wasn’t just a Persian rug, it was a prayer rug, and the compass was meant to help a person kneeling on it find the direction to the Kaaba in Mecca, the location to which Muslims pray (Here’s a random fact: if you really wanted to pray toward Mecca from most places in the world, you’d pray downwards through the earth…unless we believe that prayers are affected by gravity and circumnavigate the globe).

I removed the compass and put that rug to work as a throw rug, but to this day there is still some glue residue in that spot. The real residue was the thought that stuck in my mind that day: Why don't Christians still pray in a certain direction?

After all, Daniel prayed in a certain direction from his exile in Persia,

When Daniel knew [that the document making prayer to anyone other than Darius illegal] had been signed, he went to his house where he had the windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously. ~ Daniel 6:10 (emphasis mine)

Unlike Muslims, Daniel had a reason for praying toward Jerusalem. This was where the temple had been, and where God made his dwelling place on earth. When this temple was dedicated something interesting happened, while this was the dwelling place of God on earth, Solomon did not pray toward the temple, he “knelt on his knees in the presence of all the assembly of Israel and spread out his hands toward heaven…” (2 Chronicles 6:13, emphasis mine). Despite the dwelling place of God being with men, and the temple being completed, Solomon still prayed toward heaven.

Further he said, “Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less this house that I have built” (2 Chronicles 6:18), but then he said something that explained Daniel’s directional prayer,

Yet have regard to the prayer of your servant and to his plea, O Lord my God, listening to the cry and to the prayer that your servant prays before you, that your eyes may be open day and night toward this house, the place where you have promised to set your name, that you may listen to the prayer that your servant offers toward this place. And listen to the pleas of your servant and of your people Israel, when they pray toward this place. And listen from heaven your dwelling place, and when you hear, forgive. ~ 2 Chronicles 6:19-20 (emphasis mine, Compare 1 Kings 8:30-48)

It wasn’t until Solomon finished his prayer that God filled the temple,

As soon as Solomon finished his prayer, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple. ~ 2 Chronicles 7:1 (emphasis mine)

Others who prayed toward Jerusalem were Jonah even from the belly of a fish (Jonah 2:4,7) and David when the temple of God was still just a tabernacle (Psalm 5:7).

But those who prayed fervently but without a physical direction include Nehemiah (Nehemiah 1:4-6), Ezekiel (Ezekiel 1:1-3), and Jeremiah (Lamentations 3:55-57), and most importantly, Jesus.

When Jesus visited Samaria there was a pile of rubble on top of Mount Gerizim and the temple on Mount Zion (in Jerusalem) had been rebuilt by Zerubbabel and renovated/expanded by Herod (which is why we call it “Herod’s temple”, I still call it “Zerubbabel’s temple”). Yet the Samaritans still insisted that Gerizim was the proper place to worship God. A Samaritan woman saw her chance to ask a prophet which mountain was the right mountain: “Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but y’all say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship” (John 4:20, y’all is the proper translation of her question, implying that Judeans (the country surrounding Jerusalem), not just Jesus, said that Zion was the location of God’s temple). Jesus answered,

The hour is coming when neither on this mountain (Gerizim) nor in Jerusalem (Zion) will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews (an abbreviated way to say Judeans). But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. ~ John 4:21-24

Jesus’ answer is clear, the proper place to pray to the Father is not location or direction dependent, it’s from the inward places: in spirit and truth. When I teach this to kids I point to the heart, “in spirit and,” I point to the head, “in truth."

In the Daniel account it’s easy to see why Daniel would pray toward Jerusalem. Or is it? To make it complicated, in Ezekiel 10 the glory of the Lord had departed from the temple, we call it “ichabod” or literally, “The Glory Has Departed” (the “i” is a negation of “chabod” or glory). So God no longer lived in Solomon’s temple…and there was no Solomon’s temple. Solomon’s temple had been burned not too long after the event of ichabod. This was some four decades before Daniel would pray in that direction. It is almost guaranteed that Daniel was familiar with those two events, yet he still prayed toward Jerusalem. Charles Spurgeon believed it was because Jerusalem was the symbol of God’s covenant promises, remembering God’s specific promises to restore his people, in another place he mentioned that Daniel had an expectation of a rebuilt temple. I believe Daniel knew the temple would be rebuilt because he prophesied that it would be destroyed again (Daniel 9:26), a prophecy that was fulfilled when Roman General Titus destroyed the temple in AD 70 and its stones were ripped one from another to access the gold that had flowed between them in a molten state (Matthew 24:2).

So while Daniel prayed toward Jerusalem, the time has come and is now here where we don’t pray toward Jerusalem because it’s no longer where God lives. We worship him in spirit and in truth. His temple and dwelling place on earth is his church, made up of living stones, and while another temple will be built sometime in the future, it won’t be where God lives. Jews still pray towards the Temple Mount at the Wailing Wall, but Christians pray in a different direction.

So which way do we pray? We pray toward God, "Our God is in the heavens, he does whatever he pleases" (Psalm 115:3, emphasis mine). Psalm 121:1-2 say that when the Psalmist looked to the hills, he wondered, “Where does my help come from?” It’s not from earth or sky, it’s from the maker of these things! In another place it says, “To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens!” (Psalm 123:1, emphasis mine).

Jesus prayed for his disciples and all who would come to faith through their words by lifting up his eyes toward heaven (John 17:1). But David in Psalm 40:12 and 138:2, Ezra in Ezra 9:6, and the tax collector in Luke 18:13 looked down, in humility and shame. Why is that some would look up and others would look down?

Job 22:26 gives us the answer, that we delight ourselves in the Almighty and “lift up our faces to God.” We see the Israelites in the desert looking up, but not to heaven, toward a different object. Moses made a bronze serpent in the shape of the curse that was afflicting the wandering Israelites: if they’d look up, they would be healed and saved from the curse of their sin (Numbers 21:9). Jesus explicitly tells us that was a foreshadowing of him being lifted up on the cross (John 3:14-17), where we would would look to him, all the ends of the earth, and be saved (Isaiah 45:22).

When we pray we still hold to the example of that tax-collector, and humility is good, but it’s not the only way to pray. Often in the counseling room I’ll be actively and silently praying while listening to someone talk. It would be very distracting to bow my head right then and there. While driving it would be very inadvisable to close your eyes and bow your head. We walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7), but that doesn’t mean literally that we should be driving with our eyes closed. I learned long ago to give invitations for the whole man, “With every head raised, every eye open, no feet moving, and no music playing: God is ready to hear your prayer of repentance, he’ll meet you at your seat or the altar is open.”

The most important direction to pray is toward God. Hezekiah, when he was dying, turned away from men so that he could pray directly to God (2 Kings 20:2-3, Isaiah 38:2-3), the Israelites had to look away from Moses and the fiery snakes to look to the bronze serpent (Numbers 21:9), the Psalmist looked away from the hills to seek help from the Lord (Psalm 121:1-2). The author of Hebrews tells us to run the race looking to Jesus (Hebrews 12:1-2). Where does God dwell? He dwells in the heavens, but he also lives in you if you’ve been born again (John 14:17, 1 Corinthians 3:16, 2 Timothy 1:14). In humility I recommend head bowed and eyes closed, in exaltation I recommend head raised and eyes up. We know the cross is just a symbol, but beloved try praying while looking to the cross, which is both a horrid symbol of the curse and a glorious symbol of God’s love. Stuart Townend wrote, “Come see the cross where love and mercy meet!” (Psalm 85:10-11).

And what about facing people? We rarely lay hands on those we’re praying for, but Jesus and Paul didn’t hesitate to physically touch those they were praying for. I’m not a mystic (dabbling in mysteries) but I have to admit that there is something mystically wonderful in the laying on hands (compare 1 Timothy 4:14, 5:22) as well as lifting holy hands toward heaven (Nehemiah 8:6, Psalm 28:2, Psalm 63:4, Psalm 119:48, Psalm 134:2, Psalm 141:2, 1 Timothy 2:8, Hebrews 12:12).

When I and many other pastors give the benediction, we lift our hands in the direction of the congregation. This isn’t just tradition, this is following the example of Jesus, “He led [his disciples] out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them” (Luke 24:50, compare Leviticus 9:22).

Now here’s where I might take this a bit too far, but I don’t think there is any sin in it. Daniel prayed toward Jerusalem, toward a destroyed temple, toward a hope for the future, and toward a place where he longed for the Spirit of God to dwell again. If you have a loved one who is running from God, I think your heart can yearn for them by praying in their general direction. After all, what are they but an empty structure where God has no dwelling place (Ephesians 2:1-3)? Our great desire is that they may be saved (Romans 9:3, 10:1), that God would make his dwelling place among them and walk among them, and that he would be their God and they would be his people (2 Corinthians 6:16). The Prodigal Son’s father was looking in the direction whence his son might return (Luke 15:20). Pray that they would say like Emily Elliott, "O come to my heart, Lord Jesus, there is room in my heart for Thee."

Now, you don’t have to pray in their general or specific direction, especially if you don’t know where they are. The greatest place to approach is the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16). God knows where they are, even if they’re running, and it’s been rightly said (generally using Jonah 1:3 as an example), “God can hit a moving target.” So pray ultimately toward God for your wayward prodigal:

They can run from you, they can run from their upbringing, they can run from the church, they can run from God, but they can never run from your prayers. ~ Andrew van der Bijl

Paul concluded his list of spiritual warfare accoutrements with, “Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication” (Ephesians 6:18). Elsewhere we pray unceasingly (1 Thessalonians 1:2, 3:10, 5:17, 2 Thessalonians 2:17). Pray that God will direct their hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ (2 Thessalonians 3:5).

Our prayers can go where we cannot; there are no borders, no prison walls, no doors that are closed to us when we pray. ~ Andrew van der Bijl

So, all this to say, pray toward God. Pray toward his dwelling place, pray toward his Son, pray toward his Spirit. Pray looking up, pray looking down. Pray with eyes open beholding the horror of the cross, pray with eyes open in wonder beholding the empty cross because his work is finished and he is risen. Pray with eyes closed to shut out distractions, pray with head bowed to express your humility. Pray with hands lifted high, pray with hands laid on people (his temple on earth) within the church, pray toward the empty people you want God to indwell, pray towards the people filled with bitterness you want God to cleanse.

And above all, if you don’t know which direction to pray: Just pray.

Lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the Lord! ~ Psalm 134:2

Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven! ~ Lamentations 3:41

Jesus said to them, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” ~ John 14:6

And if, by some happenstance, you do pray in the wrong direction or way, know that both the Son and the Spirit are actively praying for you if you've repented of your sins and are fully trusting in Jesus Christ for your comfort and salvation, and their prayers are perfect (Romans 8:27, Hebrews 7:25), and the Father will hear you directly, in Jesus' name (John 16:26-27).

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Further Reading:

Better Chaplain Series – Pray for People

The Privilege of Prayer

Books Read - April-June 2026

Books I've listened to or read from April-June 2026 (contains Amazon Affiliate Links)

I've been busier than expected but I still worked through a lot of books, none were really ground breaking, but sometimes that's okay. I've been mainly reading from my local library, but that has introduced me to books and authors I wouldn't have looked at elsewhere; it's also limited me from reading some of my favorite authors. I'm going to start with the worst book because it was arguably the most important concept and one that is destroying Christianity as I write this.

Book that wasn't very good but made me think:

Total Forgiveness by R.T. Kendall - This one is tough because it honestly contains a lot of great things about the power of forgiveness, but it has one FATAL and DISASTROUS flaw. It may have been the pre-runner of Chris Brauns' wicked Unpacking Forgiveness or Vee Chandler's bitterness inducing Biblical Boundaries of Forgiveness. Honestly, most of Kendall's book is wonderful and focusing on God's amazing grace in total forgiveness. But where it fails is when talking about judging and withholding forgiveness. Kendall forgets that there is a Matthew 25:23-35 in the Bible and so he requires consequences instead of forgiveness; in Kendall's version of that story the servants (both of them) would have to be punished because there was a chance they would go out and defraud others. The problem with requiring repentance before forgiveness, besides it destroying the unforgiver with bitterness, that the Bible commands it (Colossians 3:13), and that Jesus forgave before repentance (Luke 22:32, Luke 23:34), is that it sets up an arbitrary measurement of repentance that no perpetrator can ever attain. Vee Chandler gives an example of a circumstance where a perpetrator goes public about their sin, quits their job, and leaves the state, and only then the victim would forgive them. Can you imagine Jesus requiring that of those he forgives? If you leave the measurement of repentance in the victim's hands, then you will make them twice the sons of hell as yourself. I hate to be so harsh on this book, because a good bit of it was really good and helpful, but there is a scourge in Christianity destroying relationships and souls and locking people into bitterness, and Total Forgiveness helps to condemn people by not not encouraging Total Forgiveness. The Bible is exceedingly clear on forgiveness, and what Kendall, Brauns, Chandler and others (Teasi Cannon will soon contribute a book to this newer heresy) are peddling is not it.

Books that were okay and made me think:

I, Robot by Isaac Asimov - As the world gets closer to being inundated by A (There is no I in Artificial Intelligence), it was interesting to be part of a book club that was reading this book published in 1950. Asimov saw many of the challenges coming, such as people falling in love with robots, abandoning human relationships, and robots having competing and broken constraints. I'm leaving it in this sections instead of higher because Asimov's interaction with deity and conscience were almost non-existent (except as jokes or plot filler), which is honestly the most important part of the future of A. More than anything else, this book helped me to become disillusioned with the failure that is A and to hope to publish more articles and works in the futures on the Christian response to A.

Appetite for America: Fred Harvey and the Business of Civilizing the Wild West One Meal at a Time by Stephen Fried - Having grown up seeing Fred Harvey busses all over my hometown, I realized I had no idea what the name meant. I actually know where there is a scrapped Fred Harvey bus still visible to the public. In reading this book I hoped to learn more about Fred Harvey, and I was pleasantly surprised to learn many other things about the Southwest from this book. Fried traces the rise and fall of Fred Harvey the brand, starting with Fred Harvey the man. The research is impeccable and the storytelling is for the most part good. Fried took this opportunity to provide smaller biographies and vignettes throughout the book, some interesting, and some wearisome. I'm listing it as just "ok" as there is no real moral to the story; maybe Fried wanted us to find our own moral in it, and it was clear to me that building a brand is no way to build a legacy. Fried also spent a bit of time glorifying criminals, malcontents, and prostitutes that wasn't super helpful to the forward movement of the story. My favorite part was the debate over building a hotel on the edge of the Grand Canyon and how it almost was a massive eye-sore until cooler heads and a president intervened; that hotel, the El Tovar, to this day is one of the most beautiful buildings in the world.

Books that were good and made me think:

He Chose the Nails by Max Lucado - Lucado focuses on the sovereignty of God in the death of Jesus. The title is better than the book, but the book is good enough. The absolute best part of the book was the point that when Jesus nailed to the cross, he could look and see a lot of things, the nails, the cross, the Romans, the crowd, but he could also see the hand of God nailed to that cross. Lucado also mentions the sovereignty of when Pontius Pilate nailed a sign above Jesus head which likely contributed to the salvation of the thief to Christ's right.

Leading Character by Dan B. Allender - Allender focuses on the most important thing in any leadership role being character, not ability. It was a great reminder to serve the Lord Christ rather than men, to not be afraid of "public sanctification", and the fact that every person has unique giftings and failings and that God is working in both.

The Elephant and the Dragon by Robyn Meredith - Similarly to how I was hoping to understand Artificial Intelligence better, I was also wondering about the meteoric rise of China out of the 1990s to where they are today. An older book, The Elephant and the Dragon examines the growth of China and India up until 2008 (when it was published), and while I focused more on China, it was interesting to learn about India's similar growth. With many good insights, the primary take-away is that China has grown to where they are by modifying their socialism into a form of authoritative capitalism, and Meredith introduced me to the idea that helped China out of Maoism: If you come to a fork in the road with Communism to the left and Capitalism to the right, signal left and turn right. I was shocked by the inflation under Mao where many provinces were required to pay more in taxes than they even made, all because of overinflated reporting to try to impress Mao and others. My favorite part about the book was that it made me see Indians and Chinese as people attempting to thrive in life, not as nameless foreigners or enemies or competitors, and it would be a good idea for Christians to read this book so that we can see them as people in desperate need of a Saviour.

The Kill Chain by Christian Brose - I read this for work and it was helpful from a chaplain standpoint that everyone in a military or a society or an organization or a church is in a valuable place to contribute. Brose focuses on the many moving pieces that are required to complete a "Kill Chain" where the mission is accomplished. Take a moment to consider which is more important? The pilot who flies the plane or the person who fixes it? The person who fires the ammunition or the person who ensures the ammunition is reliable? The army or the people who feed the army? The person sending the email or the people who make sure the network delivers emails? Brose helped me to see a concept I already knew about, but now I understand more clearly, every single piece of an organization is vital to its success, and we can't imagine ourselves as individual heroes, but as a body that is able to accomplish a mission if and only if we're working together.

The Bible Jesus Read by Philip Yancey - Yancey helped me understand that the battle for the Old Testament has been raging for far longer than the lifetime of my ministry. I love how Yancey frames the message that Jesus wouldn't have read the New Testament, because it hadn't been written yet. The little vignettes of Job, Deuteronomy, the Psalms, Ecclesiastes, and the Prophets were short but helpful. Christian, if you're not reading the Old Testament, you're not reading the very Bible the Jesus read.

The End of Reason by Ravi Zacharias - A little dated now, this book looks at the arguments of famous atheists of about twenty years ago. Many of their arguments have fizzled and died, as expected, but Zacharias has a wonderful way of pointing his answers to eternal truths, and so it is still an encouraging book, though you're unlikely to find a Sam Harris follower or Christopher Hitchens groupie to try these arguments out on.

Books that were great and made me think:

What's So Amazing about Grace by Philip Yancey - I said I'd read it again, and I did. I've sung the song, I've read the book, I've seen grace be amazing in a million ways, and yet I continually need that reminder. The real life examples Yancey gives are miraculous and wonderful, and it brings immense joy to my heart that there are billions of other stories just like them, some of them actively happening in my life. Christian, if you don't know how amazing grace is, or you need a reminder, this book will rock your world and motivate you to take Christ to a lost and dying world!

The Grand Weaver by Ravi Zacharias - Zacharias takes the imagery of master clothing weavers in India making masterpieces while their young sons work behind the scenes and don't see the progress. He ties it together that God is working all things for good to those who love him and are called according to his purpose. The worst thing that might be happening to a believer may be the best thing that could be happening, they just don't see it yet, or how it is playing together in God's grand design. The ultimate call is to trust God's wisdom, power, and plan, and this book brought me a lot of comfort.

Absolute Surrender by Andrew Murray - I read this book at the recommendation of a friend and I was greatly blessed. We don't realize how many things we're holding onto while feigning submission to God, and Murray helps to release our entire lives, fortunes, and eternities to the one who loved us so much as to surrender his own will to save a people who he then calls to surrender their wills. I hope to read this book again in the near future with friends or family.

Humility by Andrew Murray - I'm sure I read this classic many years ago, but it was a blessing to reread it and be reminded that Christ must increase and I must decrease. I've linked to a different copy than I read because my version had all of the Bible verses switched over to the NIV, so they didn't match Murray's thoughts, and it had quotes at the beginning of every chapter, some good, and some from mystical heretics with highly questionable beliefs. I won't detract from Murray for this, because he didn't do it, some other publisher thought tampering with it was a good idea. My favorite and most impactful part was that the true test of your humility is how you treat and serve others.

Repentance: What it Means to Repent and Why We Must Do So by J.C. Ryle - Ryle has been one of my favorite authors for a good long while, so it was to my shame that I've never read this book. An old friend recommended it and I actually read it twice (it's quite short). Ryle points out that repentance is absolutely necessary as "Heaven is a prepared place, and those who go to heaven must be a prepared people." He encourages believers to know what sin is, sorrow over it, confess it, forsake it, and hate it. His examples of King David and the thief on the cross drive home the thought. And I found a quote I'd been looking for for a long time about repentance at the last moment, or as Ryle calls it, "Late repentance": "One thief was saved that no man might despair, but only one, that no man might presume." The kingdom of heaven is at hand, the time is fulfilled, let us repent of our sins and trust in Christ!

Book that I wrote that I think is pretty good:

Seeking the Cure, Finding the Christ by Canyon Shearer - I wrote this book after I was greatly encouraged preaching through the story of Naaman and the seven people who helped him find God, and greatly discouraged by the tragedy of Gehazi's greed. I also wanted, like Yancey's The Bible Jesus Read, to help believers see the depth and beauty of the Old Testament and to lay a firm foundation for the joy that is revealed in the promised Messiah who is able to wash away our sin and shame. I released this entire book on this blog if you're interested, start at chapter 1: Irredeemable.

Conclusion - Seeking the Cure, Finding the Christ

This post is a chapter from the book, Seeking the Cure, Finding the Christ, which is the book version of multiple sermons preached from 2022 to 2025. Since this book was meant to bless the church I am also making it available on this blog.

• Irredeemable
• Naaman the Leper
• The Servant Girl
• Naaman's Wife
• The King of Syria
• The King of Israel
• Elisha
• Elisha's Servant
• Naaman's Servants
• Naaman the Cleansed
• Gehazi
• Jesus
• Still Working
• Conclusion

Conclusion

There is a lost and dying world full of men like Naaman who will perish in their sins unless someone tells them of Jesus, mighty to save. Your call is to be one part of their redemption. I’m not proposing some magical formula of seven touches to salvation; for some it is far fewer and others it requires many more. However many it takes, God uses human beings to publish his peace and redemption to the world.

What a blessing it is to be used as an instrument of redemption in the master’s hand. Don’t make excuses:

The Israelite Girl was too little and too young.

Naaman’s Wife had been hurt one too many times.

Ben-Hadad had burned too many bridges.

Jehoram didn’t even know God.

Elisha was too busy and too important.

Elisha’s Servant hadn’t graduated seminary yet.

Naaman’s Servants only knew one verse.

If they didn’t make excuses, neither should you; God has put you where you are to be a faithful ambassador. Maybe you’re not as famous or fruitful as you’d like to be. Some of the most famous men of the first century were Paul and Apollos, yet look at how Paul addresses their fame:

What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. ~ 1 Corinthians 3:5–7

I believe in heaven we’ll be enthralled as we are able to continuously hear the intricacies of the interweaving of testimonies and how God used unremarkable people and events to change eternal destinies. Will someone say to you, “Because you prayed for me I had the boldness to go talk to this person sitting next to me?” Or will a tribulation in your life that seemed to have no heavenly purpose be linked to your future faithfulness that put you in just the right place to share just the right verse?

People talk about the glories of heaven as the streets of gold, gates of pearl, and walls of precious stones, and I do look forward to that, but so much more I want to hear how God has used you and I to seek his lost sheep and shine his light to the world. If you want to find me in heaven, I’ll be somewhere on the right side of the throne listening to testimony after testimony while I praise my Saviour through it all. I know we’ll sing a new song in heaven, but I’d be content to just sing Hallelujah, What a Saviour (also known as Man of Sorrows) by Philip Bliss:

“Man of sorrows!” what a name
For the Son of God who came
Ruined sinners to reclaim!
Hallelujah, what a Savior!

Guilty, vile and helpless we,
Spotless Lamb of God was He;
Full atonement! can it be?
Hallelujah, what a Savior!

And I expect the best part will be when the Holy Spirit will fill in all of the details that we could not possibly imagine here on earth. I once led a man to Christ who called my office phone number on New Year’s Day; I should not have been in the office, but I had just stopped by before I officiated a wedding. I’m so thankful I was in the right place to answer that desperate caller. He sought hope in a hopeless situation and God blessed me to help him find salvation in Christ.

On another occasion I counseled a man in the evening because it was the only time that worked with his schedule. As we concluded well after dark and were walking to the parking lot, I was surprised to find another man sitting in the lobby hoping to talk. He had been on his way to commit suicide at a lake near my office when he saw the lights on in the chapel and had the random thought, “I wonder what God thinks about what I’m about to do?”

I try not to stay at work late or work on holidays so that I can spend that time with my family, but on both of those occasions God had me right where I was supposed to be. Some of my hardest and most uncomfortable situations have led to the greatest ministry opportunities.

I pray regularly, “Lord, give us the words to speak, the boldness to speak them, and the people to speak them to.” Why would God use us to publish his peace to the world? Because his Word is the word of life, whether it be spoken by Jesus himself, an angel from heaven, or just a nobody trying to tell everybody about somebody who can save anybody.

God uses unlikely people.
He uses flawed people.
He uses failing people.
He uses sinful people,
because if he didn't,
He wouldn't have any people to use. ~ John MacArthur

Beloved, are you a faithful servant to your master? When he calls you to speak, do you speak? Are you loving the people he’s put in your life? Are you part of their story as they’re part of your story as they are part of Christ’s story?

If the gospel be not preached, Christ is, as it were, buried. Therefore, let us stand as witnesses and do him this honor. ~ John Calvin

Above all else, make sure that you don’t miss Jesus in this story or your story. He is still mighty to save, no matter your malady and sin. If you’ll seek him, I guarantee you’ll find him when you seek him with all of your heart.

I can’t guarantee healing from leprosy, but I can guarantee cleansing from sin, because my God is living and able to cleanse from all unrighteousness.

Previous - Still Working

Still Working - Seeking the Cure, Finding the Christ

This post is a chapter from the book, Seeking the Cure, Finding the Christ, which is the book version of multiple sermons preached from 2022 to 2025. Since this book was meant to bless the church I am also making it available on this blog.

• Irredeemable
• Naaman the Leper
• The Servant Girl
• Naaman's Wife
• The King of Syria
• The King of Israel
• Elisha
• Elisha's Servant
• Naaman's Servants
• Naaman the Cleansed
• Gehazi
• Jesus
• Still Working
• Conclusion

Still Working

How will you apply these principles? Who do you identify with most in this story? Let’s do a quick review of some of the things that God is calling you to; surely this list is not comprehensive, so don’t limit your response to just my insights. The questions are largely rhetorical, but it would be helpful to answer them with a friend.

Naaman

Are you irredeemable like Naaman? Are you convinced by scripture and conscience that your sins and maladies will keep you out of the kingdom of heaven, but if you’ll come to the Lord Christ, you can be washed whiter than snow (Isaiah 1:18). While leprosy, sin, and unrighteousness and all of their associated titles will keep you from being redeemed, a better promise exists for those who will repent of their sins and put their trust in Christ,

And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. ~ 1 Corinthians 6:11

Joseph Hart, alluding to Psalm 109:31, Hebrews 7:25, and John 6:37 among others summarizes the promise,

Come, ye sinners, poor and needy,
weak and wounded, sick and sore,
Jesus ready stands to save you,
full of pity, love, and power.

Whether your sin was inherited, foisted upon you, or if you dove headlong into it and are reaping the consequences, the truth is that the blood of Jesus cleanses from all unrighteousness. Redemption is available and freely offered.

Be like Naaman and seek the cure while it may be found, and may you, like he, find that knowing the healer is infinitely more valuable than obtaining the cure.

The Slave Girl

Can you identify with that little slave girl? Through no fault of your own you are suffering and God has sent you into exile in a foreign land. Here you have no lasting city, the people speak a strange and vulgar language, and you know that your home is a long way off. Will you seek to be a blessing to the city and people you’re in exile with? Can you sing Keith and Kristyn Getty’s song Jesus, Draw Me Ever Nearer,

Jesus draw me ever nearer
As I labor through the storm
You have called me to this passage
And I’ll follow, though I’m worn

May this journey, bring a blessing
May I rise on wings of faith
And at the end of my heart’s testing
With your likeness let me wake.

It may appear that you are insignificant, lost, and hopeless in a foreign land, but if you know the Lord you know that he will be with you, he will be a light unto you, and he will use you to light a world full of darkness. John called Jesus to be the light of men (John 1:4–5), then Jesus claimed that title for himself (John 8:12, 9:5), but amazingly he called you, dear Christian, the light of the world (Matthew 5:14). Will you hide your light under a basket? Or will you let it shine? Isaiah 60:1–3 is clearly about the promised Messiah shining on the whole world, but it’s just open enough that we see we get to reflect his light and have that passage fulfilled in us as we shine light on a lost and dying world.

Ensure you have a personal relationship with the God of the world, but don’t let it be so personal that those around you don’t benefit from it. Worship God in your heart, but show that he is worthy by publishing his peace to the world!

Will we offer our lives, or just the songs we have sung? ~ Billy and Cindy Foote

Naaman’s Wife

Do you need to put aside your bitterness and contention to help someone who doesn’t deserve to be helped? To love someone who is unlovable?

Humble yourself to be discipled by someone who knows more about love and forgiveness than you do. Seek the highest and best usefulness of the people around you, even if you don’t like them and especially if you don’t think they deserve it.

Even as the angry vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help to forgive him…Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me your forgiveness. And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on his. When he tells us to love our enemies, he gives along with the command, the love itself. ~ Corrie Ten Boom

Who can you love today who is unlovable? Wife, you might start with your husband. Husband, you might start with your wife. But don’t stop there.

The King of Syria

Someone on this planet needs you to spend and be spent to move them closer to Jesus. What resources has God entrusted to you for their sake?

Someone needs an urgency and an exhortation because they are presuming on God’s grace and they think that someday they’ll get right with God. Who can you remind that tonight their soul might be required of them?

Someone needs an advocate to speak up for them. Who can you be a voice for today? Who can you help on their journey to be the person God’s desires them to be? How many young preachers are hindered because no one will lend them a pulpit or a recommendation?

God doesn’t need your good works, but your neighbor does. ~ Martin Luther

The King of Israel

Does anyone think you think you’re God? Humble yourself today to declare, not deny, but declare, that Jesus Christ is the true God and Saviour; the only name given under heaven by which we must be saved.

Help people on their journey to meet him, don’t stand in their way. Don’t offer false salvation or false hope, even if you don’t know the true hope of humanity.

When you and I are nothing, God is all; and when we are empty, there is room for God to fill us. ~ Charles Spurgeon

Elisha

Be found faithful in the work that Christ has prepared beforehand for you to walk in. Sometimes that work will be monumental, and other times it will feel small.

A small thing is a small thing, but faithfulness in a small thing is a great thing. ~ Hudson Taylor

Be faithful if you’re called to witness to the leading general of a foreign nation, and be faithful if you’re making unnamed disciples or helping to build a house.

If you cannot honor God in your shop, or in your kitchen, or in your daily work, you will not honor Him anywhere else. ~ Charles Spurgeon

Do you have a grasp of the needs of your community? Be that the world, the nation, the state, the city or the neighborhood? Do you know how to pray for your neighbors and coworkers? Have they heard about the cleansing and saving work of Jesus? Who is going to tell them?

Are you buying the truth and not selling it? Can you say the following verse faithfully with the Apostle Paul?

I coveted no one’s silver or gold or apparel. ~ Acts 3:6

Elisha’s Servant

You have been entrusted to deliver the message of eternal life, to proclaim that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through him. Are you faithfully proclaiming this message? Are you an ambassador of the king? Is the king pleased with your message and how you’re handling his word? Have you kept quiet where you should have spoken? Have you spoken where you should have been quiet?

When you were sent, did you go?

If faith comes by hearing, who have you told? ~ Aaron Johnson

Naaman’s Servants

Are you a peacemaker or a peacebreaker? Are you encouraging people to trust and obey the promises of God? Or are you helping them to get mad at people and embittered towards God?

How many Bible verses do you know? Are you putting them to work? The men only knew one Bible verse, but they put it to work, and we’re still talking about it nearly three thousand years later.

Have you moved people closer to salvation and God?

Gehazi

What sorts of things are drawing your affections away from the living Christ?

Are the things you’re living for worth Christ dying for? ~ Leonard Ravenhill

Which weights and sins have clung so closely and have stopped or slowed your race? How can you cut them free today?

Think about the last time you fell into grievous sin; did you repent immediately? What might keep you from repentance and seeking the cleansing power of Jesus? What does it profit a man to gain the riches of the world and contract leprosy? What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?

He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. ~ Jim Elliott

God can use you in spite of your sin; he can use you as a bad example, or as a witness to the miracles he is performing. You can Know that he is mighty to save and still not repent or seek his blessings.

Don’t perish having read this book or your Bible and hearing the redemptive message meant to make you wise for salvation in Christ Jesus (2 Timothy 3:15). If God can save Naaman, if God can save me, then God can save you. But unless you repent, you will perish like Gehazi and Judas.

Jesus

Notice that none of these people pretended to be the savior. There is one Saviour, and we are not him. We needed a perfect man to make peace between us and God, we needed God in the flesh to sanctify us from all unrighteousness, and we needed a mediator to intercede for us continually. Jesus of Nazareth stepped out of heaven bear our sins, suffering and scorn, and to lay down his life so he could take it back up again.

Because he lives, he is able to save to the guttermost all those who draw near to him in faith. He is able to wash us whiter than snow, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. He is able to make us new, and he is even able to use us in our afflictions.

For all of these reasons it seems impossible to emulate Jesus. We’ll just be still and know that he is God (Isaiah 46:10).

But beloved, you are called to look like and act like him (1 Corinthians 11:1, Romans 8:29). Let’s start with the fact that there are communicable (attributes we can imitate) and incommunicable (attributes that belong only to God), so don’t try to be God or the Saviour or the Holy Spirit in someone’s life: point them to the Father, Son, and Spirit who are able to fulfill those roles perfectly. They must increase, and we must decrease.

But beloved, we can seek and save the lost, we can bring his healing to the world, and we can love the unlovable. If it costs something to see someone redeemed, pay that price. If it requires time to love someone, spend it. If this kind can only be cast out by prayer and fasting, then pray and fast! If somebody might have to die to take the message to a lost and dying world, then be that somebody. Perhaps you’ve come into the kingdom for just such a time as this.

Go for sinners, and go for the worst. ~ William Booth

Ross King wrote a wonderful song recently called Like Jesus, and in it he juxtaposes that many of the things Jesus did and said cost him dearly; if we are called imitate Jesus, then consider some of these lyrics.

I wanna be like Him when he tells the Pharisees the depth of their own sin.
But I don’t really wanna be like Jesus later when he dies for them.

I wanna be like Him knockin’ down those soldiers just by sayin’, “I am He.”
But not so much the part right after when He surrenders peacefully.

I refuse to pick and choose
the parts of Jesus that are easiest
to bow down to…

And finally beloved, what is your answer to that old hymn by E. A. Hoffman, Are You Washed in the Blood?

Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?
Are you fully trusting in his grace this hour?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?

Lay aside the garments that are stained with sin.
Oh be washed in the blood of the Lamb!
There’s a fountain flowing for the soul unclean.
Oh be washed in the blood of the Lamb!

If you’re not washed in the blood of the Lamb, I implore you, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, be reconciled to God!

Previous - Jesus         Next - Conclusion

Jesus - Seeking the Cure, Finding the Christ

This post is a chapter from the book, Seeking the Cure, Finding the Christ, which is the book version of multiple sermons preached from 2022 to 2025. Since this book was meant to bless the church I am also making it available on this blog.

• Irredeemable
• Naaman the Leper
• The Servant Girl
• Naaman's Wife
• The King of Syria
• The King of Israel
• Elisha
• Elisha's Servant
• Naaman's Servants
• Naaman the Cleansed
• Gehazi
• Jesus
• Still Working
• Conclusion

Jesus

If we only learn one thing from Naaman’s story it’s that our need is far greater than men’s ability to fix.

If our greatest need is food, we just need to work harder in agriculture and farming. If our greatest need is education and knowledge, then off to school we go. If it’s an earthly enemy, we only need advanced tactics and weapons. If it’s money, we just need the right career, or investment strategy, or rich friend. But there are certain needs on this earth that have long been incurable apart from God, and one that will remain so.

Leprosy and Sin

Leprosy was incurable until the 1940s. In the Old Testament you can count healed lepers on two fingers, and those were the very specific and clearly supernatural cases of Miriam and Naaman.

Leprosy is the perfect symbol for sin, it doesn’t kill immediately, it is not even the cause of death, it just helps you to descend deeper and deeper into pain and despair. The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10). The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). When sin is fully grown it brings forth death (James 1:15). The steps of temptation lead down to death and hell (Proverbs 5:5).

Not only will leprosy eventually lead to your demise, it is also highly contagious. It estranges you from people, and if and when you share it with your loved ones it will curse them as well. The author of Hebrews warns, “See to it…that no ‘root of bitterness’ springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled…” (Hebrews 12:15). God “will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation” (Exodus 34:7). Sin has defiled everything and everyone. Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned (Romans 5:12).

Leprosy is a vivid illustration of our spiritual need. Consider yourself before you knew Christ. If you’re reading this and don’t know Christ, especially pay attention to this next paragraph.

While your body may have looked intact, what did your soul look like? Truth be told, your heart and mine was and is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; compared to my heart a leper could win a beauty pageant. Can you think of anyone you hurt deeply? My life before Christ was littered with people I tore down and/or buttressed in their idolatry. I remember one girl in high school specifically I bullied to the point of tears. I can think of many other people that I encouraged to sin. I can think of friends who died far too young and I wonder why I didn’t care enough to reach out. The swath of destruction in my path before meeting the Lord Jesus Christ is horrendous and I proved the proverb, “in their paths are ruin and misery” (Romans 3:16, Isaiah 59:7).

Like leprosy, sin also destroys relationships. Jesus promised, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9). A leper, if he cares about his friends, is going to keep a vast distance from them to safeguard them. No more handshakes, no hugs, no pats on the back, no more handholding.

Because of the impurity of the heart, the sinner becomes a peacebreaker. Because of the impurity of the skin, the leper loses human connection. And the ultimate relationship that suffers is with God. Jesus also said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). This is mirroring the language from Psalm 24, as well as other verses, and it reminds us that heaven is holy, pure, undefiled, unstained, and perfect.

Imagine for a moment that the angels guarding the way to the tree of life were to let a leper through the gates. What would happen to heaven? Within days, if not moments, it wouldn’t be heaven any longer, it would be just like earth. No, it would be worse because of the distance it had fallen. Remember Penelope Judd from Shai Linne’s song? The angel bars the way when she approaches the door,

A huge angel answered, looked her up and down,
She knew something was wrong because he had a big frown,
‘Can I help you ma’am?’ ‘Yes, I’m here for the party!
I have invitation!’ He said, ‘I’m so sorry!
There’s no way that I can let you through these doors,
the King won’t let anyone dirty up His floors.’

How would you feel if you destroyed heaven? How would you feel if you were a leper and you knew that your carelessness had led to someone else contracting the disease? How much worse would you feel if you knew your example or inaction had led someone to hell for eternity?

Pain and Conviction

“Feel” might not be the right word, beloved, because what Hansen’s disease does is attack your nervous system. Often the damage you see done to a leper’s body is self-imposed, they cut themselves and don’t realize it, so no bandage was applied. They picked up a blazing hot pot from an oven with bare hands. They scratched their nose too hard and too often. They didn’t feel anything, but the damage was done. Dr. Paul Brand, world renowned leprosy physician said, “I cannot think of a better gift I could give my leprosy patients than pain.”

One of the great gifts God has given us is the gift of shame: of “feeling” and understanding that we are guilty and in need of forgiveness. Naaman had sought a cure for his skin condition, but in so doing he found what he really needed: a cure for his soul condition. Naaman’s leprosy ended up being the greatest thing that ever happened to him–eclipsed only by when his leprosy was healed and he met the living God. Jesus sent his promised Holy Spirit to convict us of sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:7–11).

What a joy when the Spirit shows us our need, because Jesus tells us, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17). John Newton put it this way,

‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
and grace my fears relieved.
How precious did that grace appear,
the hour I first believed.

Apart from God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, do you see the despair that a leper would feel? Hopeless, alone, shameful, destitute, forsaken by God and afflicted: irredeemable.

Hope and Healing from Heaven

But then the God of heaven chose to send his only begotten Son into the world. He prepared a body for him to wear–nothing majestic or noteworthy–and Jesus dwelt among us and faced our infirmities and understood our suffering.

And he touched lepers. He touched lepers regularly and on purpose. The bacteria that causes leprosy doesn’t care if you touch a leper on accident or on purpose, it is highly contagious and just cares about that opportunity for transfer.

Haggai backed the priests into a conundrum by asking if a holy garment could make food clean that was carried in it. The answer is obviously not. But what if that garment has been on or touched a dead body and food is carried in it? Then the food is obviously defiled (see Haggai 2:10–14). I wouldn’t want to eat it, and obviously neither would you, and God certainly wouldn’t accept it as holy. Men can defile everything, but they cannot make anything holy or acceptable.

But Jesus is about to turn that principle upside down, proving that he’s not just a good man, he is the holy God. When Moses approached the burning bush, God’s presence had made even the dirt holy (Exodus 3:4–5). When Isaiah’s unclean lips were touched by a coal from God’s altar, his lips were sanctified (Isaiah 6:6–7). And in the New Creation every cooking vessel will be just as holy as if it were set-apart solely for temple use (Zechariah 14:21).

Jesus remains holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens (Hebrews 7:26), despite touching lepers regularly and on purpose. When a woman with an incurable bleeding disorder touched him, he was not diminished though something magnificent happened, “Someone touched me, for I perceive that power has gone out from me.” His holiness and his power were infinite, and his ability to heal, redeem, and restore were likewise. The woman was healed in body and soul and Jesus was not defiled in the least (Luke 8:43–48).

Jesus did not have to touch people to heal them, he could say the word and they would be restored, made whole, and cleansed. A military commander had recognized this when he saw the authority in Jesus but was sure he was not worthy for Jesus to enter his house, so he asked Jesus to heal his servant from a distance, which Jesus promptly did (Matthew 8:5–13). J. C. Ryle summarized this story with, “Christ’s Word is as good as His presence.”

If Jesus didn’t have to be in close proximity to lepers, and he certainly didn’t have to touch them, then why did he? Couldn’t he have just said the word from his throne in heaven? Remember, no one touched lepers, they had felt no embrace nor no human warmth because their condition had cut them off from human interaction.

Even when they had the understanding as the military commander from above, and knew Jesus just need to say a word, he still touched them (Matthew 8:2–4). There were strict guidelines for what a leper was supposed to do after cleansing, found in Leviticus 14:2–32, but it had lain dormant and unused for thirteen-hundred years. If anyone needed proof that Jesus was the Messiah, this should have been it, that healing for leprosy had arrived. The healing of lepers was sent as a sign to John the Baptist as evidence that Jesus was indeed the promised Messiah (Matthew 11:5). There is no evidence that this passage had ever been obeyed by any leper or priest prior to Jesus beginning his ministry.

The Healing of Body and Soul

If leprosy, the incurable disease, was being cured, what else could be cured? Cancer, HIV/AIDS, dementia, diabetes, rabies; certainly, all of these and more could be healed by Jesus. This is a light thing in the sight of the Lord.

There is one tragic twist we must consider, illustrated when, near the end of his worldly ministry, Jesus approached ten lepers in a village near Samaria and they begged him to heal them. After he healed them, they went off rejoicing, but only one returned to worship him (Luke 17:11–19).

Remember, Naaman sought the cure and found the Christ. It is more than possible to receive the cure and miss the Christ, as evidenced by these nine lepers. We’ve previously considered medical doctor D. Martin Lloyd-Jones who left medicine because he wanted to see people truly saved and transformed, and not merely healed to go back to a life of sin. The miracle of modern medicine is healing bodies left and right while doing nothing for the soul. HIV was a death sentence just thirty years ago, but now with the right treatment it’s just a major inconvenience. What a shame that the body can be healed and the soul left untouched.

So how do we get to the point of healing soul and body? It’s not in taking care of people’s worldly needs, though there is certainly a place for charity. Naaman needed nothing of material value, and if he did need something, he would not have asked the Israelites. God is in the practice of using all things for good to see his saints saved, he’s not willing that even a single one of them should perish, but that they would all come to repentance. God is using all things? All things. Even leprosy? Even leprosy. Remember,

Naaman was as great as the world could make him, and yet the basest slave in Syria would not change skins with him. ~ Matthew Henry

The Great Exchange

I don’t often argue with Matthew Henry, but I have to make an exception: someone did switch places with Naaman.

Paul tells us, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21) and “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us…” (Galatians 3:13).

Peter tells us, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24). And Isaiah drives the point home,

Surely he has borne our griefs
    and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
    smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
    and with his wounds we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
    we have turned–every one–to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all. ~ Isaiah 53:4–6

Jesus loved Naaman in this way, that he went to a Roman cross to be abandoned by God and men, to face the full consequences of sin and to pay the wages of sin, so that we can receive eternal life in him (Romans 6:23). Surely the thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy, but Jesus came to give life and life abundantly (John 10:10). Horatius Bonar illustrates the great exchange this way,

Upon a life I did not live, upon a death I did not die, I stake my whole eternity.

For reasons that I cannot comprehend, God loved Naaman and chose to save him despite his sins and idolatry. I find it equally perplexing that only Naaman was healed of leprosy in the days of Elisha. God’s hand was not shortened, but like Gehazi they would not seek the cure or the God who heals.

Zechariah promised a day of mourning was coming and that “On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness” (Zechariah 13:1). That day happened two thousand years ago, and that fountain is still open and cleansing today. Jesus doesn’t just cleanse the outside, he washes us in our inward parts, he makes our hearts new, he transforms our souls, he makes us new creations. He works in his greatest enemies, he worked in the Syrians, he worked in the Assyrians, he worked in the Babylonians, and chiefest of all, he works in you and I.

A leper was hopeless, but you can be a leper and know God intimately and have an expectation of eternal healing. A sinner is more hopeless, they are without God in the world and have no hope of redemption in themselves. Take a moment to consider the worst, most debased, most hopeless, most irredeemable sinner you know…maybe they’re looking at you in the mirror, and know that God is able to cleanse them, even them, from sin.

Now there are some incurable diseases, but sin is not one of them! ~ S. M. Lockridge

Washed in the Blood

Three days later Jesus defeated death, proving he had laid down his life so that he could take it back up again and open the gates of heaven to people who heretofore had been banned from entry.

In heaven there will be one man with scars, and it won’t be Naaman or Paul or Isaiah, it will be the one we call the “Lamb who was slain.” You’ll be able to see the nail pierced hands that are healing nations, the bruised heal that crushed the serpent’s head, the scar where his broken heart was revealed, and his head where the Lord of all was crowned with scorn. You’ll also be able to see his navel which proves he was and is fully God and fully man.

For the rest of us, who have a multitude of scars on earth, we must realize that it’s not just leprosy that’s banned from heaven: scabs, scars, deformities, all of these will keep a person out of heaven. If you think you haven’t been afflicted by the fall, just consider your bellybutton which proves you need a Saviour. Even if you somehow kept yourself entirely from sin, the effect of the curse of sin would be enough to bar you from the presence of God:

He shall not go through the veil or approach the altar, because he has a blemish, that he may not profane my sanctuaries, for I am the Lord who sanctifies them. ~ Leviticus 21:23

Heaven, the ultimate sanctuary of God, is closed to you. Even though Jesus has opened heaven’s gates, we have this continuing guarantee, “its gates will never be shut by day–and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false” (Revelation 21:25–27)…But, if you’ll come to Jesus, you can partake in a wonderful promise, just one more reason to love the Lord Christ,

Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. ~ Ephesians 5:25–27

If your hope of sanctification is in a law, it is useless,

For on the one hand, a former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness (for the law made nothing perfect); but on the other hand, a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God. ~ Hebrews 7:18–19

There is one hope that saves, Christ in us, the hope of glory.

We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the veil, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf. ~ Hebrews 6:19–20

If you’re in a place where you can sing, then sing William Cowper’s magnificent hymn, There is a Fountain Filled With Blood (if not, just read),

There is a fountain filled with blood

Drawn from Immanuel's veins;

And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,

Lose all their guilty stains.

Previous - Gehazi         Next - Still Working

Gehazi - Seeking the Cure, Finding the Christ

This post is a chapter from the book, Seeking the Cure, Finding the Christ, which is the book version of multiple sermons preached from 2022 to 2025. Since this book was meant to bless the church I am also making it available on this blog.

• Irredeemable
• Naaman the Leper
• The Servant Girl
• Naaman's Wife
• The King of Syria
• The King of Israel
• Elisha
• Elisha's Servant
• Naaman's Servants
• Naaman the Cleansed
• Gehazi
• Jesus
• Still Working
• Conclusion

Gehazi

As we near the end of this passage we have to talk about the tragic case of Gehazi. Gehazi is the Judas in this story.

Consider Judas Iscariot for just a moment: He spent three years as a disciple of Christ, he heard most of his sermons, he witnessed the miracles, he heard the promises, he ate at the same table, his feet were washed, and he went to hell anyways. What ultimately was his downfall? He had been pilfering from the money bag for some time (John 12:6) and his greed finally got the better of him (Matthew 26:15).

Before we delve into Gehazi’s story we have to read 1 Timothy 6:10:

The love of money is a root of all kinds of evils, it is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.

Consider warnings about greed, “The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all of these things, and they ridiculed him” (Luke 16:14), “An overseer must…not be a lover of money” (1 Timothy 3:2–3), and “Understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money…” (2 Timothy 3:1–2). Jesus said it best when he warned,

No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. ~ Matthew 6:24

Gehazi is about to prove that a penny pressed to the eye can blot out all of creation, and can even blind us to the grace and love of God.

A Slow Fade

As we meet Gehazi, he is not yet a greedy, sneaky, lying malcontent. Beloved, if you get one point from this chapter, know this: that sin will lie in waiting, crouching at your door ready to devour you when it gets the chance. Just because you don’t have a serious temptation to run after money right now doesn’t mean that that there is not a deep-seated sin in your life that could.

It’s not just about money; it’s about faithfulness in every facet of the Christian life. Demas fell in love with the worldly pleasures at Thessalonica after faithfully serving with Paul, and he ran off, breaking all of our hearts.

Consider marriage, we all want to be faithful to our spouse, but every adultery case I’ve ever counseled was not a case of openly seeking out an adulterous relationship; it was a matter of unexpected opportunity.

Let me offer a frightening example: If I offered you a million dollars to work from sunrise to sunset every Sunday for the next year in a non-ministerial context, would you take it? If you know where I’m going with this, please reread the question and answer it afresh.

If you’d be willing to skip church for that money, to neglect the meeting together with God’s saints, to miss the opportunity to encourage them so long as it’s called today, then you very well could be the Gehazi in your own story. I don’t want that, and you don’t want that, so pay attention to where Gehazi went astray so you can keep to the narrow path.

The Warning Signs

When we meet Gehazi he is a faithful servant of Elisha delivering messages and helping to bless people, including the Shunamite woman who did so much to support Elisha’s ministry. Our first inclination that something is wrong is when the Shunamite falls at the feet of Elisha after her son has died and holds tightly to his feet; Gehazi promptly seeks to push her away, there is no compassion, no questioning, no prayer…but that’s not a dead giveaway to his sins, didn’t the disciples do the same?

And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant…~ Matthew 19:13–15, Mark 10:13, Luke 18:15–17

Elisha likewise was indignant, “Leave her alone, for she is in bitter distress, and the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me” (2 Kings 4:27). Gehazi’s heart began to show that maybe he was in ministry for something other than the joy of serving God and people.

Gehazi is sent ahead of Elisha to lay Elisha’s staff on the face of the child, but no resurrection occurs. Now, Gehazi can hardly be faulted, I can’t raise the dead either, but here is an important fact here that is easy to miss. Elisha was Elijah’s servant, and when Elijah was taken up, Elisha received a double-portion of the Spirit that rested on him. It could be assumed that Gehazi was in line to receive a double portion of the Spirit that was on Elisha. That would be quite a ministry and blessing! But alas, the student cannot rise above his teacher, but this requires full training (Luke 6:40).

In Gehazi’s failed miracle we see that something is already wrong, that some hindrance has already moved into his life and is holding him back. It’s subtle and if what happened with Naaman had not revealed Gehazi’s heart I wouldn’t mention it just from this example, but it reminds us that weight and sin can cling so closely to hinder the race that is set before us (Hebrews 12:1).

Now, we don’t want to be heresy hunters or throw out any wheat with the tares, so I would never have encouraged Elisha to fire Gehazi right there and then.

But I do want to point out that when we see failures in ministry or character that we should be calling our friends out. Two examples from my life grieve me deeply.

The first was a friend who asked me to baptize him. I thought I’d seen fruit in his life and so I agreed. He was enamored with the early church and discovered that in certain segments of the early church it was common for both baptizee and baptizer to fast before the baptism. I’m always up for a fast, so we agreed on a nice easy 30-hours. The afternoon of the baptism at the local lake I asked him how his fast had gone because mine had been rougher than I expected. He shrugged it off and nonchalantly said that he hadn’t fasted. Now, this may be a minor point but my conscience was troubled. However, because many of his family members had come, I succumbed to social pressure and baptized him. Or I should say I got him wet, because he has since run off to make shipwreck of his faith and family. In our last conversation he told me that I place too much emphasis on Jesus. Was it Leonard Ravenhill who said,

Many pastors criticize me for taking the Gospel so seriously. But do they really think that on Judgment Day, Christ will chastise me, saying, ‘Len, you took Me too seriously’?

Another friend preached a heartfelt message on how he had been on the brink of suicide and had come back. As he closed the sermon, I realized there had been no mention of Jesus or the gospel and barely any mention of God. After the sermon I approached him and said I was glad he was still with us, but that next time he needs to point the glory to Jesus and explain how someone in a similar situation could find hope. He, just like my other friend, shrugged it off. Unfortunately, he is now out chasing titles and social media followers and Jesus is still absent from his messages.

Now, I want to reiterate that we don’t expel someone for a mistake or lack of power or even a sin, and I won’t criticize Elisha, but I will criticize me: I should have been much more somber and prayerful in confronting those young men than I was.

I still pray for their salvation and fruitfulness, and indeed I stopped to pray for both of them while writing this. Could many who were on the path of Gehazi and Judas be turned from their wicked ways before they fell? Indeed, and many are saved and that’s why their stories aren’t cautionary narratives in the Bible. The verse that won’t leave my mind is “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him” (Proverbs 22:15).[1]

Sin Seizes the Opportunity

Now we get to the sad part of the story, Gehazi has seen the miracle of cleansing and he has witnessed Naaman transformed into a new man, but he has not rejoiced in either. What he has seen all too clearly is Elisha turning down millions of dollars worth of spoils. Doesn’t Elisha know what could be done for the seminary with that sort of money? Doesn’t Elisha see the opportunity he is squandering?

Consider these ethical dilemmas surrounding money: Imagine a person in your church won the lottery and wanted to tithe on their winnings, would you accept? What if a large casino wanted to donate a large sum of money to your ministry?

Both of these have really happened, and in the cases I’m aware of both were turned-down. Doesn’t that seem like such a waste? After all, money is fungible, it is not tied to the sins that earned it, is it? Both the lottery and casino prey on souls: they help to keep the poor in poverty and offer fleeting pleasure as a bait and switch for lasting sin and suffering. Probably the only place I agree with the Pharisees is when they wouldn’t accept the blood money back from Judas but instead used it to buy the cemetery he would be buried in. In the case of the casino, the ministry was a rescue mission and the director said, “I can’t accept their money, half of the people I serve are here because of them.”

But that’s not exactly what’s happening in Naaman’s story, is it? It’s similar, but different. Imagine if you could purchase healing and salvation. The earliest antichrist to invade the church is a man named Simon Magus, or Simon the Magician. He was a local hero in Samaria until Deacon Philip showed up. Both of them were doing mighty wonders, but only Philip had the Word of God, and the people paid attention to it and there was much joy (Acts 8:8).

Even Simon was baptized, but folly was still bound up in his heart, just like Gehazi’s. He was a man who previously liked to claim himself to be somebody great, and on a fateful day Peter and John arrived to lay hands on the new converts. Simon watched in absolute amazement as this incalculable gift was poured out on the new believers in Samaria.

His greed got ahold of him and he offered to buy this ability, begging, “Give me this power also, so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit” (Acts 8:19). Peter rebuked him sharply, and while there was worldly sorrow, an early Christian writer named Irenaeus tells that after Simon was rebuked by Peter, he applied himself not to repentance but to his dark arts, even to the point that “he is said to have been honoured with a statue [by Claudius Caesar], on account of his magical power.”

From Simon we have derived the word “simony” or the idea that you can buy salvation or sell blessings.[2] Had Elisha accepted even a penny then Naaman would have been in a position to tell the Syrians that he had purchased his healing.

Beloved, the second you pay for grace, it is no longer grace. If you have any reason to think that you can stand before Jesus in heaven and declare that you have earned your adoption, your forgiveness, your reconciliation, or your place in heaven, then you are in store for a painful awaking. The entire book of Galatians is written to this point that if you desire to earn your salvation by keeping the law, you are

obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. ~ Galatians 5:3–5

Therefore, it was not just an act of generosity that Elisha would not accept anything from Naaman’s hand, it was eternally important and theologically vital to declare that the grace and blessings of God are not earned by any amount of obedience or money or prayer or scripture reading or fasting or synagogue attendance or any such thing. Because of Elisha’s refusal to be compensated, Naaman would go home with a clear understanding that the Lord of all the earth was a God who gives abundantly out of his grace, freely and without expense.

Imagine for a moment that Elisha had accepted those millions of dollars? What message would that send to the world? Salvation is available, If you can afford it. Theologically it was imperative that Naaman not pay a cent towards his cleansing. Paul would later say that “to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as a due” (Romans 4:4), and that if we work for it “grace would no longer be grace” (Romans 11:6).

But when Naaman left, the heart of Gehazi was bound up in his saddlebags. Gehazi was watching an immense fortune disappear into the distance and he couldn’t stand it. Notice, instead of considering if it was a sin, he justified himself by saying that Naaman had been spared of paying. Sin has a nasty way of making you think you deserve its fleeting pleasures. And so, he ran after Naaman, his feet struggling to catch up with his covetousness.

As he reaches Naaman he isn’t just covetous, he makes himself a liar: inventing a fanciful story that Elisha had sent him to provision two new prophets. Sin begets sin, and one sin rarely stays solitary. We know that Gehazi knew he was wrong because he hides the spoils in his own house. Always remember that what’s done in the darkness will be brought to the light, and that secrets have a way of making us feel ashamed, fearful, and guilty. If you have any temptation to hide what you’ve done, you ought not have done it. If you’re currently hiding something, bring it to the light as soon as possible so God doesn’t have to expose it!

Gehazi has one final sin to commit as he returns to Elisha, who–in wonderful emulation of God–doesn’t accuse, though he already knows the truth, he asks, “Where have you been, Gehazi?” And Gehazi, instead of confessing his sin, digs himself in deeper, “Your servant went nowhere.”

Elisha already knew the truth, so he pronounces the judgement: the leprosy of Naaman would find its way into Gehazi, and instantly his skin was like snow. Further, because leprosy is so contagious, the curse did not end at Gehazi, but it extended to his family as well.

This may seem unfair, but truth be told, what really happened was that Gehazi’s skin now matched his heart which had already been exposed. Diseased, sick, far from God, and festering in the effects of sin and selfishness. Because of their association with Adam first and Gehazi second, his followers and family were already defiled, now their skin would show what was in their hearts.

Hopeless in a Land of Hope

But there is hope for lepers, is there not? Indeed, there is, just as Naaman sought a cure and met the living God, so could Gehazi have gone and dipped in the Jordan seven times and humbled himself before the Lord, praying, seeking his face, turning from his wicked ways, and the Lord would have heard from heaven and healed the leper.

But for whatever reason, most likely pride and bitterness, Gehazi did not do any of that. Jesus tells us, “In the days of Elisha there were many lepers in Israel, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian” (Luke 4:27).

Maybe someone didn’t exhort him in that direction or maybe he refused. It certainly wasn’t that God’s arm was shortened and he couldn’t cleanse Gehazi. Most likely it was because Gehazi’s eyes were still on the treasure, which by no accounts did he repent of or return. Spurgeon gives this warning of how an idol can blind us to salvation,

If, indeed, you do look at anything except Christ, it may be the Holy Spirit will never strive with you again, your conscience will become hardened, and you, being given up to your idols, will perish, utterly perish, under the sound of the gospel! Perish with the light of the gospel shining in your eyes, perish from the serpent bite while the brazen serpent is lifted high, perish from thirst when the water of life runs rippling at your feet, because you are not content to stoop down and take it as God presents it to you.

If we are fortunate, we’ll be confronted with a choice when we are caught in sin. Consider Peter and Judas; both men had betrayed Jesus appallingly, both thought they were lost for eternity. If you read about Peter after his betrayal, I am sure he thought he was the son of perdition. Similarly, if you read about Judas, there is genuine sorrow for his actions, but his sorrow does not lead him to seek Jesus, it leads him to seek the priests and to end his suffering in any way possible.

O how I wish one of those priests had said to Judas, “You know I can’t help you! Why don’t you go ask your Messiah who you spent the last three years with and see if he won’t put some of his forgiveness to work in you?” I’m saddened by how many people think that God cut Judas off from salvation: the story is clear that Judas cut himself off from hope when he committed suicide. What a different story it would be if just one person had reminded Judas of the gospel he had heard so many times and rejected.

How the story of Gehazi would have been different if someone had reminded him of Naaman’s healing and exhorted him to go and do likewise. If you were Gehazi’s friend, wouldn’t you say something like, “Hey, I’m going swimming in the Jordan and I’m going to pray and seek the Lord, want to come with me?” Or maybe a friend like Amrah to pick him up–exposing themselves to the disease in the process–and carry him to the bank of the Jordan and throw him in...repeatedly? I say fairly often, “If I could shake you and make you obey the gospel, you’d better believe you’d be getting shaken right now.” If I could cleanse Gehazi by throwing him into the river, he’d better plug his nose.

Beloved, do you have friends like Gehazi and Judas who have rejected Christ and are on their way to a hopeless and Christless eternity? Won’t you remind them of the cleansing power? Is it too late for them? So long as their hearts are beating, their lungs are breathing, and their brain is waving, it’s not too late. Maybe this line from William Cowper’s hymn There is a Fountain will speak new life into your evangelistic zeal:

Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood
Shall never lose its power,
’Till all the ransomed church of God
Be saved, to sin no more,
Be saved, to sin no more,
’Till all the ransomed church of God,
Be saved, to sin no more.

God is Still Working

We meet Gehazi one more time a few chapters later. Some commentators think that chapter eight happened before chapter five, but while some authors like John Mark use asynchronous storytelling in his gospel account, the author of First and Second Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles does not make a habit of it. Plus, chapter eight happens seven years after chapter four, so it’s very hard to say this was before Gehazi had been cursed with leprosy.

There is a wonderful story in chapter four lepers who started to hide spoils, but then come to their senses and bless the whole city of Samaria. Some would want to force Gehazi into this story, but I believe he would be named if he were there, and I believe his repentance would be made much of.

But in chapter eight we meet Gehazi speaking to Jehoram about the miracles of Elisha. Now, Jehoram has had much time to acquaint himself with these miracles and should have sought Elisha personally to hear of his work many years hence. But Jehoram is still rejecting Elishah. As the quote goes, “The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best to plant a tree is today.”

Likewise, “The best time to seek the Lord is when you first learned to listen, the second-best time to seek the Lord is today!” Jehoram is seeking from a distance, hearing about the works of God through an unlikely source. The law did not forbid conversation with lepers, only being in close proximity to them. How it was that Gehazi gained an audience with the king is not stated, but he is there at the exact right moment when the Shunamite woman from chapter four seeks the king to regain her property which somehow had been lost. Gehazi is able to vouch for her and sway the king to have all of her property restored.

In the redemption of that woman’s property, Gehazi gets another reminder that God redeems the irredeemable. Yet there is still no indication of his repentance, and definitely no indication of his restoration.

I have an affinity for Gehazi, because in a lot of ways he is me. Worldly pleasures catch my eye constantly, the love of money is rooted deep in my heart, sin is constantly crouching at the door, and salvation is so close I can touch it.

I am a collector and connoisseur of testimonies and I know how God has quickened dead souls to life, I have seen him redeem the irredeemable, I have seen him restore marriages that had already ended in divorce, and I have seen him “restore the years that the locusts have eaten” in dozens if not hundreds of ways.

And so had Gehazi. By the grace of God, the difference between him and I is that I have sought this miracle working God to work in my life, to cleanse me in the inner places, and to restore my soul. But I can sing with absolutely no deceit,

Prone to wander, Lord I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, Lord, take and seal it,
Seal it for thy courts above. ~ Robert Robinson

I cannot fathom the pride and bitterness that could keep a person from so great a salvation, but Gehazi helps me to understand. I know that without God’s grace that I would make Gehazi astonished at my obstinance. There is no use in praying for the dead, but I sincerely hope that Gehazi sought the Lord before he stepped into judgment.

There but for the grace of God go I. ~ John Bradford

Hope was at hand, the question is: Did he reach out and take hold of it? Beloved, have you? Whatever happened to Gehazi, he is your warning take hold of the cure while it may be found. Be more like Peter and less like Judas as you seek the blessings of God.

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[1] I’m not advocating the beating of disciples, only discipling them with as much fervency as is required.

[2] Interesting Fact: The heresy Simony is why followers of Menno Simons have opted to be called Mennonites, not Simonites.

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