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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Adrian Zahid

Elements of Conversion

It is a pleasure to speak to you again this morning.

And just before I do, I would like us to pray.

Dear Father, we come before you this Sabbath morning and we ask that you give us a blessing.

And Lord, I pray that you be with me as I speak and you give me the words and the ability to speak them.

Lord, I may not be the most eloquent speaker, but Lord, I pray that the thoughts that you have in your word today may drive home to the hearts of those who hear and that the Holy Spirit be there to soften them and to make make them of effect so that there will be a hundredfold harvest in the lives of those who hear this message.

I'm sure every 1 of you here this morning, at 1 time in your life, have been through the process of an interview.

If you do not own your own business, you at some time in your life have had to go and apply for a job.

And when you apply for a job, there's a process in which you try to get that job.

The process involves you filling out an application, a job application, putting down your personal information there, maybe writing a cover letter, and also the process involves an interview.

And in that interview, your potential boss is interested in knowing what your strengths are, what your accomplishments are, but more importantly, what your weaknesses are.

Because your weaknesses and your strengths depend, help to show how good a team member you're going to be and whether you'll be an asset or a liability to that team.

And so they always ask you the question, what are your strengths?

And then you say, well, I'm a workaholic and I know everything that there is to know about my field, or whatever.

And then they say, what are your weaknesses?

And then you say, you know, the only weakness I have is that I'm still on earth and not in heaven.

Or you name some weakness if you're really honest.

The Bible, when it describes human beings, when it describes characters, it describes the good things, but it also describes the weaknesses, the bad things.

Turn with me to the person that we're going to talk about this morning.

The Bible begins with a resume or professional description of this man Naaman.

Now Naaman, captain of the host, this is 2nd Kings chapter 5 verse 1 Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria was a great man with his master and honorable and because of him the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria.

There's that little word over there, but.

And as we learned at South SU Conference, the little word but negates everything before it.

And so this little word over here but describes his weakness he was a leper behind all that fame all that honor all that trust all that bravery those good clothes he had a secret And that secret would slowly take everything he had worked for in his life, his fame, his honor, his trust, his wife, his kids, everything.

That disease would 1 day leave him a poor, isolated, sick man and would ultimately kill him.

Naaman had acquired a maid from, shall we say, less honorable means.

But in verse 2 it says, The Syrians had gone out by companies and had brought away captive out of the land a little maid, and she waited on Naaman's wife.

This little maid had a big grasp on a large on a huge concept that the disciples During Jesus time had a hard time getting their minds around this little girl Knew that God's love knew no national boundaries And so in verse 3 she said unto her mistress, Would God my Lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria, for he would recover him of his leprosy.

If he was with the Prophet in Samaria, he would be recovered of his leprosy.

This leprosy, this disease was so bad because there was nothing that Naaman could do to heal himself.

Neither money nor the expert medicine nor anything could buy him a cure.

But here there was a chance, just a chance.

But this involves certain risks, because see, Naaman was an enemy of Israel.

And for him to go to Israel, it would be taking a huge national risk.

And for him to go to Israel would be Syria losing their most valuable captain, their most valuable man.

But the Bible says, and 1 went in, verse 4, and told his lord, saying, thus and thus said the maid of, that is of the land of Israel.

And despite the risk, the king of Syria said, go and I will send a letter unto the king of Israel.

And he departed and took with him 10 pounds of silver, 6000 pieces of gold, and 10 changes of clothes.

It would be equivalent to Hitler in World War II sending his top general to Loma Linda University Medical Center for proton therapy for his cancer.

But he sent him the letter and you know in bureaucracy things get muddled and so the letter read like this.

And when Naaman he crossed the border and he brought the letter to the king of Israel saying, now when this letter is come to thee, this is the king of Israel reading it, behold I have therewith sent Naaman my servant to thee, that thou mayest recover him of his leprosy.

Somewhere the communication broke down and so Naaman was standing before the king with this letter saying please heal my man of leprosy and understandably the king was disturbed and it said that when he read the letter he rent his clothes and said Am I God to kill and to make alive that this man doth send unto me to recover a man of his leprosy?

Wherefore, consider, I pray you, and see how he seeketh a quarrel against me.

He said, look, there is no way that I can heal this man.

And this king is sending his general over here just to seek a quarrel with me.

Would you treat someone if you knew that person was your enemy?

And if you knew that once you treated that person he would go back and perhaps do the same thing to you again?

The king tore his clothes But the prophet of God had a different reaction.

Verse 8, And it was so when Elisha, the man of God, had heard that the king of Israel had rent his clothes, that he sent unto the king, saying, Wherefore hast thou rent thy clothes?

Let him come now to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel so Naaman came with his horses and his and with his chariot and stood at the door of Elisha and then he heard the message And Elisha sent a messenger unto him saying, Go and wash in the Jordan 7 times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean.

There are only 2 reactions that you can have to a message or a sermon.

That message spoke right to the core of his being.

And in his mind, he knew that 1 day this disease would bring isolation to him.

And here, this Prophet is not even coming out to see him, he's just saying, just go and wash yourself and be clean.

And this cleanliness thing, you know, he felt dirty, He knew he was dirty because of that disease.

And this cleanliness thing really struck at him at his heart, at his pride.

And so his reaction, the Bible says, But Naaman was wroth, and went away and said, Behold, I thought, he will surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of his Lord, of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place and recover the leper.

Sometimes when we come to God we expect God to do things in a certain way.

We expect the sermon to be a certain way.

We expect God's people to treat us a certain way.

And we expect God to move in our lives in a certain way.

Naaman thought that he had brought all that gold, all that silver, all those clothes, and all he needed to do was bring it and present it and appease the God and get his cure.

There are many people today that believe that same concept.

They believe that they can come to church, pay their money, sit here and go home and God will bless them.

There is a worldwide system of religion that for many centuries they believed that they could sell pardons for money.

And so they sold pardons for the sins of their parishioners for money.

What's ironic is that even in this day of light and increased knowledge of the Bible, they still believe that concept and they sell pardons, they buy pardons now, from their parishioners for money for the sins of their clergy.

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Elements of Conversion

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