Passing Thru Their Midst, He Went His Way

...which is one of the Times Square Pulpit series. It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times Square Church in Manhattan, New York City. Other tapes are available by writing to World Challenge P.O. Box 260, Lindale, TX 75771 or calling 214-963-8626.

None of these messages are copyrighted and you are welcome to make copies for free distribution to your friends. Luke chapter 4. Praise God. Amen.

Amen. Let's look to the Lord in a word of prayer. Hallelujah.

Thank you, Lord, that you are giving us that strength from day to day. And Lord, we ask you especially in this season of the year, the season of which has your name in it. Lord, we are determined that the busyness of this season will not distract us in any way in our walk with you.

Lord, we are determined even tonight that we will let nothing distract us from hearing your word. Lord, you gave me the assurance that there are people here tonight who specially that you sent, they need the word. Lord, I thank you.

All of us, Lord, are open to hear from you tonight. We thank you for your word. And Lord, help us to be quickened in our thinking, in our minds, in our hearts to receive.

Lord, help us not to sit back and relax and let go, but to have our hearts keenly attuned to what the Spirit would have us hear tonight. Lord, anoint my words, anoint your people. Thank you for your presence, Lord.

Lord, thank you that the blessing, yes, that we're feeling even from Sunday night. But Lord, we can't live on yesterday. We go from strength to strength.

This is a day you've made. We're rejoicing in it. Hallelujah.

And Lord, we need to hear from you tonight freshly. And so anoint thy servant, anoint thy people. Bless us, Lord, around the communion.

Bless us around the altar service. Touch us, Lord. Have your way, we pray, in Jesus' name.

Amen. I was casually reading Luke. I opened my Bible for some Bible reading, not for Bible study, but just to read, not searching for a message.

But as I was reading the fourth chapter of Luke, suddenly I came upon a verse that seemed to leap out of the pages of the Bible at me. In fact, the verse moved me so much that I could not read any longer. I had to put my Bible down and just meditate on it.

And out of that meditation grew this message. And I sought for a title of this message. And the only title that I could put to this message is the entire verse, which is Luke chapter 4 and verse 30.

Luke chapter 4 and verse 30. I'm reading from the New American Standard. And it simply says this.

But passing through their midst, he went his way. And as I read it, as I meditated upon it, a holy tear filled my heart. And I read it over and over again.

But passing through their midst, he went his way. I don't know anything more tragic to think that the Son of the living God, the King of all kings, the Lord of all lords, the Messiah of Israel, would pass through his hometown and barely escape for his life. What a message and what a warning there is in this for us today and tonight.

For the church and especially for the unchurched. You know, I've seen the Lord over a period of history. I've seen the Lord pass through denominations.

And I've seen him do mighty works in that denomination. But yet I've seen that same denomination reject him. He passed through it, as it were, for a time.

And then he went on his way. This verse came to my mind when Sunday morning I heard the news on the radio that a Hoboken, New Jersey, Episcopal church ordained a practicing homosexual. Passing through their midst, he went on his way.

Now, I don't know if that church has ever had the presence of God. I know the Episcopalian churches, some of them have. But it can be said of that particular church in Hoboken, if he was ever there, he's passed through their midst.

And he went his way. Ichabod written over the door. I know individual churches.

I could take you to churches. I lived in Brooklyn for a period of time. And Brooklyn is known as the city of churches.

And I could take you to great historical churches. I could take you on a tour and point them out because I've read about them through history. And I know that at one day in some of those churches, that there were great men of God that preached from their pulpits and they had great congregations.

But you go there today and there's only a handful. Jesus had passed through their midst. But now he's gone on his way.

The same reason that Jesus was run out of town in Nazareth is the same reason that many churches and people have run him off today. They don't want to hear the heart of Jesus or Christ's message. They only want to hear and follow a candy cane gospel.

I've seen Jesus pass through homes. Pass through families. Pass through marriages.

And if for a time he was welcomed, he was accepted. But then for some reason Jesus found it necessary to pass on from there. And that's the case just as it happened in Nazareth.

He had to leave. He had to leave. Now why did Jesus have to escape for his life from Nazareth? Well it tells us in verse 14 and then in verse 16.

If you look at it, it says, Now this was sort of a homecoming day for the son of Joseph and Mary. Jesus had already inaugurated his ministry going from his baptism in the Jordan to the temptation in the wilderness. He had visited Jerusalem where he had preached his born again message to Nicodemus.

He threw the money changers out of the temple. Then heading back towards Galilee, he passed through Samaria. And had that wonderful encounter with a woman at the well.

And gave her living water. Therefore when Jesus came to visit again his hometown, he came back a different man. He was different especially in the eyes of his neighbors as well as the whole populace of Galilee.

John 4.45 says, You see Jesus left them a carpenter. But he returned home a prophet and a heralded miracle worker. No doubt there were messengers as Jesus was heading towards Nazareth.

There were messengers that preceded him, announced his coming. And I can imagine that his visit was received with a mixture of curiosity and wonder and perplexity. By his neighbors and former customers at the Joseph and Sons Carpenter Shop.

I can just hear one of the housewives that lived in Nazareth saying to a neighbor, Think of it. I remember when Jesus built me a kitchen cabinet. I remember he did a good job.

He came in, he was quiet, he was unassuming. He did his work, he did a fine job. He cleaned up after he went and he went on his way.

And to think now that he's healing the sick. And I can hear these two women talk. Did you hear that he was over at the wedding at Cana? The Cohen's son got married and he was over there.

They ran out of wine. And he turned water into wine. And the two women look at each other in amazement.

They can't wait to see and to hear him again. And they got their chance on the Sabbath. Luke 4.16 says, And probably the synagogue was jam-packed that Sabbath.

It was anticipated that Jesus might say or do something during the service. And they were in for quite a surprise and quite a message. And Jesus was in for quite a reaction.

You see, there was no preacher as such in those days in the synagogue. They had no pastor or preacher. It was the thing to do that when a noted personality would visit the synagogue, they would ask him to say something.

And they would be invited to open the Old Testament scrolls and to read a selected portion. And Jesus stood up to read and he chose Isaiah 61.1. And he reads, Then Jesus sat down. Not because he was finished.

He was just beginning to speak. It was the custom then to sit down when they spoke. Sometimes, not tonight, thank God, but some nights I wish I could sit down and speak.

But not tonight. I'm glad I can stand. But that was the custom.

They would sit and then speak. And it says in verse 20, And he gave it again to the minister, actually meaning the attendant. Now just imagine that you were there.

What a remarkable historical moment this is. It's one of the most important tests for Jesus since his temptation. He is facing another kind of temptation in the synagogue.

You see, one of the difficult tests that you and I face is to be able to speak or to preach the truth and tell the truth to people that you grew up with and who you have been friends with and people that know you. A prophet is without honor save in his own country. Now again, remember the atmosphere is charged with curiosity.

Everybody in the audience is wondering what their fellow townsmen, the former carpenter, the oldest son of Mary and the late Joseph, about whom they have been hearing so much. What is he going to say? What message or application is he going to make to the scripture that he's read? And probably the place is so quiet you could hear a pin drop. And I picture the elders of the church stroking their beard, looking at him.

I picture his own brothers and relatives looking around at the scene, people looking at him and a little bit nervous because they're about to hear him preach his first message. And we'll look at his message in just a moment. But I want to contrast for you the very first response to his message and their reaction after he was finished.

Look at verse 22. In the middle of his message it says, And all bear him witness, they all heard him. And they wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth.

But then go down a few verses and look at verse 28. And all they in the synagogue when they heard these things were filled with wrath. New American Standard says, Rage.

Verse 29, And they rose up and they thrust him out of the city and led him to the brow of the hill whereon the city was built that they might cast him down headlong. And then here's that verse, verse 30. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

You see what a contrast, what a quick change of temperament. In one moment the audience, the Nazarites, all bear him witness and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. They said, This is truly remarkable, especially coming from a carpenter's son.

My, he speaks so well. He speaks like one of us. He's one of us and he speaks like this.

And they said, Let's recommend him to all the other synagogues. Let's invite him back next Sunday, next Sabbath day. But if they thought Jesus' message was so gracious, so full of grace, so full of comfort, so full of promise, why did they then take him to the brow of the hill and want to push him over to his death? Why would Jesus be so fully acceptable when he preaches grace, but then have the people turn on him and make it necessary for him to go on his way to escape the murder that's in their hearts? Now you see, the answer to this question will answer also why churches today, why Jesus passes through a people today.

He passes through a denomination. He passes through individual churches. He passes through organizations.

He passes through people's individual lives in like manner, who once received his message graciously for a time, but in the end, they reject it with wrath and vengeance, and Jesus has to go on his way. Why is the gospel that Jesus preached in the Nazareth Synagogue also rejected by many today? Who were these rejecters of Christ? Why were they filled with such rage? Well, first of all, the audience was made up of what I call homeboys, homeboys. They grew up with Jesus.

They were people who were nearest related to him, as it were. In a natural sense, they were relatives. They were people of the town, of his town.

They were those who knew all about him. The whole story of his wondrous birth was known to them. And do you know something? Things have not changed since then.

How many people grow up with Jesus? They went to Sunday school. They've gone to children's church. They went to adult church with him.

They prayed with him or to him at mealtime. They had his Bible. They even read it.

But you see, Jesus, to some people, is like the neighborhood boy down the street. You grow up with him. You go to church with him.

You treat him like a friend or even better, like one of your own kids in your home. If you were a newspaper reporter covering Jesus celebrated return to Nazareth and you would ask the neighbors and said, Do you know Jesus? They, of course, would say, Sure, I know him. I've known him for years.

Isn't this the carpenter's son? You see, millions of people grow up, especially at this season of the year. They grow up with a baby Jesus. You ask them, Do you know Jesus? And their answer is the same as a synagogue crowd.

They know Jesus of the nativity scene. They know that Jesus pictured on the Christmas cards, if you can find one with Jesus on it. They know that he's the one who received gifts so that we have a reason or excuse for exchanging gifts.

But I want to tell you, the most dangerous thing that you can do is to grow up with Jesus like that and yet not know who he really is. I see this especially in religious homes, Protestant and Catholic. Jesus is reverenced in such a home.

He's respected. He's even believed in to a certain point. You see, the crowd in the synagogue did not doubt that Jesus had worked miracles.

They didn't doubt he healed the sick and had turned the water into wine. They believed certain things about Jesus. And you see, the Jews at Nazareth were glad to have the Jesus who they thought knew to pass through their midst.

In fact, they wanted him to do some of his miraculous deeds that he did elsewhere. They wanted him to do it in front of their eyes. They said, whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, why don't you do it here as well? And if you do these things here, you'll be accepted even more.

You see, they would accept a hometown Jesus. A hometown Jesus, you see, he's a carpenter's son. And if I'm sleepy, if I'm tired, he'll make me a bed.

If I'm hungry, he'll make me a table that I can sit down and eat at. If I want some fun, he'll make me a toy to play with. And when I'm ready to die, he'll build me a mansion in heaven.

But the tragedy of the multitudes who grow up with Jesus in their hometown and in their family tradition is that they do not know really who Jesus is. And in the end, they reject him. And that's why I have a grief in my heart tonight.

Jesus passing through their midst went on his way. I've seen this happen, especially to teenagers and to young people. And oh, I wish to God some of them were here tonight.

I know I have a burden for them because I grew up like that. I grew up with a good family background and tradition. And I see young people, teenagers and young people who grew up their lives centered around the things of God.

Their entire lives were spent in church, in a church environment. But something happened. They grew cold and they grew calloused.

And they would cover up their true spiritual condition. And some like Esau despised their birthright. And for a period of time in their life, Jesus passed through.

But then at a certain point in time, he went on his way because they went on their way. Now another reason that Jesus was rejected in Nazareth is because he would not put on a show for the people. He refused to dance to their tune or to be their Santa Claus.

He said to them, no doubt you will quote this proverb to me, physician, heal yourself. Whatsoever we heard was done in Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well. And see Jesus, the reason that their acceptance turned to rejection, the reason that their gladness turned to madness is that he said this thing right after all were speaking well of him and wondering what gracious words were falling from his lips.

Well, you see, Jesus knew what was in their hearts. You see, they knew that Jesus cured people. Now they want him to be their traveling medicine man.

Whatsoever we heard was done in Capernaum, do here for us in our hometown as well. In other words, show us your stuff. Show us your stuff.

You see, the truth of the matter was that they were pleased with his pleasant words only because they hoped that they were an introduction to some of his wondrous works. They wanted him to heal their lame. He wanted them to open the eyes of their blind to heal their sick.

He wanted them to come to his house and turn their water into wine. And the Nazareth thought, they thought that their own hometown was as worthy to be the stage of his miracles as any other. They said, why should not his neighbors and his acquaintances and his former customers have the benefit not only of his preaching but also of his miracles.

But oh, please listen to me. The danger of growing up with Jesus and thinking you know him is to presume that you have a claim upon him without he having a claim upon you. Now let me say that again.

The danger of thinking you know Jesus, the danger of growing up religious is to presume that you've got him in your pocket and that you have a claim upon him when he does not have a claim upon you. This kind of person and attitude that I'm talking about, I'm referring to is to be presumptuous and to presume that you have some claim upon Christ without the necessary qualifications and commitment to merit that claim. This is what happens to people who grow up in the church.

They're in the church, but the church isn't in them. They grew up with Jesus, so they think, oh, I grew up with him. They call themselves Christians.

They think of Jesus as their friend or buddy and based on their knowledge of Jesus, based on what they consider being acquainted or familiar with him, they presume, they presume to have some right or claim to his help or his cures in time of need. You see, Jesus' neighbors thought that mere acquaintance entitled them to a few answers to prayer and a few miracles. And how many today come to Jesus the same way? They want him to do the same thing for them that he does for others or in other places, but they don't want to have to do what Christ requires us to do in order to have his favor.

You see, some people want healing of physical pain or problems, but they don't want their sin or disobedience healed. Remember the disciples early on in their relationship with Jesus, they said to him, Master or Rabbi, will you do for us whatever we ask you? They didn't know what they were asking. They were presumptuous.

They didn't really know him yet. They were not really walking in true holiness or righteousness. You see, you must be very careful that you're not acting like a member of the first synagogue assembly of Nazareth.

Quoting this proverb to Jesus, Jesus knew, oh, so distinctly he put it. He said, you're probably gonna say to me, physician, heal yourself. You see, they were demanding of Jesus that he prove himself to them.

In saying, physician, heal yourself, they were actually, now listen to this, they were actually laying out a challenge for Jesus to heal his relationship with them by doing for them what they wanted him to do. They were requiring obedience from Jesus. He was the one who was to bow before them by doing whatever they asked.

And I see the same attitude in the church today among religious people. They're always demanding of Jesus that he heal himself in their eyes. They say, Jesus, do this and you'll please me.

Answer my need, bless me, prosper me. Bail me out of this situation and you'll be helping and healing yourself with me. We'll be good friends if you do this.

I'll be a good Christian if you'll be a good physician. I'm dealing with a young man like that right now. Right now.

He's looking for Jesus to bail him out of his troubles but he doesn't wanna come and surrender to Jesus. You see, some people go to the Lord like they go to their doctor to get a prescription for medicine. They think they're asking Jesus to heal them but in fact, they're asking Jesus to heal himself and to help himself by healing or helping them because if he does not help them, they're gonna turn away from him.

And so they say, Lord, if you want me, if you want me, you better do what I ask you to do. Heal yourself. You see, the hyper-faith movement, the prosperity movement is filled with such carnal people.

The basis of their relationship to Jesus is how much he blesses and prospers them. And as long as Jesus meets their carnal request, then he's a good doctor and he's a good Santa Claus and we clap our hands for him. That's why there's so much clapping going on in the church today.

It's clapping because the physician is healing himself for them. But watch out. Whenever the Lord does not fill their prescription or come through with their want list, they will be like the Nazarenes and they will turn to rage.

And I have seen it. I've seen the casualties of that type of a thing. And all the synagogue were filled with rage as they heard these things.

Now do you understand why some people come to Times Square Church and get angry at the message because all along everything has been going well. They've been hearing gracious words, but now they're hearing something else and it turns to rage. And the tragedy of it all, John 111 says, he came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.

Now I want you to look at what precipitated the anger, what exactly the part of the message. You see, here's the good part now. Jesus told them and he tells us how and who he responds to.

And he says, it's to widows and to lepers. Look at verse 21. And he began to say to them, today this scripture is being fulfilled in your hearing.

Now this made them very angry, but I want to tell you, this can make you very glad tonight. In a broad sense, when Jesus said, this scripture is being fulfilled in your hearing, this was true. In a broad sense, the poor had the gospel preached to them.

He was already doing that. The captives were being set free. The oppressed were being lifted.

The kingdom of God was being announced. Jesus was doing exactly this. He was revealing it.

The scripture was being fulfilled, except, except in Nazareth. All he could do there was to preach a sermon and move on. All of the promises to the poor, all of the kingdom promises were not fulfilled.

All he could do was to do that and pass through their midst and go on. And I want to say to you tonight, don't let that be true of your life. Jesus wants to fulfill himself and his word and his will in your life.

He doesn't want to just pass through. He wants to make an abode. He wants to take up residence.

Now, you see, Nazareth rejected him, but Capernaum had a revival. Look at verse, look again at Luke 4, 31 and 32. And it says, and he came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and he was teaching them on the Sabbath, just like at Nazareth.

And they were amazed at his teaching for his message was with authority. And then Jesus proceeded from that message to cast out an evil spirit of a man. Now, why did Capernaum see revival and not Nazareth? And why is Christ able to work in some lives and not in others? And here is the answer.

Here is how you can prevent Jesus from passing by, passing through your life and then leaving you behind. You're either angry or empty. And verse 32 and verse 27 have the answer.

Look at verse 32. Are you still open to Luke 4? Are you still out there? Verse 32, and they were amazed at his message for his message was with authority. Now remember, Jesus also spoke with authority in the Nazareth synagogue.

But there the people were only impressed with Jesus as their hometown acquaintance who would become a celebrity. They were taken up with Jesus as a curiosity, as a religious figure. But they did not receive Jesus as the Son of God and the anointed one and the sent one who not only spoke with authority but was given authority over their lives.

And you see, there's the difference between being run out of Nazareth and a revival in Capernaum. And there's the secret of getting victory over demon powers in our lives. We must accept Jesus not only as a boyhood Jesus that we knew growing up.

We must not only see him as healer but he also wants to be the Lord of our lives. One who is given authority over us to whom we obey and serve him and bow down to him not only for what he does for us but because of who he is. John the Baptist said it, Bring forth therefore fruits, meet for repentance.

And don't think just because you have a religious tradition and say and think within yourselves we have Abraham for our fathers. But I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And how does he raise them up? Those people who say, Lord, I give you my life.

I bow down before you. I give you my heart. I give you my sin.

I give you everything. And then Jesus gave us an example of this in verse 27. Look at verse 27.

And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet and none of them was cleansed but only Nahum the Syrian. And you see, that is what really angered the Jews. Jesus used an example of those who he was called to to preach the gospel.

He used a leper and a Gentile no less. And to the Jew who thought that he had an exclusive claim to divine favor and salvation, this message was too much to bear. But praise God, what made them rage ought to make us rejoice.

Hallelujah. Widows and lepers and harlots and sinners go into the kingdom of God before the religious elite. Hallelujah.

Now I want you to turn. I wanna close. I want you to go to 2 Kings 5. I'm gonna close but I don't know how long it's gonna take me to close.

And this is not Sunday morning. This is Tuesday night. Let me in closing briefly tell you the story.

One of the stories that made them so mad and that's of Naaman the leper. Naaman was in some ways like the congregation in the Nazareth synagogue. Although a Gentile, he was highly respected.

He was a army captain. Verse one says he was a great man with his master and highly respected. But he had this incurable disease called leprosy.

And it so happened that his servant girl testified to him about Jesus. Now actually she talked about Elisha but he's a type of Christ. And she said the prophet who is in Samaria he could cure you Naaman of your leprosy.

Verse nine, look at it. So Naaman came with his horses and his chariots and he stood at the doorway of the house of Elisha. And he gets out, he has his, picture it, he's an army captain.

He's got probably more than one chariot. And he's a man of importance. He gets out of his chariot and he goes and he rings the doorbell.

He's found Elisha's house, he rings the doorbell. The door opens and when he sees who comes to the door he gets angry, he turns and he says to himself look at that. He finds out that it's not Pastor Elisha.

It's one of the servants, it's one of the staff servants. And Naaman thinks to himself, who does he think he is? Doesn't he know who I am? Doesn't he know whom I represent? I'm Naaman. And he doesn't have enough respect to come and greet me at the door.

You see we have Naamans who come to church all the time. And they get upset if one of the pastors won't lay hands on them and pray for them. We had a phone call in our office one day.

Man on the phone said, I wanna talk to Pastor Dave. I want him to pray for me. My wife happened to be answering the phone.

And she said, I'm sorry, he's not here. He said, well then let me talk to Pastor Phillips. She said, he's not here, I'm sorry.

He said, well then let me talk to Pastor Don. And she said, I'm sorry, he's not here. And he got very upset.

You see, he was like Naaman. He wanted his need met on certain kind of terms. He had a certain kind of ideal.

And finally my wife said to him, would you like me to pray for you? And he reluctantly agreed and she prayed for him. And if he'd only knew, my wife probably gets more answers to her prayers than I do mine. And so Naaman, he's upset.

And then, and then he hears what the cure is. Look at it. Go wash in the Jordan seven times and your flesh will be restored to you and you will be clean.

And Naaman can't believe what he's hearing. First of all, the pastor won't even come to the door. The pastor won't even answer his telephone calls.

And then secondly, he's told to go away and to bathe himself in a Jewish river. Verse 11, but Naaman was furious and he went his way and said, behold, I thought I will surely, he will surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord, his God and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper. You know, there are many who come to Jesus of Nazareth the same way as this commander of the Syrian army came to the prophet Elisha.

They come because they're desperate, they need help. They have contracted a leprosy called sin and they have heard or they have read wonderful things about a great revival going on in Broadway. And so they come here with eager anticipation.

And our prayer is that no one who comes here with whatever sin, whatever spiritual disease will ever be turned away and be disappointed. Jesus is able to save to the uttermost, hallelujah. Or as someone has said, from the gutter most to the uttermost or from the glitter most to the uttermost, he's able to save.

But some who come, they hear what Naaman heard and they say, they hear that they must go wash in the Jordan when instead they wanted the preacher to pray a little prayer over them. Wanted him to wave his hand over them and say a few words and effect an instantaneous miraculous cure. And I've seen people go away from here disappointed.

They've gone away from the church. They've gone away from the altar. They've gone away from other churches because they wanted to stake a claim with Jesus without having him make a claim upon their lives.

And if you do that, it'll never work. We can pray all the prayers that you want us to pray over you. But unless you have a heart for God, unless you have a desire to know him, it won't work.

Naaman asked this question. He said, could I go wash in the rivers of Damascus and be clean? And when he found out he had to do it God's way, in God's word, he turned and he went away with rage just like they did at Nazareth. And you see what it is? It's an anger at God's word.

It's a refusal to follow and obey his will. It's wanting to find cleansing on our own terms, in our own rivers. A Damascus river, which is a type of the world.

Now fortunately for Naaman, somebody spoke some sense to him. Look at verse 13. And thank God somebody finally spoke sense to you and said, wake up.

Then his servants came near to him, probably in trembling, and said, my father, had the prophet told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? You know, there are a lot of great things and great lengths people will go to to get cured. Some of you've already done some things you thought were great, but you've not been changed. You've gone to great meetings.

You've heard some great preachers. You've read some great books. You've spent some great money.

You did some other things, so-called great things that turned out not to be so great because they didn't work. Well isn't it time if you've done all those great things, isn't it time you go wash in the Jordan of God's word? Hallelujah. If you've been willing to do anything, to submit to some of the things that some of you, some of you know what you used to do, how far you went, how dedicated you were to try to get clean.

If you've been willing to do anything, to submit to anything or anyone, or to part with anything for a cure, then why not take Christ on his terms? All you have to do is go wash and be clean. Believe and be saved. Repent and be pardoned.

Hallelujah. And so finally Naaman got the message. He finally got the message.

And so he went down. Oh, I like this. Oh, I like this.

Hallelujah. So he went down and he dipped himself seven times in the Jordan according to the word of the man of God. And his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child.

Ye must be born again. He came up out of those waters clean. He was saved.

Hallelujah. He went in unclean, but he came out clean. And listen, I'm going to quit now.

But some of you here tonight, you've dipped once. You've dipped twice. You've dipped three times.

And then you got discouraged. And then you quit. And then you went off.

But I want to tell you, you've got to dip seven times. Seven is the Bible number for perfection and completeness. And unless and until we fully obey the Lord, our leprosy, you might get saved, but some of your leprosy is going to hang on you.

If it hangs on you, it will eventually destroy you. And you'll backslide. But you've got to dip seven times.

I call the first dip repentance. I call dip number two, faith. I call dip number three, prayer.

I call dip number four, love. I call dip number five, obedience. I call dip number six, abiding in Christ.

I call dip number seven, death to self. And after the seventh dip, he was clean. He came up resurrected.

Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.

Do you know that, Jesus? Hallelujah. That's the message. That's the message that was rejected in Nazareth, but was received in Capernaum and was received by Naaman.

And he came up clean, a brand new man. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.

Stand with me. Glory to God.