Why sit we here until we die?

Or, Is that cookie crumbs on your face?

2nd Kings Chapter 7

To have leprosy was to be unclean. To be a castaway. Leviticus, Chapter 13, tells in length, the plague of leprosy. It was an attack on the skin of a person. The person would be shut up for seven days and then return for an evaluation from the high priest to see if the person was "clean or unclean".

Things haven't changed much today, except people try to look on the inside of other people and "judge" wheither they are clean or unclean. This might be my strongest sermon that I have written for the internet. But it is a message that should be written - read - and received.

In the Old Testiment, when a person with leprosy would walk down the road, there was suppose to be a person walking in front of that person declaring, "Unclean - Unclean". This was their job. It was to protect others from receiving this plague called leprosy.

There are still people today, who go before you, telling others about you, saying that you are "unclean - unclean"! These people will believe that they are doing God a service in protecting others from your percieved "uncleanness".

It would be truly lame of me to not acknowlege that this would hurt your heart to the very core. How do you think the people with leprosy felt when they walked down the street and people were proclaiming that they were "unclean - unclean". What if you have an Acne problem and someone went before you and proclaimed "Zits- Zits". Or what if you were over weight and someone went before you and proclamed "FAT - FAT" There are "Christians" today that feel they are doing the right thing by being the one to proclaim some bit of weekness in your flesh.

Now this is not an indorsement to "sin". Leprosy was not a sin, it was a sickness of the flesh.

1 Pet 4:14 If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified. 1 Pet 4:15 But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men's matters.

So now to the point....

2 Ki 7:3 And there were four leprous men at the entering in of the gate: and they said one to another, Why sit we here until we die?

2 Ki 7:4 If we say, We will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city, and we shall die there: and if we sit still here, we die also. Now therefore come, and let us fall unto the host of the Syrians: if they save us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall but die.

Notice, when you are in a problem, that there are many solutions that you see and none of them will work? These men knew that they were going to starve if they stayed put, or they were going to be killed if they went to the Syrian camp. So their decision was Why sit we here until we die?

God answers faith. Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Heb 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

The four leprous men chose to go on to the camp, but little did they know that God was going to take their draggy, stumbling footsteps and make it sound to the Syrian that the enemy was approaching with horses and chariots!

2 Ki 7:6 For the Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host: and they said one to another, Lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us.

2 Ki 7:7 Wherefore they arose and fled in the twilight, and left their tents, and their horses, and their asses, even the camp as it was, and fled for their life. 2 Ki 7:8 And when these lepers came to the uttermost part of the camp, they went into one tent, and did eat and drink, and carried thence silver, and gold, and raiment, and went and hid it; and came again, and entered into another tent, and carried thence also, and went and hid it.

2 Ki 7:9 Then they said one to another, We do not well: this day is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace: if we tarry till the morning light, some mischief will come upon us: now therefore come, that we may go and tell the king's household.

Now I can just picture these 4 leprous men, with cookie crumbs on their faces, milk on their upper lip, setting in the blessing that God had given them, just because they used their faith to go on, now feelling guilty for those left in the city behind them. Do you remember them, the ones whose "job" it was to cry "unclean - unclean"? These "leprous" men went back to include the others in the blessing and yet the people of the city could not believe that God had scattered the Syrians.

People may not accept you in "their crowds", you may never live up to "their standards", you may even be considered "leprous" to them. But I say, Why sit we here until we die? Do something for Jesus!!! Come alive for Him!!!

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