Then Naaman went with his horses and chariot, and he stood at the door of Elisha’s house. And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored to you, and you shall be clean.” But Naaman became furious, and went away and said, “Indeed I said to myself, 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 heal the leprosy.”

II Kings 5:9-11

For over forty years and three generations, my family has been witnessing to and praying for family members who even at this day have yet to believe and trust in Christ alone for salvation. In speaking with these family members as a child and now decades later as an adult, the objection has remained remarkably consistent: ‘I don’t want to hear it, I am not smart enough to talk about the meaning of faith and the Bible.’ (1)

The idea of the difficulty of understanding the gospel of grace is not a new tactic of the devil and his children. Before the great offer of salvation freely went out in Romans 10:9-13, Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit warned us not to call the gospel message too difficult: “Do not say in your heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above) or, Who shall descend into the abyss? (That is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? The word is near you….”

There are those who wish to make the message of Jesus Christ and eternal life in and through Him too hard for common man to grasp. They want us to think we have to achieve great understanding by the world’s standards of such things before we can attain this truth. It is as if we have to go up to Heaven to bring Christ down before we can have Him as our Savior. Or perhaps we need to go to the depths of the earth and raise Christ from the dead as if He were now dead and do a miracle to gain eternal life. There are those who suggest Christ needs to be obtained with vast sums of money in order to be saved. But none of this is true of Christ and the good news, the gospel, that He brings. The message of life and salvation in Jesus Christ is simple and is not far off but very near you. (2)

“If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). Yes, we can and should draw on many other passages too, build on, testify to, and expand on this verse but here is the gospel call in summary in just one verse. It is even shorter in other verses. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved…” (Acts 16:31).

Whoever with the heart believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, whoever repents of sin, whoever confesses truthfully with the mouth that God has raised Jesus Christ from the dead – that man, that woman, that child, born or unborn, whoever that person is, will be saved! This salvation is offered without payment. It is free. It is by the grace of God that we are saved through faith, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

Any message of the devil that makes difficult what God has made simple, that makes far off what God has brought near, that makes confusing what God has made clear, should be considered accursed and anti-Christ. Flee from such lies and distortions of the truth and come to the truth: “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved!”

In our urgency to make known the simple call of the gospel, let us not forget then the leper general who arrived at the house of Elisha with his army, chariot, and gold, silver, and clothing payments. He came for healing to the only one in all the world who was said to be able to heal a leper. While Naaman expected that the great prophet would open the door, a servant came to the door instead. While he expected a great show, this was the message of healing: “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored to you, and you shall be clean” (vs. 10).

After a journey through a literal dry and thirsty land seeking salvation from leprosy that no other man in all the world could give, Naaman had arrived not even to be welcomed inside the great prophet’s home or to see the prophet himself. Instead he was given a simple message from a simple servant.

Dear friend, you too have been given a simple message for a far greater cleansing than the cleansing of leprosy. You have been given a message of cleansing from sin. No man or woman in all the world can cleanse you of this terrible death. God does not owe to you to open up the heavens and speak to you from a bright light or a great whirlwind. But He has sent His servants to preach to you this simple message: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.

Will you heed the simple call of the gospel?

.

.

(1) The context of this statement is reliance on the Roman Catholic Church which teaches lay people that they are unable to understand the Bible without the interpretations of priests, bishops, archbishops, cardinals, and popes. A laity reading the Bible presents an existential threat to the Roman Catholic Church because it opens the possibility of vast numbers of followers seeing the paganism and anti-Christian religion that Rome has become over the ages. So it is better for Rome if its followers think of the Bible as a holy book but never open it and read it.

(2) Do not take from this that the message of the gospel is not deep or vast or wide or great. It is of course all those things, and our salvation was acquired at the highest cost imaginable, the death of the God-man Jesus Christ. We will meditate on the work of Christ and this glorious message of salvation all the days of our life and I trust in glory as well because it is so deep. But the message is at its core very simple so that a young child can understand it and rejoice in the God of his Salvation. “Those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them” (Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 1, Section 7).

.

.

Copyright ©, LikeTheGreatMountains.com, 2020