IN THE VERY ACT OF OBEDIENCE
he was blessed.
Look at those ten New Testament lepers who came to Christ. He said to them: “Go show yourselves to the priests.”
“Well,” they might have said, “what good is that going to do us? Here we are all full of leprosy, and if we go and show ourselves to the priests they will order us back again into exile. That is not going to help us.”
But those ten men started off, and did just what the Lord Jesus Christ told them to do, and in the very act of doing it they were blessed; their leprosy left them.
He said to that man that had the palsy, whom they brought to Him upon a bed: “Take up thy bed and walk.”
The man might have said: “Lord, I have been trying for years to take that bed up, but I can’t. I haven’t got the power. I have been shaking with the palsy for the last ten years. Do you think that if I could have rolled up that bed that I would have been brought here and let down through the roof? I haven’t the power.”
But when the Lord commanded him He gave the power. Power came with the command, and that man stood up, rolled up his bed, and started off home. He was blessed in the very act of obedience.
My friends, if you want God to bless you, obey Him. Do whatsoever He calls upon you to do, and then see if He will not bless you.
Christ went to a Pharisee’s house one day while He was down here upon earth, to be entertained. They wanted to get Him to do something to break the law of Moses, that they might condemn Him to death, and so they put a man right opposite to Him at the table with a withered hand, to see if He would heal upon the Sabbath day. He said to the man:
“Stretch out thy hand.”
Now, the man might have said, “Lord, that is a very strange command. I haven’t got the power. That hand has been withered for the last twenty years. I haven’t stretched it out for the last twenty years; and you say, ‘Stretch it out.’ ”
But when He told him to do it He gave him the power, and out went that old withered hand, and before it came out straight, right in the very act, it was made whole. He was blessed in the very act of obedience.
Now, Naaman had to be taught the lesson that he had to obey; and so, finally, he went down to the Jordan just as he was told to do. And if you will do just what the Lord tells you the Lord will bless you as He did Naaman.
You may ask, “What does He tell me?”
“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.”
The word of God to Naaman was to go and wash; and the word of God to every soul out of Christ is to believe on His Son. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth My word and believeth on Him that sent Me hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life.” If a man believes with all his heart on the Lord Jesus Christ, God will never bring him to judgment for sin; that is all passed—that is all gone. Take Him at His word; believe Him; believe what He says, and you shall enter into life eternal. “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.” Him—mark you—not a dogma, not a creed,