Moral Rivers

Naaman the leper had come to Elijah to find a cure for his incurable disease--a perfect picture of our sin nature. He was told to go and dip himself seven times in the Jordan River. His response was that he would rather go home and wash in his own rivers; they were a lot cleaner than the Jordan. If he had done that, he would have spent the rest of his life faithfully, religiously dipping in his own river, and every time that he came up, he would have still been a leper.
Naaman's pride almost kept him from his cure. Perhaps he was expecting the miracle to come with all the necessary accoutrements--lightning, thunder, huge crowds, and the big bass drum. After all, he was an important man. Surely there was some Herculean labor that he would have to perform to prove his worthiness to be cured of his leprosy. What a blow to his ego it must have been to find that the miracle cure was so simple that anyone could do it. Dip seven times in the Jordan river. Too simple! Absurd! Undignified! Barbarian!
His reaction was predictable. Well, if it's that simple, couldn't he at least do it in one of his own rivers. They were clean. The Jordan was dirty and repulsive. The source of his response in II Kings 5 is obvious: "I thought," "may I," "to me." Pride: sin is deification of self.
The cross of Christ is not attractive. To be washed in the blood sounds repulsive, absurd, barbarian to proud men. It is, however, the only way. Too simple? Anyone can do it? Yes, whosoever will may come. But it must be the blood of the Savior shed on the cross that is the object of our faith. "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by Me." Our own way for our own deification and dignity will never cleanse our leprosy of sin. It will never give us the miracle of cleansing. "The cleansing flood, I see, I see. I plunge and oh, it cleanseth me." "Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb" or repeatedly dipping fruitlessly in your own river because you thought your way and not God's way would suffice?
"There is a way which seems right to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death." The rivers of a moral life, church membership, doing the best I can, helping my fellow man, baptism, and on and on, might be clean rivers, but they can never wash away the leprosy of sin. Yet, "there is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins and guilty sinners plunged within lose all their guilty stain."

"This is the work of God: to believe on Him whom He has sent."
"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved."
"Unless you believe, you will all likewise perish."
"There is no other name, given among men, whereby you must be saved."

It is not enough to recognize that you are a leper. It is not enough to seek a cure. You must "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ"--the only cure.