The Gospel According to Lepers Text: 2 Kings 7:3-14
Introduction: The Logic of Desperation
We live in a world that prides itself on its sophisticated cynicism. Our age is one of managed expectations, of carefully calculated risks, and a deep-seated suspicion of anything that sounds too good to be true. We are connoisseurs of despair. We are told to trust the experts, to follow the science, to believe the polls. But the one thing we are never told to do is to expect a miracle. The smart money is always on the established order of things continuing just as they are, grinding on toward a bleak and predictable oblivion.
This is the wisdom of the world, and it is a lie. It is the lie that was suffocating the city of Samaria. Surrounded by the Aramean army, the people were starving to death. The inflation was so bad that a donkey's head, something you wouldn't feed to your dog, was selling for eighty shekels of silver. Things were so grim that mothers were boiling their own children for food. This is the endpoint of all secular, godless reasoning. When you lock God out of His world, you are left with nothing but cannibalism. You will either eat the body of Christ by faith, or you will eat your own children in despair.
Into this black hole of human misery, the prophet Elisha speaks a word that is, by all human standards, insane. He says, "Thus says the Lord, 'Tomorrow about this time a seah of fine flour shall be sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria.'" An economic recovery of that magnitude overnight? Impossible. And the king's right-hand man says so. He is the voice of respectable, data-driven unbelief. "Look," he says, "if the Lord would make windows in heaven, could this thing be?" He can imagine God doing something, but not something this extravagant. His God is a tame God, a reasonable God, a God who works within the established parameters of what is possible. And for this cynical, respectable unbelief, he is judged. He will see the miracle, but he will not taste it.
But God does not use the respectable to bring about His salvation. He does not use the wise, the powerful, or the noble. He chooses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. He chooses the weak things to shame the strong. And in this story, He chooses four lepers, the ultimate outcasts, to be the first evangelists of a great deliverance. This is how God always works. His salvation comes from the outside, from the margins, from the most unexpected quarters. And it comes to those who have been stripped of all other hope, who have nothing left to lose, and who are therefore finally ready to believe the unbelievable.
The Text
Now there were four leprous men at the entrance of the gate; and they said to one another, “Why do we sit here until we die? If we say, ‘We will enter the city,’ then the famine is in the city and we will die there; and if we sit here, we die also. So now come, and let us go over to the camp of the Arameans. If they spare us, we will live; and if they put us to death, we will die.” So they arose at twilight to go to the camp of the Arameans. Then they came to the outskirts of the camp of the Arameans, but behold, there was no one there. Now the Lord had caused the camp of the Arameans to hear a sound of chariots and a sound of horses, even the sound of a great military force, so that they said to one another, “Behold, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us.” Therefore they arose and fled in the twilight, and forsook their tents and their horses and their donkeys, even the camp just as it was, and fled for their life. So these lepers came to the outskirts of the camp and entered one tent and ate and drank. Then they carried from there silver and gold and clothes, and they went and hid them; and they returned and entered another tent and carried from there also and went and hid them. Then they said to one another, “We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news, but we are keeping silent; if we wait until morning light, punishment will overtake us. So now, come, let us go and tell the king’s household.” So they came and called to the gatekeepers of the city, and they told them, saying, “We came to the camp of the Arameans, and behold, there was no one there, nor the voice of man, only the horses tied and the donkeys tied, and the tents just as they were.” And the gatekeepers called and told it within the king’s household. Then the king arose in the night and said to his servants, “I will now tell you what the Arameans have done to us. They know that we are hungry; therefore they have gone from the camp to hide themselves in the field, saying, ‘When they come out of the city, we will capture them alive and get into the city.’ ” And one of his servants answered and said, “Please, let some men take five of the remaining horses, which remain in the city. Behold, they will be in any case like all the multitude of Israel who remain in it; behold, they will be in any case like all the multitude of Israel who have already come to an end, so let us send and see.” They took therefore two chariots with horses, and the king sent after the camp of the Arameans, saying, “Go and see.” (2 Kings 7:3-14 LSB)
The Calculus of Faith (vv. 3-5)
We begin with the outcasts, sitting at the gate, weighing their options.
"Now there were four leprous men at the entrance of the gate; and they said to one another, 'Why do we sit here until we die? If we say, ‘We will enter the city,’ then the famine is in the city and we will die there; and if we sit here, we die also. So now come, and let us go over to the camp of the Arameans. If they spare us, we will live; and if they put us to death, we will die.'" (2 Kings 7:3-4)
These men are in a position of absolute hopelessness. As lepers, they are ritually unclean, cut off from the covenant community. They are not allowed inside the city. They are dying of their disease, and they are dying of starvation. They are at rock bottom. And it is from this position of utter desperation that they begin to reason. Their logic is impeccable. To stay put is certain death. To go into the city is certain death. The only option with even a sliver of a chance of life is to surrender to the enemy. It is a long shot, but it is the only shot they have. Notice what has happened. Their desperation has burned away all their illusions. They are not clinging to false hopes or trusting in their own resources. They have been brought to the end of themselves, and that is precisely where faith begins.
This is a perfect illustration of the sinner's condition before God. We are spiritually leprous, unclean, and cut off from the life of God. We are starving for righteousness. If we remain in our sin, we will surely die. If we try to save ourselves by entering the "city" of our own good works, we will also die, for the famine of righteousness is there as well. Our only hope is to throw ourselves on the mercy of the one we perceive to be our enemy, God Himself. It feels like a desperate gamble. We think, "If He spares me, I will live; and if He puts me to death, I will only die," which is what I was going to do anyway. This is the logic of repentance. It is the abandonment of all self-help and a complete surrender to the mercy of God in Christ.
The Phantom Army (vv. 6-7)
While the lepers are making their desperate decision, God is already at work, routing the enemy with nothing more than a sound effect.
"Now the Lord had caused the camp of the Arameans to hear a sound of chariots and a sound of horses, even the sound of a great military force... Therefore they arose and fled in the twilight, and forsook their tents and their horses and their donkeys, even the camp just as it was, and fled for their life." (2 Kings 7:6-7)
This is the beautiful absurdity of God's providence. He doesn't send a real army. He sends the sound of an army. He uses auditory phenomena. The Arameans are not defeated by superior military strategy; they are defeated by their own guilty consciences and a divinely induced panic attack. God works in their imaginations. They hear the noise and immediately jump to the most logical, geopolitical conclusion: Israel has hired mercenaries from the Hittites and the Egyptians. Their reasoning is perfectly sound, from a human perspective. But it is completely wrong, because they have left God out of their calculations.
This is a glorious truth. God's sovereignty extends even to the panicked thoughts of pagan armies. He can orchestrate a stampede with a whisper. He can win a war without firing a shot. Our problem is that we, like the Arameans, tend to think only in terms of earthly power dynamics. We look at the cultural forces arrayed against the church, and we think in terms of hiring our own Hittites and Egyptians. We think we need better political strategies, more cultural influence, bigger budgets. But God can scatter the enemy with a rumor. He can make the wicked flee when no one pursues. Our job is not to build a phantom army, but to trust the God who commands them.
The Lepers' Feast and the Stirrings of Conscience (vv. 8-9)
The lepers arrive at the abandoned camp and find a miracle.
"So these lepers came to the outskirts of the camp and entered one tent and ate and drank. Then they carried from there silver and gold and clothes, and they went and hid them; and they returned and entered another tent and carried from there also and went and hid them. Then they said to one another, 'We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news, but we are keeping silent...'" (2 Kings 7:8-9)
Their first response is perfectly understandable. They are starving. They eat and drink. They are destitute. They see unimaginable wealth just lying there for the taking, and they start to hoard it. They are acting out of their old identity as desperate, impoverished outcasts. For a moment, they think this great salvation is just for them. They are trying to cram a private blessing into their leprous pockets.
But then, their conscience kicks in. The grace they have received is too big, too extravagant to be kept to themselves. "We are not doing right." This is the dawning of evangelical responsibility. They realize that the good news is not a private treasure to be hoarded, but a public proclamation to be shared. The blessing comes with an obligation. To know of a cure for starvation and to keep it to yourself is a crime. They even recognize that to delay would invite judgment: "if we wait until morning light, punishment will overtake us."
This is the position of every Christian. We were spiritual lepers, starving and destitute. We stumbled into the camp of God's grace and found an impossible feast spread for us in the presence of our enemies. We have been given the unsearchable riches of Christ. And our first temptation is often to treat it as a private affair, to enjoy our salvation and hide our treasures. But the gospel is not good advice; it is good news. And news, by its very nature, must be told. To keep silent in a city of starving people is not just a failure of nerve; it is a profound wickedness. We have been saved to be heralds. We are the lepers who must run back to the gate and shout the good news.
The Cynicism of the King (vv. 10-14)
The good news is proclaimed, but it is met with the very thing that always resists good news: sophisticated, worldly-wise unbelief.
"Then the king arose in the night and said to his servants, 'I will now tell you what the Arameans have done to us. They know that we are hungry; therefore they have gone from the camp to hide themselves in the field, saying, ‘When they come out of the city, we will capture them alive and get into the city.’'" (2 Kings 7:12)
The lepers report the facts exactly as they found them. The gatekeepers pass on the message. But when the news reaches the king, he cannot receive it. His mind is too shrewd, too political, too cynical. He cannot imagine an enemy simply fleeing in panic. He cannot conceive of a deliverance that is pure gift. So he confects a conspiracy theory. "It's a trap," he says. He interprets the evidence of God's grace through the lens of his own godless, strategic worldview. In his world, no one gives you anything for free. Everything is a power play. Everything is a stratagem.
This is the very nature of unbelief. Unbelief is not a lack of faith; it is a profound faith in the wrong story. The king has a robust faith in the treachery of the Arameans and the hopelessness of his situation. He is not a neutral observer weighing the evidence. He has a pre-existing narrative, and he will bend the facts to fit it. The good news of God's grace is always an offense to this kind of cynical mind. It sounds too simple, too good, too naive. The unbelieving heart will always prefer a complicated conspiracy theory to a simple act of divine mercy.
Thankfully, one of his servants has a bit more sense. His logic is similar to the lepers' logic. He proposes a small, empirical test. Send out a few of the remaining horses. What's the worst that can happen? "Behold, they will be in any case like all the multitude of Israel who have already come to an end." In other words, they're going to die anyway. We have nothing to lose. This is pragmatism in the service of faith. And so, reluctantly, the king agrees to investigate. He sends out scouts, and they confirm the lepers' story. The road is littered with the garments and equipment of a panicked, fleeing army. The good news was true after all.
Conclusion: The Unbelievable Gospel
This story is a glorious picture of the gospel. We are all in the starving city of Samaria, under a sentence of death. We are spiritually leprous, unclean, and without hope in the world. And God sends a prophet to announce an impossible, unbelievable deliverance. He announces that the famine is over, that the bread of life is now free. He has accomplished this not through our efforts, but by routing our enemy, Satan, through a display of power that the enemy himself completely misinterpreted. The rulers of this age thought they were winning a great victory at the cross, but God was causing them to hear the sound of their own defeat.
And who are the first to discover this great salvation? Not the kings, not the generals, not the royal advisors. It is a handful of outcasts who have been driven by desperation to throw themselves upon a mercy they did not deserve. And having feasted on this grace, they are compelled to become the first evangelists. They run to the gates of the starving city and proclaim the good news: the siege is broken, the enemy has fled, and there is a feast for all who will come.
And how is this good news received? With suspicion, with cynicism, with unbelief. The kings of this world still think it must be a trap. They cannot believe that salvation is a free gift. They are still trying to game out the angles, to find the catch. They would rather starve to death trusting their own cynical wisdom than feast for free on the grace of God.
The question for us is simple. Which character are you in this story? Are you the king's officer, sneering at the promise of God because it doesn't fit your spreadsheets? Are you the king, so locked into your own narrative of despair that you explain away the evidence of grace? Or are you one of the lepers? Have you come to the end of yourself? Have you recognized that staying put is death, and self-rescue is death? Have you made that desperate, twilight journey out of yourself and into the camp of God's mercy, only to find it overflowing with life, and food, and riches? And if you have, are you hoarding that treasure? Or are you running back to the gate, your voice hoarse from shouting, "This is a day of good news! We cannot keep silent!"
The gospel is an offense to the wise, and it is foolishness to the prudent. But to us lepers who are being saved, it is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Let us therefore be unashamed of this leprous gospel, and let us proclaim it to a starving world.