What truly led to the fall of Gehazi? Dive into 2 Kings 5:15-27, unveiling the deeper spiritual truths behind Gehazi’s fall and how his actions became a tragic example of hypocrisy, greed, and divine judgment. Just like leprosy spreads through the body, Gehazi’s sin spread from the heart, leading to devastating consequences. Discover how Gehazi’s fall also serves as a poignant illustration of the dangers of spiritual compromise and the urgent need for repentance.
https://youtu.be/zbC01GX3EUc
Table of contents*
Gehazi Was a Religious Hypocrite*
God Faithfully Warns*
When God Warned David*
God Faithfully Warns Us*
We Escape and Endure*
Gehazi’s Deceptions*
Sin Often Leads to More Sin*
Elisha Saw What Gehazi Did as God Sees What We Do*
Elisha Had a Heart for Elisha as God Has a Heart for Us*
Gehazi Already Had Spiritual Leprosy*
We Must Be Cleansed of Our Spiritual Leprosy*
Gehazi Ruined a Picture of the Gospel*
Leprosy Must Be Cleansed
On the fifteenth anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death, the record industry honored him as the best-selling singer of all time. He seemed to have many of the most common things people seek: wealth, fame, and success. But on August 16, 1977, at only forty-two years old, his fiancée, Ginger Alden, found him unresponsive on the bathroom floor of his Graceland mansion. Attempts to revive him failed, and he was pronounced dead.
Photos and videos of him at the end of his life show a bloated man with distorted features. Most people will say the years of drug use and careless living took their toll. But I would say the biggest cause of his death was covetousness.
Here’s what I mean: even as his health deteriorated, he continued to tour intensively because he desired even more fame and success. In 1973, only a few years before his death, he had his busiest schedule with 168 concerts.
1 The day he died, he was scheduled to fly out of Memphis to Portland, Maine, to begin another tour. No matter how successful and famous he became, he always wanted more.
We would be hard-pressed to find someone whose health was damaged by covetousness more than Elvis's. But we do with Elisha’s servant, Gehazi. His covetousness caused him to get leprosy!
Here’s the background to the account. The prophet Elisha told the Syrian general, Naaman, how to be cleansed of leprosy. After Naaman was cleansed:
2 Kings 5:15 Then [Naaman] returned to the man of God (Elisha), he and all his company, and he came and stood before him. And he said, “Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel; so accept now a present from your servant.”
Naaman was incredibly grateful and tried to repay Elisha:
2 Kings 5:16 But [Elisha] said, “As the Lord lives, before whom I stand,
