Wednesday, November 18, 2015
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Look up in the sky! It's a bird, it's a plane, it's (yeah, you said it) it's Superman! Man, when I heard these words on my T.V. as a kid, I was in a T.V. trance for the next half hour. I loved to watch the exploits of the man of steel.
Over the years there have been various actors who portrayed the man of steel. A couple of them had tragic lives. George Reeves, who played Superman from 1951 to 1958 committed suicide after his career had effectively stalled. He was forever typecast as Superman. Then another actor, Christopher Reeve, who played Superman in five films, became paralyzed in 1995 from the equestrian accident where he was thrown from his horse. These actors played the part of a man who was invincible, but "behind the role" was the awful reality.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Supermen Are Breakable!"
Actually, many men have discovered that fact in their own lives. Our half of the human race has been raised to believe that we've got to be super men. The world thinks we've got it together; we feel no pain, we've got it under control. But as a man, you know there's a "real you" behind the part – a wounded warrior; maybe bleeding a lot on the inside; maybe a scared little boy underneath a mask of macho confidence; and you don't have it all under control. Superman, in reality, is breakable or broken.
Our word for today from the Word Of God introduces us to a "Superman" of another time and the dark secret that was beyond all his "Superness." Second Kings 5:1, "Now Naaman was commander of the army of the King of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded because through him the Lord had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier...". Okay, this guy was a "Superman" of his time, but he had a secret, a dark secret: he was dying of leprosy.
In verse 3, one of his servants said, "If only my master would see the prophet who's in Samaria. He would cure him of his leprosy." So Naaman goes for that cure, but it required humility. He didn't like the cure prescribed: he had to wash in the dirty Jordan River. He says, "Couldn't I wash in one of the streams back home and be cleansed?" It says he went off in a rage!
He was proud, and he was dying from it. Finally, he chose to be well rather than be in charge. In chapter 5, verse 14, it says, "He dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy."
I wonder if God brought us together today because He knows you're a modern day Naaman. He knows the dark spot behind the mask and He wants to cure it. But you first have to accept His diagnosis and His cure. The diagnosis is that you've got terminal spiritual cancer. It's called sin! No matter how religious, no matter how respected you may be, you've broken God's laws and you've run the life that your Creator was suppose to run and your "my way" of living has left you fatally separated from God.
The cure requires humility – the admission that you cannot save yourself – and then a trip, not to a dirty river, but to a dying Savior's cross. There you say, "Jesus, it's my sin You're dying for, isn't it? I need to be forgiven. I need a Savior. I can't be my own savior, I want to be Yours. I belong to You." The result – the same as it was for Naaman: you're restored, you're clean, you're new! Haven't you run from Jesus or put off Jesus long enough? Let this be the day you run to Him! Discover in the man Jesus, who walked 33 years as a man. He gets us guys.
When you discover in Him all the love and all the power that has eluded you, all the peace, all the fulfillment, all the worth and the ability to change what you could never change about you, you discover that when you get to Jesus and say, "Jesus, I'm Yours."
Have you ever had that day with the man God sent – Jesus, His Son – to die for you? If you never have, let it be today. Let's get this done. Go to our website. I'll be there in a way to meet you there with information that will help you get started. It's ANewStory.com. Or just text us at 442-244-WORD.
Superman really is breakable or broken. Don't make that eternally fatal mistake of being so proud you die from it. Your Savior is waiting!