Did you ever say those words to anyone? (COMFORTABLE = [Oxford Languages Dictionary] - “providing physical ease and relaxation.” Webster says it means “providing physical comfort; physically at ease.” Synonyms are: cozy, snug, easy, restful. But Webster’s also has this note: Comfortable “applies to anything that encourages serenity, well-being, or (the one that caught my eye) complacency. I believe the two biggest faults of God’s people today are apathy (lack of interest) and complacency. We are comfortable and satisfied, and we just aren’t interested. The fact that we live in comfort and ease is obvious. Even the saved tend to trust in what we have and who we are (Americans, Christians, Baptists!). And we hold that attitude - if not openly, at least in our hearts -while we live in difficult times. I imagine some would think after the last election, “We have it made now.” But remember what God’s Word has to say about the days in which we live. II Timothy 3:1: “This know also, that in the last days perilous (difficult, dangerous, furious) times shall come.” II Timothy 3:12: “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution (be chased, hunted down, persecuted).” And in the Lord’s churches, many (II Timothy 4:3) “will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.” Many will be “lovers of their own selves” and “lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God . . . ” (II Timothy 3:2, 4). Hear what God says about this attitude of satisfaction in such difficult and extreme times. Amos 6:1: “Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria . . . ” Just like believers today, the lepers in our text dwelt in an extreme time and and extreme situation. Samaria was besieged by the Syrians. There was a famine in the land People were eating donkeys’ heads and doves’ dung, and boiling their babies. (Can there be an any more apt description of the spiritual condition of people today than that?) But, in the midst of this, these were not content just to “sit here till we die.” Notice their thinking in II Kings 7:4: “If we say, We will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city, and we shall die there: and if we sit still here, we die also. Now therefore come, and let us fall unto the host of the Syrians: if they save us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall but die.” This is not fatalistic thinking. It is an accurate assessment of their situation. I talked to one man years ago, member of a Baptist church near where I was pastor. He said, “We’re just trying to hang on” (till the end). He was defeated in his mind. That is where most defeat occurs first. The church I pastored, and the one he attended were in a rural setting. He had decided, “We have done all we can do. The ‘glory days’ of the church over. We have an aging congregation. We out here in the country, and we can’t do any more.” He had no plan, no hope, no vision for the future. He had given up. Proverbs 29:18: “Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.” We live in extreme times today (just like in the days of Samaria). We often feel besieged because Satan is active on every front - family, social, business, political, and religious. People are feeding on the filth of the world spiritually, mentally, and physically. Like those in Samaria, they are feeding on donkeys’ heads, boiled babies, and bird droppings. Unfortunately, in this extreme time, most of God’s people and the Lord’s churches are satisfied to sit and blend in. (We are not saved just so we can sit, soak, and sour.) For a brief period these lepers were satisfied to sit outside the city gate and beg. The Lord dealt with a church kind of like that in Revelation 3:14-22. They said, “We are satisfied.” They said (vs. 17), “I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing . . . ” (They had even put Jesus on the outside - vs. 20: “. . . I stand at the door and knock . . . ” But the Lord showed them they needed to get rid of that satisfied attitude because He told them (vs. 17) that they needed everything - “thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked . . . ” If the Lord’s churches today could see themselves as the Lord sees them, they might not be so satisfied. And while we sit in our satisfaction, the world about us is perishing. What will it take for us to quit being satisfied? Our text tells us of some lepers (society’s outcasts) who became dissatisfied with where they were and what their future looked like, so they decided to do something about it. When they did they were blessed and were a blessing to others. So let’s notice some principles from this account.

I. THE PRINCIPLE OF DISSATISFACTION -- 7:3.

II. THE PRINCIPLE OF DECISION -- 7:4.

III. THE PRINCIPLE OF DELIGHT (BLESSING) 7:5-7.