Most Excellent!

Hi,

There are studies that I do that are good, and some are excellent.  This is an excellent study!  You can't go away from it unmoved.

It would be well worth your time to read 2Kings chapter 5 for the background.

As always, let me know what you think.

~Al

Now Naaman, captain of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master, and honorable, because by him the LORD had given deliverance to Syria: he was also a mighty man in valor, but he was a leper. 

And the Syrians had gone out by companies, and had brought away captive out of the land of Israel a little maid; and she waited on Naaman's wife. 

And she said to her mistress, I would that my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria! for he would recover him of his leprosy. 

And one went in, and told his lord, saying, Thus and thus said the maid that is of the land of Israel. 2Ki 5:1-4 

 

 

Naaman the Syrian

1. There is not a man or woman living, however happy or prosperous, in whose description sooner or later we do not come to a "but." There is always some drawback here, some drop in every cup that needs extraction, some thorn in every path to be removed. And even though this "but" were not in our health and circumstances, it is always in our nature. Leprosy is God's one great disease in the Bible to represent sin. It meant exclusion from the camp and distance from our fellowmen. Hideous and revolting in itself, it poisoned the springs of man's existence. Hence it strikingly represents that sin which is in man, and, in the absence of everything else, is the terrible "but" which mars and spoils the fairest earthly picture. Like man by nature, Naaman carried within him that disease which none but God could heal.

2. Contrast with this great man and honorable, the little maid. Torn away from her home and friends by rude hands, and probably amid the bitter tears of parental affection, she had been taken captive and sold as a slave. But amid all these discouraging circumstances she possessed a secret to which Naaman, with all his greatness, was a stranger. She knew of God and God's healing grace. Naaman felt the disease, she knew the healing. This made all the difference between her and Naaman. This makes all the difference between a Christian and one who is not. This makes the mighty difference between one man and another.

3. God disposes each lot in life. Naaman has his own peculiar sorrow, and so has the little maid hers. They are widely different. Yet God measures out to each one their position and circumstances, their blessings and afflictions, as will best show forth His glory. God had been leading her, through that strange way, to do for this great man and honorable what he could not do for himself, nor anyone in the royal court of Benhadad. "The Lord had need of her" for this His great work. Before passing on, notice another truth. Naaman's heavy trial had no power to subdue his haughty spirit. Sorrow of itself can never sanctify. Men may pass through God's hottest furnaces and only come out harder than ever. It is only when the Holy Spirit uses our sorrows—when we put them into His hands to use—that they will ever be made a blessing to us. Let us learn again, from the difference between Naaman and this little maid, that inequalities of social position are divine, and are means of blessing. We have seen two characters here, both of them representative—Naaman and the little maid. Let us now look at a third—Benhadad, King of Syria. In him we have man in his loftiness and arrogance. Nothing can be done, he feels, but through him. He prepares his litter, his gold and silver and raiment. All this is worldly religion—man's proud thoughts about God's ways. And yet all he does is but "labor lost." There is yet another character—Joram, King of Israel. Here is a man who knows about the true God, knows the revelation of His will, knows of the true Elisha at his very door, and yet, with all this knowledge, unable to take his true place and act God's part in directing the poor leper to the healer in Israel. Here is the man of religion, of true religion, of many privileges above others around him, yet all lost, and he utterly unable to direct the diseased one to the savior prophet!

4. Let us now turn to the savior prophet, Elisha, and his dealing with the poor leper. The King of Syria prepares a great price—£7500 value of our money. Naaman sets out with it on his journey, and King Jehoram acquiesces in it. Thus the idea of each is that the healing is to be obtained by a price. It is the latent thought of every man by nature. "Without money and without price" is God's Word, and this narrative of the healing of Naaman, and Elisha's dealings with him, are an illustration of this. And what is Elisha's message? "Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean." How simple, how plain! Then what am I to do with the £7500 and the raiment? Has it no value? None whatever in the eyes of Elisha. None whatever before God. Take it back with thee as the dregs of the sinner's righteousness, and learn that all thou art to receive, all that is to set thee free from sin and death and make thee a new creature in Christ Jesus, is of the free sovereign grace of God. Thus we see the pride of the natural heart. "Are not Abana and Pharpar better?" Here is the leper taking his own way of healing, and regarding it as better than God's. "He turned and went away in a rage." Here is the despising of God's remedy and the enmity of the natural heart showing itself. And Naaman was right. Abana's waters were clear and beautiful. Jordan's were clayey and muddy. There was nothing for Sight in all this. It was only for faith. It was God choosing the base things of this world to bring to naught the mighty. Is it not so still? "What is this blood of Christ?" the sinner says. "What! are all my prayers, my good deeds, my sacraments, all my honest efforts to do my best and to please God to go for nothing? But the grace that can provide for a leprous soul can plead with a reluctant heart. It can use a ministry as well as open a fountain; and this ministry is, like the remedy, simple and artless, and exactly suited to its end, for one is divine as the other. Like the "little maid" before, it is the "servants" now, for such are God's means at all times. Human righteousness and greatness, and all nature's fond conceits are set aside completely.

5. Observe the effects of the healing the form in which it was manifested: "his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child." This is the new birth. It is put before us in this form in other parts of Scripture: "if there be a Mediator with him, the One above the thousands of angels to show man (God's) righteousness, then He is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit; I have found the ransom. His flesh shall be fresher than a child's: he shall return to the days of his youth" (Job 33:23-24). Here the same truth is brought before us. Again we have it in the New Testament: "Except a man be born from above he cannot enter the kingdom of God." "If any man be in Christ he is a new creature; old things are passed away: behold, all things are become new."

6. Observe, in the next place, the manifestation of this new nature in the conduct of Naaman. From this point it is seen there is a great change in him. His spirit, his tone, his language, his whole bearing seems from this moment to form a striking contrast to all that has gone before, so much so that, had his name not been mentioned, we should have said it could not possibly be the same man. "And he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and came, and stood before him, and he said: Behold, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel: now therefore, I pray thee, take a blessing of thy servant." Observe the fruits of the new nature here, in their order. Naaman stands with all his company before Elisha. It is not now the proud and haughty Naaman, but the subdued and humbled one. Here is the first-fruit of the Holy Spirit in his character. He was humble because he was washed. Secondly, he makes a goodly confession of the one and only God. He had learnt the true God through the virtue of His grace exerted on himself—through the health and salvation he had received from Him. This is the only way the soul can ever learn Him. Thirdly, he presses his gifts upon Elisha, not now to purchase the healing, but because he has been healed. He has been forgiven much, therefore he loves much. Fourthly, he "will henceforth know no other God." To this end he seeks materials to raise an altar to the true God. And fifthly, he has now a renewed conscience, quick and sensitive about any, even apparent, departure from the God who had so blessed him.

(F. Whitfield, M. A.)

 

The method of grace

There is much modern application in these Old Testament circumstances. There is so much humaneness in the Bible which makes it always a new book. Principles know nothing of years. Truth is not hampered by time. The Scriptures are as old as eternity, and yet as new as every morning. The Gospel in the narrative may thus be developed.

I. The gospel appeals to the man, not his accidents. The prophet's message was to the leper, not to the courtier. Naaman came with his horses and with his pageantry. He came in a lordly air, but the prophet did not even meet him. The true man is never moved by glitter. Some of us would have bowed as sycophants; it would have been the reddest-letter day of our lives, if the premier of Syria had stood at our door. Even if a trinket, or a book, be given to us by a royal hand, we transmit it as an heirloom. There is a nobility of office, but there is a higher nobility of character. There is a kingliness of name, but there is also a kingliness of nature. We should not judge by appearance, but judge by righteous judgment. The prophet saw through all the haughtiness of Naaman, leprous man. God sees through all life's accidents—all our intelligence, parade, wealth, and respectability—a heart of corruption and sorrow. He sees that the "imagination of the thoughts of man are evil continually." The message is to man, not to his circumstances. It speaks to us as sinners. It speaks, not to contingencies, but to the human nature that is in us all. It was man that fell, and to man the message is sent. "He came to seek and to save that which was lost."

II. The gospel message and conditions are always simple. It speaks in a language all can understand. It speaks to the heart, and the heart has but one language, the wide world over. The tongue speaks many a vernacular, and the lips chatter many dialects, but the heart's voice never varies. The great universal heart beats in us all. The Gospel sees us fallen, and it sends forth the common message and a universal welcome. "Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden." The message is one, but its emphasis is varied according to our deafness, and its strokes to our hardness. The stone is hard, and the sculptor's mallet must be heavy, and his chisels sharp. The wound is deep, and the corrosive must burn, and the instrument probe deeply. The jewel is encased in adamant, and the lapidary must select his instruments accordingly. Our prejudices are great, our hearts are haughty, and the conditions are adapted. Christianity is to us what we are. Loving in disposition, it "speaks in a still small voice." Impenitent in heart, it speaks in thunder-tones. Some are so deaf that they can only hear thunder; others are so divinely sensitive, they can hear angels' whispers, and God's steps on the wind. According to our heart-life, God is either a Father, or a consuming fire. A revengeful God is the creation of a wicked life. The Gospel speaks to the heart, and of necessity must temper its voice to its disposition and difficulties. It is a message so simple that a child can understand it, and yet its inexhaustibleness challenges the highest mind. So plain, that the "wayfaring man" need not Stumble; and yet its sublimity creates a sensation new in angel bosom. Its simplicity reveals its wonders, as its stoop manifests its height.

III. The gospel conditions are repulsive to human prejudices. We might swear that it is night when the sun shines, but the light would only prove our insanity. We may curse the Book, but its truth is inviolable. We may blaspheme the Gospel, but the loudness of our voice may only reveal the perfectness of our idiocy. How presumptuous is man?

1. How we presume on God's ways? "I thought he would surely come out to me," etc.

2. How we presume on God's means? "Are not Abana and Pharpar . . . better than all the waters of Israel?"

3. How we presume on God's patience? "And he turned away in a rage."

4. How we presume on self-sufficiency? "Some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it?" The conditions of the Gospel may arouse our resentment, but to resist is to be blind to our best interests. The prophet said: "Wash and be clean"; and Naaman turned away in a rage. Christ says: "Sell all thou hast and give to the poor"; and the young man went away sorrowing. The Gospel says: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved"; and we are disgusted with the conditions. The Cross to the "Jew may be a stumbling-block," and to the "Greek, foolishness," but to as many as believe, it is the "power of God unto salvation." The answer to all our prejudices is, that it is God's appointed way. There is no royal road. The conditions are, believe and live, and the authority is, "he that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned." Our prejudices may recoil, and we may turn away in wrath. But we turn our face from the sun only to see our shadow.

(W. Mincher.)