Naaman - Lessons About Wisdom And Love of God

The point: Confess that God is a God of unfathomable wisdom in permitting current difficulties, even when they are not understood.

Martin uses the example of showing pictures of leper communities to unbelievers, who would then question God's goodness and wisdom, highlighting how Naaman's leprosy serves as a profound theological challenge that God answers.

He was cut off for normal social intercourse with the people of God. He was an outcast amongst his own people. And surely if anything would seem to be the occasion of questioning both the goodness and the wisdom of God, it would be looking upon someone afflicted with the disease of leprosy. If you want to draw forth the scornful question, of the unbeliever just showing pictures of communities of lepers.

13:04 - 13:36 Read in full sermon

The point: Confess that God is a God of unfathomable wisdom in permitting current difficulties, even when they are not understood.

He uses the analogy of threads in a fabric to describe how God weaves every circumstance, even apparent tragedies like Naaman's leprosy, with perfect wisdom and infinite love into the lives of His elect for their ultimate good.

As someone has said, our God is too loving to be unkind. He is too wise to be mistaken. One of the things that will amaze us, even as we sang in our hymn prior to the ministry of the Word, when God brings us into his presence and allows us to see, as it were, at a glance, all of the threads in the fabric of his own dealings with us, we shall be utterly amazed to see how every single thread was woven in perfect wisdom as well as in infinite love to those upon whom he has set his love. No one at the beginning of this history would think that there was love or wisdom in the circumstances that sur...

16:23 - 17:41 Read in full sermon

The point: Confess that God is a God of unfathomable wisdom in permitting current difficulties, even when they are not understood.

Martin compares the church's three-year struggle to construct a permanent place of worship to a 'spiritual plague,' challenging the congregation to confess God's unfathomable wisdom even in this frustrating circumstance, just as Naaman's leprosy led to his salvation.

It's another thing to confess it in the concrete. When we bring this down into the realm of that thing which right now is to us what Naaman's leprosy was to him, when we confess that God is a God of unfathomable wisdom in permitting that thing to enter and to attach itself to our lives, and when I say that thing, what comes to your mind? Well, I'm sure if the thoughts of your mind could be flashed upon a screen now the screen would be full and there'd be no identical concerns upon that screen. But whatever those things may be, men and women of faith learn to confess when they cannot understand...

18:24 - 19:52 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The sermon details how God's wisdom directed Elisha to prescribe a course of action (the slave girl's report, Elisha's messenger, washing in the Jordan) designed to humble Naaman…

He vividly imagines Naaman's embarrassment and the questions he would face from others about relying on a 'little captive slave girl's' hearsay, illustrating how God used a seemingly insignificant source to humble the proud general.

There are times when God sovereignly came to pagans with a word from His throne brought by an angel, brought by a dream, but here God uses what could have been regarded as just some hearsay from a little captive slave girl from that cursed nation of the Israelites. Well, that's a pretty humbling thing. Here you are, captain of the host, famous man for your military bravery and strength and for your military might, and you've got to pin your hopes for deliverance from your living death on what some little maid, some little captive slave girl has mumbled to your wife. Well, there's nothing very ...

21:01 - 21:55 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The sermon details how God's wisdom directed Elisha to prescribe a course of action (the slave girl's report, Elisha's messenger, washing in the Jordan) designed to humble Naaman…

Martin describes Naaman's arrival with his entourage, accustomed to military honors, and his expectation of a dramatic, public healing from Elisha, contrasting it with the prophet's actual, humbling response.

God is pride in terms of that first factor. Then, furthermore, remember as we read in the passage that he went laden with all of these gifts, and it seems evident that he did not deposit them with the king, but that when he came into Samaria and appears outside the door of Elisha that he's there with all of his entourage. Verse 9, So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariots and stood at the door of the house of Elisha. Can you use your imagination and see what it must have been like?

22:45 - 23:18 Read in full sermon

The point: Glory only in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, recognizing it as God's wisdom and power for salvation.

He imagines Naaman returning home, cleansed, and having to recount the 'unreasonable, nonsensical' method of his healing to his family and lieutenants, emphasizing the humbling nature of God's prescribed way.

From henceforth, I worship no other God. Now imagine when this great man goes back and he's cleansed and first of all he sees his wife and then all of his lieutenants and his captains and his friends and his neighbors, and they come and ask him, pray tell, how did this...

38:14 - 38:33 Read in full sermon

The point: Pray for greater largeness of heart and compassion for a world afflicted with the living death of sin, and be willing to do whatever God calls upon us to do to meet those needs.

Martin describes the ache of hearing about eager congregations in places like East London or Nairobi listening to 'utterly incompetent' preachers, using this to stir compassion and a sense of urgency for missions among his own congregation.

The prayer should be, Lord, give more grace to have greater largeness of heart to feel something of your own heart for a world that has the living death, the living death of the leprosy of sin. And we have the message that is the ordained means of deliverance. Oh, may God lay fresh constraint upon us as a people. As my wife and I were talking this afternoon and as I mentioned to the elders, I don't know how it is with you, but whenever I hear of brethren and try to picture what it's like, and I trust you could as our brother Smith spoke to us this morning, think of those 800 people coming in s...

55:59 - 57:23 Read in full sermon