Naaman - Lessons About Wisdom And Love of God

Introduction to Naaman's Story and Elisha's Ministry Context

0:03 Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and honorable, because by him the Lord had given victory unto Syria. He was also a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper.

0:32 The Syrians had gone out in bands and had brought away captive out of the land of Israel a little maiden, and she waited on Naaman's wife. And she said unto her mistress, Would that my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria, then would he recover him of his leprosy. And one went in and told his lord, saying, Thus and thus said the maiden that is of the land of Israel. And the king of Syria said, Go now, and I will send a letter unto the king of Israel.

1:05 And he departed and took with him ten talents of silver and six thousand pieces of gold, and ten changes of raiment. And he brought the letter to the king of Israel, saying, And now, when this letter is come unto thee, behold, I have sent Naaman my servant to thee, that thou mayest recover him of his leprosy. And it came to pass, when the king of Israel had read the letter, that he rent his clothes and said, Am I God to kill and to make alive, that this man doth send unto me to recover a man of his leprosy? But consider, I pray you, and see how he seeketh a quarrel against me.

1:47 And it was so, when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had rent his clothes, that he sent to the king, saying, Wherefore hast thou rent thy clothes? Let him come now to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel. So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariots, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha. And Elisha sent a messenger unto him.

2:13 Saying, Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean. But Naaman was wroth, and he went away and said, Behold, I thought he would surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of Jehovah his God, and wave his hand over the place, and recover the leper. Are not Abana and Farpar the rivers of Damascus better than all? The waters of Israel?

2:45 May I not wash in them and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage. His servants came near and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it? How much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash and be clean.

3:08 Then he went down, and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the saying of the prophet. And his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. 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.

3:37 Now therefore I pray thee, take a present of thy servant. But he said, As the Lord God liveth before whom I speak. I will receive none. And he urged him to take it, but he refused.

3:53 And Naaman said, If not, yet I pray thee, let there be given to thy servant two mules burden of earth. For thy servant will henceforth offer neither burnt offering nor sacrifice unto other gods, but unto Jehovah. In this thing Jehovah pardon thy servant, when my master goeth into the house of Rima, to worship there, and he leaneth on my hand, and I bow myself in the house of Rima. When I bow myself in the house of Rima, the Lord pardon thy servant in this thing.

4:30 And he said unto him, Go in peace. So he departed from him a little way.

God's Unrivaled Sovereignty in Naaman's Healing

4:39 As we seek to understand the significance and message of the life and ministry of the prophet Elisha. We must continually remind ourselves of the times in which the man of God ministered, and the great point of controversy which existed at that time between Jehovah and his people, that is, the nation of Israel.

5:06 Baal worship was still abounding in the land of Israel. Even though there had been what we might call a showdown on Mount Carmel, and there seemed to be something of a national revival, the subsequent history after the life and ministry of Elijah indicates that Baal worship was by no means purged from the land. The storm clouds of judgment upon the northern kingdom are gathering, and in the midst of that situation of abounding idolatry, God has preserved for himself a remnant, according to the election of grace. A people who have not bowed the knee to Baal, nor kissed him.

5:52 And one of the emphases that we have seen again and again in the book, in the life of Elisha, and in these passages, particularly in 2 Kings, is that God is continually reaffirming both his livingness as the one true and living God, in contrast to the deadness of Baal, and his loving care for those who have not bowed. And in chapter 4, we could say that that is the unifying factor of the four miracles recorded. There are these intimate cameos in which we see the living God of the covenant manifesting his faithfulness in providing to those who have not violated the covenant by willfully rejecting the worship of Jehovah and turning to the worship of Baal. But in chapter 4, we could say that that is the unifying factor of the four miracles recorded. But in chapter 5, in verse 1, the contrast is very marked. As we noted last Lord's Day evening, we are introduced, almost rudely, but certainly abruptly, to a tremendous transition.

7:01 Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, and the very mention of the word Syria to any Israelite who knew his history, would immediately bring to remembrance this warlike nation. That had been a constant thorn in its side, that had been a scourge in the hand of Jehovah to punish his sinning people. And as we come then to this, which is one of the most detailed miracles in the life of Elisha, I suggested last Lord's Day that we do well, first of all, to look at the passage in a broad overview, particularly with reference to what it demonstrates of the character and of the ways in which it is described. And that is what we are going to look at today. We are going to look at the passage in a broad overview, particularly with reference to what it demonstrates of the character and of the ways in which it is described. We shall in due time go into greater detail, as the Spirit of God has recorded that detail for us, but we do not want to miss the woods for the trees.

7:59 Last Lord's Day evening we had time simply to underscore one great principle in this incident read in your hearing, and I called upon you as the people of God to behold in this passage the marvelous display of the unrivaled sovereignty of Israel. We see his sovereignty asserted with reference to pagan military operations in the first verse. It was the hand of Jehovah that had granted military might and conquest through Naaman's hand. We see the sovereignty of God in the disappointing providence that came to this little maiden who was obviously a maiden who knew and loved Jehovah, was true to the covenant in the midst of a boundless covenant between Israel and Israel. We see that he is a woman who was a woman who was a woman of love and love for Israel, and with And we learn from her experience that God is sovereign, even in those disappointing providences that appear on the surface to be unkind and unreasonable and at times utterly meaningless.

9:01 And then we see his sovereignty in the dispensing of his grace and deliverance to men. As our Lord comments upon this incident in Luke's Gospel, chapter 4, he underscores that very principle, that any national kinship to the prophet was no claim upon the performance of prophetic powers. Unto no lepers was Elisha sent, though there were many lepers in the days of Elisha. Our Lord says, He was sent to this Gentile, this pagan, he was sent unto Naaman. And then finally the sovereignty of God is manifested in governing the hearts and minds of men.

9:44 And the many instances of this we will not pause to recall, but just read the passage and reflect upon the many incidents which underscore the unrivaled sovereignty of the living God. Now tonight I wish to underscore with you two other things. Two other great areas in which God manifests and demonstrates his own character and ways in this incident. I would call upon you in the second place to behold in this passage not only the evidence of the unrivaled sovereignty of God, but the unfathomable wisdom of God.

Beholding the Unfathomable Wisdom of God

10:24 We read in that well-known portion in the book of Romans that great statement of praise with respect. In respect to the wisdom of God, Romans 11 and verse 33. Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past tracing up.

10:51 For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been his counselor? Or who hath first given to him and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him.

11:03 And through him and unto him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen. Well, if it is true that the wisdom of God is unsearchable.

11:17 If it is true that the wisdom of God is such as to draw forth such an expression of praise from the heart and pen of the great apostle. We should expect that the scriptures would be full of that unfathomable wisdom. Of the living God. And surely in this passage that is before us.

God's Wisdom in Permitting Naaman's Affliction

11:38 We do indeed have a marvelous demonstration of that unfathomable wisdom. Let me suggest two lines of thought that are set before us in the passage in which that wisdom is demonstrated. First of all, the wisdom of God in permitting Naaman to be afflicted with a disease. Which would result in his salvation.

12:01 The opening. Verses. Of this chapter. Set before us in great detail some of the greatness of this man Naaman.

12:14 But then in the original it's very forceful. You'll notice if you have a 1901 edition or the authorized version. That at the end of verse one the words but he was are in italics. There is no verb in the original.

12:31 We read this description of this great man. but then at the end these simple words, a leper, a leper, and bound up in those words is all the helplessness of that cursed disease. And of course to the ears of an Israelite it would have even additional connotations, for a leper was literally a man who was an expression of a living death. He was cut off from the worship of the people of God.

13:04 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.

13:37 And they will look at us and say, you say your God is a God of love, a God of wisdom. How do you explain that? Well in this passage, verse 1 becomes as it were the open door into this amazing display of the power of God manifested not merely in cleansing this man, of the living death of leprosy, but of bringing an idolater out of the darkness of his idolatry into the glorious light of the knowledge of the true and the living God. For it is obvious from the confession of Naaman in verse 15 and the subsequent record that he not only came to the acknowledgement that Jehovah was the true and the living God, but he expressed his determination that from henceforth, he would worship no other God. And then he manifested even a tenderness of conscience concerning the compromising position of his official duty when he would go with his master into the house of the pagan God. And when the master would bow to support him, he would of course have to appear as though he were bowing with him. But he says to the prophet, please take note that this is no true acknowledgement of this pagan God.

14:59 And that this was in fact, indeed the state of his heart is evidenced by the response of the prophet who says, Shalom, go in peace, the blessing of Jehovah is upon you. So we see that this man who is introduced to us as a military figure with all of the might and the glory of his military success surrounding him, and yet all of that overlaid with the dark shroud of his leprosy, in the wisdom of God, it was that very condition that brought him to seek help beyond that which his heathen gods could offer him. It was that very leprosy that brought him to the place where he was prepared to listen to the report of a little maiden who in conversation with his wife spoke of a prophet of the true God who could even heal a man of this living death. And so we as the people of God should behold in this passage the unfathomable wisdom of God, a wisdom that permits a pagan man to be afflicted with a living death of a disease in order that he might set in motion a chain of events that would lead to his salvation.

16:23 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 surrounded Naaman's life. It would appear that this leprosy was the one roadblock in the fulfillment of everything else that had been his portion. For his might, his fame, his influence, all of this meant nothing to him as long as he was afflicted with this living death.

17:41 But in the infinite and unfathomable wisdom of God, it was that living death that led him into life that would never end. And I believe we shall stand in glory with Naaman the Syrian. And as we bless God for those things that seem to be an utter tragedy that were brought into our lives, we with Naaman shall bless the living God that it was infinite and unfathomable wisdom that wove that circumstance, that chain of events, into the fabric of our existence. Now it's one thing to confess this in the abstract.

18:24 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 the ways of God, He is infinitely wise. What is true of the individual Christian ought to be true in the corporate life of the church. I'm convinced that a time is coming if not down here on the other side when we will stand in amazement and see the perfect, infinite, unfathomable wisdom of God that is in operation right now with reference to our frustrations in seeking to construct a permanent and adequate place of worship.

God's Wisdom in Prescribing a Humbling Course of Action

19:52 That thing that has attached itself to us for three years and been in a sense like a spiritual plague, can we sit here tonight and say, Lord, though we do not understand this we know all that you do is done in perfect and unfathomable wisdom. Then we see the wisdom of God in this passage not only in permitting Naaman to be afflicted with a disease which ultimately resulted in his salvation, but the wisdom of God in directing Elisha to prescribe a course of action calculated to humble Naaman. Notice how this is underscored from the very outset. What does God use to trigger His whole approach to the prophet? Well, He uses not the visitation of an angel and angels did visit pagans in the Old Testament.

21:01 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 exhilarating about that. Someone sees Naaman getting ready for a journey. He says, Hey, where are you going, buddy?

21:55 He says, Well, I'm going to Israel. What are you doing that for? Oh, I've heard there's a prophet there who can cure leprosy. Oh, yeah?

22:04 Where did you hear that? Well, I just got word of it. Oh, I mean, where did you get that word? Well, from my wife.

22:11 Well, where did she get it? Well, she heard it. Well, where did she get it? Some little slave girl that we carried out of Israel.

22:19 You're saddling up your donkeys and your horses and filling up your chariots with gifts to make that journey to go to those people that are your enemies? Because some little captive slave girl has got some silly notions that there's some guy down there in Samaria that can cure a living death? Man, have you lost your marbles? You see, God was striking it out.

22:45 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?

23:18 Here he comes, this military man who is accustomed to coming back from his battles with all the laurels of victory around him and the crowds cheering him and welcoming him and speaking abroad his name. And here he comes in that same kind of an atmosphere with all of his chariots and his horses and his attendants, and they make their way up to the household of Elisha and he later on says, this is what he expected was the royal greeting and the royal treatment. He expected Elisha would come out all shrouded with drama, lift his hand and say in the name of Jehovah, leprosy be gone, and everyone would stand astounded as they see this. He had had it all prescribed, but prescribed in a way that would still let him keep his position as the important one. But the prophet doesn't even come out and say, howdy friend. He doesn't even do him the honor of a proper greeting. He sends one of his servants out.

24:24 He doesn't even come out to shake his hand. How you doing, Mr. Naaman? Nice to meet you.

24:29 What can I do for you? No, no. The text says that when he appears at the door of the house of Elisha, verse 10, Elisha sent a messenger unto him. So what does he do?

24:42 He ignores him. He pays no personal attention to him. He sends a messenger. And then, furthermore, to add insult to injury, he insults him.

24:53 He says, go and wash in the River Jordan seven times. Well, at that point, he blew his cool. He said, this is more than I can take. It's bad enough to come here based on the hearsay of a little maiden.

25:08 It's bad enough to come and not even have the decency of a proper greeting, but then to have some servant come and tell me to go down and wash in that filthy river, that filthy river of Israel, not on your life. We've got some lovely rivers back where I come. If there's any connection between washing in rivers and getting healed, certainly the prophet would have the decency to tell me to go wash in one of my own rivers. Now, what's behind all of this?

25:38 Is this just an interesting story? No, no. There is divine wisdom in all of this. The wisdom of God was ordering the directions that the prophet of God was giving.

25:49 The wisdom of God was behind the initial incident of the maiden given the report, the prophet's manner of greeting him, and then the prophet's word of direction. These things are not done capriciously nor arbitrarily, but they are all a manifestation of the unfathomable wisdom of God prescribing a course of action calculated to humble Naaman and to teach him the great lesson. That his hope was not to be in any man, and the second great lesson that as the creature he has no rights to dictate to the Creator. You see, the scripture tells us in Jeremiah 17 and verse 5, Cursed be he that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his ark. And this man, Naaman, comes with his hopes pinned upon a prophet and with his pagan notions. He would have the concept that the prophet possessed some kind of inherent power deposited in his hands by the gods with which he could rid him of this living death. But he must learn that it is in the living God Jehovah that his hope was to be found.

27:09 He must learn in such a way that he can make no transference of his pagan notions onto the nature and character of Jehovah or this prophet. And so God directs the prophet to prescribe a course of action which, when it realizes its ultimate end, will cause this man to see beyond the prophet and to confess as he does in verse 15. He did not say, Now I know that Elisha is a true prophet. He says, I know there is no God but Jehovah.

27:45 And you see, it was divine wisdom prescribing every single detail which was instrumental to his being healed that he might learn that great lesson. And then all of the details were calculated by infinite wisdom to bring him to the place where he'd stop telling God what God ought to do to heal him. He says, I thought that. You see, he had it all prescribed.

28:16 He could have handed Elisha by one of his servants a prescription for his own healing. And here it is. He's got all the details worked out. Verse 11, Behold, I thought he would surely come out to me.

28:33 See, he had it all worked out. He had it all figured out. When he gets in the proximity of Elisha's home, he's going to come running out the door. He shall come out to me and stand.

28:44 You see the drama of it? He expected a public spectacle. And when he's standing and all attention is riveted upon him, then he will call upon the name of Jehovah his God. Then he'll go through his incantations as our false prophets do.

28:58 He'll wave his hand. And then I'll be recovered. He had the prescription all worked out. Well, he had to learn that those who have a living death don't tell God how their deliverance will come.

29:11 That they must submit in obedience to the prescribed manner in which God has ordained to bring their deliverance, no matter how repulsive it may be to their flesh, contrary to their own carnal expectations. And when he's all uptight and blowing his cork, a couple of his servants bring him back to reasonableness as God makes their appeal efficient upon his mind and upon his enraged emotions. And when he submits to God's way, of being healed of his living death, humbling and as unreasonable as it appears, it is then, the text says, that his flesh came as the flesh of a little child and he was clean. Now you see, God is not changed. He is the same God today. And in his unfathomable wisdom, he is constantly prescribing a course of action calculated in our lives to humble and crush human pride and to teach us those two great lessons that he taught Naaman, that our hope is not in men and that we do not prescribe to God the means of our own deliverance.

The Gospel as God's Wisdom to Humble Human Pride

30:38 Perhaps the best commentary upon the highest expression of that is 1 Corinthians chapter 1. 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 18. For the word of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us who are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning will I bring to naught.

31:10 Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

31:21 For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom knew not God, it was God's good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save them that believe. Seeing the Jews ask for signs and the Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified unto Jews a stumbling block and unto Gentiles foolishness, but unto them that are called both Jews and Greeks Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. My friends, one can go to extremes in saying that this and that in the Old Testament is a type or symbol of this or the other, but surely it is not fanciful to assert that the detailed treatment of the problem of leprosy is intended by God to be a graphic demonstration of the nature and of the awful consequences of sin. And in this case the wisdom of God ordered that Naaman should be afflicted with that which is the picture of the great malady which afflicts us all. And in the wisdom of God Elisha prescribes a means of deliverance that is utterly contrary to human wisdom,

32:49 a system that is utterly undercutting of all human pride and confidence in the arm of flesh, a method of deliverance that utterly humbles Naaman. And in that there is a glorious picture of the truth of 1 Corinthians chapter 1. As you and I seek to wrestle with the question how shall we come to the place where we are rid of the living death of our sin? How shall we come to the knowledge of the true and the living God?

33:21 How shall we have the chains that bind us to our lusts and our passions broken? The answer of God is found in all the mystery that surrounds a Roman instrument of execution, a place where criminals were hung up in the shame of nakedness and put to a cruel and to an excruciating slow death in public shame. And the Apostle declares that it's the proclamation of what God did when His Son was subjected to that kind of death, when He who knew no sin was made sin for us, when in the language of Galatians 3 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. All that God has to say to us in answer to those questions which touch the most profound depths of human inquiry, how can I know God? How can I be rid of the burden of sin? How can I shake off the living death of my sin?

34:29 God's answer is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Ah, but that's too...

34:39 God wants us to use our minds. You mean to tell me that all of the great questions that reflect the greatest mysteries of human existence, who am I? Why am I the way I am? How can I know the God for whom there is an implanted sense within my own breast?

34:59 You mean to tell me that all of that is answered in the doing and in the dying of Jesus of Nazareth? Yes, yes, yes. And it's answered not when you, by unaided human wisdom, can penetrate all of those mysteries and say, ah, that satisfies my idea of how it should be. No, no.

35:30 God is pleased by the foolishness of the thing pre... to save them that believe.

35:38 God comes proclaiming the way of deliverance. And deliverance will only come when you in the submission of faith embrace that proclamation. Ah, but you say I have a brain and I have a mind and I have a sense of logic. Surely God does not expect me to suspend it.

36:01 I'd have a right to reason things through. My friend, listen to the text. For in the wisdom of God when the world through its wisdom knew not God, it was God's good pleasure through the foolishness of the thing preached to save them that believe. You see, the gospel is calculated to slay human pride.

36:33 All human preconceptions as to how we can be rid of the living death of our sin and everything in the gospel is calculated to undercut human pride and creature confidence. Paul goes on to enlarge upon that in the latter paragraph, in the last paragraph of 1 Corinthians 1, concluding with that statement that according as it is written, he that glorieth let him glory in the Lord. Isn't that precisely what happened with Naaman? When this whole transaction was over, he is confessing Jehovah to be the only true and living God and he is confessing that he is now bound to that God in the loving bonds of faith and submission. He says, if you won't take a present from me, let me take two mules worth of earth back to my own land, that there I may erect an altar. Here he had some of the overtones of his pagan concept that the God of the nation could only be worshipped within the precincts of that nation. He said, I'll take some of your national dirt back to Syria.

37:44 I must be a worshipper of the true and the living God. And then his conscience made sensitive thinks immediately of what he will encounter in the course of his obedience to his own earthly master. And he says in this thing, I pray forgiveness. It may have the appearance that I've only half turned from my pagan gods, but know when my knee is bowed, my heart is erect in the presence of Jehovah.

38:14 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...

38:33 Can you imagine the humbling experience? No doubt they expected an account similar to what he anticipated would happen. Surely I thought, and that was probably similar to their expectations, and he tells them, well, I went to the king, he told me go see the prophet, came up in front of his house, never even came out and gave me the time of the day. He sent one of his servants out.

39:03 He told me to go wash in the river Jordan and that seven times. Go wash in the river Jordan? What in the world are you doing, doing this? He says, my friend, look at my flesh.

39:20 Bring up all your objections, bring up all your cabals about the unreasonableness, the nonsensical nature of it, but look, my flesh is as the flesh as the flesh of a babe. And you may sit here tonight, and when you hear the gospel preached, and when you hear those of us who have felt and known its power testify that we have plunged into that fountain open for sin and uncleanness and by faith have come into possession of the virtue of the death and resurrection of Christ, you may call it all foolishness. You mean to say that? Yes, we mean to say that.

40:02 By looking to Him who was lifted up for sinners, the questions that were never answered in philosophy, the questions that were never answered in all of the inquiries we made and sought an answer in the minds of men, all of those questions have been resolved in Him who is the wisdom of God. And all of the vows and all of the resolutions we made that we would rectify our lives and bring them into line with conscience that failed and failed and failed and failed again by embracing an offered Savior in a manner that we cannot fully comprehend. We have been so joined to Jesus Christ that the liberating virtue of that death, burial and resurrection has become ours in our experience and we are no longer the bond slaves of sin. The power of sin has been broken in us. In the language of 1 Corinthians, Christ has become to us not only the wisdom of God but the power of God. What do we glory in then?

41:16 We say with the Apostle, God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's it. You mean that's all? That's it and that is all.

41:33 And Almighty God has no other prescription. In His unfathomable wisdom He has set forth Christ crucified. He has set forth the redemption of sinners in such a way as is calculated to humble human pride. Well, let me hurry on and touch very briefly then upon this third and final element of the character of God so wonderfully set forth in our passage.

Beholding the Unbounded Love of God

42:08 Behold in this passage not only the demonstrations of the absolute sovereignty of God, the unfathomable wisdom of God, but behold in it the unbounded love of God. John 3.16 tells us, For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. And while we may be perplexed by some of the finer theological implications of John 3.16, and we ought to be, certainly one thing is clear, that God's heart is as large as the cosmos, the world of lost sinners. His heart is not a heart that is limited by the confines of Israel in this period of redemptive history in 2 Kings chapter 5. When we look at chapter 4 it's as though all of the care and all of the compassion and all of the love of Jehovah is funneled upon that faithful remnant in Israel. The widow of the son of the prophet who with her sons was about to starve.

43:25 That noble Shunammite woman who didn't have a son, who was given a son and then her son is raised from the dead. And then those sons of the prophets who first of all need their unpalatable food made palatable and then their inadequate provisions made adequate. It would appear that Jehovah's heart is funneled down upon that faithful remnant. But chapter 5 begins with the words, Now Naaman the Syrian.

43:54 And what is going to come before us but a demonstration that God's heart was not proscribed in its concerns with Israel. Nor even the remnant according to the election of grace. Within Israel. But that his heart was a heart that beat with compassion for pagan military leaders who were the very instruments of his chastisement upon the nation of Israel.

44:26 And here God is demonstrating that which periodically he demonstrated throughout Old Testament history. Though of necessity there is a narrowness to the main channel of his redemptive love as he is preparing the world for the coming of Messiah. Granted the great measure of his love and concern is seen confined within that nation but again and again God is saying by deed as well as word my heart is not as narrow as my dealings appear to be. And so he orders that Joseph should go down into Egypt and there in Egypt live and labor in such a way as to manifest before pagan Egypt the livingness of the living God. And Moses is well and later on as you remember we studied the book of Jonah a prophet is sent to the capital of a heathen nation sent to Nineveh on a message that was intended of God to be the instrument of mercy. Even in the predecessor of Elisha Elijah was sent to a widow in Zarephath up in Phoenicia in Gentile dog country in the midst of a famine among the people of God with no doubt hundreds of starving widows.

45:54 God bypasses them all goes to a Gentile widow. What is he saying? He is saying oh my people Israel please do not misunderstand me. My heart is larger than the confines of the borders of Palestine.

46:10 And then the utterances of the prophets again and again they spoke of a day coming when the Gentiles would come up to Jerusalem and Gentiles would be accepted in their worship and offerings of sacrifice. This is not a prediction of some literal reconstruction of Jerusalem and a literal reconstruction of temple worship. No. God is using the only figures that would make sense to a Jew.

46:39 To a Jew Jerusalem means true worship of the true God in the way appointed. And so God is trying to tell them look Gentiles by the multitudes will be included in true worship in the true way of the true and the living God. And so he uses the figures of Gentiles coming in mass up to Jerusalem and offering sacrifices in the temple of the living God. What a wonderful picture we have of that very principle here in this passage.

47:13 Syria, the constant enemy of the people of God. Remember that little girl was the result of one of these commando raids of a band of Syrian soldiers down into Samaria. Here were the enemies of God. And you know in the passage that that enmity was very consciously felt for when the king received that note saying Naaman is coming to be healed of his leprosy.

47:38 He says look he is not coming to be healed of his leprosy. This is just a ruse to start a fight in a fuss. The Syrians are picking on us again. There was no love lost between those two nations.

47:50 And when word gets out that a Syrian and a Syrian military leader at that is healed of leprosy. Do you see the profound impact this would have upon any Israelite who was half awake to what God is doing? God is saying in the most demonstrable fashion possible my heart is larger than the confines of Israel. So large that I'll set my love upon a pagan general in a nation that is your bitter enemy.

48:26 And furthermore I'll set my love and heal a leper. A leper. The worst kind of disease in the worst kind of person standing in the worst relationship to Israel. God is getting the message across.

48:44 And he is cleansed. And goes back to Syria. A confessor and worshipper of Jehovah. Well behold then my brothers and sisters in this passage a demonstration of the unbounded love of the living God.

God's Love in the Gospel for All Sinners

49:04 And this very night God's love is manifested in the sending of his son and then in the sending of the message concerning his son. Saying to every man, every woman every boy or girl without reservation or discrimination to you is this word of salvation sent. Unlike Naaman who had to go where the true prophet was. God doesn't ask you to go anywhere.

49:41 In grace and mercy he comes to you and he comes to you in the overtures of the gospel not telling you to go wash in this river or that but simply to behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. To behold in Jesus Christ God's sincere delight in conferring mercy upon the vilest of sinners. This very night the God whose heart was moved with compassion to Naaman is the God who in the gospel entreats you to repent and to believe entreats you to embrace his dear son that the leprosy of your sin may be cleansed that your heart may be purified by faith that you may be quickened to newness of life. That surely is the message of the passage the message that comes to those of you that are strangers to God. To God's grace those of you who are not the children of God but in the light of that which God brought to us so forcefully this morning it has an application to us who are the people of God. One of the great problems the nation of Israel continually encountered was this

Application to Believers: Avoid Complacency and Embrace Missions

51:10 because they were the recipients of peculiar mercies dispensed in the sovereign love and purpose of God they began to look upon themselves not as the favored of God thereby obligating them to be more zealous in the service of God but they began to look upon themselves as the favorites of God who could simply relax in the assumed favoritism of Jehovah. Israel was placed in Palestine for many reasons not the least of which was a missionary reason. God declared that that nation was to be its light to the Gentiles and ultimately that word would be fulfilled in the Lord Jesus the true Son whom God would bring. But Israel very seldom remembered that mission. There was a period under Solomon when that was wonderfully realized and the sacred record tells us of the Queen of the South the Queen of Sheba coming.

52:26 It speaks of people coming from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon and to see the glory of God in that nation under God. And dear people that spirit did not die with Israel would to God it had. And when we who are privileged to be the recipients of special blessings in the sovereign love and will of God know that we are favored of God with light and with privilege the light of His truth the privilege of having it expounded and applied to our consciences the privilege of oversight and caring shepherding influence from men whom God has gifted and set over you it is so easy for us to begin to think as the Israelites that we are the favorites of God and that we can simply assume that these blessings will be ours because we are who we are. No, no, it wasn't long before this very nation felt the scourge of God's chastisement and went into a bitter captivity and so it will be in the language of Revelation 2 and 3. This is not just Old Testament mentality for the risen Christ stands in the midst of His churches and says fulfill your mission or I'll take away your candles. That's not it.

53:54 And again and again the warning comes to the churches from the risen Christ and I trust in the light of the word that came to us in the Sunday school hour and that word that God has been bringing to us with unusual intensity in recent weeks and months. He has favored us not that we might so bask in that favor of God as to become carnally content and smug and indifferent but to whom much is given of him shall much be required freely have received freely give. Oh, but you say, Pastor with our full support of the work in East London and the work in Sweden and taking on new dimensions of responsibility and bearing the lion's share of the work there in Nairobi and with the commitment of the tapes and the academy and the tens of thousands a year surely we've reached the saturation point. No! Who will in the past month for the sake of the gospel lost a half night of sleep travailing in prayer that the Lord of the harvest would trust forth laborers into his harvest? No, no.

55:17 We have only begun to see what God will do with a group of people that have caught something of the vision of the largeness of his heart and beholding the largeness of his heart as unveiled in the Lord Jesus are content with nothing less than something of the impress of that image upon their own spirits and whose hearts are moved to pray, Lord, enlarge our heart. We hear of Turkey and then we hear of Nigeria and then we hear of increased needs in Pakistan, Lord. Where will it all end? No, no.

55:59 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 some of those larger churches in the urban areas. 2,000, 1,000, 800, 600 coming eagerly with their meager tools to understand the word of God and having to sit there and listen with eagerness to someone utterly incompetent, to open up the scriptures and to convey their meaning. Can you feel something of the ache and the pain in the hearts of your brethren called out of darkness into marvelous light? How can any of us sit back and say we're doing enough?

57:23 We've given enough. And I confess, I sit there and I say, Lord, what in the world am I doing here? And I go all over again. I go all over again.

57:37 I don't say that as a matter of pride. I simply say it as I trust the honest confession of my heart. My prayer is that when that ceases to be that God will shut my mouth. May God grant us as overseers and as people to hear the message of 2 Kings 5.

57:59 Now Naaman the Syrian. There's lots of Syrians out there. That's what Naaman would have been in the lips and in the thinking of an Israelite. They were an aggressive, warlike nation.

58:24 Their army was not an armed conquest. And I can imagine the Israelite and dirty communist. God ought to drop a bomb and kill them all. And God says now Naaman the Syrian.

58:38 I'm going to save him in my sovereign love. Is that your attitude? Lord, bring poor, blind, militaristic communists to the feet of Christ. And oh God, whatever that demands of me, I'm willing to give it.

58:58 Hmm? You say you're an American. No, no, my friend. I hope I'm Christian above all else.

59:04 Those no good red Chinese. No. They are more Naaman the Syrian. And oh that God will give us hearts that know something of what it is to pray.

59:23 And then to do whatever God calls upon us to do. That those great needs will be met. So that the confession of this pagan this dirty Syrian communist that that confession will come from the lips of the Syrians of our own day. Now I know that there is no God but the God of Israel.

Call to Worship and Prayer for a Larger Heart

59:49 There is no God but the God revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. Oh dear people of God. Behold in this passage the absolute sovereignty of God. The unfathomable wisdom of God.

60:04 And something of the unbounded love of God. And don't rest until your heart runs out in worship and praise of that God. And beholding Him you become like Him in His compassion and submit to His sovereignty and to His wisdom with joy. Let us pray.

60:40 Our Father God of heaven and earth. We praise You tonight. That as our Father whose care extends even to the sparrow that falls to the earth. That You are the God of unrivaled sovereignty.

61:00 We worship You that even this day amidst what appears to men to be the confused tangled mess of world governments of men and of nations. Your throne has not been shaken. You carry on Your purposes with power and with certainty. And for this we praise You.

61:30 We thank You that You are the God of unfathomable wisdom. Forgive us for the times when we have sought to second guess You. Forgive our impudence when we have dared oh Lord to question Your wisdom. Cleanse us of such impudence we pray.

61:51 For those who have never been humbled and brought to Your means of deliverance from the living death of sin. Oh Lord effectually draw them to Your own Son we pray. And oh how we thank You for the largeness of Your heart. Forgive us oh forgive us when we have imbibed that cursed narrowness of spirit so often present in Israel.

62:19 We pray oh Lord that the message of Naaman's conversion and cleansing may ever be before us. That our hearts may beat with compassion even to those who are our enemies. Even to those who are a threat to our very existence. That You may magnify Your grace by their salvation.

62:43 Lord save multitudes in Red China and in Russia. Save multitudes of those Islamic leaders who are determined utterly to obliterate the testimony of Jesus Christ. Oh God come with sovereign power to the Naaman's of our day. And bring them to Your feet.

63:05 That the confession may come from their lips that there is no God but the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Write upon our hearts Your word. Grant us grace to live in the light of it as we take our appointed places during the coming week. In our homes.

63:28 In the shop. On the playground. In the store. In all of the various contacts.

63:34 Oh that we may be light and salt. And may we be used of You for the spread of the Gospel in our Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth. We thank You for this day. We thank You for Your presence.

63:53 We thank You for Your Son. We thank You for the gift of the Spirit. We thank You for each other. We thank You for Your kind providence in bringing our brother to us from afar.

64:06 And for the unique contribution You've enabled him to make to us this day. Oh God You are good to us. Surely Your goodness leads us to repent of our carelessness and our indifference. And we cry to You for greater measures of grace to love and serve You with a more fervent and pure love.

64:29 And with a more unflagging and deepened zeal. Hear our prayer. Receive our thanks. And may the blessed...