The Way of Naaman's Salvation, Part 1

Introduction to Naaman's Story as a Picture of Salvation

0:03 Now will you give attention to the reading of the word of God in 2 Kings, chapter 5, 2 Kings, and chapter 5.

0:17 If nothing else, when we are done our studies in this incident, the life and ministry of the prophet Elisha, you should have some acquaintance with the facts as they are given to us in the word of God. And I trust that again and again the Lord will cause your mind to return to this fascinating incident and make it the occasion of fruitful meditation. 2 Kings, chapter 5, beginning with verse 1. Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was a great man with or before his master, and honorable because by him the Lord had given victory unto Syria.

1:00 He was also anointed. A mighty man of valor, a leper. And 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.

1:16 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. Then he went in and told his Lord, saying, Thus and thus said the maiden that is of the land of Israel, The king of Syria said, Go now, and I will send a letter unto the king of Israel. And he departed and took with him ten talents of silver and six thousand pieces of gold, approximately nine hundred pounds of these precious metals. You figure it in today's gold standard and silver standard market, and this was more than a little change jingling in his back pocket.

2:01 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. 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?

2:46 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, saying, Go and walk. Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean.

3:12 But Naaman was wroth and went away and said, Behold, I thought he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord 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? May I not wash in them and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage.

3:40 And his servants came near and spake unto him and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? How much rather then, when he said to thee, Wash and be clean. Then he went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan according to the saying of the prophet, The man of God. And his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.

4:16 We come this evening to our third meditation in this portion of the word of God as we work our way through the sacred record containing the account of the life and ministry of the prophet Elisha. And in our two previous studies, we examined this passage with particular concern to, to underscore and bring into sharp focus what the passage sets before us concerning the character of the God of Israel. We must again and again remind ourselves that these events occurred at a specific point in the history of God's dealings with mankind. In what the theologians call a redemptive historical setting, that is, at this point, in God's, in God's fulfillment of his own promise to bruise the head of the serpent, he is doing something to carry on that great sweep of redemptive purpose. And at this point in the history of Israel, the great controversy was between Baal and Jehovah. Is Baal God or is Jehovah God? And in this chapter, God is setting not only before the pagan Naaman something of the wonder and glory of God, but also of the glory of God.

5:36 And in this chapter, God is setting not only before the pagan Naaman, but also of the glory of himself. But as news of this event would filter throughout the nation of Israel, there would be that underscoring again of the validity of the claims of Jehovah to being the true and the living God. And so it is not surprising that some of those dominant attributes of God are vividly portrayed in this section of Holy Scripture. And we noted the demonstration in this particular chapter, this particular incident of the unrivaled sovereignty of God, of the unfathomable wisdom of God, and of the unbounded love of God.

6:17 Now tonight, we return to the passage to consider its contents in greater detail, but with one great concern as the organizing principle of our study, namely, we will consider the passage as demonstrating the way of salvation in the events that occurred with respect to Naaman the leper being healed of his leprosy. God again and again in the history of redemption delights to set forth spiritual realities in the theater of material and tangible realities. A man's sinnerhood, forgiveness, the work of the Spirit, faith, and these other graces that lie at the heart of all true and saving religion, they pertain to the realm of the Spirit. They are not things that can be seen and touched and felt with the five senses. And so God, accommodating Himself to our weakness and to our bondage, as it were, to the realm of this world which we impinge upon with our five senses, again and again uses that realm as the theater, upon which He displays the glory and the principles of His spiritual kingdom.

7:42 You'll remember this with regard to the feeding of the 5,000 in John's Gospel. Our Lord's multiplying of the bread and then feeding men physically became the platform of His declaration that He was the bread of life and that salvation was like that activity of eating. And He said, Whosoever eats of My...

8:06 My flesh and drinks of My blood has everlasting life. Well then, in this passage, one cannot read it and meditate upon the details of God's strange dealings with this man named Naaman without coming to the conviction that here we have a portion of Scripture in which God is setting before us in the theater of the physical activities connected with Naaman's healing, a wonderful demonstration and illustration of the way of salvation in Jesus Christ. Furthermore, it is evident from the passage that this very occasion of Naaman's physical healing was ordered of God for his spiritual conversion. For as we shall see in a subsequent study beginning with verse 15 and following, there is the clear indication that Naaman was transformed from a pagan worshipper of the god Rimen into a true worshipper of the one true and living God, Jehovah, not only the God of Israel, but the God of the whole earth. First of all, then, as we think through this passage as a demonstration of the way of salvation in Jesus Christ, notice the principle that is immediately set before us in verse 1. It is the principle

Naaman's Conviction of Need for Divine Deliverance

9:34 of Naaman's conviction of need for divine deliverance. Naaman's conviction of need for divine deliverance. We are told that Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was a great man before his master. He was honorable, that is, he was held in honor because of the amazing victories that God had given to this people, this pagan military leader.

10:07 And furthermore, we are told that he did not come to that place of honor and respect, that place of intimate relationship with the king simply because he knew the right people and happened to be at the right place at the right time, but he was indeed personally and individually a mighty man of valor. He was not someone who simply pulled the right strings by knowing the right people and got the right promotion, and became an important man in the military. That has always happened. It happens in our own day.

10:41 It happens in industry and business. But Naaman was no such character. He was a man worthy of his position. But the capstone description, and it's very blunt in the original, there is no verb saying, but he was a leper.

10:57 After all of this description of his tremendous place of importance before the king, of his place, of his place of honor in the eyes of his countrymen, his being afforded victories by the Lord, and something of his own character as a military man, we have these frightening words, leprous, leprous, leprous.

11:23 Here was the man who in spite of all of the privileges and all of the honor that would come to him in his place as a military leader, he is afflicted with that living death, called leprosy. That frightening disease that by degrees eats away a man's very flesh so that in a sense the grave is brought into his own present existence. What usually awaits the grave, the gradual dissolution of the body as decay sets in in the earth, in a very real sense you see, leprosy is that very process of the process going, going on while a man is yet alive. And so this mighty man of valor is afflicted with this insidious and hopeless disease of leprosy. And he has learned perhaps in bitterness of soul that all that he was able to accomplish by his mighty arm in going forth at the head of his armies, not just barking orders, but as a mighty man of valor, this man who could face the gleaming steel of an enemy and by the sheer strength of his own arm under the blessing of Jehovah put to rout his enemies so that many victories were given to him by Jehovah.

12:51 This man now finds himself an absolute weakling, utterly unable to do a thing to rid his body of this terrible scourge and plague of leprosy. And though he may find himself mustering the same kind of courage that he showed on a battlefield, all of his military courage is absolutely powerless to do a thing. He is leprous. Furthermore, the text tells us that he was a great man with or before his master.

13:29 And the intimation here and in the subsequent context is that he had more than a professional relationship with the king. He was on an intimate, personal, friendship relationship so that he is able to go in and have access to the king and make this free report of what he had heard from his wife who in turn had heard it from a little maiden. And yet, what does access to the king do for a man who has leprosy? Here is the king with all of his court physicians at his disposal, all of the might and wealth of this conquering nation of Syria at his disposal.

14:09 And it is obvious that he had such an affection for Naaman. He was willing to part with great lumps of it and hardly even give another thought. Sends him off with 900 pounds of precious metal. And he just seems to do it like it was small change lying around.

14:25 But what good does all that access to the king do? Yes, he is a great man before his master, before the king of Syria. But what can the king do? No doubt the king had called him the best and the wisest of his physicians.

14:42 No doubt he had called in the prophets of the false god. No doubt they had gone through their incantations and their rituals. No doubt he had had many a hand of many a false prophet laid upon his head. Much of the mumbo-jumbo and the ritual of the incantation of a false religion rendered to a false god.

15:04 But all of this, you see, had brought him to the place where he saw the absolute futility. All of his might and military strength and valor is absolutely paralyzed before leprosy. All of his privileges, having this free access to the king and all the privileges that would bring to him personally and all of the possible avenues for healing, but that becomes a dead-end street. And furthermore it says that he was honorable.

15:35 He was the kind of man that never could go out into the streets incognito. If you were out doing your shopping and Naaman happened to be out taking a walk, everyone would nudge his brother, his sister, his wife and say, Hey! And he had that for which some men will sell their souls. National recognition.

16:00 He was a famous man. He was a war hero. But small comfort he could receive looking over his shoulder, seeing people nudge one another and sensing that murmur of wrath, that murmur of recognition when he looks down at his own hands and sees the undeniable evidence of his living death. And you see the thing that becomes as it were the catalyst that sets this whole process in motion is the fact that Naaman in spite of all of his privileges, in spite of all the things that were noble and honorable about him, he had come to the place where he was absolutely convinced of his need for a divine deliverance. And there was that conviction, you see, expressed by the king of Israel himself that it would take nothing less than the intervention of God to deal with leprosy. For when the letter comes from the king of Syria that he is to heal this general of his leprosy, he says, Am I God? Why, you've got to be God to kill and make alive, to heal of leprosy.

17:14 It's a living death. Nothing short of the life-giving power of God can do to arrest this tragic malady. Well, you see, the thing that prepared Naaman to listen to the report of a little captive maid, the thing that prepared him to set off on a humbling journey, for remember, the Syrians regarded the Israelites as their enemies. In this very context it is said that the marauding bands had gone out and in one of their raids had brought back this little girl as a captive to themselves.

17:53 Well, what is it that prepared him to listen to a report from a nation regarded as an enemy? A nation regarded as strange because they claimed to have the one true and living God, whereas there in pagan Syria they felt much more comfortable with their many gods. If one doesn't help you, try another. If he doesn't, try another.

18:17 You don't want to be caught with just one parachute jumping out of the plane. You want a backup chute and another backup to your backup chute. Well, you see, all of this was strange to the mind of Naaman. But something disposed him to listen to the report, to be willing to make a long journey into that strange land, and after he is, in a sense, put off by the despair of the king, to go and stand before the house of Elisha to come as a suppliant, and when he is insulted, and for a time he even blows his cork, loses his cool, and is about to blow the whole thing, he's willing to reconsider.

18:56 I ask this simple question. What brought this mighty man of valor, this man who had a reputation known through the entirety of his nation, this man who had access to the king, this man who had at his disposal all of the things that we've underscored, what brought him to the point of willingness to follow such strange directions, to go to a strange land, and to submit to a strange ritual that would result in a very strange promise of healing? Well, I say there is one fundamental answer to that question. It was the burning, unshakable conviction that he needed the intervention of the God of Israel. He couldn't talk his leprosy away. He couldn't think it away. He couldn't forget it away.

The Universal Leprosy of Sin and the Spirit's Work

19:53 He couldn't ignore it away. Nothing would neutralize the reality of the living death of his leprosy. My friend, if anything is a picture of how God brings men and women into the way of salvation, this is it. The first work of the Spirit of God in the soul of a sinner whom God is putting into the way of salvation is to bring that sinner, whether boy, girl, man, or woman, whether from a Christian home or a non-Christian home, whether from a totally pagan or a rather religious background, it matters not.

20:34 The first work of the Spirit of God is to bring the individual sinner to that self-conviction that I must have a deliverance that comes from the living God. You remember Jesus stated it this way, I am not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. They that are healthy have no need of a doctor, but they that are sick, I did not come to call the righteous. I did not come to call those who think that their mouth will yield to a little aspirin, to a little methylate, to a little antibiotic cream. I have not come to minister to those who have no felt sense of their need of my work as the heavenly physician. I am come to call sinners, that is, the Naaman's of this world, who have come to face the reality of the living death, of the leprosy of sin, who have come to face the fact that no matter what they have in life, in the way of life's possessions, life's privileges, no matter what they may have in the way of the praise and the adulation of men,

22:01 access to the great ones of the earth, they have come to the place where they cry out, my leanness, my leanness, oh my leanness, where? Is there a deliverer who can heal me of my malady? Now the Word of God declares that every one of us is a Naaman. We are leprous.

22:29 Whatever else can be said of us, as was said of Naaman, the capstone description of all of us is that of a sinner. We have the blight of original sin. David describes it in the graphic language of Psalm 51, Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. David says, When life was first conceived in my mother's womb, it was sinful life.

23:07 Jesus described it vividly in the language of Mark 7, For from within, out of the heart of man, proceed. And then he describes evil thoughts, evil motives, evil deeds, murder, adultery, pride, foolishness. He said, These things proceed from within. We are conceived and born with the leprous condition of our sin.

23:38 And in sum, that leprosy breaks out into very vivid and undeniable manifest manifestations of its wretchedness, foul, oath-taking mouths, cursing, swearing tongues, lying lips, lecherous lives, others. It is more refined. The state of the heart is overlaid in the life with respectability and religiosity, but the condition is like that which Jesus described of the Pharisees, outwardly ye appear beautiful unto men, but inwardly ye are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. You see, until you've come to a felt consciousness of the power and the reality of sin in your own life, so that sin is not a word, it is not a mere theological concept any more than Naaman's leprosy was a word or a concept. It was the living, burning, undeniable reality felt in his own being that prepared him for the deliverance that God was graciously to bring. And my dear friend, young or old, until sin becomes a felt, burning, pressing,

25:06 haunting reality, you will know nothing of the salvation of God in Jesus Christ. As long as you try to ignore this leprous condition, finding some delight in the pleasures that your station in life affords you, as long as you try to find some alleviation of the pangs of the emptiness of your soul by the associations you may have with others, by the pleasures you derive from those associations, as long as Naaman was content, to bask in the praise and the adulation of his fellow countrymen, as long as he was able to name drop wherever he went and tell people that he was on a first name basis, come when he desired to come, relationship with the king, he would not be prepared to listen to a report from a little maid, from a foreign land, of one of his enemies, and make a trip to that land and humble himself by submitting to directions that were utterly irrational. My friend, you will never be willing to embrace the dictates of the gospel until you are brought to that place where sin is a felt, a conscious, a burning, a pressing,

26:31 a haunting, an inescapable reality. Has God the Holy Ghost ever brought you there? Or is that all a lot of talk? Is that just piling up words upon words?

26:45 Well, my friend, if your heart does not echo an amen from the depths of its beat, if it is not a matter of felt consciousness, don't pride yourself, for in you one of the tragedies of at least leprosy in its modern manifestations, and there's no evidence that modern leprosy is precisely the same as the leprosy described in the Bible, but I'll never forget a missionary friend of mine telling me the tragedy that he saw in working with lepers. One of them is this, that when the nerves die and all feeling is gone, the ability to have a proper sense of nourishing and cherishing one's own flesh is gone. And he saw poor leprous people whose nerve endings were dead inadvertently place a hand in a fire and keep it there until fingers dropped off, because the nerves were dead. The very malice the very malady kept them from the awareness of the malady. And that's the tragedy of sin.

27:52 It dulls the nerve endings of the soul. Any man in sin ought to have raw nerve endings, crying out in the felt misery of his sinnerhood. And if you have no raw nerve endings crying out in the felt misery of sinnerhood, don't pride yourself, my friend. It should cause you to weep for yourself, even as some of us have wept for you in pleading with you to consider what you really are before God.

28:31 The Scripture says this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save Naaman's, to save the leprous, to save sinners, sinners who know, who owe, who feel, who acknowledge their sinnerhood. And if you have never been brought to that felt consciousness that has convinced you of the need of divine deliverance, that there is no hope to be had in the gods of this world, that the ache, the emptiness, the lack of direction, the purposelessness, the bondage to sin, the slavery to life, the slavery to lust and to passion, oh, my friend, if you have not come to the place where you are convinced that there is no answer to that dilemma, but in the living God, pray that God will bring you there and bring you there soon. Now we must hasten on to consider in the second place what this passage sets before us of the way of salvation. Having seen Naaman's conviction and the need for divine deliverance, now let us at least begin to consider the activity of God

God Prepares Naaman: A Report of Legitimate Hope

29:58 in preparing Naaman for deliverance. You see, the first verse describes Naaman. From verse 2 onward, we have a description of what God does, and that's the gospel. It's just like Ephesians 2, verses 1 to 10.

30:18 The first three verses tell us what we are. Dead in trespasses and sins, walking according to the course of this world, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But then the first two words of verse 4, but God. And that's precisely what we have beginning with verse 2.

30:43 We have a description of the activity of God in preparing Naaman for deliverance. And what's the first activity of God? Well, first of all, God brings a report to Naaman which genders a legitimate hope. Verses 2 and 3.

31:04 And the Syrians had gone out in bands, we would call them commando units, 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. Now can you feel something of the tremendous drama of this situation? Naaman, mighty man of valor, Naaman, confidant of the king, having gone through all the rigmarole of the pagan ritual and having gone through all of the incantations of the priests and all the rest, one day his wife says, Honey, you remember that little maiden that was brought back several months ago when one of your bands went out and raided Israel? Yes, dear, what about her? Well, she brought me some wonderful news today. She did?

32:13 News about what? News that has to do with something in Israel. Israel? Don't talk to me about Israel.

32:23 Ah, but honey, I've got to talk to you about Israel. I said, I don't want to hear anything about Israel. There are enemies. Don't bring the enemies to the supper table.

32:32 Ah, but dear, I heard some wonderful news. All right, what is it? The little maid said to me, Oh, that the master were able to go to the prophet that is in my country. Then would he recover him of his leprosy?

32:55 You see, there was an element of the confidence of faith in this little female evangelist, for that's exactly what she was. She was an evangelist sent from Israel into Syria by the hands of some brutal commandos. And that's why we admired the sovereignty of God in this passage. And that's why it's included in the sacred record to show us that when God was determined to get his man, he first of all must get the message that forms the basis of legitimate hope into the ears of that man.

33:32 And now convinced of his need, he's prepared to listen as God brings to his ears this little ray of hope. No longer does he need to stare up into a sky that has no stars. No moonlight but is nothing but dense, deep, inky blackness. A star of hope breaks upon the midnight of that sky.

34:03 And it's a word from a little maid about a prophet back in Samaria who can heal of leprosy. As with Naaman, so with us. Once we've been brought to the place where we have some felt consciousness of our need, when we begin to look at our leprous condition as it really is, it can do nothing but bring near the despair and the agony of hell if there is no word of legitimate hope. For a sinner simply to know something of what he is as a sinner and to have no word of a way of deliverance, I say, is to bring near the despair and the terrors of hell and to bring it into the very present moment. This is why the Scripture says, Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. But how shall they call on Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher or a preacheress?

35:19 And how shall they preach except they be sent even by the hand of some commandos who drag a little maiden out of her house and bring her into the household of Naaman? But God was getting this good news to the ears of Naaman from the faithful witness of this little evangelist whom He had planted in the household. And what a wonderful thing it is to say tonight to any man, any woman, any boy, any girl who has the slightest felt awareness of your need. Oh, my friend, it is not a sky with no star. There is a ray of hope, and that ray of hope that I preached to you is not that there is a prophet in Samaria, for Elisha was but one of the many prophets whom God sent until the great and final prophet should come. And all of the miracles of Elisha and all of the mighty power manifested in Elisha were but little fingers pointing to that prophet promised in the book of Deuteronomy. The Lord God shall raise up a prophet, Moses said like unto me, to him shall ye hearken in all things.

36:46 And when we open the pages of the New Testament, what do we read? These wonderful words in Hebrews 1, God having in old times spoken unto the fathers in the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us in a son. He has spoken unto us in a son. And the ray of hope, my friend, is this, the glorious announcement not that there is some guru in Essex fells or in Caldwell, not that there is some holy man in some holy city or some holy place.

37:25 No, no. The ray of hope that we proclaim in the name of the God of heaven is that the great and final prophet, the Lord Jesus, God's final word to men has come. And thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their leprosy, from their sins, the son of man is come to seek and to save that which is lost. Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.

38:03 You see, when God is bringing a sinner to salvation, he not only brings him to a felt consciousness of his need, but he brings to him a message that forms a legitimate basis of hope. When that girl said, Oh, would that my master would go to the prophet in Samaria, that was an assertion based upon the reality of his proven identity as a prophet. She had heard the news of what happened when the mantle of God from Elijah fell upon him and he took that rough, hairy garment from his back and wound it up and struck the Jordan River. She had heard the news of how the Jordan parted hither and thither and he walked through on dry ground. She had heard the report of the healing of that brackish water at Jericho. She had heard the report of the raising to life of the Shunammite woman's son. She knew there was a well-credited testimony of the mighty power of God that was operative in that prophet.

39:10 And when we point you to Jesus Christ, the great and final prophet, we are not telling you cunningly devised fables. It is a well-attested message. He was crucified. He was raised from the dead.

39:25 He was seen of the twelve. He was seen of over 500 brethren. He was seen of Paul as one born out of due time. What a wonderful thing to proclaim a message of hope that is not just wishful thinking, but is based upon the well-accredited testimony of the living God.

The Power of Simple, Heartfelt Witness

39:47 And I cannot but pause for a moment and just inject this word of application to encourage you dear people in your simple, artless, unprogrammed witness. When you read the passage, does your mind ask the kind of question mine does? What was the little maid doing at the precise time that she just blurted out, Oh, did my Lord with the prophet that is in Samaria? She was just a little servant girl.

40:20 Well, I wonder if she was in Mrs. Naaman's bedroom doing the dusting that day, and because she was a true Israelite and her mind and heart were full of thoughts of Jehovah, the God of His people. While her hands were busy, her mind was full of the glory and power of Jehovah, the God who had sent His true prophet there to Israel, that prophet in Samaria, Elisha. And you see, this was not an artificial, structured, wooden kind of technique, saying, Now Mrs. Naaman, can you sit down for ten minutes while I give you four things or ten things God wants you to know? Maybe they had just broken for morning tea. Maybe the union wasn't operative, but Mrs. Naaman had a large heart and she gave her a tea break in the middle of the day.

41:12 And it's the impression is that this is something that just spilled out. And she just says, Oh, oh Mrs. Naaman, oh that your dear husband, oh that he would be with the prophet in Samaria. Do you think she had any conviction at that time that she was such a strategic link in the healing and conversion of this mighty man?

41:37 I doubt it. There's nothing in the record to indicate it. She was simply being a true Israelite in the place where God put her, speaking out of the fullness of her heart. Oh, that's what it is to be a witness.

41:52 She wasn't grumbling and grousing and complaining, why did God let me be wrenched from my home, my godly home, when all those Baal worshipers, their families are still intact. How could God do this if He loves me and if He cares? No, no. She's made a slave girl in a foreign land, but she's doing her work heartily as unto the Lord, and her heart is in communion with Jehovah, the God of Israel.

42:17 And the moment comes when she just lets it spill out, and the Holy Ghost wings it with power and with conviction because it came from a life that was real. Oh, my friend, there are lots of Naaman's out there who don't have the answer to their dilemma. And if only we would be the little servant girls, the little servant boys in our appointed place, in our appointed sphere of duty, doing our work as unto the Lord, with a heart in communion with Him, not waiting until we can make an eloquent statement of the gospel, not waiting until we can have three hours to take them from Genesis to Revelation and back through the Assyrian and Babylonian captivity. Maybe all we do is have a little opportunity to say, oh, my friend, if only you knew the joy that I know. Say, oh, that's no witness. Man, that doesn't measure up to what they teach in the classes on soul winning.

43:24 Ah, but my friend, if it comes from a life that's real and a heart that is full, the Holy Ghost can make it instrumental to convince some desperate Naaman that there is hope in the God of Israel. Well, I must hasten off now to underscore just one more thing. When you listen so attentively, it's awfully hard to believe the watch. But it's a nice quartz watch.

God Shatters Creature Confidence

43:55 It doesn't lie. It's accurate within five seconds a week. And the light is sufficient to see it. Let me just underscore one other great principle here as we see what God is doing to bring Naaman to deliverance.

44:11 He first of all brings a message that has a ray of hope. The next thing he does is he sets afoot a series of events which shatter his creature confidence. He sets afoot a series of events which shatters his creature confidence. Have you wondered what this whole business was beginning with verse four?

44:37 And he went in, that is Naaman, and told his lord, that is the king, saying, Thus and thus saith the maiden that is of the land of Israel. And the king of Syria said, Go now, and I'll send a letter unto the king of Israel. And he departed and took with him, and then we have the record of his great wealth, and then we have the record of his great wealth, how does he make the transference from the report of the little girl that says there is a prophet in Samaria? that says there is a prophet in Samaria?

45:04 He goes in and reports it to the king and the king doesn't say, I'll send a letter to the prophet, but I'll send a letter to the king. Does that puzzle you? Well it puzzled me. Until we did a little rooting around in the matter and then you begin to compare other scriptures.

45:20 You see in that day there was no concept of the separation of church and state. The state and the gods were one. The nation and its religion were one. The nation and its religion were one.

45:31 You remember the incident in Genesis where a heathen king, Balak, tries to hire a prophet to prophesy against Israel? You see the concept in the heathen situation was this. The king was supreme and he controlled the prophets. He was lord over the prophets.

45:50 The prophets served the ends outlined by the king. And you brought the gods to bear in their influence upon your national ambitions and interests. Furthermore, what the king could not command by his word, he could secure by his shekels. Balak tries to bribe Balaam to prophesy ill against the nation of Israel.

46:14 So that explains what happened here. And Naaman goes off, convinced of the need of divine deliverance with this little star of hope in that dark, dark sky that had been pulled like a shroud over his head for we don't know how long a period of time, but he still has a lot of the foolish notions of heathenism. There is no indication that he objected to this procedure. He thought it was the proper procedure.

46:42 If you're going to get help from the prophet, you've got to go to the king who controls the prophet by his word and what he can't get with his word he can get with his shekels. And he seems to go off with all of that mentality. And God says, alright, I've got to go to work on it. He's going off with some vague notion that his hope is in the God of Israel but it is so mingled with creature confidence the whole idea that by the influence of his king upon Israel's king he can manipulate the prophet and thereby manipulate his God and what he cannot do by authoritative manipulation he'll do by bribery.

47:24 Well you see, God has to undercut all of that business and absolutely shatter it. So he shatters it by degrees. He brings his letter to the king and instead of the king saying wonderful, I'll take your gifts I'll get the prophet, I'll pass on the gifts to him, he'll do his thing and you'll go back healed. Instead of that he suddenly sees the king reach for the top of his robe and then he splits it.

47:53 And then he cries out, Who am I, God? Why do you come to me with a letter to heal you of leprosy? Am I God to kill and make alive and to heal of leprosy? What happens?

48:06 Can you imagine what happens to Naaman's hopes? As he'd drawn nearer and nearer to the court of the king in the northern kingdom his expectations rose higher and higher and higher and he looks at all of the wealth he's brought with him in the letter from the king, surely this will bring the desired blessing. And the first thing God does is absolutely shatter his expectations and he stands there a disillusioned man as he looks upon a king with a rent garment saying the only reason you've come is because your master wants to pick a fight with me and enter into a battle. And then as is indicated further on in the narrative in verse 11, he had his own ideas of how the power resided in the prophet himself. He said surely you would wave your hand, you as the prophet control the power of God. And God had to teach him no, Elisha was but an instrument in his hands that all of the healing and all of the deliverance was in Jehovah God. And the two things he had to learn were these, that God can't be manipulated and he can't be bribed. You can't

49:22 manipulate him and you can't bribe him. You can't bend his arm and you can't buy his blessing. And when God was done with him, he got the message. With no prophet near him, with no hand being waved over him, with no price having been paid on his behalf, he goes off to wash in the Jordan River knowing one thing, if I ever come back from this expedition a cleansed leper, it's because Almighty God has chosen to do it and he's done it freely and graciously. I ain't paid him a nickel and he ain't done it because my king commanded it. And isn't that the lesson that every sinner's got to learn? Isn't it? In our Adamic pride we think we can manipulate God and we think we can bribe God.

The Necessity of Stripped, Empty-Handed Faith

50:17 If I do this, then God will do this. If I bring God this, God will bring me that. No, no, my friend. If you are ever to be healed of the leprosy of your sin, you must not only be brought to hear a message that forms a just basis of hope, but you must have all your confidence in the creature shattering until you look to Christ and Christ alone for salvation.

50:47 Now this is precisely the problem with some of you. You're waiting until you can manufacture some shekels before you'll ever believe God will graciously heal you of the leprosy of your sin. And so in the mint of your own endeavor you're trying to produce some shekels of holy grief and holy mourning and holy seeking and if only you can bring a handful of the shekels of your own penitence and your own seeking and your own mourning, you think then God will wave his hand and say, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. And you've heard from this pulpit again and again and again and again and oh that God will make it efficacious one of these days. You must come naked, stripped, and empty handed. And from the depths of your being say, Nothing in my hands I bring. Simply to thy cross I cling.

51:48 You don't come manipulating God or bribing God. You take the posture of a Naaman who as he makes his way down to the river has learned the lesson that God of Israel can't be manipulated. That God of Israel can't be bribed. I can only throw myself on free and sovereign mercy.

52:13 And I know of no safer place in all the earth at the footstool of a God of free and of sovereign mercy. Crying like that poor blind beggar son of David, have mercy upon me. Oh what a wonderful demonstration and illustration of the way of salvation do we have in God God's dealings with Naaman. We'll go on to develop this theme further in subsequent studies God willing.

Plea for Honesty and Thanksgiving for God's Grace

52:46 But oh I would plead with you tonight. If you've not come to that place of felt need what keeps you from it but the rationalization of your own wicked heart. The stifling of the voice of your own conscience. And I plead with you tonight. Be honest with your own deepest voice. As your conscience says Amen to everything you've heard tonight. And oh that you may learn that having a sense of need is not salvation. Salvation is in Christ.

53:22 In the God of Israel who came in the person of Jesus Christ and died for sinners. Oh my friend young or old come stripped of all confidence in the arm of flesh and throw yourself upon God. Who is merciful to sinners in the Lord Jesus. And surely many of us could not help but trace out God's dealings with us as we've studied this passage. Oh how we should pillow our heads tonight thanking God for the wonderful way he put a little evangelist by our side. Some of us were born with an evangelist at our left ear and our right ear. Our mother and our father. Some of us had no evangelist for years. But God

54:12 a messenger who brought a word of hope. Oh let us bless him and praise him that he ever brought the gospel to us by whatever means. And let us bless him that though we had all kinds of mixed notions he shattered any notion that we could manipulate God or bribe him and that he brought us to seek and then to rest in free and sovereign mercy alone. Let us pray. Oh our father we stand amazed as we contemplate your dealings with the sinful sons and daughters of men. How we praise you for your grace to this man Naaman. Bringing him not only cleansing from his leprosy but cleansing from the idolatry of his heart. Bringing him to the knowledge of the true and the living God.

55:17 We thank you that your dealings with him so vividly illustrate the manner in which you bring sinners to yourself. Do bless the proclamation of your truth. Do make it effectual. Oh God we cry to you that this word will not return to you void but it may accomplish your purpose even a saving purpose.

55:43 We pray for your dear people that each one of us may be encouraged and refreshed as we reflect upon your mercy to us in ever showing us the desperate plight in which our sin had placed us. In ever bringing to us a message that had a basis of legitimate hope. We thank you for shattering our creature confidence. Oh how we bless you for the stripping work of the spirit and we thank you for his drawing work for his work in revealing Christ to our hearts.

56:21 We give you praise tonight and we plead that as we leave this place as we part from one another as we go back to our appointed spheres of responsibility oh help us to be like that little servant girl. No matter what our hands are doing no matter how undesirable the external circumstances may be may we live with all our hearts as unto you and with hearts in communion with you may we speak freely and naturally and convincingly of what we know of you and of your salvation. Hear our prayer and may the blessing of your grace rest upon us we plead through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.