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He
stood on the bank of the river Jordan, dripping wet. At that
moment there was nothing to suggest that this was the greatest
man in Syria, next to the king. His military clothes were in the
care of his batman and now he stood undressed before his
servants, just a man. But his face was radiant; his leprosy had
gone! He was the only leper to be healed in the whole land of
Israel, and he was a gentile, John 4. 27. But something even
more important had happened – his heart had turned forever
from Rimmon to serve the living and true God, and he was
cleansed from the leprosy of sin.
God
had known Naaman long before Naaman knew God. The God of Israel
was then, as always, Lord of all the nations, Dan. 4. 17, and He
had chosen Naaman to be His instrument to save Syria, 2 Kgs. 5.
1. He had also chosen him to be an object lesson of His
unmerited grace, and a warning against preumption, Luke. 4. 27.
How unsearchable are Gods ways! How perfectly His sovereign
power works to fulfil His purposes of grace, Eph.1.11. The
God-given might of Syria made possible the unchecked inroads of
her raiding parties into backslidden Israel.
What
measureless tragedy and tears are brought by sin under the
judgment of God, and believers are not exempt from the sorrows
of their nation. A little girl had been seized – with what
grief and terror we can onlyimagine - and had been carried off
to a foreign land. Did she cry out to her God to be saved from
these men? But in the house of her slavery and loneliness she
was to become a shining light, and her testimony would be
preserved forever within the inspired record of its saving
effects in her earthly master.
Why
was Naaman the only leper healed in Israel? There were in fact
many in Israel, but our Lord clearly implies that it was because
of the unbelief of many others. There was boundless power from
on high with the prophet Elisha, but neither leper nor king
thought of going to him in their hour of need, although Elisha’s
ministry was not done in a corner. Therefore God left His erring
people to the results of their unbelief, and extended His grace
to a people who were ‘strangers to the covenants of promise .
. . without hope’, Eph. 2. 12.
He
would do the same again with the Israel of His earthly ministry,
Matt 21. 43. Yet there was one leper, this time an Israelite,
who did understand his dependence upon, and hope in, God’s
free mercy, Luke 5. 12. His countrymen had turned in fury on the
Lord at His warning about the sovereignty of grace, Luke 4.
27-29, but this man came with the assurance of knowledge, ‘You
can make me clean’, (he knew that much from the earlier
testimony of Christ’s miracles) and he came with the humility
of that true faith which casts itself entirely on His mercy –
‘if thou wilt’.
Do
we take it for granted that ‘we are the people of his pasture’,
Ps. 95. 7? Do we presume that He ought to bless us because in
past decades He blessed the assemblies to which we belong? Do we
feel resentful when He blesses others and not us? Are we
ourselves so far out of touch with the word of God that, likethe
king of Israel, we do not know how or where to direct a seeking
‘leper’?
The
disheartening lack of response to the gospel in many places may
perhaps be a divine judgment on a generation that has heard and
ignored the word of salvation, but God has not ceased to work in
grace. Let us have the compassion and faith of the captive girl,
2 Kgs. 5. 3; the boldness and faith of Elisha, v. 8; and the
persistence and faith of Naaman’s servants, v. 13. Nothing was
impossible with God in their day, and nothing is impossible to
Him in ours, however adverse the circumstances may seem to be.
His sovereign will allows these events to happen; may He find us
ready and willing to be used in the midst of them to His glory,
to tell the ‘leper’ of the One who can and will heal him.
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