LEPER GENERAL CLEANSED–WITNESS OF A CAPTIVE GIRL 2 KING 5

Naaman was a great and honourable man, to whom the Lord had given military success . He was a leper, and therefore was ostracised from family and friends. ( v1)

A little slave girl had been allotted to Naaman’s wife, whom God planned to use. . (v2) Her faith in the living God gave her courage and vision.

She was a persistent witness, saying, ‘If only my master were with the prophet in Samaria, he would heal him of his leprosy.’ (v3) She had complete confidence in the man of God.

Naaman conferred with the king, repeating the claim of this unspecified slave girl.

whose devotion delighted her Lord. We will know more in heaven of this lovely lass.

She overcame cross-cultural boundaries. She had learned Syrian to minister in the palace. She embraced the culture of the captors. While she had no status, yet her

earnestness aroused hope. David did the same when he stood against Goliath. Joseph had no privileges, until God promoted him to be Prime Minister. A little boy gave our Lord loaves and fish, and a miracle followed. You are not too small for God to use.

Leprosy is a blood-borne disease, attacking the nervous system, so that Naaman lost all feeling of pain, and was certainly disfigured, sometimes with a face like a lion. The disease separated the sufferer from loved ones, with loss of family, court and social privileges. Leprosy shows the nature of sin in the human heart.

The King of Israel authorised his venture, anxious to see his general healed.(v5)

He lavished gold, silver and clothing on his preferred Commander. No money could purchase a cleansed blood stream, nor heal all the leprous deformities. Peter says ‘ we are not redeemed with silver or gold, but with the precious blood of His dear Son.’ (1Peter 1:18 ) Modern medicine cleanses the blood of a leper, while surgery may minimise deformities, but the sense of pain can not be restored.. ( Brand –Yancey )

The King of Israel felt threatened as he read the letter, ‘that you may heal him of his leprosy’. (v6) Wars have been triggered from such misunderstandings. ‘Am I a God to kill or make alive, that this man sends a man to me to heal him of his leprosy’, was the King of Israel’s retort. Great men are helpless in their own strength. .

The king tore his royal robes in his frustration.

Elisha seized every moment to promote God’s glory, saying ‘ Let him come to me. He shall know there is a God in Israel’. ( v8) Our western world has lost the sense of the reality and Presence of the eternal. Our part is to remind our generation through our conversation and lifestyle.

Naaman with his cavalcade of horses and chariots arrived at Elisha’s humble home. He expected royal carpet treatment reserved for Field Marshals . ( v9) However, he was greeted by a lowly messenger with the direction to ‘Go, and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored to you, and you shall be clean.’ The servant probably spoke in the Hebrew or Aramaic language, so complicating the situation with interpretation.

The infuriated General stormed away, protesting ‘He will surely come out to me, and stand and call on the Name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place (presumably the anaesthetic patches ) – and heal the leprosy.’ (v11) He felt degraded. The Bible revealed character as his rejection continued, ‘ Are not the rivers of Damascus, Abanah and Pharpar, better than all the rivers of Israel. Could I not wash in them and be clean?’ ‘He turned and went away enraged. Fallen man seeks an alternative to the simple yet perfect heart cleansing through the death of His dear Son.

His attendants advocated a reasonable plan for him to follow, for his advice is to ‘Wash and be clean ‘ He cooled down and listened to reason and the prophet’s counsel. .Isaiah later said, ‘though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. . Though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool.’ Would Naaman bend to God’s simple request? Would the general remove his uniform with medallions of victorious campaigns, and expose his tainted, weakened flesh to his staff?

But why the River Jordan and seven times? The children of Israel had miraculously crossed the flooded stream. They had surrounded the adjoining city of Jericho seven times before God brought the walls down. Elijah had parted the waters, and Elisha repeated it with Elijah’s mantle. Later , the Son of God would be baptized in these waters, with the Holy Spirit descending ‘like a dove’ upon Him. Part of God’s history. .

Yes, he ‘went down and dipped seven times in the (muddied, often-rushing ) Jordan, according to the man of God. Was he tempted to stop before he had buried himself seven times in the water. Surely satan tempted him to ‘toss it all in’ and go back home. And stop making a fool of yourself.’ After each dip in the river, from first to the sixth, there was no change. Did Naaman know conflict.? After the seventh dip, a total change.had taken place. God honoured his submission.

Thank God for a sweet girl’s firm word, ‘the prophet will recover you’. A miracle of healing followed his obedience for ‘ His flesh was restored like the flesh of a liitle child ( sensitive, warm, responsive) and he was clean’. His blood stream had been purified from the Lepra Bacilli, his anaesthetic patches returned to normal colour and feel, the deformities had been corrected, and the power of his limbs restored . All in a dramatic moment! Hallelujah. Naaman knew overflowing joy and release. How he longed to tell his wife and children that God’s girl ( His envoy even as a slave ) was true. We must recapture the personal delight of our conversion to Christ.

I had a leper ward in my hospital in Indonesia, so I can partially understand such a mighty show of God’s healing power. What a recovery from the insidious invasion of leprous sin in every stream of our human nature, which the cleansing blood of our Lord Jesus secured for us on the cross. We are clean through and through. We must teach the power of the cross as our driving force.

The general gratefully expressed his faith to Elisha, ‘ Indeed, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel. Please take a gift from your servant.’(v15)

Elisha declined the gift, affirming’ The Lord lives before Whom I stand.’ The general then knew that the true God was the living God, with all the attributes, especially His omnipotence, demonstrated in this exciting healing and discovery of the true faith. The general, like Elisha, would now live in the Presence of the eternal God.