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TOPIC: Pink, Arthur - Gleanings From Elisha (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 17-Tenth Miracle - Too Simple A Remedy
Other Subjects in this Topic:
TENTH MIRACLE-TOO SIMPLE A REMEDY
Chapter 17
In Our Last Chapter we dwelt mainly upon the requirement which was made
upon Naaman when he reached the prophet's abode: "Go and wash in Jordan
seven times," seeking to supply answers to, Why was he so enjoined? What
was the implication in his case? What beating has such a demand upon men
generally today? What is its deeper significance?
We saw that it was a requirement which revealed the uselessness and
worthlessness of Naaman's attempt to purchase his healing. We showed that
it was a requirement which demanded the setting aside of his own will and
submitting himself to the will of Israel's God. We pointed out that it
was a requirement which insisted that he must get down off his "high
horse" (descend from his chariot), humbling and abasing himself. We
intimated that it was a requirement which, typically, pointed to that
amazing provision of the grace of God for spiritual lepers, namely, the
"fountain opened... for sin and for uncleanness" (Zec_13:1), and by
which alone defilement can be cleansed and iniquities blotted out.
"But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, He
will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the LORD
his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper" (2
Kings 5:11). In his own country he was a person of consequence, a "great
man," commander-in-chief of the army, standing high in the favor of the
king. Here in Israel the prophet had treated him as a mere nobody, paying
no deference to him, employing a servant to convey his instructions.
Naaman was chagrined; his pride was wounded, and because his
self-importance had not been ministered to, he turned away in a huff.
Elisha's "Go and wash in Jordan seven times" was not intended to signify
the means of cure, but was designed as a test of his heart, and
strikingly did it serve its purpose. It was a call to humble himself
before Jehovah. It required the repudiation of his own wisdom and the
renunciation of self-pleasing; and that is at direct variance with the
inclinations of fallen human nature, so much so that no one ever truly
complied with this just demand of God's until He performed a miracle of
grace in the soul.
Even the most humiliating providences are not sufficient in themselves to
humble the proud heart of man and render him submissive to the divine
will. One would think that a person so desperately afflicted as this poor
leper would have been meekened and ready to comply with the prophet's
injunction. Ah, my reader, the seat of our moral disease lies too deep
for external things to reach it. So fearful is the blinding power of sin
that it causes its subjects to be puffed up with self-complacency and
self-righteousness and to imagine they are entitled to favorable
treatment even at the hands of the Most High. And does not that very
spirit lurk in the hearts of the regenerate! And it not only lurks there,
but at times it moves them to act like Naaman! Has not the writer and the
Christian reader ever come before the Lord with some pressing need and
sought relief at His hands, and then been angry because He responded to
us in quite a different way from what we expected and desired? Have we
not had to bow our heads for shame as He gently reproved us with His
"Doest thou well to be angry?" (Jon_4:4). Yes, there is much of this
Naaman spirit that needs to be mortified in each of us.
"Behold, I thought" said Naaman. Herein he supplies a true representation
of the natural man. The sinner has his own idea of how salvation is to be
obtained. It is true that opinions vary when it comes to the working out
of detail, yet all over the world fallen man has his own opinion of what
is suitable and needful. One man thinks he must perform some meritorious
deeds in order to obtain forgiveness. Another thinks the past can be
atoned for by turning over a new leaf and living right for the future.
Yet another, who has obtained a smattering of the gospel, thinks that by
believing in Christ he secures a passport to heaven, even though he
continues to indulge the flesh and retain his beloved idols. However much
they may differ in their self-concocted schemes, this one thing is common
to them all: "I thought." And that "I thought" is put over against the
Word and way of God. They prefer the way that "seemeth right" to them;
they insist on following out their own theorizings; they pit their
prejudices and presuppositions against a "thus saith the Lord." Reader,
you perceive here the folly of Naaman, but have you seen the madness of
setting your own thoughts against the authority of the living God!
And what was it that this foolish and haughty Syrian "thought"? Why this:
"He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the
LORD his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper."
He was willing to be restored to health, but it must be in his own way-a
way in which his self-respect might be retained and his importance
acknowledged. He desired to be healed, provided he should also be duly
honored. He had come all the way from Syria to be rid of his leprosy, but
he was not prepared to receive cleansing in the manner of God's
prescribing. What madness! What a demonstration that the carnal mind is
enmity against God! What proof of the fearful hold which Satan has over
his victims until a stronger one delivers them from his enthralling power!
Naaman had now received what the king of Israel had failed to give
him-full directions for his cure. There was no uncertainty about the
prescription nor of its efficacy, would he but submit to it. "Go and wash
in Jordan seven times... and thou shalt be clean." But he felt slighted.
Such instructions suited not his inclinations; the divine requirement
accorded not with the conceits of his unhumbled heart.
What right had Naaman, a leper, to either argue or prescribe? He was a
petitioner and not a legislator; he was suing for a favor, and therefore
was in no position to advance any demands of his own. If such were the
case and situation of Naaman, how infinitely less has any depraved and
guilty sinner the right to make any terms with God! Man is a criminal,
justly pronounced guilty by the divine law. Mercy is his only hope, and
it is therefore for God to say in what way mercy is to be shown him and
how salvation is to be obtained. For this reason the Lord says not only,
"Let the wicked forsake his way," but also adds "and the unrighteous man
his thoughts" (Isa_55:7).
Man must repudiate his own ideas, abandon his own prejudices, turn away
from his own schemes, and reject his own preferences. If we are to enter
the kingdom of heaven, we must "become as little children" (Matthew
18:3). Alas, of the vast majority of our fellowmen it has to be said,
that they, "going about to establish their own righteousness, have not
submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God" (Rom_10:3). They
"will not come to Christ that they might have life" (Joh_5:40).
C. E. Stuart wrote,
In Naaman's mind all was arranged. He pictured the scene to himself, and
made himself the foremost figure in the group-the Gentile idolator waited
on by the prophet of God. The incongruity of this he did not then see. We
see it. God would visit him in grace, but as one who had no ground of his
own to stand on. As a sinner He could meet him. As a leper He could heal
him. As the captain of the hosts of the king of Syria He would not
receive him. What place has a sinner before God save that of one to whom
mercy can be shown? What place is suited to the leper save that outside
the camp? Naaman has to learn his place. He may be wroth with the
prophet, but he cannot move him. Before him he is only a leper, whatever
he may appear before others. Learning his place, he has to learn his
vileness. He imagined Elisha would have struck his hand over the place. A
sign, a scene, he expected-not a mere word. He did not know what a
defiling object he was. The priest looked on the leper to judge whether
he was leprous or not. He touched him only when he was clean (Lev. 14).
Of Naaman's leprosy there was no doubt, for he had come to be healed of
it. To touch him ere he was clean would only have defiled the prophet!
But further, if he had been able to touch him, and so have healed him,
would not man have thought there was virtue in the prophet? By sending
him to the Jordan to wash, it would be clearly seen the cure was direct
from God. Man has no virtue in himself-he can only be the channel of
God's grace to others. God must have all the glory of the cure, and
Naaman must be taught his own condition and vileness.
"Are not Abana and Pharpar, 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" (2Ki_5:12). Naaman was incensed not only because
he thought that insufficient respect had been shown to his own person,
but also because he felt his country had been slighted. If it was merely
a matter of bathing in some river, why could not those of his own land
have sufficed? This was tantamount to dictating to Jehovah, for it was
the word of His prophet he now challenged. Shall the beggar insist on his
right to choose what form the supply of his need must take! Shall the
patient inform the physician what remedy will be acceptable to him! Is
the guilty culprit to have the effrontery to dictate to the judge what
shall be done to him! Yet a worm of the earth deems himself competent to
pit his wits against the wisdom of God. A hell-deserving sinner is
impudent enough to draw up terms on which he considers heaven is due him.
But if we are to be cleansed, it can only be by the way of God's
appointing and not by any of our own devising.
Matthew Henry said,
He thinks this too cheap, too plain, too common, a thing for so great a
man to be cured by; or he did not believe it would at all effect the
cure, or, if it would, what medicinal virtue was there in Jordan more
than in the rivers of Damascus? But he did not consider (1) That Jordan
belonged to Israel's God, from whom he was to expect the cure, and not
from the gods of Damascus; it watered the Lord's land, the holy land, and
in a miraculous cure, relation to God was much more considerable than the
depth of the channel or the beauty of the stream. (2) That Jordan had
more than once before this obeyed the commands of Omnipotence: it had of
old yielded a passage to Israel, and of late to Elijah and Elisha, and
therefore was fitter for such a purpose than those rivers which had only
observed the common law of their creation, and had never been thus
distinguished; but above all, Jordan was the river appointed, and if he
expected a cure from the Divine power he ought to acquiesce in the Divine
will, without asking why or wherefore. It is common for those that are
wise in their own conceits to look with contempt on the dictates and
prescriptions of Divine wisdom, and to prefer their own fancies before
them.
"So he turned and went away in a rage." How true to life; how accurate
the picture! The flesh resents the humbling truth of God and hates to be
abased. And let us say here for the benefit of young preachers who are
likely to read these lines: you must expect some of your hearers to turn
from you in anger if you faithfully minister the Word of God in its
undiluted purity. It has ever been thus. If the prophets of the Lord
incensed their hearers, can you expect your message will be palatable to
the unregenerate? If the incarnate Son of God had to say, "Because I tell
you the truth, ye believe me not" (Joh_8:45), can you expect the truth
to meet with a better welcome from your lips? If the chief of the
apostles declared, "For if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant
of Christ" (Gal_1:10), do you expect to be popular with them? There is
but one way to avoid displeasing your hearers, and that is by
unfaithfulness to your trust, by carnal compromise, by blunting the sharp
edge of the sword of the Spirit, by keeping back what you know will prove
unacceptable. In such an event, God will require their blood at your hand
and you will forfeit the approbation of your Master.
"So he turned and went away in a rage." In this we may see the final
effort of Satan to retain his victim before divine grace delivered him.
The rage of Naaman was but the reflection of Satan, who was furious at
the prospect of losing him. It reminds us of the case recorded in Luke
9:37-42. A father of a demon-possessed child had sought for help from the
apostles, which they had been unable to render. As the Savior came down
from the mount, the poor father approached Him and He gave orders, "bring
they son hither." We are told, "And as he was yet a coming, the devil
threw him down, and tare him" (Luk_9:42). But Jesus rebuked the unclean
spirit, and healed the child, and delivered him again to his father. It
is frequently thus; the conflict which is waged in the soul is usually
worst just before peace is found. Lusts rage, unbelief seeks to wax
supreme, the truth of sovereign grace when first apprehended is
obnoxious, and to be told our righteousnesses are as filthy rags stirs up
enmity. Satan fills the soul with rage against God, against His truth,
against His servant. Often that is a hopeful sign, for it at least shows
that the sinner has been aroused from the fatal sleep of indifference.
"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 saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?" (2
Kings 5:13). Let us consider first the surface teaching of this verse.
This gentle remonstrance was "a word spoken in season." Had Naaman
remained calm and reasonable he would have perceived that what was
required of him was simple and safe, and neither difficult nor dangerous.
Had the prophet prescribed some laborious and lengthy task, or ordered a
drastic operation or painful remedy, probably Naaman would have complied
without a murmur. So why not do this when no other sacrifice was demanded
of him but the humbling of his pride? "When sinners are under serious
impressions, and as yet prejudiced against the Lord's method of
salvation, they should be reasoned with in meekness and love, and
persuaded to make trial of its simplicity" (Thomas Scott). If it is
necessary to rebuke their petulence and point out to them the foolishness
of their proud reasoning, we should make it evident that our rebuke
proceeds from a desire for their eternal welfare.
It is a great mercy to have those about us that will be free with us, and
faithfully tell us our faults and follies, though they be our inferiors.
Masters must be willing to hear reason from their inferiors: Job_31:13,
14. As we should be deaf to the counsel of the ungodly though given by
the greatest and most venerable names, so we should have our ears open to
good advice, though brought to us by those who are much below us: no
matter who speaks, if it be well said... The reproof was modest and
respectful: they call him "father"-for servants must honor and obey their
masters with a kind of filial affection (Matthew Henry).
How few ministers of the gospel now proclaim the divine injunction, "Let
as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of
all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed" (1
Tim. 6:1).
It may be those servants had heard quite a lot from the Hebrew maid of
the wondrous miracles that had been wrought by Elisha, and hence they
were very desirous that Naaman should try out his directions. Or, perhaps
it was because they were deeply devoted to their master, holding him in
high esteem, and felt he was forsaking his own mercies by permitting his
wounded vanity to now blind his better judgment. At any rate, they saw no
sense in coming all the way from Syria and now leaving Samaria without at
least making a trial of the prophet's prescription. Such are the
suggestions made by the commentators to explain this action of Naaman's
attendants. Personally, we prefer to look higher and see the power of the
Most High in operation, working in them both to will and to do if His
good pleasure, employing them as one more link in the chain which brought
about the accomplishment of His purpose; "For of him, and through him,
and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen" (Rom_11:36).
What has been before us here is in full accord with the other things
already contemplated. It seemed quite unlikely that any serious attention
should be paid to the simple statement of the captive Hebrew maid, but
God saw to it that her words did not fall to the ground. It appeared very
much as though Naaman's mission was blocked when the skeptical king of
Israel failed to cooperate, but God moved Elisha to intervene and caused
his royal master to carry out his order. And now that Naaman himself
turned away from the prophet in a rage, it certainly looked as though the
quest would prove unsuccessful. But that could not be. The Almighty had
decreed that the Syrian should be healed of his leprosy and brought to
acknowledge that the God of Israel was the true and living God; and all
the powers of evil could not prevent the fulfillment of His decree. Yet
just as He is generally pleased to work, so here; He used human
instruments in the accomplishing of His purpose. It may be concluded
that, naturally and normally, those attendants would have their place and
distance, and would not have dared to remonstrate with their master while
he was in such a rage. Behold the secret power of God working within
them, subduing their fears, and moving them to appeal to Naaman.
The little maid was not present to speak to her august master and plead
with him to further his best interests. The prophet of the Lord had
issued his instructions, only for them to be despised. What, then? Shall
Naaman return home unhealed? No, such a thing was not possible. He was to
learn there was a God in Israel and that He had thoughts of mercy toward
him. But he must first be abased. Mark, then how God acted. He moves in a
mysterious way, His wonders to perform-oftentimes unperceived and
unappreciated by us. He inclines Naaman's own followers to admonish him
and show him the folly of his proud reasoning. Remarkable and significant
is it to observe the particular instruments the Lord here employed. It
was first the servant maid whom He used to inform Naaman that there was a
prophet in Israel by whom he could obtain healing. Then it was through
his servant that Elisha gave the Syrian the needed instructions. And now
it was Naaman's own servants who prevailed upon him to heed those
instructions. All of this was intended for the humbling of the mighty
Naaman. And, we may add, for our instruction. We must take the servant's
place and have the servant spirit if we would hope for God to employ us.
See here too the amazing patience of the Lord. Here was one who was
wrothful against His faithful prophet: what wonder then that He struck
him down in his tracks. Here was a haughty creature who refused to humble
himself and, in effect, impudently dictated to God how he should receive
healing. Had he been on his knees supplicating the divine favor, his
attitude would have been a becoming one; instead, he turned his back upon
God's servant and moved away in a rage. Yet it was then that God
acted-not against him, but for him, so that where sin abounded, grace did
much more abound. And why? Because sovereign mercy had ordained him a
vessel unto honor from all eternity.
Let the Christian reader join with the writer in looking back to the
past, recalling when we too kicked against the pricks. How infinite was
the forbearance of God toward us! Though we had no regard for Him, He had
set His heart upon us; and perhaps at the very time when our awful enmity
against Him was most high-handedly operative, He moved someone of
comparative obscurity to reason with us and point out to us the folly of
our ways and urge us to submit to God's holy requirements.
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