The scripture text for our exposition this morning is found in 2nd Kings chapter 5 and we are reading verses 1-16 to refresh our minds concerning this great incident of the healing of Naaman the leper 2nd Kings chapter 5 and we'll read only verses 1-16 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 deliverance unto Syria. He was also a mighty man in valor, but he was a leper. And the Syrians had gone out by companies, and had brought away captive out of the land of Israel a little maid. And she waited on Naaman's wife, And she said unto her mistress, Would God my Lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria, for he would recover him of his leprosy. And one went out and told his lord, saying, Thus and thus said the maid that is of the land of Israel. And the king of Syria said, Go to, go, and I will send a letter unto the king of Israel. And he departed, and took with him ten talents of silver, six thousand pieces of gold, and ten changes of raiment. And he brought the letter to the king of Israel, saying, Now when this letter is come unto thee, behold, I have therewith 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 make alive that this man doth send unto me to recover a man of his leprosy? Wherefore consider, I pray you, and see how he seeketh a quarrel against me. And it was so, when Elisha the man of God had 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 chariot, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha, and Elisha sent a message unto him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean. But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I fought, 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 plates, and recover the leper. Are not Abana and Phapa, 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. And 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 than when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean? Then he went down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God, and his flesh came again, like unto the flesh of a little child. he was clean and he returned to the man of God he and all his company and came and stood before him and said behold now I know there is no God in all the earth but in Israel now therefore I pray thee take a blessing of thy servant but he said as the Lord liveth before whom I stand I will receive none and he urged him to take it but he refused thus far the reading of God's holy word may he bless that reading once more to our hearts and minds this morning hour now we have arrived at the 13th exposition in the life of Elisha the prophet of grace in this continuing series of expositions on the Lord's day morning and we are indeed turning to this great passage of 2nd Kings 5 for the second time today to the account of perhaps the best known of all Elijah's many miracles the healing of Naaman the Syrian army leader the healing of him from his leprosy an amazing passage dealing with a man who was not a citizen or member of Israel but a foreigner a member of a hostile neighboring kingdom a kingdom moreover that it inflicted heavy defeat and humiliation upon the people of Israel and this whole incident therefore is the more a great revelation of the profundity and depth of God's amazing grace Now it's an extremely rich passage all together and we have already examined in an introductory way some of its great teaching and principles last Lord's Day and we are returning to the same passage again this morning under the title I've chosen of Gracious Omnipotence. As we see God's almighty power so clearly revealed in this amazing incident reaching out beyond his own people and nation of Israel to embrace a heathen man sunk in idolatry and ignorance of the true God the Captain General of Syria's armies renowned for his valor the King's favorite officer but a leper with awe and to bring him by this gracious omnipotence, and by a wonderful providence, to seek after and to embrace the true God Himself. Now there are three things in these sixteen verses that we read together to which I direct your attention this morning. A great man, a humble maid, and a gracious God. Now first of all we have the account of a great man. It's there in substance of course in verse 1. Now Naaman was commander of the army of Syria. He was a great man in the sight of his master and he was highly regarded. He was honorable and so forth. Now the narrative as you notice begins with the description of this great man and it must therefore be our starting point as well this morning as we begin to see how amazingly the gracious omnipotence of God is already at work. There are several things indeed about the description of this man in verse 1 who has had such a brilliant career in his native land, this man who has drunk deeply off the cup of worldly success, who has mounted in a sense so high in fame that it's scarcely possible for him to mount any higher. As we read in verse 1 And there are three things that I want to say about this great man. The first is this, that he was a Gentile, a Syrian, a foreigner, upon whom the stupendous miracle of cleansing from his leprosy was later to be wrought. A Gentile, a Syrian, a foreigner. now you know there's nothing more striking about this great chapter of 2nd Kings 5 than the abrupt change from the theme of the preceding chapter, chapter 4 and the opening verse of the 5th chapter remember in chapter 4 the writer has given us the account of four miracles of mercy wrought for Israelites The widow's oil was multiplied to remember. The Shunammite's son was raised from the dead. The school of the prophets was spared from poisoning. And the same school of the prophets were delivered at the end of chapter 4 from the terrible famine by the man from Baal-Shelisha. But in the first verse of chapter 5 we read to our astonishment, Now Naaman was the commander of the army of Syria. In other words, not one of the covenant people at all, but a foreigner. Moreover, a member of an enemy nation, one that had afflicted humiliation and defeat upon the covenant people. a Syrian, a heathen man, steeped in idolatry and spiritual darkness, a man in New Testament terms that we would describe as being far off from the covenants of promise, without God and without hope in the world. Now why do I draw your attention, congregation, to this? because his story is striking proof of the depth and profundity of the grace of God it reaches out even to Gentile dogs as well as to the lost sheep of the house of Israel as in the days of the Lord Jesus Christ in the New Testament it shows mercy to enemies and is not confined only to those who are its friends and it's a reminder to us this morning, isn't it, to each one of us that there was a day when we were yet enemies as Paul reminds us, sinners hopelessly bound in sin and spiritual deadness opposers to God and His truth and that Christ died for the ungodly such is the gracious omnipotence of God He was a foreigner and a member of an enemy nation now the second thing is this about him you notice that he owed all his position and success to the Lord again in verse 1 now the list of his distinctions forms an imposing array he's commander-in-chief of the Syrian armies he's the favorite of the king and evidently his chief counselor he's a great man in the eyes of his master and there's not a man probably in all the land of Syria whom the king trusts more fully and honors more highly and he's a popular hero with the people as well as we read in verse 1, a national hero presumably because he had turned the tide of battle on more than one occasion and his reputation and his renown was on every tongue, a brave soldier, a resourceful leader of men successful but here is the significant thing you notice that he was a great man with his master because through him the Lord had given victory to Syria though he does not know or respect the true God we are informed that he owed everything in his position and success to one factor the Lord had given him victory and threw him to Syria now this man who was in a sense the George Washington of another age or like the William Wallace of my own land of Scotland owed all that he was to the living and the true God whom he still failed to recognize You know, Matthew Henry, the great Puritan commentator, has a lovely comment on verse 1. He says this, "...the preservation and prosperity, even of those that do not know God and do not serve Him, must be ascribed to God, who is the Savior of all men, but especially of those who believe." and here is the picture of this man wielding immense authority, possessing an unsurpassed record of achievement, a royal favorite, a national hero and it was all in the end from the Lord that's the second thing now the third thing is this of course that though Naaman had so much he was far from a happy man the third thing is he was afflicted as we read with a deadly disease and this too as we'll see shortly was no less a demonstration of God's gracious omnipotence you see the tale of Naaman's possessions has not been fully told until we come to the end of verse 1, and now one fact is mentioned that takes all the guilt, as it were, off Naaman's gold. He had made the dreadful discovery at the very zenith of his popularity and influence that he was stricken with leprosy. When Naaman's cup was full to the brim, God as it were laid his hand upon this man and turned all his sweetness into wormwood and gall. Because leprosy was a fatal disease and Naaman realized he carried in his own body a death warrant. What did it matter? anymore but he stood on the pinnacle of his glory what did his triumphs count for? his honors, his joys, his ambitions what did they all amount to now? Naaman was a leper now we need to remember congregation that still there is no earthly lot but it has a crook in it a twist, a bend And sooner or later, the sweet-smelling ointment of the apothecary will begin, as Ecclesiastes says, to sphinc, because of the dead flies that are in it. And here is Naaman. in the midst of now a living death, the odious, separating skin beginning to show, a sinister condition debilitating, carrying a social stigma with it, rendering the man a social outcast, the object of dread and pity and even abhorrence, degraded and desperate and in the end incurable and facing a premature death. it spelt the end of his career, his dismissal eventually from the army and even his banishment from the king's court now after it is that many a man in ordinary human life in his biography has found a repetition of this condition when you think of it on every hand in human life congregation there is a but You think of the successful man of the world, when his coffers are at their fullness, and his power is at its zenith, and his reputation established, then there comes a but into that man's life. It may be a fatal disease, it may be the shadow of his past catching up with him, it may be a family tragedy. In the lives of others, there may be a similar but, a man who appears to be religious and honest and upright and setting an example to others but it's all been a cloak of religious profession and it catches up with him and the day comes when there is a denouement an unveiling, a revealing and he's showing for what he really is not the moral upright religious man but a moral leper compassed about with many mischievous and evil sins and you know in the life of every unconverted sinner there is a but, isn't there? he is a leper in a spiritual sense because sin in the end is nothing other than the leprosy of the soul and this is the most tragic of all conceivable buts apart from which only gracious omnipotence can be the deliverer. A great man, Naaman. Now I want you to look at the second character in the passage again and that is the humble maid in verses 2 through 5. Now bands of Syria had gone out and taken captive a young maid from Israel we read, as you remember. And so the story of Naaman is now interjected in a most amazing and surprising way as another display of God's gracious omnipotence. And there are three things I want you to notice about the humble maid. The first is a most unlikely source of help. Now she's a little Jewish girl, surely one of the most attractive characters, by the way, in the whole of the Bible. And I want you children here to listen very carefully. She was a child. The raiding bands, as we read of the Syrian army, had gone out into Israel and had desolated settlements and villages and towns and taken captive and slayed some of the population. And here was a little Jewish girl. sold as a slave and found herself now in Naaman's household as his wife's personal maid the spoil of a cruel enemy raid snatched away evidently from a very godly home now an alien and a stranger in a distant land Syria yet in God's gracious omnipotence she is about to play a decisive part in the outworking of God's amazing purposes. And little known to Naaman, the acquisition of this little treasure, this little girl, this slip of a girl, would be of more value to him than all the talents of gold and the silver that he owned there in Syria. A most unlikely source of help and deliverance. Now the second thing about her I want you to notice is that young as she was, she was not too young to know the God of Israel. I hope you're listening children. You know there's nothing more remarkable than to see how clearly the gracious power of God can work in the life of a child. At a very young age evidently this girl's heart was impressed with the faith and the religion of the Lord of Jehovah and evidently at home and in the sanctuary she joined in the worship of the true God with her parents so that all through the dark days that followed after she lost her parents and was taken captive to an enemy and a heathen land her faith was strong in her heart still As I said to you last Lord's Day, it's a glorious example, isn't it, of what the people in Psalm 137 could not do. Remember Psalm 137 says, in the midst of their captivity in Babylon, how shall we sing the Lord's Song in a strange land, in an alien land? And they hung their hearts upon the trees by the waters of Babylon, and they sat disconsolate and discouraged. Now this young lady had learned how to sing the Lord's song in a strange land. And the picture of her is that she didn't sulk, she didn't harbor a grudge against her captors. She prayed for the salvation of her master Naaman with remarkable faith, do you notice? There was no instance in Israel of Elisha ever having cured a single leper. But she must have reasoned, you see, that if this prophet could raise the dead as he had done in the earlier chapter as we saw, there was no limit to God's power through him. And so she spoke a word in season that Naaman needed to hear. She began to sing the Lord's song in a strange land. so that's the second thing but the third thing is that it's an inspiring lesson for us congregation the youngest may be of great service in the Lord's cause the youngest among us may be of great service in the Lord's cause here is this little girl, this child without much a knowledge or experience perhaps of theology but a heart glowing with the love of God and the word she spoke results in the greatness of the thing that came about the healing of a master and we need to remember that there in Syria as a result of her testimony there stood shortly among all the heathen idols and shrines an altar to the true and living God in this heathen land and amidst the gross darkness of heathen living there stood one dwelling in Syria that had received in it the light of divine truth the home and the household of Naaman. And all due to the testimony of a little Hebrew girl who had learned to sing the Lord's song in an even band. The youngest among us may be of great service in the Lord's cause. The part played by a child. I want to say to you children in the congregation this morning Don't think that you have to wait to grow up before you can be useful in your Christian service and your Christian witness. The Lord can use you mightily as you are. You know children, many a time it's been the word of a child spoken simply and artlessly but has moved the heart of another person, even an adult, who have held out against every other influence. Isaiah in one of his prophecies says a little child shall lead them and God likes to make use of the weak things in order to accomplish His purposes. Do you remember the sermon I preached some time ago on the children praising the Lord Jesus in the temple crying Hosanna to the Son of David when all the religious leaders hearts were hardened and it was music in the ears of the Savior. As he quoted from Psalm 8, out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise. So I ask you children here this morning, are you making the most of your situation? Influencing your friends, speaking to them. It was so encouraging to all of us how recently you brought two of your friends to a prayer meeting. Wonderful! and so encouraging to us all God's gracious power is omnipotence and work through the life of a young child if we possess a God-given faith and confidence in our prophet of grace the Lord Jesus Christ a great man a humble maid and now thirdly and finally a gracious God verses 5 through to verse 16, the end of our reading this morning, and I'm going to cover it quite quickly. We will return, God willing, to this passage once more next Lord's Day morning. But as we've seen already today, there was a but in Naaman's life that blighted all his hopes and tarnished all his earthly glory. But He was a leper, an incurable condition. Nevertheless, there are no such limits to the gracious omnipotence and power of God. Now in these verses 5 through 16, of course, there's a lot of ground. I'm not going to cover it this morning as we see him heeding the testimony of the little girl in his household going to the king of Syria and obtaining a letter which he took to the king of Israel and then the somewhat amusing scene of the king of Israel saying he's seeking a quarrel with me, he expects me to act like God and heal a leper and the prophet Elisha hearing of these circumstances intervening and saying to the king of Israel send him to me that he may know there is a prophet of the Lord in the land. Now these events we pass over, but we might see thirdly, as I said this morning, how God's gracious omnipotence now works, how graciously the Lord deals with Naaman, how he persists through all Naaman's changing moods. We see a man in four moods. Now what were these four moods, as I finish? Well, first of all, before he heard about Elisha, he was despondent. We've seen this already. He discovered that he had leprosy, evidently in the very early stages. But he was a living death. and he knew that one day he must retire into seclusion and all his honors and glory be laid aside and die in obscurity with the stigma of this incurable disease upon him his doom was now fixed and unalterable and we remember of course that that state of leprosy is a vivid picture in scripture of the state of sin in which we all stand or once stood, affected by something that is even worse than this loathsome disease here. He was despondent, and with good reason. But the second mood was one of hopefulness, you notice, he was hopeful. Through the young slave girl's testimony there was at last the possibility of a cure and we see him arriving at Elisha's door with his ten talents of silver and six thousand pieces of gold and ten changes of clothes. In today's terms the silver alone worth well over one hundred thousand dollars. And he seems to think, as we see him there in his hopefulness, that he can demand to be cured, and that he would highly reward Elisha, the prophet of God, for his services. And of course, there are so many like Naaman, as we'll see more fully, I hope, next Sunday morning, who think that they can purchase salvation, or earn it, or deserve it, or even trade with God for it. but we notice Elisha did not appear in person but sent a humbling message go and wash seven times in Jordan and Naaman could not dictate as he realized the terms of his cure nor the manner of it and he had to learn that he was a beggar at the door of divine mercy he was despondent, he was hopeful the third mood is that he was angry His pride was humbled as we read. His preconceived ideas dashed to the ground. God would not work the cure in Naaman's way. Isn't this always God's manner of working that no flesh should be able to glory in His presence? Wash in the river Jordan indeed! a cure so ridiculously futile that Naaman's pride gave vent to wrath. Were not the crystal streams of Abana and Fartha, the rivers of my own country, the glory of Damascus, far better means of cleansing than the slow-flowing muddy River Jordan? But it was not until his pride was humbled that there was any hope for Naaman. as he needed to come down from his chariot down into the Jordan down again and again and again until his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young child he was despondent, he was hopeful, he was angry but then his fourth mood was he became grateful and that's where we end this morning you notice he didn't return straight away to tell the king of Syria and his friends the glorious gladdening good news but he went back instead to the humble door of Elisha the prophet and Elisha's God to surround God's thrones with songs of grateful praise now I know there is no God in all the earth but in Israel what a glorious testimony. Now let me summarize what I shared with you this morning. How like this we as sinners are or have been, smitten with a disease of moral leprosy. How many of us once thought that the glory of our cure would bring glory on ourselves if we could dictate the terms. How angry Some of us were, when we were pointed to the fountain of Calvary instead, to the cross of Christ, how we saw it as a reproach and an offense. How God's easy, artless, unencumbered plan of salvation, of washing and being cleansed, believing and being saved, was offensive to us. but we found salvation did we not in the despised gospel of the crucified go to the Jordan and wash seven times and you will be clean and in that river pride, all pride drowns and is seen no more gracious omnipotence it's a wonderful story isn't it? God's government His reign, His omnipotence placed Naaman in his high position brought honor to him but also made him a lapper and brought the young girl from Israel into his home with the good news of a wonderful cure that was abundantly possible through God's gracious, omnipotent and we know congregation and hearers of this sermon that if we are ever to be cured of the dread leprosy of sin we will not be cured as a great man or as a rich man or as a man of renown but as a miserable sinner who has been taught to become a humble beggar upon God's omnipotent grace in Christ. Has God spoken to our hearts this morning? O do not resist him, but let us become humble suppliants at his gate, for mercy and for cleansing from the dread disease of sin, that our hearts might become again like the skin of a little child, gracious, omnipotent, Let's rise for prayer. Our Father in heaven, we thank Thee once more for this passage to which we return the second time for its great lessons regarding Thine almightiness and the graciousness of that almightiness as we see it exhibited so clearly and powerfully in the life of a heathen foreign leader of Syria's armies. May these lessons indeed impinge upon our hearts and encourage us in our Christian walk and in our Christian witness. For Jesus' sake, Amen.