All right, we are going to be in 2 Kings chapter 5 this evening. 2 Kings chapter 5, and as you're turning there, I'm going to move out of the way for just a minute. I thought about having a handout for you with this on it, but I forgot to do that, so I put it on the whiteboard. This is kind of a structure to be said in terms of structural features, but I wanted to show this to you at least before we read the text and give you a sense of how it's put together so that as we read it will fit together a little better perhaps. So the chapter begins and ends with a leper, and that's gonna be very significant. It's not the same leper, but it begins and ends with a leper, and the transition of that leprosy is very significant in terms of the theological substance of what this chapter is teaching us. The first seven verses, we have Naaman's complaint. In verses 8 through 14, we have Yahweh's command. And in verses 15 to 27, we have Gehazi's crime. And then in each of those sections, you have a two-step development. And some of you won't be able necessarily to read these subsections, but verses 1 through 4 and then verses 5 through 7 are the two-step development in the first heading. verses 8 through 12, and then verses 13 and 14, the two steps. In the second heading, and then verses 15 through 19a is the first step in the last heading, and verses 19b to 27 is the second step. In that first section, you have the commander of Syria's problem in verses 1 through 4, and then the king of Israel's problem in verses 5 through 7. In the second heading, you have the startling revelation of the prophet, verses 8 through 12, And then you have the soothing revelation or reasoning of the servant, verses 13 and 14. And then in the third heading, you have the generosity of Naaman declined. in verses 15 to 19a, and then you have the greed of Gehazi that devastates in verses 19b to 27. Now I say all of that because the story that we're about to read and look at together this evening is probably the best known story from the life and ministry of Elisha. And I say this so often you're probably tired of me saying it, but it is the passages that we think we know the best. that have the most to teach us. So when we're studying through the Divided Kingdom, most people in most churches are prepared to learn something new because it's just not a section of scripture that many believers study on a regular basis. And so a lot of things are new. New characters, new events, stories that they've never heard before. But when we come to the question of Naaman the leper and the cleansing of Naaman in this passage, that's a story that at least most people in churches have heard of, if not studied before. It has a lot of typological significance. There are a lot of ways that it kind of foreshadows coming events in the New Covenant and the cleansing that we experience in Christ. And so it's a very simple story, it's a straightforward story, it's a familiar story, and therefore it's an opportunity for you to dig a little bit deeper tonight. And that's why I want you to think more carefully than you may have before about the structure of the story and the way in which the structure may be indicating something about the particular theme that we're supposed to see. We said a minute ago that the story begins and ends with a leper. But at the beginning of the chapter, it is a Gentile who is a leper. And at the end of the chapter, it is an Israelite. At the beginning of the story, the first half of it, the Gentile is brought to faith and cleansed, or we might say more historically and even more significant theologically, he is cleansed and comes to faith. And you can think about the implications of that for our understanding of the ordo salutis. But in the second half of the chapter, it is an Israelite servant who is defiled and departs the faith. He is cast out by that contamination. Let's begin by reading the first 14 verses of the chapter. I don't want to read the entire thing, but we'll deal with it kind of in these two parts. Verses 1 through 14 of 2 Kings chapter 5. Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and in high favor, because by him Yahweh had given victory to Syria. He was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper. Now the Syrians, on one of their raids, had carried off a little girl from the land of Israel, and she worked in the service of Naaman's wife. She said to her mistress, would that my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria. He would cure him of his leprosy. So Naaman went in and told his lord. Thus and so spoke the girl from the land of Israel. The king of Syria said, go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel. So he went, taking with him 10 talents of silver, 6,000 shekels of gold, and 10 changes of clothing. And he brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, when this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you Naaman, my servant, that you may cure him of his leprosy. And when the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, Am I God to kill and to make alive, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Only consider and see how he is seeking a quarrel with me. But when Elisha, the man of God, heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent to the king, saying, Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come now to me, that he may know that there is a prophet in Israel. So Naaman came with his horses and chariots and stood at the door of Elisha's house, and Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean. But Naaman was angry and went away, saying, Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me, and stand, and call upon the name of Yahweh his God, and wave his hand over the place, and cure the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar the rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage. But his servants came near and said to him, My father, it is a great word. The prophet has spoken to you. Will you not do it? Has he actually said to you, wash and be clean? So he went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan according to the word of the man of God. And his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child. And he was clean. There's some fascinating aspects of this chapter. In fact, I was thinking about this as I was preparing this week for tonight's class that we probably could do several weeks just on this one chapter, just in terms of how much symbolism and how many different applications there might be. I'm going to try and just hasten through it, but I want to suggest a lot for you to think about in this regard. First of all, we meet Naaman, the commander of the army of Syria, or in some of your versions, Aram. same nation, an on-again, off-again enemy of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. You can see that there is official communication and correspondence between the two dignitaries, but there's also active, ongoing, and sporadic military conflict between them. Naaman is the commander of the army of Syria, but he is, despite all of his valor and his accomplishments on the battlefield, he is a leper. Now, this is where immediately we need to give kind of a historical caveat, and that is that leprosy is in our day and age, even though the disease is largely unknown in the Western world, it is a technical term for a specific and singular medical condition. But that is not the way that word was used in the ancient Near East. One of the very reasons that the Law of Moses provides a process of quarantine and examination and eventually purification and reintegration into the society is that some conditions that might be identified as leprosy are not at all what we think of today as leprosy. Leprosy that we are familiar with is a degenerative disease that is at least probably, if not certainly, terminal over time. This is a condition where the body is eroding, essentially. It's coming apart. And it is a terminal illness because there is no cure for it, and certainly not much that could be done in the ancient world. But leprosy in the ancient world was kind of a catch-all term for a variety of skin conditions, some of which might improve over time. They might clear up on their own. Someone might have a bad case of psoriasis, for instance, and that would be identified as leprosy, and they would be, if they were in Israel, quarantined, inspected by the priest, and sent out of the community, and yet they could be re-examined. If they have true leprosy, as we think of it, they're not going to get better. But the law says, if they improve, they can go back, they can be re-examined, and they can be re-assimilated into the society. And so leprosy could take a variety of different forms and therefore it's difficult for us to know exactly what this condition might be. We don't know that this is affecting Naaman's entire body. It's obviously not intruding upon his ability to serve as a military commander, at least it has not up until this point. Maybe it's a more recent condition that he has developed. One obvious difference between the Israelite and the Syrian communities is that Israelite law excluded It removed them from society, whereas in Syria, Naaman remains at home, he remains with his people, he continues to have communication with the king, and so there is a different set of social standards there. And it is just a stroke of luck, of course, that there happens to be a young girl from Israel in Naaman's house. It just so happens that on one of these raids, a young girl has been captured from Israel. And not only a young girl, but a young girl that knows about the prophet Elisha in Samaria. and a young girl that has such extraordinary faith that she believes that Elisha, by the power of Yahweh, can do what has never been done in the history of the world. No one's healed leprosy before. It's not as though she had heard of Elisha doing this in some other case. This is what one of my mentors used to call pioneer faith. It's faith that goes where faith has never gone before, right? This is like Abraham when he tells his servants at the foot of He says, the lad and I will go yonder to worship, and I and the lad will return unto you. You say, but Abraham, you know that you're going to be offering him as a burnt sacrifice at the top of the mountain. He says, yes, but the Hebrews writer tells us in Hebrews 11 that Abraham had such confidence in God and in the promise of God that through Isaac, Abraham's descendants would multiply like the stars of the heaven. Abraham has such faith in that promise that he says, God is planning to raise Isaac from the dead. God has never raised anybody from the dead at that point in human history. But Abraham believes that God can do anything. And this young girl believes that God can do anything and that therefore the servant of God, Elisha, can heal her master. Now, that fact alone, that feature alone in the story is worthy of a lot of contemplation. How many times in the Old Testament do you find the exiled, the captive, who is often a youth, who has greater faith than the people who have not been taken captive? This will be very important, by the way, in the ministry of Jeremiah. Because in Jeremiah's day, as he is preaching during the waning years of the Southern Kingdom of Judah, people are going to resist Jeremiah's preaching, and they're going to say this, they're going to say, The captives that the Babylonians have already taken, remember there were three waves of captives that were taken away. The captives that have already been taken, they were the really bad people. Yahweh has taken the bad people out of the land, but he's going to protect us, he's going to keep us here. And Jeremiah says, no, no, no, you've got it backwards. Yahweh has removed from the land the only ones that were worth saving. He's removed the good figs, and now he's left the bad figs here to be slaughtered in the streets. And how often do you see that? You see that in the case of Joseph being sent into exile in Egypt, and yet this young man who has faith unlike any of his brothers. I mean, his brothers are fornicating and doing all kinds of terrible things back in the land of Canaan, and yet Joseph is standing strong, he's committed to purity, he's trusting in God for 20 years away from his family. What about Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah? These guys are teenagers when they get taken to Babylon, they're almost certainly castrated, they're put into a three-year re-indoctrination program in order to make them Babylonians, and they come out of that with more faith in Yahweh than anyone back home has, which is the very reason that the whole nation is going into exile, right? This young girl, I don't know how young she is, but she's a young girl who was taken away and just happens to find herself in the house of the commander of Syria. who just happens to be the kind of master that this young girl would actually want to see blessed. I mean, think about that. If you are a slave, if you as a young child are ripped away from your family, and how does he take her captive? I mean, are her parents alive or dead? I mean, she's not ever going to see them in either case, almost certainly, right? But this was a raid. Maybe her parents are killed, and she's taken out of the home, and she's taken into a faraway country, and she's put in a situation where they're speaking a different language, and she's serving a woman that she doesn't know, and how traumatic is that? And yet at this point in her experience, while still young, she is so concerned about the welfare of her master. that she would say, if only he was in Samaria, because there was a prophet there who could help him. That tells you something, by the way, about the character of Naaman, which in this chapter is all over the map, right? Naaman is the kind of man whose servants, whose captive servants would desire to see blessed. He's the kind of master who his mature servants would desire to reason with. He's the kind of man who would listen to the suggestion of a young Israelite girl, maybe some indication of how desperate he is to be healed of this disease. But he's also the kind of man who would listen to the reason and counsel of his own servants later in the chapter. He's also the kind of man, by the way, that when his expectations are disappointed, he will fly into a rage and be ready to stomp off back to Syria, you know, with his own righteous indignation. And so his character's all over the map, but I would say that this speaks well for him in general, that his young servant would desire to see him helped. And so Nahum then goes in, verse 4, tells the king of Syria and says, this is what the girl who we brought back from this raid in Israel, this is what she said. And the king of Syria says, great. You pack up. You take a caravan down to Samaria. I will send a letter of introduction. to the King of Israel and we are going to get you healed." And so he takes quite an impressive array of gifts and no doubt many people and chariots. He goes with 10 talents of silver, 6,000 shekels of gold, 10 changes of clothing, comes to the King of Israel, presents the King of Syria's letter and says, I have sent my servant Naaman to you to be healed of his leprosy. And the king of Israel, and this is the first of many contrasts in this chapter you need to notice, right? You have just seen a young Israelite girl who ought to be so traumatized that she ought to be sitting in the corner of a room, curled up in the fetal position, unable to speak, right? That's where she ought to be. And yet she is speaking with faith. She is trusting in Yahweh's power. She is seeking to bless her enemies in a very tangible way, right? By contrast, the king of Israel, who is the leader of the covenant nation, sees this letter and says, obviously the king of Syria is trying to start an all-out war. Because it never occurs to him that Elisha would be able to do anything here, because after all, the king of Israel is a grown-up. He knows that you can't cure leprosy. God give us the faith of the child, right? But that contrast is startling. The king of Syria assumes that this great prophet, whoever he is, would obviously be closely associated with or in the employ of Israel's king, but how different the circumstances really are in Israel. In Syria, that would have been the case. The magician, the soothsayer, would be working for the king. But Yahweh's true prophets don't work for the king, right? Not in Israel. In Israel, because all of the kings of the northern kingdom are wicked, all of the true prophets find themselves standing outside of the court. There are prophets sent to the southern kingdom of Israel who have some access during certain administrations. You think about Isaiah, particularly, during the reign of Hezekiah. But during the north, there are always the outsiders. That doesn't mean that the kings of the northern kingdom do not have prophets that are telling them what they want to hear. We've already seen that in earlier chapters of the record. But certainly, Elisha does not belong in that category. Now, I want you to notice a couple of things in these first seven verses before we move to verses eight through 14. Did you notice in verse one, Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and in high favor because, here's his greatness, because Yahweh, notice all capital letters there, that's the covenant name of God, had given victory to Syria. Would Yahweh do something like that? Would Yahweh give victory to the enemy of his people? Yes. Have you read your Bible? It happens all the time. By the way, Syria could not have any victory against anyone unless Yahweh allowed it. And that's true to this very day. Yahweh is sovereign both over Israel and over Aram. He is sovereign over all of creation. Dale Ralph Davis in his commentary says this, quote, Yahweh is both God of the church and Lord of the world. Yahweh draws near to his people, but that does not mean he allows pagans to run around unsupervised, end quote. That's an important idea. There is a difference, a very important difference between the church and the state. between the common and the consecrated, but we should beware of misconstruing God's lordship in a way that undermines His absolute governance of all things in all places and at all times. He is the Lord of all. The fact that there are different spheres, the fact that there is a distinction between His covenant people and the rest of creation doesn't change the fact that as Lord, He rules both spheres. He rules both with the right hand and with the left. A second application here from these verses is that we need to observe the tragic, painful circumstances that Yahweh uses to advance His Kingdom purposes. We asked the question a minute ago about this young girl's family. Where are they? Are her parents still alive? Will she ever see them again? Why is she in Syria at all? How can you see the goodness or the justice of God in this kind of an event? God gives, Yahweh gives victory to the Syrians. It results in a young child being taken away from Israel, away from her family, and made a slave in a foreign home. What kind of a God does that? You can just imagine the way that an unbeliever would look at that. You can just imagine the way that someone who does not have a high view of God's sovereignty might grapple with that. I mean, did this happen because God could not stop it? Because God could not prevent it? Is there any purpose in this event at all? Well, without denying or justifying the harm in her situation, we should be able to see with the eyes of faith the good purpose of God in it. Because because she is there, a Syrian commander is not only healed, he becomes a worshipper of Yahweh and is saved. Do you see that? That young girl is sent to Syria to the household of Ne'eman because unbeknownst to her, Ne'eman is elect. and God is going to have his people. He is going to have his man. He is going to gather every one of them. Naaman does not come to Yahweh. He does not come to Elisha on his own. He doesn't come and knock at the prophet's door and say, you know, I've really been reflecting on my life and I just think there must be something more than the Syrian religion that I'm committed to. No, like he's not thinking about that at all. So what does God do? He sends a young Israelite girl with extraordinary faith, and that faith is not her own, it is the gift of God, right? He sends a young girl with extraordinary faith into that house as a slave, and he gives the commander leprosy so that Naaman can be saved. You may expect, you will see Naaman in heaven because this young girl was taken away from her family. Has God called you perhaps to a life of suffering in order that others may learn of him and be saved? See, this girl does not know the purpose of God in all of this. It's not as though she can comfort herself at night when she is weeping, missing her mother, and say, but you know, Yahweh has a purpose for me here, and probably there's some elect people in this house, and I'm just here to bear witness for Jesus. That's not what's going through her mind. But that's exactly what's going on. That's exactly why she is there. God does not make all things good. He does not. And a young child being taken away from her family and put into slavery is not good. But he promises to work all things together for the good of those who love him and who are called according to his purpose. And clearly, Naaman belongs in that category. And a third application, just very quickly before we move on, I want you to notice the contrast between the simple, undoubting faith of this girl and the frustration and fear of the king of Israel that we mentioned a moment ago. She believes that Yahweh can do anything. She does not need precedent. She does not need some kind of specific prescription in scripture to believe that God, as God, can do the kinds of things that only God can do. And so, you know, what's the basis for her to say the prophet in Samaria could heal my master of his leprosy? Could he? Of course he could. Why? Because he's the servant of Yahweh. The king of Israel, though, it never even occurs to him that there's a possibility. It's not as though he sends a messenger to Elisha and says, can you actually do this? I mean, is this actually a thing? Is this something that you could bring about? He just assumes this is provocation for a military engagement. It is an indictment of Israel that greater faith was found in captive children and foreign soldiers than in the king of the covenant nation. And that is, by the way, one of the primary purposes of this chapter. That's why we say the fact that it begins with a Gentile leper who is cleansed and brought to faith, and it ends with an Israelite who is contaminated, who is polluted by sin and cast out of the house, there's a clue to the theology of the entire passage, right? The believers in this story are children and Gentiles, and the unbelievers are the Israelites who ought to have believed. Well, in verses 8-14 that we read there a moment ago, we see Naaman arrive at Elisha's house. Notice that the king of Israel doesn't even reach out to Elisha. Elisha hears that Naaman has come and he sends word and says, stop bothering about this, send him to me. Stop worrying yourself about this. You can't do anything about it, but I can. And so Naaman comes with this great procession, no doubt. He comes, verse 9, with his horses and his chariots, and he pulls up in front of Elisha's house, and that must have been a very impressive entourage, but he was not impressively received. Elisha does not treat Naaman like the great man that he was. Instead, he treats him like a leper. which is exactly what he also was. What does that suggest to us about God's independence and his regard for our own self-importance? You know, Naaman doesn't strike me in this chapter as a particularly proud man. His anger and offense at Elisha not meeting his expectations does suggest pride, but his willingness to listen to that girl, his willingness to listen to his servants when they try to cool him down and reason with him does not suggest a man who was just held captive to pride And yet there's no way, there's no way that the commander of the army of Syria, who is a mighty man of valor, who has won great victories on the field of battle, and who comes with this great entourage to the Prophet's house, there's no way that he doesn't expect to be treated with the respect and deference appropriate to his rank. Right? And what does Yahweh do? Elisha does not even come out and acknowledge Him. He doesn't even come out and say, it's really great to meet you. It's wonderful to have you here. Would you like a glass of water? He sends a servant outside and says, Prophet said go down to the Jordan River and dip yourself seven times and you'll be healed. That's it. That's it. And by the way, the Jordan River is not close to Samaria, right? It's miles and miles and miles and miles away because the land of Israel is not a very big place. But it's not as though it's just down the block. Naaman is going to have to go out of his way. He's being sent out of his way and further inconvenienced. And the prophet's failure to appear and the dismissive instructions that he sends out contradicts Naaman's expectations. I love the way that Naaman describes what he thought was going to happen. He's watched too many movies, maybe. Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of Yahweh as God and wave his hand over the place. I don't know what waving your hand over the place is supposed to do, but Naaman was expecting, wave his hand over the place and cure the leper. And then he, I mean, he is just, he is working himself up. He is in a rage, the text says. Are not the Abana and the Farpar better than all of the waters in Israel? I don't want to go dip in this muddy, you know, creek. That's essentially what the Jordan is, a muddy creek in most places. I don't want to dip in the Jordan River. That's not going to make me clean. That's going to actually get me dirty. And so his frustration and disappointment leads to rage, which is neither holy nor appropriate ever in response to God's grace. It's never appropriate for you to be angry with God. Now, I realize that that kind of flies in the face of a lot of counsel that I hear in a lot of evangelical circles, that I heard from people actually in this church, leaders in this church, six years ago when I arrived. That it's okay to be angry with God because God can handle your anger. He's a big God and He can... Listen. I am not denying that there are times where the saints are going to feel this kind of frustration, this kind of disappointment. And there's a proper way to wrestle with that, by the way. It's called the Book of Psalms. You're supposed to pray and sing the Psalms at that point. But if you think that it's ever appropriate to respond to the God of grace and all goodness by getting angry at Him, then brother or sister, you need to spend more time in scripture. That is never appropriate. It's appropriate sometimes to be confused. It may be appropriate rather to be frustrated, to say, I don't know what to say. Habakkuk has this beautiful expression at the beginning of chapter two as he's cried out to God for justice and he says, Lord, when are you going to bring justice and punish all of the evil in my land? And Yahweh says to him, well, actually, I'm about to do it. I'm bringing the Babylonians. I'm going to destroy the nation. And Habakkuk says, What? Why? You're going to use a more unrighteous people to punish a more righteous people than they are. They're more wicked than we are. We're bad. They're worse. And then he says, I will take my stand and see what I will say. And the New King James gets this better than the ESV does in the translation. I will see what I will say when I am corrected. When God corrects my confusion and misunderstanding, then I will put my hand over my mouth and move on. That's the right attitude. It's okay to sometimes say, I expected something else. This is not what I thought the Lord would do. It's never appropriate to become angry. There is a question of translation and interpretation in verse 13 when his servants respond to him. In verse 13, his servants came near and said in the ESV, my father, it is a great word that the prophet has spoken to you. Will you not do it? He has actually said to you, wash and you will be clean. The New King James and some other versions will render it this way. My father, if the prophet had told you to do something great, would you not have done it? So it doesn't matter much which way you go with that, but it does change the sense of what they're saying. It ends up in the same place. They're asking Naaman to stop, step back, reconsider, and simply trust what the prophet says and do it. But the question is, are they saying, what Elisha has said through his servant is great. All you have to do is wash and you will be clean. That's a great thing. That's an awesome promise that he's making. Or is he saying, listen, it's not as though he's asked you to do something hard. If he had asked you to do some great thing, if he'd asked you to go on a quest, well, you would have been up for that, right? I mean, you're a soldier. But all he's asking is just go into the river and dip a few times. That seems like a fairly small thing to do. Why don't we try that? Either way, Naaman is humbled by this. He's calmed by this, and he's willing to do it. And so he goes to the Jordan, verse 14. He dips himself seven times according to the word of the man of God. Don't miss that. because it would be of no benefit whatsoever to dip in the Jordan under any other circumstances. If you contract a skin condition and you go to the promised land, to the holy land, and you dip in the Jordan River, it doesn't matter whether you dip 7 times or 70 times, you're not going to be healed by that, right? It is the word of the man of God. It is the word of Yahweh in the mouth of Elisha through his servant whom he sent out of the house to speak to Naaman that brings this blessing about 7 times. Not one time, not six times, seven times. Do you simply trust what the Lord says? Will you simply trust Him and obey Him? That's the question that the servants essentially present to Naaman, and by God's grace, he does. A couple of things to note here before we move into the last half of the chapter, and that is first that the Lord orders His works of salvation and power in a way that gives Him glory and withholds it from us and our idols. And that's a huge part of what's going on here. Naaman comes up with this impressive retinue, and he has this certain set of expectations about how this is going to go, and Yahweh doesn't meet any of those expectations. Everything that Naaman expects, Elisha does the opposite. So Elisha doesn't even come out, doesn't even acknowledge him. Sends him a message by a servant as if he is a servant. He treats him like the leper that he is, not like the great man that he has been. And then he sends him off on this errand, taking him out of his way, causing him to dip in this really unimpressive little muddy river. And there's nothing in that that Naaman can take glory in. If he'd send him on a quest, then Naaman can really glory in that. He doesn't. He sends him down to the Jordan and tells him, dip in the water, as embarrassing and humiliating as that may be. And yet, and yet that is how God chooses to work. He would not work within the pagan and idolatrous assumptions of Naaman's expectations, and he will not work within our pagan and idolatrous assumptions either. He challenges Naaman's pride and his superstition, and he orders him to surrender both of them. And that's what he does with us, is he confronts our pride, he confronts our idolatry, he confronts our superstition, and he says, you're going to have to check that at the door, that you cannot bring that with you into the kingdom and be blessed. And so don't be surprised when the Lord does that in your life and in mine. A second point, the gospel is an intolerant message of grace. It makes no negotiation with idolatry. It offers no concessions to the human will. There is no bargaining or reasoning with God. If you keep your pride, you will also keep your leprosy. And any gospel that allows us to retain our idols and remain settled in our own wisdom simply is not the gospel. And it's a good way to test false gospels that profess to be the gospel, that claim to be the gospel. Is this a message that allows you to still take pride in what you've done? In who you are? In the choice that you made? I decided. I chose. Well, if there is any of that in the gospel that you believe, then to that extent, not to suggest that there aren't people who come to true saving faith in Christ in all kinds of defective presentations of the gospel, but to that extent that you are still in the picture in that way, you are giving glory to yourself and not glory to God. The true gospel eliminates both. It eliminates boasting. It does not provide any place for it. It excludes it, Paul says in Romans 3. Well, in verse 15, we have kind of the epilogue, if you will, a two-step aftermath to Naaman's healing. Pick up there with me, and I'll read to the end of the chapter. Then he, that is, Naaman, returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and he came and stood before him. And he said, Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel. So accept now a present from your servant. But he, Elisha said, as Yahweh lives before whom I stand, I will receive none. And he urged him to take it, but he refused. Then Naaman said, if not, please let there be given to your servant two mule loads of earth, for from now on your servant will not offer burnt offering or sacrifice to any god but Yahweh. In this matter, may Yahweh pardon your servant. When my master goes into the house of Ramon to worship there, leaning on my arm, and I bow myself in the house of Ramon, when I bow myself in the house of Ramon, Yahweh pardon your servant in this matter. He said to him, go in peace. But when Naaman had gone from him a short distance, Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, the man of God, said, See, my master has spared this Naaman the Syrian in not accepting from his hand what he brought. And as Yahweh lives, I will run after him and get something from him. So Gehazi followed Naaman. And when Naaman saw someone running after him, he got down from the chariot to meet him and said, Is all well? And he said, All is well. My master has sent me to say there have just now come to me from the hill country of Ephraim two young men of the sons of the prophets. Please give them a talent of silver and two changes of clothing. And Naaman said, be pleased to accept two talents. And he urged him and tied up two talents of silver in two bags with two changes of clothing and laid them on two of his servants. And they carried them before Gehazi. And when he came to the hill, he took them from their hand and put them in the house. And he sent the men away, and they departed. He went in and stood before his master. And Elisha said to him, where have you been, Gehazi? And he said, your servant went nowhere. But he said to him, did not my heart go when the man turned from his chariot to meet you? Was it a time to accept money and garments, olive orchards and vineyards, sheep and oxen, male servants and female servants? Therefore, the leprosy of Naaman shall cling to you and to your descendants forever. So he went out from his presence a leper like snow. Naaman goes out of his way to go back to Samaria and see Elisha and give thanks. That makes you think about another story about the healing of a leper. Later in the Gospel of Luke, as Jesus heals ten lepers but only one, a Samaritan, ironically enough, returns to give thanks. And Naaman again, he's going out of his way The shortest route home is not back through Samaria, but he goes back to give thanks to the prophet who has spoken the word of Yahweh by which he has been healed. And he offers rewards, he offers compensation and remuneration to Elisha, but he will not accept any for the same reason that he would not work according to Naaman's magic, superstitions, and expectations. He is not going to represent Yahweh as a god like any other god. The grace of Yahweh is entirely free. It cannot be repaid. It cannot be in any way compensated for. The prophet will not receive a reward from the beneficiary of this blessing. That is the way that religion works in every other religion of man. That's the way that the God of Syria operates and the gods of the other nations. It's not the way that Yahweh operates. You may want to repay grace or offer something to God for the favor that He has shown you, but you can't. You have nothing to offer. Everything that you think you have to offer is already His, and He's the one who gave it to you. Grace is free, it is undeserved, and it is unearned. Naaman has not only been cleansed, we see in these verses he has been converted. He says, I know that there is no other God but Yahweh. Would that the king of Israel knew that, right? The king of Israel, probably here we're thinking about Jehoram, although he's not identified by name in the chapter. But the king of Israel, like his father, like his predecessors, has been a polytheist. Some of them are henotheists, and that is they believe in many gods, but they believe that Yahweh is the greatest of the gods. But Naaman is now a monotheist. He says, none of those other gods are real. Those other gods are not gods at all. There is no God in all the earth, only in Israel. Only Yahweh is God. And I will not worship any other so-called God. I will only worship the Lord. And do you see the contrast? He asks for two mule loads of earth. By the way, this is one of the points in the text that commentators will kind of jump on Naaman and say, see, he may not be fully converted. He's still pretty superstitious. I think they're missing the point. I think they're missing the theology of the passage. The promised land is being exported to a foreign nation. That's what's happening. The dirt of Israel is being taken out of Israel and sent to Syria. The faithful are leaving the land. What's the significance of that? It's huge. What has God about to do to those who remain behind? He will pour out judgment. The Gentiles are being consecrated, whereas Israel is being cast out. By the way, this is the very point that Jesus makes in the synagogue at Nazareth in Luke chapter 4, and they are so enraged by it that the people in the synagogue try to kill him. And the point there that Jesus is making is not that Jesus showed kindness to a Gentile. They would be charitable enough to say, well, okay, you know. No, the point Jesus is making is Israel was rejected. God sent these blessings to the Gentiles and that it was a judgment against their unbelief. If Israel will not worship the true God according to his word, Yahweh will be worshiped and held in honor among the other nations. And so Naaman wants to take a piece of Israel with him. He wants a connection to the covenant nation and to the God whom he now knows and will always serve. But he also says that he needs forgiveness for one of the official duties that he now recognizes is wrong. And here's another place where commentators will debate and disagree about how exactly this ought to be understood. I think Dale Ralph Davis makes an excellent point about this, though he doesn't fully elaborate on what he himself thinks about it. But he makes the point that grace has made Naaman's conscience sensitive. And that's an excellent observation. Naaman says, I will not worship any god but Yahweh, but when I go back home, I have to escort the king into the temple of Ramon. And when he kneels down, I have to kneel down. And so I'm going to be physically prostrate before a false god. But I'm not worshiping. I'm not bowing in my heart. I'm bowing in my body because the king is on my arm. Some commentators say, well, obviously this is a compromised and unconverted man. I think they're wrong. I think that misunderstands the significance of what's going on here. Other people will say, see, even consecrated and converted people can bow down before other gods. You just don't have to mean it. No, that's not the point either, right? What you have to remember here is who is speaking. I believe that Naaman is truly converted, but he is still untaught and weak in his understanding of God's law. It's not like he's been catechized yet. He's been a believer for the amount of time that it took to come up from the seventh trip into the Jordan and back to Samaria, right? So he's been a believer for just a few hours, right? He makes a concession in his practice that would be inappropriate for someone who correctly understands the law of God, but put it in its redemptive historical context. Naaman is not technically part of the covenant nation. Even though the moral law, including the first two commandments, do apply to him, he has not been circumcised, he is not a proselyte, he has not been catechized in the law yet, and so his sin, and I do believe it's sin, his sin is like Rahab's lie. And commentators do the same thing with Rahab's lie. They say, well, here's a person who believes in Yahweh, but who lies, and therefore, believers can lie. No, that's not the point. She is a pagan prostitute who's just come to faith. And the Bible does not whitewash its heroes. It doesn't convert a person and then immediately they have a complete and mature understanding of it. And people say, but Elisha says, go in peace. Yes, but that's not necessarily endorsing what Naaman is doing, but it is putting a blessing upon him because his commitment is to the Lord, and His intention is right. And so His weakness here is not justified by ignorance, and it's not justified by His circumstances, but it is understandable in the context in which it appears. The greatest implication of this oddity in the text gets overlooked by commentators that want to debate on whether it is a black mark against Naaman or whether it is a license for some sort of pluralism today among believers, because the implication here is not about that at all. Instead, what you see is that a pagan soldier who does not know the law has a greater awareness of and conscience with regard to the very type of compromise that Israel as a whole is unrepentantly engaged in. You have Israelites who are bowing down in front of a golden calf in order to pray to Yahweh. You have Israelites who are going into the Temple of Baal and worshipping another god while at the same time professing to be the people of Yahweh. That sort of syncretism and that sort of pluralism and that sort of tolerance of a diverse religious tradition is the very kind of thing that now troubles Naaman and he doesn't know anything. I mean, he's been a believer for 30 minutes, and he already recognizes, this is wrong, I shouldn't be doing that, should I? Well, no, probably not, right? But he's a Gentile. He's a Gentile who knows nothing, and yet grace has changed his heart, and sadly, it is there as an indictment against the covenant nation that at this time is enmeshed in this very kind of idolatry without remorse. The second step in this last section of the chapter involves Gehazi's greed that devastates him, that brings destruction upon him. And yet, some people might read this part of the story and say, what is so wrong about what Gehazi does? I mean, obviously it's wrong. I mean, you know, he lies to Naaman, and he lies to Elisha, and he shouldn't have done that. But I mean, really, to become a leper? A leper till the day of his death? To leave quite as snow, his whole body affected, maybe even to a greater degree than Naaman's was? Well, let's think about the sins that he committed here. I want to draw your attention to at least four. He does lie, and that's obvious, to both Naaman and to Elisha. He says that these sons of the prophets have come and they need some assistance. That's how he justifies taking from Naaman. He essentially steals from him. And then to Elisha, his master, he says, well, I didn't go anywhere. I didn't do anything, right? It's all hidden under the bed, right, in the back room. Secondly, he coveted the reward which Naaman had offered, and so he was motivated by greed. You remember what Peter says in Jude as well, 2 Peter chapter 2, in the little letter of Jude, speaking about false prophets that are motivated by greed, following in the way of Balaam? and receiving eternal condemnation. Third, he blasphemes the name of God by invoking Yahweh's name in his crime. Did you notice this in verse 20? As Yahweh lives, we're not going to waste this reward. I'll run after him and get something. He invokes the name of Yahweh to justify what he's doing. But fourth, and I think most seriously, he misrepresents Yahweh by taking a reward as if Israel's God was like every other deity. See, the whole chapter has been about defying and distinguishing the false gods of the rest of the world from Yahweh. They don't operate the way that Naaman expected, not in any respect. None of the expectations are met. And so when Naaman says, you've given me a great blessing and I ought to reward you, I ought to compensate you, I ought to offer some kind of remuneration to you as the representative of Yahweh, Elisha says, that's not how that works. You can't do that with grace. The Gehazi runs behind him and says, oh yes, you can. Sure, of course you can, right? He misrepresents God. It is a great and grave error. Think about the implications for false teachers, preachers, pastors today who peddle the word of God, as Paul says it in 2 Corinthians chapter four. You peddle the word of God. That's what Gehazi's doing here. He's saying the gifts of God can, in fact, be repaid, or at least honored in some kind of financial way. And it's gross blasphemy. It may seem like a simple mistake and not a very serious one, but it undermined the very point of the manner in which Yahweh had executed his work, and it misrepresents the God, the true God, whose grace is entirely free. Let me wrap up with four assessments and applications of the chapter that I hope will help you see Christ in this story. First, we see in this chapter very clearly the Lord whose foolishness saves sinners. And I hope you can't read this chapter without seeing what Paul's talking about in 1 Corinthians 1, when he says, the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. Right? This is how God does his work. This is how God saves his people. He does so in a way that frightens and frustrates certain people, like the king of Israel, and that enrages and would run off the Gentile who is wanting a sign, right? Jews ask for a sign, Greeks seek after wisdom. We preach Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. The foolishness of the gospel is intended by God to rebuke and destroy the wisdom of the world, and that is powerfully illustrated here. Secondly, there is the picture of cleansing in water. We said that dipping in the Jordan cannot cure leprosy, and baptism cannot wash away sins, but In the Bible, both things happen, right? In the Old Testament, somebody dips in the Jordan, and his leprosy is cured. And in the New Testament, Ananias says to Saul, why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord. That can't happen that way, that doesn't work. Well, of course it doesn't work in one sense, but both acts in these stories powerfully signify and seal the blessings which are received through faith by the Spirit. And so the point is not to say that, well, yes, dipping in water or being sprinkled with water or having water poured upon your head actually forgives your sins. No, that's not the point. But do you see the symbolism here and there and the way that it points us to the greater work of Christ, the outpouring of the Spirit, the blessing of God that cleanses the contamination of our souls? Right? We are saved not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to His mercy through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. That's how Paul says it to Titus in Titus chapter 3 verses 4 to 7. Third, we see the grace that cannot be repaid. What can we do for all that Christ has given to us and done for us? We can devote our lives to him. We can worship him alone. But does that really repay or compensate for his grace? And the answer is not in the least. And if that's the way that you think about your obedience, I want to just gently but kind of firmly suggest to you that you're thinking about it wrongly. You see, that is not why we are devoted to the Lord. It's not because I now owe to God to in some way compensate. I realize my obedience can never fully repay the Lord for what He has done, but at least I can give a token repayment. I can offer an honorarium for the work that the prophet has done in saving me, right? That's not how that works. That's not why you obey Christ. You obey Christ out of love, in faith, out of gratitude. but not in any way to provide an honorarium to compensate for the grace that has been bestowed. There is no compensation that we can ever give. Grace is free, and that is something that human beings struggle to accept. Somebody gives you a gift and it makes you uncomfortable, right? Somebody gives you a gift and you want to turn around and do something for them and they won't take it. That's just not right. This is how this is supposed to work. You invite me over and then I invite you over. You give me something for my birthday and I figure out what your birthday is and I'm going to give you something. It's the silly game we play at Christmas, right? Who's going to buy gifts for me? And I'm going to have to get a gift for all of them. It's not the way it works in the family of God. The grace cannot be repaid. And fourth and finally, we see the way that grace changes the heart, the conscience, and the life. Naaman now perceives the true God and it changes everything. And this is where I'm going to circle back to what I started with. I want to be careful here because I don't want to over-interpret the text. But do you see that Naaman is cleansed and then comes to faith? Now you could say, well, he has to have some measure of trust in the word of Yahweh through Elisha, through his servant, in order to dip in the Jordan. Okay, fine. He agrees to give it a go. But the point is, when he starts dipping in the Jordan, and when he goes down the seventh time, he is not saying, now I know that there is no God in all the earth except Yahweh in this realm. He is not saying, I will never worship any other God except Yahweh. When he comes up the seventh time and sees that he's clean, guess what? Everything's changed. His whole life has changed. His religious outlook, His purpose, His everything has changed. And that's the way that it is, folks. We do not believe so that we may be born again, 1 John 5, 1. We are born again so that we might believe. We are cleansed. We are born from above. The Holy Spirit enters into our heart so that now we cry out, Abba, Father. And that's the way it works in Naaman's life. It changed the orientation of his affections. It changed his religious commitments. It made him sensitive to sin that the Israelites did not even recognize as sin in his day. It transformed the entire purpose and trajectory of his life. And that is the true nature and power of grace. True grace can always be recognized by the fruit that it inevitably bears. And is that the fruit that you are, by God's grace, seeing in your life? To say there's no going back. There's no other God. I can't bow before the gods of this world like I used to. Well, I find myself bowing the knees of the idols of this world, making concessions and compromises that I know are wrong, but Jesus has taken all the fun out of it now. Now I feel convicted. Now I feel guilt. I never felt that way before. That's grace. That's grace. Praise God for that grace. We are cleansed so that we might believe. And by that grace, our whole life changes.