Sermon Central
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Healing On God's Terms
Contributed by Frank Gallagher on Nov 27, 2000 (message contributor)
Summary: Today, a lot of Christians demand miracles, and expect them on their own terms, not God's.
HEALING ON GOD'S TERMS!
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NAAMAN - AN OLD TESTAMENT EXAMPLE
1 Now Naaman, captain of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man with his master, and highly respected, because by him the LORD had given victory to Aram. The man was also a valiant warrior, {but he was} a leper.
2 Now the Arameans had gone out in bands, and had taken captive a little girl from the land of Israel; and she waited on Naaman's wife.
3 And she said to her mistress, "I wish that my master were with the prophet who is in Samaria! Then he would cure him of his leprosy."
4 And Naaman went in and told his master, saying, "Thus and thus spoke the girl who is from the land of Israel."
5 Then the king of Aram said, "Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel." And he departed and took with him ten talents of silver and six thousand {shekels} of gold and ten changes of clothes.
6 And he brought the letter to the king of Israel, saying, "And now as this letter comes to you, behold, I have sent Naaman my servant to you, that you may cure him of his leprosy."
7 And it came about when the king of Israel read the letter, that he tore his clothes and said, "Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man is sending {word} to me to cure a man of his leprosy? But consider now, and see how he is seeking a quarrel against me."
8 And it happened when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, that he sent {word} to the king, saying, "Why have you torn your clothes? Now let him come to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel."
9 So Naaman came with his horses and his chariots, and stood at the doorway of the house of Elisha.
10 And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, "Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored to you and {you shall} be clean."
11 But Naaman was furious 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 wave his hand over the place, and cure the leper.'
12 "Are not Abanah 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.
13 Then his servants came near and spoke to him and said, "My father, had the prophet told you {to do some} great thing, would you not have done {it} How much more {then,} when he says to you, 'Wash, and be clean'?"
14 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.
15 When he returned to the man of God with all his company, and came and stood before him, he said, "Behold now, I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel; so please take a present from your servant now."
16 But he said, "As the LORD lives, before whom I stand, I will take nothing." And he urged him to take {it,} but he refused.
17 And Naaman said, "If not, please let your servant at least be given two mules' load of earth; for your servant will no more offer burnt offering nor will he sacrifice to other gods, but to the LORD.
18 "In this matter may the LORD pardon your servant: when my master goes into the house of Rimmon to worship there, and he leans on my hand and I bow myself in the house of Rimmon, when I bow myself in the house of Rimmon, the LORD pardon your servant in this matter."
19 And he said to him, "Go in peace." So he departed from him some distance. (NAS)
The Bible tells us in 2 Kings chapter 5, that Naaman was the commander of the Syrian army. We are told in those verses that he was a "great and honorable man in the eyes of his master [Ben-Hadad, king of Syria]... but he was a leper". Naaman would later be cured of this disease by the prophet Elisha, but not until he followed divine instructions rather than insisting on a cure that was on his own terms. Leprosy was a socially-despised disease in Syria back then, just as it was in Israel, with one exception. Those in Syria that suffered from this dreaded disease were not isolated and treated like outcasts.
