Seven Ducks in Muddy Water II Kings 5:1-19
Many years ago when Wesley and I were about the age of the preteens here, we had a guest evangelist who came to our large Mennonite church in Iowa. He included a children’s story as part of the worship that Sunday and spoke to the children about the Seven Ducks in Muddy Water. We never forgot that children’s story. This morning I’m going to borrow his title for this message.
The healing of Naaman has a deep spiritual truth embedded in it and that’s what we want to unearth this morn with God’s help. Our dig into this passage will be like what the Lima News reported in Tuesday’s paper. In Africa’s Sierra Leone a young 25 year old miner found a 182 carat diamond about the size and shape of a computer mouse worth millions of dollars.
Our dig into God’s Word will enable us to find the priceless treasure of Jesus our healer and it points us to the” immeasureable greatness of his power for us who believe” as Ephesians records.
The story of Naaman is really a salvation story and I want to look at Naaman as an example of how God grants his gift of salvation to all who are willing to follow his instructions and receive his cleansing. The Bible says in John 3:16—Repeat with me ---- Jesus also commands us that we are to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”
Everyone needs salvation, it doesn’t matter how rich one is or how poor. It doesn’t matter if one is Muslim born or Jewish born or American or Africian. And it doesn’t matter if a person has high status like Naaman or no status like the slave girl. For us today, there is only one way to receive God’s salvation; it is through Jesus Christ. Naaman is an Old Testament example of how God loves the foreigner and is equally concerned about all people’s salvation. Naaman’s story is like Ruth’s in the Bible. Both were foreigners who were led to faith.
The chapter begins, “Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master… The man [was] a mighty warrior.” Notice the way Naaman is described. He was the TOP BRASS of Syria’s army. God also blessed his missions even though Naaman didn’t know God yet. “because of him the LORD had given victory to Aram.”
But Naaman had one problem. That was he had leprosy! Leprosy was not a minor problem like having a wart on his face that could have been covered with make-up or removed with surgery. It was a major problem that had no cure and would eventually demote him to a life of isolation from society and make him an outcast! It was a discouraging picture for Naaman.
Naaman’s condition of leprosy is a symbol of what we all suffer. Our leprosy is our sin. It doesn’t matter who we are or what position in life we have. We are all marked with the terminal plight of spiritual leprosy, called SIN. Sin in our lives will destroy us, body, mind and soul unless we go for the cure. Our cure for sin is not seven ducks in muddy water like for Naaman; it is going into the water of baptism as an act of obedience to Jesus who said “baptize them in the name of Father, and Son and Holy Spirit.”
Naaman, as a foreigner was totally in the dark as to who the true God is. He didn’t know that the One and only holy God said, “Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god.” (Isaiah 44:6) or “I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake and I will not remember your sins.” (Isaiah 43:25). All Naaman knew was the puny god Rimmon-who was a Baal god So God in his infinite wisdom and his compassionate love pursued Naaman to make him his own just as he pursues us so that we” might not perish but have eternal life.”
What’s exciting is the way God pursued Naaman to bring him into the fold. God used a young Israelite slave girl, the very least in society to be a missionary. God worked through her trial of being captured and led away by foreigners. If God’s eye is on the sparrow, how much more does He care about his children and orchestrate what happens to them so that good will come from their difficult experiences.
Quincy and Quetilla saw God’s miracles take place before their eyes this week. They’ve had a very bad experience of having no place to live for some time and finally this week through prayer and God’s work things came together. They now have a place to live. Quetilla’s words were, “I can’t thank the Lord enough for what he’s done for us.” God is pursuing them too out of his love for their family. He wants them to totally give their lives to him.
This slave girl could have said the same words to her captors that Joseph said to his recorded in Genesis, “Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good.” Truly that was the case for the slave girl, and it can be our experience too when we turn our bad situations over to the Lord. He will use our wretched experiences to His glory. I know it is a tempting for many people, especially young Christians, like our young Christians here today to think there’s nothing significant I can do for Christ because there is nothing special about me. But God again and again chooses the “least of these” to carry out his mission. Scripture gives us lots of examples.
God chose this nameless POW in Syria, to be a missionary. She had a great passion and a deep concern for Naaman who had to be depressed about his humiliating disease. She went to Naaman’s wife and told her, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” What great faith and courage she displayed. We can be sure that this girl had parents who saw to it that she received godly instruction otherwise she couldn’t have delivered the message that she did with such knowledge and confidence. Her parents are to be honored for doing all they did to prepare her for the missionary assignment God had in store for her.
I want to encourage all the parents and grandparents here today to prayerfully do what you can to make sure that your sons and daughters or your grandsons and granddaughters will be instructed about God from their early years so that they will know God personally, will love him dearly and will be ready to serve him faithfully. Don’t be a parent that has to regret that you didn’t do what you could have to help your child to faith and to a life of joyful discipleship. Grandparents, pray for your grandchildren who are receiving no Christian instruction that something may change. Maybe God will lead you to pick them up on Sunday morning until the parents see their need to be nurtured themselves.
This passage gives us a beautiful example of God using a prepared child for a missionary assignment. I think of our own grandchildren and pray for all four of them, that their parents will faithfully instruct them at home and take them to Sunday school and worship. If parents and the church aren’t nurturing children, the world will but it will be in an ungodly, destructive way.
The next part of the story is equally amazing, how God did the work of convincing Naaman to listen to the little girl’s words. The slave girl did her part, she was neither timid or hesitant about the message she delivered and God convinced Naaman that he should take her seriously. He did and eventually he ended up right at Prophet Elisha’s door. But there was still a lot of work God had to do in Naaman’s heart. He was a proud man who probably wore lots of honors on his uniform and he had the expectation that he should be treated as someone special. Listen to the way he spells out his expectations, “I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy!” He also expected that he could buy his healing. Verse 5 says he took “ten talents of silver, 6000 shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments.” He was not a cheapskate.
Naaman had to discover just like all of us that deliverance from sin requires humility. Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” We need to come to Christ humbly and with a repentant heart. And Naaman had to discover that you cannot pay for God’s gifts. Ephesians 2:8 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not the result of works so that no one may boast.”
Elisha’s command to Naaman was very simple, “Go wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.” (v 10). All the glory had to go to God; it wasn’t Elisha’s power that healed. And seven times is a symbol to indicate the complete, perfect, cleansing that only God can accomplish.
Well, you know the rest of the story. Naaman was moved to obey. It took time and a struggle. We know he argued but again God had servants in place to reason with him and help him move forward. Some of you too have had a battle with self and Satan until you finally surrendered to Christ. God had to work with you, even get your attention in an attention-grabbing way until you finally said, “yes, I’m ready to go all the way in humble, total obedience, even into the water of baptism to let the world know that I’ve been born again, made clean and whole.”
Naaman waded into the muddy water, ducked down 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 times. I think he must have been muttering under his breath, “Forget this, I’m making a fool of myself.” And the devil was probably telling him, “Now it’s time for you to take charge, walk right out of that water and go home!! Nothing has happened yet and it won’t.” But Naaman didn’t stop until he completely obeyed God’s command through Elisha to make SEVEN ducks in muddy water. And you know what happened. He was totally transformed. “So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.”
He was made clean inside and out! Then Naaman received God’s gift of insight, rejoicing and commitment. Here are his words, “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel. . . “For your servant will no longer offer burnt offering or sacrifice to any god except the LORD.” (vv 15,17b)
He received insight, “Now I know. He received faith to believe what he spoke and then he received the will to make a commitment, “For your servant will no longer offer burnt offering or sacrifice to any god except the LORD.”
How about you? Naaman’s story is all of our stories; each one of us is somewhere on his time-line from being a sick lost sinner to becoming a new man, committed and following a new Master. Where are you on this time line? Are you giving thanks like Naaman did at the end of his journey because of what God has done in your life? And have you like Naaman commited yourself to worship no other god but the LORD alone? If not today is the day to do so?
Or are you still struggling with pride and resistance like Naaman did at the middle of his time-line? Satan wants to keep you resisting. He will tell you that you’re not that sick. What you don’t know about your spiritual situation won’t hurt you. But God wants you to know you have a terminal sickness called sin and when you surrender your pride and resistance there is healing.
May God give each person here the faith he gave Naaman to go all the way in total obedience to his command and make seven ducks in muddy water. Naaman obeyed and then experienced radical transformation and made a life-time commitment to worship only the LORD God. I urge you to do the same.
