Sermon Transcript
I’m gonna invite you to turn in your Bible to the book of 2 Kings. We’re continuing in our series of miracles, just a brief summer series looking at miracles specifically from the Old Testament, and we’re gonna look at a great one today, one of my favorites. The book of 2 Kings. The Bibles are in front of you, and if you didn’t bring a Bible, or you can look it up on your phone. If you can’t find 2 Kings, go to 3 Kings, and then go to the left.
You’ll find that there. We’re going to be looking at the life of a guy named Naaman in chapter 5 of 2 Kings, and it’s several verses, so we’ll read them and I’ll kind of offer some thoughts along the way, but then we’ll come back to take a look at it. But I want us to think about this idea of divine appointments. Divine appointments. There’s a quote by Oswald Chambers that I want to share with you.
It says, God is the great engineer, creating circumstances to bring about moments in our lives of divine importance, leading us to divine appointments. Many of you could tell me a lot about engineering. If we were to have an engineering contest, you would win, hands down, if you were to go against me. I don’t have that mindset. I’m blown away by people who can invent and design and build and analyze things that we carry around in our pocket or have in our home.
Things that make our lives better. And maybe you, you’ve got several of those things under your belt if you’re an engineer. Maybe you’re married to somebody or have somebody in your family or somebody you’re a friend with that has done some really, really impressive things. And you could tell me all about what it means to be an engineer, but you can’t do this. You may be a great engineer, but you may not be the Great Engineer, because only the Great Engineer, God Himself, can so orchestrate something where He takes one person or one group of people and brings about a circumstance or an event or an activity or something that He so unmistakably put together that nobody else saw it coming, and only He could do that, and only He will get the glory for that.
God’s the great engineer, and all throughout the Old Testament we see that in miracle after miracle after miracle. We’ve got one right here where God supernaturally puts together something and orchestrates it in such a way that it’s specifically and unmistakably God himself. You ever been a part of something like that? The Bible’s filled with stories of divine appointments, somebody being sent by— like, listen, I love the book of Acts. The book of Acts filled with divine appointments.
You read about in Acts chapter 8 about a guy named Philip that God specifically led to and appointed to put on a desert road. It wasn’t the way he was going to go, but it’s the way God wanted him to go. And he ended up going south, and God led Philip to an Ethiopian gentleman that he shared the good news of Jesus Christ with. And God opened up the heart of this Ethiopian gentleman, and he then took that message, was changed by it, got baptized, had a changed life, and he went back and shared the gospel in Africa as a result of that one encounter that God put together. Only God could do that.
You read in the book of Acts chapter 16, which is a great divine appointment chapter, at the beginning of it Paul, the Apostle Paul, and his traveling companion Silas met a guy named Timothy. We’ve just been this last year learning about Timothy, this young pastor who’s a pastor at a church in Ephesus. But before that, when Paul and Timothy— Paul and Silas first met Timothy in a place called Lystra, they then went to try to share the good news in various places. But it says in Acts 16, God wouldn’t allow it. God would not permit them to enter into certain places that they had planned on going.
Instead, in the middle of the night, God gave a vision to Paul of a man in Macedonia saying, come help us, we need your help. So Paul’s saying, okay, this is why we weren’t allowed to go to these other places. God kept us from going to those places. He wants us to go to Macedonia. So they go to Macedonia, and there they meet this man that they were there to help, and he meet— they meet other people.
They spend some time in the city of Philippi, and they meet a woman by the name of Lydia and a variety of people. And Lydia’s heart was open to the Scriptures. And her life was changed. She opened up a church in her home that met in her home. God used her.
Paul and Silas end up getting imprisoned. Again, all within the span of just one chapter. They’re in Philippi. They end up getting imprisoned and persecuted and whipped because of sharing about the good news of Jesus Christ. And in the jail, in the middle of the night, they’re singing hymns even though they’ve just been beaten, you know, and within an inch of their life.
And they’re singing and they’re giving thanks to God. An earthquake happens, and the chains fall off of them, and the jailer there in the dark thinks that everybody’s escaped, so he’s about to kill himself because he would be held responsible for these escaped prisoners. And Paul says, don’t do that. We’re still here. And then the heart of the jailer was turned in such a way that he said, men, what must I do to be saved?
You’re talking about the God who saves. What must I do to be saved? And then they shared the Gospel with this man. He got saved, and salvation not only came to him but to his whole household. All within one chapter.
Divine appointment after divine appointment after divine appointment. No matter how good of an engineer as you are, you couldn’t come up with that, and I couldn’t either. The Great Engineer, though, works, and His fingerprints are all over that. Do those things still happen today? Do divine appointments still happen today?
That’s one of the questions we’ve been sort of wrestling with during this brief series of miracles. Do miracles still happen today? Do the miracles that we read about in the Old Testament— like, why don’t we see that as much today? We love to hear about this idea of divine appointments. I think that they do still happen.
We have a team of folks who just came back from Brazil who can tell you about some of the things that God did. I had a conversation with one of them who was telling me about a divine appointment that only God could put together. Those are always exciting to hear about. They’re even more exciting to see and to witness. And to be a part of, and we want more and more of that.
And I think God puts us in position to experience those divine appointments, but we miss them because we’re not connecting dots and seeing God’s hand in it, or because we overschedule things in such a way that we’re more focused on our task. So when God brings a divine appointment our way, we look at it as an obstacle to our plan, or we look at it as an interruption to what we had intended. And so then we end up missing this divine appointment. I think God does this stuff all the time. He may have already done it today where you talk to the right person at the right time, and you didn’t plan on that, but God gave you something from that person, a word of encouragement.
Or maybe God put you in somebody’s path to encourage and lift up another person. Maybe God has placed you in a work setting or in a setting when it comes to your neighborhood or something with a family member, and God has orchestrated or is orchestrating or will orchestrate some type of divine appointment that only he could put together. It’s unbelievable when that stuff happens, and I think that God wants to do more and more of that. What we have here in 2 Kings 5 is a series of divine appointments, and I want to pull out the divinely orchestrated elements of the story, at least 4 of them that I want to point our attention to. Starting in chapter 5, says this in 2 Kings Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram.
He’s basically the second in command to the king, and Aram would be the equivalent of Syria. So I’m just going to say Syria because that’d be more familiar to us. He’s essentially the prime minister there. He’s the commander of the army of the king of Syria. He was a great man, Naaman was, in the sight of his master, and he highly regarded because through him the Lord had given victory to Syria.
He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy. Now bands of raiders from Syria had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, if only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria. Who’s she talking about? She’s talking about a guy we’re going to meet here in a moment, Elisha, not Elijah.
Elisha had worked under Elijah the prophet. We read about them in 1 Kings. They meet in chapter 19. And Elisha was Elijah’s protégé, and he learned from Elijah until Elijah was taken up into heaven, and now Elisha’s still around. And so this young Israelite girl is referring her mistress, her— this is a wife of Naaman, to Elisha, who was in Samaria.
He would cure him of his leprosy, this young girl says. Verse 4, Naaman went to his master, the king, and told him what the girl from Israel had said. By all means, go, the king of Syria had said. I will send a letter to the king of Israel. So Naaman left, taking with him 10 talents of silver, 6,000 shekels of gold, and 10 sets of clothing.
The letter that he took to the king of Israel read, with this letter I am sending my servant Naaman to you so that you may cure him of his leprosy. He’s asking the king to cure him of his leprosy. Verse 7, as soon as the king of Israel read the letter, He tore his robes and said, am I God? Can I kill and bring back to life? Why does this fellow send someone to me to be cured of his leprosy?
See how he’s trying to pick a quarrel with me. Couple things happening here. In every other culture in the world at that time, beside Israel, the priests and the prophets of these various cultures reported to the king. They worked for the king. They were employed by the king until they started telling the king things that the king didn’t want to hear.
And that had happened in Israel. By this point in Israel’s time, kings of Israel had stopped consulting God for the most part. And so why go to a prophet to seek divine counsel? The king is saying, can I do what only God can do? Which is interesting.
He should have immediately thought of Elisha, because in the chapter right before, Elisha had raised somebody from the dead. He might be able to help out in some way with this leprosy. And even before, Elisha. Elijah had also raised somebody from the dead. So God, the great engineer, is putting something together here.
But the king of Israel had no faith that God was going to do it. He thought that Syria was trying to pick a fight, have a reason to go to war together. So he’s freaking out about it. Verse 8: When Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his robes, he sent him this message: Why have you torn your robes? Have the man come to me, and he will know that there is a prophet in Israel, meaning a prophet of God.
There were lots of prophets, but a prophet of God in Israel.
Sorry, I lost my place. So Naaman went with his horses, verse 9, and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, go wash yourself 7 times in the Jordan River and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed. But Naaman went away angry and said, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot, and cure me of my leprosy. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all of the waters of Israel?
Couldn’t I just wash in them and be cleansed? So Naaman turned and he went off in a rage. He almost missed a miracle, but verse 13, Naaman’s servants went to him and said, my father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more then when he tells you, wash and be cleansed? So Naaman went down and dipped himself in the Jordan 7 times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was not just restored, but it became clean like that of a young boy.
Then Naaman, verse 15, and all his attendants went back to the man of God. He stood before him and said, now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel, so please accept a gift from your servant. The prophet answered, as surely as the Lord lives, whom I serve, I will not accept a thing. And even though Naaman urged him, he refused. If you will not, said Naaman, please let me, your servant, be given as much earth or dirt as a pair of mules can carry, for your servant will never again make burnt offerings and sacrifices to any other god but the Lord.
But may the Lord forgive your servant Naaman for this one thing: when my master enters the temple of Rimmon, the Syrian god that they worshiped, to bow down, and he is leaning on my arm, and I have to bow there also, When I bow down in the temple of Ramoth, may the Lord forgive your servant, me, Naaman, for this. Go in peace, Elisha said. I see at least 4 divinely orchestrated appointments that can help us to see some of the ways that God still works today. And one of the things we see is in verse 1, we see a divinely appointed position. A divinely appointed position.
We read about this person who was really influential. And really accomplished.
And yet in verse 1, it tells us how did he get to this point in the first place. He got there, it says, because through him the Lord had given victory. We can’t miss that. It’s a comment there that is reminding us that Naaman was where he was because God allowed him to be there, period. No matter how great of a leader as Naaman was, he was only where he was because God had allowed him to be there.
Ephesians 1 puts it like this, that God works all things out in conformity with the purpose of his will. And God has a will and a purpose for you and for me and for Naaman and for everyone. And he allows us to go through seasons where we are in particular places because he allows us to be there. If you are in a place of leadership, it’s because God has allowed you to be there. If anybody’s in a place of leadership, it’s because God has allowed them to be there.
If a person is in a place of governing, They’re there not because people voted for them, but because God sovereignly and providentially allowed that person to be there, even unrighteous leaders. This is mind-boggling to us, and we can come up with a variety of different objections to it in our natural sense, but God is going to use this divinely appointed position to allow Naaman to have access to things he might not have had access to otherwise, to get Naaman where he needed to go. And God may have you right now in a place that you’re like, I don’t want to be here, and yet God has placed you there. And I don’t want us to miss that and the significance of being in a place that God causes you to be. Does that mean you, you’re going to be in that place forever, in that position, in that location?
No. God may open up a door and move you on somewhere else. He may want you somewhere else. But at this time, for such a time as this, if you are sitting and hearing what I’m saying, then it’s because God has allowed you to sit there and to hear what I’m saying. And if God has given you anything good, or if you have anything good, it came from God.
He’s the author of life and he’s the giver of all good gifts, James 1:17 tells us. Everything good and perfect comes from God. And whenever he gives us these things, we’re to use them because they belong to him. God oversees all of this. This isn’t— Naaman wasn’t where he was by accident, and neither are you.
God works divine appointments all the time because he puts you where he wants you to be, and we just need to have open eyes to be understanding that, oh, this isn’t because of me, this is because God has allowed this. And that should hopefully cause us to turn to him and say, God, we need your help. What do you want to show me? What do you want to teach me? How do you want to use me?
I talked to somebody in between the first service and this service who is in a position right now, and she doesn’t know how much longer she’s going to live in this area. She’s probably going to move back down to Southern California where she’s originally from, but she’s not really sure. But as long as God has her here, we talked about how God is using her in her office, and she’s trying to find ways for God to speak through her in a place where nobody else is a Christ follower. She’s just trying to be faithful where she is. Be faithful where you are because God has allowed you to be there.
You’re not where you are by accident. And be open and have your eyes open and your ears and your heart and your mind open to the possibility that God has a divinely appointed position for you. And he’s the one who gives and he’s the one who takes away. We also see another divinely appointed thing here, and that’s also in verse 1 in the description of who we have here in Naaman. We learn all about Naaman.
He’s a commander and he’s great and he’s highly regarded, and the Lord had given him victory But he had leprosy. Isn’t that a great sort of postscript to all these wonderful things? But he had leprosy. What if that was part of your life? All these things that you’ve accomplished, but you had leprosy.
This is a divinely appointed problem. A divinely appointed problem that God sovereignly and providentially allowed to happen in Naaman’s life because Naaman was not normally the kind of person who would have turned to God. He clearly did not have respect for Israel. He’d already enslaved people. He was not normally a person to say, God, I need an encounter with you.
And yet God used that circumstance of the leprosy to cause Naaman’s heart to soften and to say, I gotta have some help. I can’t do this on my own. 2 kinds of leprosy existed in biblical times, and, and even today leprosy still exists. There’s more than 200,000 new cases every year in the world. There’s places where leprosy happens.
Now we have medicines and drugs that hopefully people have access to that can assist, but leprosy, there was no known cure for it, so they would just isolate people. There was a less severe form that was more limited, more of like a skin issue, a discoloration, a rash or something. We think that this is the larger, more significant, longer-lasting, more severe form of leprosy because of the lengths to which Naaman’s gonna go. And that’s the type of leprosy which would come upon a person and result in growths and tumors and swelling on a person’s face. And that would then seep through the blood system to the internal organs and the bones and the joints, and then it would eventually work its way into the tissues between the bones and lead to deformity and will lead to loss of feeling in the appendages, and then Possibly even people beginning to lose fingers and toes because they would just fall off because of this loss of blood flow.
It’s a horrible disease. It’s not something that anybody should wish upon somebody else. Yet it’s not an accident that Naaman has this, because in the same breath that we learned that God was the one who gave him victory to Syria and victory to Naaman, in this very same breath it says, but he had leprosy, almost as if the author here, God, divinely speaking through them is saying, God allowed this to happen. And what does this have to do with you and I? I mean, certainly this is going to cause Naaman not only discomfort and embarrassment, he’s probably going to have to resign from his position.
He’s going to have to isolate himself. He’s not going to be able to continue in his position. So he’s desperate. What does this have to do with you and I? Well, we all have problems that we can’t seem to solve.
We all have issues that we can’t seem to do something about, wounds that we rather for other people to not see, things that we hide behind. And when that happens, we inevitably look for someone or something to blame. And when we don’t have someone to blame, we blame God, or many of us do. We tend to— God, why did you allow this? If you were strong enough to have caused these things, then you could have prevented it in the first place.
And if God is really good and if he’s really loving, then he wouldn’t have allowed these things to happen. We’ve all had those conversations. And it’s the kind of thing that causes many people to look at Christianity and say, I don’t want anything to do with that. Whether it’s, I don’t ever want anything to do with that, and I’ve never had anything to do with it, and I never will. Or maybe like the person— there’s a couple I met with and spent several hours with, Shannon and I did, about a week ago, who no longer identify as Christians.
They’ve been a part of the church all their lives, but they’ve deconstructed their faith in such a way because of issues like this, where why would God allow this to happen and these other things. And I don’t want to get into, you know, this is a separate conversation about who causes this and how does this happen. At the very least, we can say that God is not surprised by it and he allows things to happen, but he doesn’t just leave us there. I want to be clear, hear me please, God is not the author of evil. He’s not the one who, when suffering happens, He’s not up there doing a fist pump and high-fiving the angels.
When difficult times come, I do believe that God grieves over those things, but He is with us in those things. And in Naaman’s case, it was going to take something significant to get his attention and to cause him to see how helpless he was. And God brought about something good from it, but it is a painful thing. And if you’re one of those people that’s wrestling with that, saying, I don’t like the idea of worshiping a God who would allow difficult things like this to happen. I’d love to talk to you about that.
I don’t want to give you some pat, you know, trite answers and then say, go on. We as pastors would love to wrestle with some of this stuff with you. We’d love to just listen and help bear this burden with you if you’re one of those people who’s in that position instead of just walking away. We don’t want you to walk away from faith. In Naaman’s case, this propelled him to seek out a divine solution.
So we have a divinely appointed position and a divinely appointed problem. We also have a divinely appointed person that we weren’t expecting to show up, and it’s this slave girl. And it’s ironic, but just like God, the great engineer, to take something so horrible as this girl’s slavery— she’s been taken away from her parents And she’s now living in a foreign country. She’s probably been orphaned. And that this incredibly wicked thing that Syria would do, and how God could somehow then take that and use this little girl to be an instrument of love.
I can’t do that. You can’t do that. But God, the great engineer, can. He can take somebody ordinary and do extraordinary things through them. And you may be in a position right now to help somebody like this girl helped Naaman.
Maybe God has put you in proximity to somebody to speak a word of encouragement or to just simply be with somebody in their time of need. Or maybe somebody has been like that for you. In this case of this girl, she didn’t have a seminary degree, she didn’t have a title. She simply knew that even in spite of all this bad stuff, that God was gonna take the bad stuff and somehow use it for good. Reminds me a little bit about the story of Joseph, when Joseph told his brothers after all the things he’d gone through in the book of Genesis What you all meant for harm, God has brought about good.
And God is able to work in all things and to bring about good to those who love him in all circumstances. And this young lady is going to be used now. She’s a missionary, and because of her position and her sensitivity— listen, she had every reason to be angry with and to wish ill upon Naaman, but instead she wants to be a missionary and to convey peace and to see that he’s able to get the help that he needs. That’s a work of God. See God’s fingerprints all over this.
Why was she where she was and how did she end up in that family? Because God is the great architect and the engineer behind all of this. And then in addition to those 3 things, we have a divinely appointed prescription. A divinely appointed prescription. Naaman has 2 diseases.
We only read about one of them. The other one is a little bit more subtle, but I think you can sense it. He certainly has leprosy, but he also has a very, very prideful, entitled, hard heart. This guy’s stubborn, and he likes to show off his wealth such that in verse 5, I think is where it is, it talks about he’s going to bring 10 talents of silver. That’s the equivalent of 750 pounds of silver.
He’s going to bring 6,000 shekels of gold. That’s 150 pounds of gold. That’s almost 1,000 pounds that he’s bringing with him. Some commentators have done the math on this and figured out that that would be the equivalent of more than $1.2 million that he’s taking with him on this trip. Seems a little excessive, but he’s doing that because that’s where so much of his identity is.
And so he’s taking these things. Verse 9, he brings an entourage of horses and chariots. He just needs to talk to Elisha. He doesn’t need all of this stuff with him. But that’s who Naaman was.
He was a prideful individual. And I love it. When Naaman goes up to Elisha, Elisha doesn’t even— Elisha doesn’t even come out to him. Instead, he sends out his assistant, or his intern, if you will. I have a son who’s interning right now with our youth, and last summer he did that.
And I have a soft spot in my heart for interns because I was one for 3 years at a large church in Houston. And very often, as an intern, one of my jobs was— because our church in Houston hosted lots of concerts, Christian concerts. My job was to often go pick up these people from the airport, and I can’t remember a single time that I’d pick up these celebrities in Christian circles who would say, yay, an intern coming to pick me up! Nobody wanted to talk to me. Nobody wanted anything to do with me.
In fact, I had some, some, some names that I could mention that you would recognize these names who would kind of big-time me a little bit and wouldn’t talk to me and Whatever, you know, I was just a lowly intern. I have a soft spot towards interns. Elisha’s not even coming out to talk to him, and that’s incredibly insulting to somebody of Naaman’s credentials and success. You’re not going to come out and talk to me? I came all this way, I brought all my money, I brought 10 sets of clothing.
Did you read that? Some of you are like, that’s nothing. You haven’t seen how I pack for my trips. 10 sets of clothing is nothing. Maybe you’re married to somebody who brings more than 10 sets.
Listen, this is, this is specific. This is talking about hand-woven, uh, expensive stuff. Back then, people would have had maybe one set of clothing and that’s it, maybe 2 sets of clothing if you were well off. So 10 sets is kind of showing off a little bit. Prideful Naaman, though, miffed that Elisha won’t come out and talk to him.
And then he’s miffed because he doesn’t get a healing service. He wanted Elisha to come out and to do a bunch of stuff. And it’s like going to Benihana when, like, if you go there and you want to see the people chop up all the stuff, and like maybe like the waiter is, or like the chef is out and they don’t do all this stuff, and you’re just sitting there going, where’s the, where’s the show? Any of you ever been to Farrell’s or ever heard of Farrell’s? It’s an ice cream place that I don’t even know if it’s around anymore.
When I was a kid in Houston, they would bring out ice— listen, nobody would ever go to Farrell’s for the food. You went there for the ice cream. It’s kind of like Ghirardelli, but even better. I don’t think it was better tasting. I just think it was like the entertainment was exciting.
They’d bring out ice cream on stretchers, and they’d have bass drum and sirens and all of this stuff. And at no point did we ever go to Farrell’s for a birthday and not get the whole show. We would have been disappointed had that happened. And in Naaman’s case, he’s wanting the show. Why doesn’t the prophet just come out here and wave his hand over me and do a Jedi mind trick thing here and heal me?
Where’s the smoke machine? Where’s the fireworks? He’s miffed that he doesn’t have kind of show behind it all. He’s offended by that. And then he’s being told to go wash in the Jordan.
I’ve never seen the Jordan River in person. Some of you may have. The Jordan River, I’m told, and based on pictures I’ve seen, is not an impressive-looking river. In many places it looks like a creek. It’s kind of muddy and dirty, and it doesn’t compare to any of the places in Syria where they have these apparently much, much more impressive-looking bodies of water.
Why is he going to go wash in the Jordan? Are you kidding? I came all this way and now you’re telling me to go take a bath? I could have done that at home. Common people bathe in the Jordan.
Naaman’s not going to do that. He’s very, very prideful about that.
And then when it comes to actually being told to bathe 7 times, why is that? Why was it— wouldn’t 1 time work if that was the divine prescription, the divinely appointed means by which this miracle was going to happen? Couldn’t that have happened any other way, like 1 time? I suspect it probably had something to do with the fact that there’s nothing in the water that was supernatural, but that God needed to work on Naaman’s pride. And each time he’d go down in the water and come up, he’s probably super frustrated, but that’s part of the healing process and the prescriptive means by which God is going to do something unique.
Anybody can go in the Jordan one time, but to dip 7 times and to come out not only with better skin than you did before But to have the skin like that of a young child, that’s the work of God, the great engineer who put all this stuff together. So it may be unconventional, but it was God’s means to get Naaman to a place where he was not only healed of leprosy, but to become a changed person and have a change of heart. And you see that change of heart in verse 15 when he and his attendants, after the healing, go to Elisha. And remember, this is the first time he’s getting to talk to Elisha. He’d only talked to the intern before.
Now he’s getting to talk to Elisha, and he is looking to compensate him in some way. Notice he doesn’t even talk about leprosy anymore. Naaman doesn’t. He basically has a worship service. There is no God except— in all the world except in Israel.
And he’s so grateful that he wants to give a gift. Elisha won’t receive it because God’s power is not for sale. And then he says, okay, well, if you won’t, please give me a bunch of dirt from Israel. And this is kind of strange. The best that I think we can come up with an explanation of this is that God’s presence and His power were associated only with Israel.
So if he’s going to go back to Syria and continue worshiping Yahweh, the one true God who has healed him— notice his false god hasn’t healed him, it was God Himself, Yahweh, Creator of the universe— that if he’s gonna go back to a foreign land, he wants to take some of God’s presence with him. I think that’s probably what’s happening. Sounds a little superstitious, but regardless, he’s had a change of heart. Not only a change of skin, but a change of heart. God has healed him of his pride, and he wants to demonstrate that, that he has a change of heart.
And he’s even saying that when he’s, as the king’s bodyguard in Syria, gonna be going into the temple because he has to guard the king, he’s saying, when we bow down, because if the king bows down, I have to be on his arm, and I’m gonna be bowing down. I’m not actually gonna be bowing down except physically. I want you to know that my heart is not going to go after these idols. His heart has changed. And isn’t it funny that the guy who used to think that the waters of Syria were so much better than the waters of Israel is now saying, let me take some dirt in Israel because that’s better than what we have in Syria.
It’s a change of heart. God divinely appointed these things to happen, and he’s turning now from false idols. He didn’t just get healed and say thank you. That’s a sign of true change. He’s turning from false gods.
What do we do with a story like this? Many of you have heard the phrase, or maybe even said the phrase yourself, God works in mysterious ways. And if you’ve ever told that to somebody, that’s fine. But if you tell them that it comes from the Bible— no, it’s not actually in the Bible. If you’re wanting to share with somebody that God works in unexpected ways, mysterious ways, there’s not a verse that says that.
But The idea is what we see here, that God’s hands are all over this thing. This didn’t happen by accident. This happened because God allowed it to happen, and He directed things in such a way that He would get the most glory from it.
A lot of people come up with naturalistic means of, well, maybe, maybe it happened, and this would have happened in any other way. At some point, you have to come face to face with the fact that God, the great engineer, did something supernatural. A couple things to think about here. One is the fact that we look at Elisha— or excuse me, at Naaman— and say, why didn’t he just obey? I would have obeyed.
I would have just done what Elisha told me to do. I bet you wouldn’t. I bet I wouldn’t have. Because how many times does God now tell us to do certain things and we don’t do it? So to do something like this, plus The Jordan was probably at least 15 miles away from where they were in Samaria, if not more.
You’re going to go out of your way to go take a bath in a dirty river? I bet you and I would have probably balked at that and tried to find some other way around to do that. We like to be in control of the circumstances, and we like our egos to not have to be so heavily bruised like Naaman’s was in this situation. But God has to break through how he has to break through. Into our lives.
And I think that these miracles do happen today, but it’s a matter of opening up our eyes and saying, God, place me where you want me. Would you do a divine appointment? Would you enable me, God, today, this week, to be part of a divine appointment? Would you place me where I can be used and be a part of what you’re doing in the world? I want to be a part of that.
That’s a great thing to pray. I think God wants to use his people to help bring others to faith, and it may be something significant and powerful that you and I could not orchestrate in order to bring that about. One other thought is that you and I are really no better off than Naaman.
We don’t like to think of it in that way, but all of us have things in our lives that we can’t do something about, and really the greatest thing that we can’t do anything about is our sin, the fact that we have a death sentence Apart from the mercy of Christ, because our sins separate us from God. And our sin is similar to Naaman’s leprosy. We’re cut off from the mercies of God apart from his kindness and drawing us back to himself. But he’s made provision through Jesus. And so when you— even though the name Jesus isn’t written here, what we have here is a recognition that God provides what we need in our time of need.
And specifically what we need more than anything else. No matter how great your problems are in this world, it’s not as great as your need for a Savior. And you either have accepted Jesus as your Savior or you haven’t. There’s not a third option. And so it’s a reminder that God created you for relationship, and you need to put your trust and your hope in him alone as your Savior, the one to be your sin bearer.
And the way that you do that is you simply say, God, come into my life. Change me, save me, wash me, forgive me of my sins.
It’s that simple. The path to God is not a path of pride. Boosting up our egos has never been a top-tier priority for God. The path to God is only a path of humility, ever. The gospel crushes us.
It reminds us of the things that we’ve done wrong. But it also points us to a God who is sufficient to meet our needs.
God does miracles today. The greatest miracle of all is that we can have a relationship with God. Don’t walk out of this room without a relationship with God. If we can be a part of helping you connect in that way with God, we’d love to do that.
But let’s be sensitive to the divine appointments that the Great Engineer puts in our path. Let’s pray.
