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https://www.easterngate.org/sermon-series/elisha-gods-double-agent/
In the eighth message of Elisha: God’s Double Agent, Pastor Jeff Anders preaches the healing of Naaman the leper in 2 Kings 5:1–19. Naaman was a great Gentile captain with a disease he could not cure. God moved a nation, a king, and a little captive girl to bring him to the prophet’s door, and there his pride was broken and he was made clean. It is a picture of how a lost sinner comes to Christ.
Recap: The Miracles So Far
Elisha received Elijah’s mantle and a double portion of his spirit because he would not let any space come between him and the man of God. Since then God has worked one miracle after another through him:
- The dividing of the Jordan and the healing of the waters of Jericho (2 Kings 2).
- The cursing of the mocking youths and the defeat of the rebelling Moabites (2 Kings 3).
- The widow’s oil, which paid her creditors and kept her two sons from slavery (2 Kings 4:1–7).
- The barren Shunammite woman conceiving a son, and that son raised from the dead.
- The purifying of the poisoned stew and the multiplying of the twenty barley loaves for a hundred men, a picture of the Lord who fed the multitudes in Matthew 14 and Matthew 15.
Next to the raising of the Shunammite’s son, the healing of Naaman’s leprosy may be the miracle that stands out most in Elisha’s ministry.
1. The Captain That He Was
Naaman was captain of the host of the king of Syria, a great man with his master, honourable, and a mighty man of valour, and the reason was that the Lord had used him to give Syria deliverance (2 Kings 5:1). He did not know the Lord, but the Lord was already at work in him.
- The Syrians believed in many gods who ruled different territories and warred against one another. There is only one true and living God, and He is sovereign over all the earth.
- God has always had the Gentiles in mind, not just the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Every so often the Old Testament gives us a glimpse of a Gentile God put His hand on, and Naaman is one of them.
- God can work through people who don’t know Him, don’t fear Him, and worship other gods. He can turn the heart of any military or political leader wherever He wants it to go.
- No election can ever limit what God can do. He is working out His own will in the world, leading up to the return of His Son.
- Many of us can look back and see that God was at work in our lives before we ever knew Him. If that was true then, it is still true today.
2. The Corruption That He Had
After all the praise of verse one comes the word but. He was a leper (2 Kings 5:1). For all his greatness, Naaman had a disease that corrupted his body and could cut him off from society.
- Leprosy is a picture of sin. Every sickness, every virus, and every sign of an aging body reminds us how corrupting sin is. Sin entered the world, and now we live in corrupted bodies.
- Our souls are corrupted too: our attitudes, our thoughts, and our inward struggles.
- Our relationships are corrupted. Adam and Eve were naked and not ashamed until sin came in. Then they grabbed fig leaves to cover themselves from each other (Genesis 3).
- Whole cultures are corrupted, sliding into apostasy and wickedness. Naaman was a great captain, but he was also a corrupt man.
3. The Captive That He Took
The Syrians had raided Israel and carried away a little maid, who now waited on Naaman’s wife (2 Kings 5:2). She told her mistress she wished her master were with the prophet in Samaria, because he would heal him of his leprosy (2 Kings 5:3).
- Imagine her questions: Why would God give these idol-worshipping Syrians victory over His own people? Why would He let me be taken from my mother and father and made a servant to a woman who doesn’t fear Him?
- Looking back, we can see the answer. God was in the Syrians’ victory, and He put that little girl in Naaman’s house as a witness.
- God often plants a gospel witness in the place we are, long before we’re ready to listen. He can use the hardest season of a believer’s life to put him right where someone needs to hear about the Lord.
4. The Crisis That He Caused
The king of Syria sent Naaman to the king of Israel with a letter, ten talents of silver, six thousand pieces of gold, and ten changes of raiment (2 Kings 5:4–6).
- Lost men assume a man of God is only in it for the money. That accusation says nothing about Elisha. It exposes the covetousness of the accuser’s own heart.
- The king of Israel rent his clothes and protested that he was not God and could not heal anyone. He was convinced Syria was seeking a quarrel and an excuse to invade (2 Kings 5:7).
- The whole nation was in crisis, and God was the One causing it. When God stirs things up, people start listening and crying out to Him.
5. The Conversion That He Experienced
Elisha sent word to the king to send Naaman to him, so he would know there was a prophet in Israel (2 Kings 5:8). From there the Bible traces Naaman’s conversion step by step.
The Prophet He Met
- Naaman came with his horses and his chariot and stood at the door of Elisha’s humble house (2 Kings 5:9). Only God could park the second most powerful man in Syria in the driveway of the man of God.
- That is why God gave him leprosy, put the little captive in his house, and let the king tear his clothes. God turned two nations upside down for the conversion of one man. That is how precious one soul is to God.
- Elisha sent a messenger with the Word of God: go and wash in Jordan seven times and be clean (2 Kings 5:10). Without all those circumstances, Naaman would never have heard it.
The Pride He Exposed
- Naaman was wroth, which means he was angry, and went away (2 Kings 5:11). He had it all figured out: the prophet would come out, call on his God, strike his hand over the place, and heal him on the spot.
- He asked why the rivers of Damascus, Abana and Pharpar, were not better than the waters of Israel (2 Kings 5:12). He wanted the clear rivers of home, not the muddy Jordan.
- Many people have it all figured out how God is going to save them. God never works that way. As long as you have it figured out, you are not yet believing. Naaman’s leprosy afflicted his body, but pride, arrogance, and independence afflicted his soul, and God had to break his pride before He would cleanse his leprosy.
The Prop He Lost
- His servants reasoned with him. If the prophet had told him to do some great thing, he would have done it. Why not do the simple thing and wash and be clean (2 Kings 5:13)?
- A great deed would have fed his pride. God told him to do the lowliest thing, something he wouldn’t want anyone back home to hear about.
- Some people want to be saved and struggle to get saved but cannot, because they are propped up on something other than Christ. Their religion, their greatness, their personality, their church, and their pastor cannot help them. God knocks those props out until they have nothing left but Him.
- Do you want to be clean badly enough to humble yourself before a crucified Man on a cross and make Him the Lord of your life?
The Prophecy He Trusted
Naaman went down and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, just as the man of God had said (2 Kings 5:14). He finally stopped trusting his own plan and trusted the Word God had given him.
The Power He Experienced
His flesh became like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean (2 Kings 5:14). When the props were gone and he humbled himself in that water, the power of God made him clean and brand new, like a new creature in Christ.
The Profession He Shared
- The God he confessed: Naaman returned to the man of God and confessed that there is no God in all the earth but the God of Israel (2 Kings 5:15).
- The gratitude he felt: he urged Elisha to take a gift, but Elisha swore by the living Lord he would receive none of it (2 Kings 5:16). He would not let Naaman go home thinking his money had bought his healing. (A later message will show someone else who wanted that money.)
- The portion he desired: he asked for two mules’ burden of earth to take back to Syria, likely for an altar, because from now on he would sacrifice to no other god but the Lord (2 Kings 5:17).
- The priority he changed: from now on he would worship the Lord alone.
- The pardon he wanted: his duty required him to go with his master into the house of Rimmon and bow when the king bowed, and he asked the Lord to pardon him in that thing (2 Kings 5:18).
- The peace he received: Elisha told him to go in peace (2 Kings 5:19). Naaman came to the prophet corrupted by disease and left completely cleansed and at peace with God.
A Picture of the Gospel to the Gentiles
Naaman’s healing is a beautiful Old Testament picture of a Gentile conversion. It points ahead to the day the gospel would go to the Gentiles, when even unclean, diseased, ungodly sinners can be made clean and at peace with God. Pastor Anders closed by praying that the lost would see themselves in Naaman’s shoes, diseased by sin and separated from God, and that the Lord would knock every prop out from under them so they would trust Christ alone.
Take-Homes
- God is sovereign. He gives victories, turns the hearts of kings, and was at work in your life before you ever knew Him. No election or crisis limits Him.
- Sin is a leprosy. It corrupts the body, the soul, our relationships, and our culture, and no human greatness can cure it.
- Be the little maid. God may have put you in a hard place so you can be a witness to someone who needs to hear about the Lord.
- One soul matters to God. He will move nations to bring one sinner to the place where he hears the Word.
- Pride must be broken. Stop insisting you have it all figured out, and do what God says His way, not yours.
- Let the props go. Religion, reputation, church membership, and good works cannot save you. Trust Christ alone and you will be made clean and go in peace.