2 Kings 5:15

2 Kings NAAMAN’S IMPERFECT FAITH2 Kings 5:15 - 2 Kings 5:27 . Like the Samaritan leper healed by Jesus, Naaman came back to give glory to God. Samaria was quite out of his road to Damascus, but benefit melted his heart, and the pride, which had been indignant that the prophet did not come out to him, faded before thankfulness, which impelled him to go to the prophet. God’s gifts should humble, and gratitude is not afraid to stoop. Elisha would not see Naaman before, for he needed to be taught; but he gladly welcomes him into his presence now, for he has learned his lesson. Sometimes the best way to attract is to repel, and the true servant of God consults not his own dignity, but others’ good, whichever he does. I. The first point is the offer and refusal of the gift. The benefited is liberal and the benefactor disinterested. Naaman was a convert to pure monotheism. His avowal is clear and full. But what a miserable conclusion he draws with that ‘therefore’! He should have said, ‘Therefore I come to trust under the shadow of His wings.’ But he is not ready to give himself, and, like some of the rest of us, thinks to compound by giving money. When the outward giving of goods is token of inward surrender of self, it is accepted. When it is a substitute for that, it is rejected.

No doubt, too, Naaman thought that Elisha was, like the sorcerers of heathenism, very accessible to gifts; and if he had come to believe in Elisha’s God, he had yet to learn the loving-kindness of the God in whom he had come to believe. He had to learn next that ‘the gift of God’ was not ‘purchased with money’ and the prophet’s acceptance of his present would have dimmed Elisha’s own character, and that of his God, in the newly opened eyes of Naaman. Elisha’s answer begins with the solemn adjuration which we first hear from Elijah. In its use here, it not only declares the unalterable determination of Elisha, but reveals its grounds. To a man who feels ever the burning consciousness that he is in the presence of God, all earthly good dwindles into nothing. How should talents of silver and gold, and changes of raiment, have worth in eyes before which that awful, blessed vision flames? A candle shows black against the sun. If we walk all the day in the light of God’s countenance, we shall not see much brightness to dazzle us in the pale and borrowed lights of earth. The vivid realisation of God in our daily lives is the true shield against the enticements of the world.

2 Kings 5:15 . He returned to the man of God — To give him thanks and a recompense for the great benefit which he had received. I know there is no God in all the earth but in Israel — By this wonderful work I am fully convinced that the God of Israel is the only true God, and that other gods are impotent idols. A noble confession! but such as speaks the misery of the Gentile world; for the nations that had many gods, really had no God, but were without God in the world. He had formerly thought the gods of Syria gods indeed, but now experience had rectified his mistake, and he knew Israel’s God was God alone, the sovereign Lord of all. Had he merely seen other lepers cleansed, perhaps it would not have convinced him; but the mercy of the cure affected him more than the miracle of it. Those are best able to speak of the power of divine grace, who have themselves experienced it. I pray thee take a blessing of thy servant — A thankful acknowledgment, or token of gratitude. The Hebrews called every gift a blessing.