Seven ducks in a muddy river
I Kings 5: 1 – 19
Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 25 January, 2003

WHEN GOD speaks, what do you do? Do you usually go to the right place to hear? Do you secretly compare messengers, and not really hear the message? Do you obey?

There are some very basic principles, and the story we just read sets them out quite clearly for us. And, like all that the Bible teaches us, one thing is very definite, and that is that we all face a choice, and we all need to decide for or against God.
But sometimes that choice comes in subtle terms, sometimes it doesn’t look all that clear.

There is a story in the Bible of a prophet who decided to accept an invitation to have lunch with another prophet he met on his way home. The first prophet had done his job, he had delivered the message God gave him, and he was heading back to where he came from. He was safely clear of the city he had gone to. Yet, after lunch, the prophet met a lion on the road and was killed. A sad story.
Now, this is the point: God expressly told that prophet not to stop. He had to go straight to the king, he had to deliver that message, and he had to go straight home.

It might seem good to be sociable, and generally it’s good to spend time with your brothers and sisters in the Lord. But not when God says, “This time, go directly home, do not pass Go.”

Naaman commanded the Aramaean army. This nation was not a friend of Israel, and they often raided Israel and carried off slaves.
Naaman had a slave, an Israelite girl. She noticed that her master had leprosy.

Leprosy is a slowly–progressing disease related to tuberculosis. People often have limited and easily–concealed symptoms for many years. But one day this slave girl noticed that Naaman was a leper.
In the Bible, leprosy is often mentioned. A leper was cut off from the people, because true leprosy is contagious and it is incurable. If you had symptoms you went into quarantine. If the symptoms went away, you probably had never had real leprosy. You were declared clean. But, whilever you had symptoms, you had to warn, “Unclean! Unclean! Unclean!”

People came to see leprosy as a symbol of sin. Sin is contageous, it is incurable — apart from a miracle — it makes us unclean, and it separates people from each other.

Not long ago a famous Australian pastor had to step down after it was revealed that he had sexually abused several children in the churches he had been in over the years. It was a sad thing, because he was a man who had also done a lot of good in his time, and was well loved even in other denominations.
I met him a couple of times, just in passing. I appreciated things he said and did, but he always seemed a bit remote, a bit stand-offish.
The guilt of sin separates us from other people. We are afraid of being found out, so we hide behind a façade of reserve.

You know what that is like. I’m sure all of us have felt the guilt of sin and been unable to look somone in the eye, unable to look God in the eye. A leper had to cast his eyes down and cover his lip and cry out his uncleanness.

It might sound harsh, but Israel had a lower incidence of leprosy than other countries where lepers mixed with everyone else.

But even in places like Aram, where there was no such rule, people sort–of understood the dangers. Leprosy didn’t improve your looks. Having fingers and toes rot off hasn't ever been the height of fashion.

It’s like Paul says about the Gentiles:

RO 1:18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

In another place, he says,

RO 2:12 All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. 14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, 15 since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts,

The Aramaeans may not have had the God’s Law, but they knew leprosy was a bad thing.

So the girl told Naaman, “Go to the prophet in Samaria! He would be able to cure you.”
It’s great when there are evangelists around, isn’t it!
That girl didn’t know what to do, but she knew where to get help.
They say, “Evangelism is one beggar telling another beggar where to get bread.”

Here’s an immediate issue. Naaman was no dope. He got into gear and left straight away. Even the Aramaean king urged him to go. Sometimes people who don’t know Jesus can see when someone else needs him, and will encourage that person to find Jesus.

Several years ago, I helped a man who was having a nervous breakdown. I was one of the people who encouraged him to see a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist was not a Christian, but he saw that that man needed faith to help him through. So he encouraged him to keep seeing me, and we worked hard to co-ordinate our efforts.

But Naaman didn’t go to Elisha, the prophet. Instead he went to Israel’s King, who got mightily upset. He thought it was a trap.

The first principle we need to see here is this: Go to the right source.
The world is full of people who want a personal faith, but don’t think the church is a good place to get it. So they go to the Mormons or the Jehovahs Witnesses. They ask spiritists, and go on week-long silent meditations, or expect the Indians to give them wisdom.

The right source is God’s word, the Bible; and my overwhelming experience is that you will mostly get reasonable guidance from a church.

Many pastors are not good evangelists. That’s a fact of life. Paul said that ‘Pastor–teachers’ are God’s gift to the church and that ‘evangelists’ are God’s gift to the church, but he didn’t even mention
‘Pastor–evangelists’, though there have been some.

Still, even pastors who are not good evangelists can often lead a person to Christ if he or she really wants to find him.

A man who lived near us when was in my late teens was in great distress. He went to the one place where he felt he would get a hearing, to Mr Ham, who was a fine Catholic man living a couple of houses away.

In those days, the Catholics had very little tradition of lay evangelists, and Mr Ham was confused and troubled. But he thought about it as Max told him his story. And then Mr Ham told the man about Jesus, how he died on the cross and shed his blood to save us. He told him to repent, to believe in Jesus, to be baptised and to join the church. Pretty good advice -- though a bit of overkill. "Repent and believe in Jesus" was probably about enough. The man trusted Christ and was saved. He went to the right source: someone who knew Jesus.

Naaman had to go to the right source.

The next thing we see is that Naaman did go to Elisha, but Elisha didn’t come to him. The thing was that Naaman had the wrong idea about prophets and healing. He thought that money and influence would buy blessing.

It doesn’t work that way. Naaman had to learn another lesson, Go humbly.

In Ephesians 2, Paul writes,

8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

God does not want us to be boastful and to think that we have achieved anything for ourselves. The glory must go to God. The thing is, that when we give the glory to God, then he often allows us a share in his glory, too. But, when we seek to keep the glory, we can’t claim the blessing.

Imagine if Naaman had arrived with all his pomp and ceremony and handed over the gold and presents and Elisha had said a magic word over him and healed him. What would Naaman think?
“I bought what I wanted. I found the best shop to get healing of leprosy. Look at what I’ve got! Brand new hands and feet! Feeling where I felt nothing.” But where would God be in the equation? Naaman would have gone on a great shopping trip to Israel and brought back a bag–full of goodies, and that would be that. He had to learn to go humbly.

Naaman wasn’t one to learn humility easily. He was quite indignant, that Elisha didn’t even come out personally to meet him, just sent a servant. Naaman had to learn yet another lesson: focus on the message, not the messenger.

The man who led me to Christ was quite a trouble–maker in many churches. For a little while I wondered if my salvation was valid. How could a man whom I had so little respect for have led me to a real faith?

I learnt, too, not to focus on the messenger.

They say that an atheist decided to show how stupid people were to become Christians. He hired a hall, and announced himself as an evangelist who would speak for one night only. On the appointed night twenty or thirty people turned up, and the atheist preached a sermon he stole from some evangelist.
Several people responded to the appeal.
The next day, the man boasted to the local newspaper how gullible these believers were, to be taken in by an atheist, posing as a preacher.
The journalist commented, “You have either proved, as you said, that these people were fools to be taken in by you, or you have proved that you yourself are a fool to think that God’s truth can be defeated by your impotent disbelief.”

It really doesn’t matter who delivers the message, as long as it is the true gospel. Paul said that some people preach Christ out of envy. But he didn’t care, as long as Christ was preached.
Jesus died and rose again. That’s the key.

I suppose we always rebel at first against the message of the gospel. It seems so simple, so trivial, almost. We want to do something great, we want to discipline ourselves, beat ourselves into a shape that God might accept. And God says, “Forget about that — trust my son!”
Naaman was enraged when Elisha’s servant told him, “Go and wash yourself seven times in the Jordan.”
Sometimes we sing,

River Jordan is deep and wide
Hallelujah!
Milk and honey on the other side
Hallelujah!

Let me tell you that River Jordan is about half as wide as the Cooks River at Steele Park — though it is deep in places. It’s an unimpressive river for those of us who have seen the Colo in flood — water as far as you can see in all directions — or Cooks River covering the Illawarra Road Bridge during a spring tide. It sounds like it wasn’t a scratch on the Abana and Pharpar back home near Naaman’s place, either. Naaman didn’t like the idea of being ducked in it once, let alone seven times. Naaman was ready to pack up and go home. What nonsense!

And what nonsense, to think that the blood of a man who died 2000 years ago can cleanse us from all sin. What nonsense to imagine that faith alone can make us acceptable to God. Many people baulk at the gospel message and go home in disgust.

Let me say this: it is not the blood of Jesus that really cleanses us. What I mean is, you don’t need to find the literal blood. It is what the blood means, it is the life entirely given for me — that is what cleanses me. And how can you receive that, except by faith?

There was none other good enough
To pay the price of sin
He, only, could unlock the gate
Of heaven and let us in.

The gospel is true.

Naaman’s servants pleaded with him. “Surely you’d have done whatever great task the prophet set you. Why not do something as easy as washing seven times in the Jordan?”
Finally, Naaman got the point.

The final lesson to learn is this: when God tells you to do something, do it.
If Naaman had not taken Elisha’s instructions, he would not have had the blessing of receiving everything as a gft from God.
If Naaman had decided to wash once, or twice, or even six times in the river, he would not have had the blessing of receiving everything as a gft from God.
Because he did as he was told by God, because he performed it to the letter, he came out fully healed.

So, here we have it.

Go to the right source: don’t look for God’s blessing in the wrong places.

Go humbly: you can’t buy God’s blessing, you can’t frighten him or even please him ito blessing you. You only receive anything out of God’s absolute and total grace.

Focus on the message, not the messenger. Messengers come in all shapes and sizes, but the essential message is always the same:

Put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.

And, finally, when God tells you to do something, do it. Don’t half do it, don’t refuse his word, don’t be afraid or too proud. If he says to do it, he will make a way for it to be done.
So, may God bless you most abundently as you hear and obey his word.

AMEN

You have also heard today that God wants to make you clean of the power and penalty of sin through the blood of Jesus. You can have that cleansing right now through faith in him.
If you are ready to hear and obey, come to him right now, and he will receive you forever.