Power in the Pulpit | 2 Kings 5:1–14

Introduction: If you have a Bible with you this morning we are in 2 Kings 5:1-14. The topic of the sermon series Matthew and I are working through is called Ordinary people, incredible impact. The account we are looking at today is about a man named Naaman, but there are several people we will read about that fit this characteristic. But to understand the story we have to understand what is going on in biblical history in the time of the account we are looking at. As many of you know Israel was led into the promise land from Egypt by Moses. Then they conquered the promise land under the leadership of a man by the name of Joshua. But they didn’t drive out all the idolatrous people in the lands around them. And this was a problem because over the next few centuries they would then off and on worship the false gods of the people they had left in the land. But then they asked for a king. And God was like, this isn’t a good idea, but sure here’s your king. So first they had Saul, then David, who was faithful to God. But his son Solomon wasn’t. He married hundreds of women, with many to help him make political alliances. He then chased after the false gods they worshiped, which is a whole other sermon. But God told him that because of this, after his death, the kingdom would be torn in two. And it was. After his death, civil war broke out, and the ten northern tribes of Israel broke off and formed the kingdom of Israel, and the bottom 2 formed the nation of Judah. And for years after this, there was war in these nations. And they were at war with their neighbors, pretty constantly until both kingdoms fell. But today we are not so much talking about a King of Israel of Judah. But a military leader from the nation of Syria. And what we see when we read his story is that even those that God grants success experience brokenness, and only God can heal that brokenness. We will see that in the brokenness itself, Earthly Perspectives, and the true solution. So if you would, would you please stand with me as we honor the reading of God’s Word.

Verses 1-3: The Brokenness

Exposition: The passage starts with verse one which reads 2 Kings 5:1 “Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and in high favor, because by him the Lord had given victory to Syria. So the man being discussed is Naaman. He was the top general for Syria and had led Syria to many military victories in service to the King of Syria. Right away this may be sending off alarm bells in your head. This series is about normal people. Not about people who would have been one of the most famous in the land. But there is something we need to note here. The author makes it very clear. Why does it say he was great, not because of what he had done. But because, “by him, The LORD had given victory to Syria. It was not on his own that Naaman had succeeded. It was not anything he accomplished on his own that made him great. It was God who made him great, because it is God who is in control of all things.

Application: Maybe you don’t feel great. Maybe you don’t feel like you can live for The Lord in the way that others can. Remember, it is not you who makes you great and it is not them that makes them great. It is God who gives us the strength and the abilities to accomplish the purposes He has for our lives. We don’t have to depend on ourselves, we can depend on God.

Exposition: So we see that Naaman had accomplished so many great things. We see that God had granted him great favor as a military leader. But the end of verse 1 tells us something else. Verse one says, “He was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper.” Now the wording in the Hebrew, speaks more of a discoloring of the hand. It was probably not leprosy like we think of it today, but psoriasis. It wasn’t impeding his ability to lead the army. But they didn’t have the medical knowledge then to know that there was a difference. When he looked at his hand, he saw what he thought could be the beginning of a disease that would cause him to have to leave society as to not spread the disease and then die a slow painful death as his skin began to decay. All of Naaman’s success could not prevent him from learning something the hard way. The brokenness comes for all of us.

Application: We do not have to look long to see that this world is not the way it is suppose to be. We all walk through things in life that remind us how broken this world is. All of us have either gone or are going through a time that reminds us the world is not suppose to be. And all of us will one day walk through that again. And it doesn’t matter how rich or successful you are. It doesn’t matter how insignificant you may feel. We all will experience the brokenness. God created the world the way it was suppose to be, but sin corrupted it. And Naaman saw the impacts of that as he looked at his skin.

Exposition: Reading in verse 2 we see, 2 Kings 5:2 “Now the Syrians on one of their raids had carried off a little girl from the land of Israel, and she worked in the service of Naaman’s wife.” Now this was somebody else that had experienced the brokenness of the world. Because of Israel’s idolatry, God was allowing other nations to defeat it militarily. Syria had attacked Israel, and as was common practice during this time, taken people as plunder. Her entire life had been upended because of the sin of Israel. We don’t know this girl’s name, and we never ready anything else about her in scripture, but what she does in verse 3 is an incredible example to follow. Verse 3 reads, 2 Kings 5:3 “She said to her mistress, “Would that my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”” She could have held onto her bitterness and allowed him to suffer. She could have taken joy in in and thought he was getting what he deserved. But instead she tells Naaman’s wife that she knows where Naaman can be healed.

Application: Do we do this? Is this a part of how we operate? You see the girl knew how Naaman could be healed, and she told him. She didn’t have some fancy presentation. She didn’t memorize anything, she just said where he could be healed. This is something we can do as well. There are people around us each day without the hope of the gospel. There are people who have no hope beyond the brokenness of this world. Those of us who are believers in here, are we sharing with them that we know how they can be healed? Are we telling them that God send his Son to die on the cross for their sins and rose him from the grave so that they can be healed from the brokenness. What about people we don’t like. What about people who have harmed us? Or would we be willing to go to places with cultures that are different, and we find offensive, because we know they need the healing that can only come from a relationship with Jesus. This girl, who we never hear from again, gives us an example to follow.

Transition: So the girl tells Naaman what he can do to be healed, so what does he do. He acts like somebody who is use to the royal lifestyle.

Exposition: Verses four and five read 2 Kings 5:4–5 “So Naaman went in and told his lord, “Thus and so spoke the girl from the land of Israel.” And the king of Syria said, “Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel.” So he went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten changes of clothing.” When The King of Syria and Naaman heard about this, they both assumed that if there is a prophet that has the ability to heal skin diseases, surely he works in the courts of the King and surely we are going to have to pay the king a lot of money for these services.

Illustration: It’s kind of like this. in 2005, after my brother graduated high school, my family went on a trip in New England. My dad, my brother and me are all big baseball fans. So we went to Boston, and went to a game at Fenway Park, and then we went to Cooperstown, NY, the home of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Now, we were thinking that if the town was the home of the baseball hall of fame, then a place with that kind of awesome place probably is nice. I mean it was probably a really fancy place. We were wrong. The town was tiny. The only place to stay in the town was this little motel with beds that felt like they were purchased for the first induction ceremony in 1936. Our expectations were not met, and neither were Naaman’s. He didn’t yet realize that it was not based on who he was.

Exposition: So Naaman and his caravan get to Israel and they send the letter they have prepared to the king of Israel. The king of Israel, whose name was Jeroboam, could not have been more confused. Look at verses six and seven. 2 Kings 5:6–7 “And he brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, “When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you Naaman my servant, that you may cure him of his leprosy.” And when the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Only consider, and see how he is seeking a quarrel with me.””

Explanation: This appears to be taking place at a time when Israel and Syria had made a peace treaty. Jehoram immediately assumes that Syria is trying to do something that will give it a reason to respond with an attack and tear up the truce. This doesn’t just show that he was thinking like a king an not a normal person, he was thinking like somebody that had no idea about this prophet of God that was living in his own country.

Application: Though Jehoram was king of the nation in which the prophet lived, he knew nothing of him. And this isn’t a surprising thing. Jeroboam was not known as somebody that worshiped the God of Israel. In fact, 2 Kings 3:2 describes him this wayy. 2 Kings 3:2–3 “He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, though not like his father and mother, for he put away the pillar of Baal that his father had made. Nevertheless, he clung to the sin of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin; he did not depart from it.” He was known for not being as bad as his parents Ahab and Jesebell, who were literally as bad as it came, but he still did evil and did not worship the one true God. See, what we see when we look at Jehoram, is that proximity to the things of God do not mean that we are a part of the people of God. Jehoram was a ethnic Jew living in the land of Israel where a prophet of God lived. But he had no connection to that. We see when we look at Jehoram that our status does not grant us a relationship with God. Being close to religious things like coming to church or being around good people, or even reading our bibles. These things are not replacements for real relationships with Jesus. And Jehoram didn’t have that, and he responded as such.

Transition: We see that these two men who had no connection to God had no answer for the brokenness that Naaman was experiencing. But luckily, God had a plan.

Verses 8-14: The only solution

Exposition: That plan began with Elisha, the prophet hearing about the situation. 2 Kings 5:8 “But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent to the king, saying, “Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come now to me, that he may know that there is a prophet in Israel.”” Elisha hears about all of this and asks the King why he was doing all of this. He tells the King to send Naaman to him so that Naaman may know there was a prophet in Israel. Elisha wanted Naaman to see that there was a prophet in Israel so that he would know there was a God in Israel. Elisha wanted Naaman to know that the God he represented was the one true God. It didn’t have to do with Naaman’s wealth or all he had accomplished. It had to do with the fact that Elisha wanted Naaman to know who God is.

Application: Brothers and sisters, do we share in that desire? Does it bother us that billions around the world live and die without ever hearing the name of Christ. Does it bother us that people all across the world bow down to false gods and spend their lives slaving away at works trying to earn a relationship with an almighty creator when we know that a relationship with God is not available through anyway but the forgiveness of sins and believing in Jesus Christ. Does it bother us that unless somebody goes, they will never hear. It seems it bothered Elisha, and it should bother us too. I’m not saying that everyone in here needs to move overseas to be missionaries. But I do think our hearts should be broken for those that have never hears. I want to encourage you to pray a BOB prayer. I heard this on a podcast recently. Pray that God would give you a brokenness for the lost, an opportunity to share the gospel and the boldness to share. See what God does with that prayer.

Exposition: So Naaman goes to Elisha, and it does not go as planned. Starting with verse 9 we read 2 Kings 5:9–12 “So Naaman came with his horses and chariots and stood at the door of Elisha’s house. And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean.” But Naaman was angry and went away, saying, “Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went away in a rage.” Elisha tells Naaman to just go wash in the Jordan seven times. This seven times was a ceremonial thing that the book of Leviticus prescribed for somebody who was cured of a skin disease. And he was not pleased. For starters, he thought it was going to be a bigger production than that. I mean, Naaman had brought all of these goods for payment, and he was a pretty big deal. And Elisha wasn’t even going to come out and greet him, he was just going to tell him to go was hin the Jordan river. And that was another thing, why did he need to come all this way to wash in the Jordan of all places. The rivers in Syria that Naaman refers to flow down from snow topped mountains. The water in those rivers is very clear. The Northern part of the Jordan where Elisha and Naaman were, is very swampy. I don’t know if you have ever seen pictures of Lake Tahoe, it’s somewhere I want to go. The water is so clear that you can look down and see the rocks on the bottom of the lake. It would be like going from that to a south Georgia Mudhole after about a week of rain. What Naaman failed to realize is that it wasn’t about him, or about the waters he washed in. It was about what God could do.

Application: It is not the significance of the person that brings healing from the brokenness to the world we are in. It’s not the virtous acts we do. One way we see this is when people say that all roads lead to God. That if people just follow their religion, it’s one of many paths to God. But this logic is fundamentally flawed. It’s not about the path. It’s not just about one doing things that are good or religious. No. It’s about if we are following what the one true God has called us to. It’s not about just doing what makes us happy or we feel is right. It’s about being in relationship with the one religion whose leader died on a cross and rose again and revealed himself to over 500 witnesses and whose followers were willing to go to their graves for saying he was alive and He was the way. It’s not about us or what we do. It’s about Him.

Exposition: Fortunately, for Naaman he had people around him thinking more rationally. Verse 13 reads 2 Kings 5:13 “But his servants came near and said to him, “My father, it is a great word the prophet has spoken to you; will you not do it? Has he actually said to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?”” Naaman’s servants begged him not to think angrily and leave this behind. They were willing to speak reason into his life. We have no idea who these men were. They were not important to world history. But they were important to Naaman. Their willingness to speak into his life, though they were not of the same status, though they were not the ones afflicted with the disease, they still wanted him to be healed, so they spoke truth into his life. And according to verse 14, he listened. Look at verse 14 2 Kings 5:14 “So he went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God, and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.” Naaman takes their advice and he goes and washes himself in the river as he had been told, and he was healed. All the sudden he saw those signs of his brokenness go away. What started with a young girl speaking not through bitterness but forgiveness and hope ends with a man who was not a part of the chosen people of God receiving healing from God. It ends with a person that was far from, God experiencing God.

Application: There is great application in our own lives from the story of Naaman. You see brokenness has been a part of the word since Adam and Eve sinned in the garden. And we see the impact of it every day. We see the hurt that is caused by the sinful decisions of others. We see the ramifications sin has had in our own lives. We also see the impact sickness has and how that impacts our lives. The ultimate punishment for sin is death. We see at every funeral we go to when we look at the mourning family or when we are the mourning family, that it is not the way it is suppose to be. We also know that this world never truly satisfies us. We know that even with friends and family around us and all the success in the world, that we can never run from the brokenness and we can’t make it better. But there is one who can. There is one who came and died on the cross, taking on the punishment we deserved for sin. Though he never sinned, he took on and experienced fully the brokenness that sin had caused. But he didn’t stay in the grave. He rose again defeating that brokenness. And all who repent of their sins, make Him Lord of their life and believe that God has risen Him from the grave will be saved. When you are washed in the blood, your are washed away and God sees the sinlessness of Christ. Our relationship with God is restored. We know we have somebody with us in this life. And we no longer fear death and what comes after, because we know it is then that we will say goodbye to the brokenness of this world.

Verses 9

Naaman comes with his entire caravan and all the goods he brought.

Verse 10

Elisha doesn’t greet him. He sends a messenger to tell Naaman to go wash himself in the river. It was pretty much the ritual for those with skin diseases.

Conclusion: Maybe you are here today and you have never found a hope that overpowers the brokenness of this world. Maybe you have searched in many other places, but all you see is your brokenness. Oh dear sinner, that you would be washed in the blood of Jesus. That you would understand that the blood of Christ was shed and he was risen again so that we may have an eternal hope. William Cowper was a poet in the 18th Century. Most of his life was defined by the brokenness of this world. His mother died at the age of six. After that he was sent off to boarding school where he was bullied and abused mercilessly at by the older boys, but one in particular. His father grew distant and only pushed careers on him. Cowper spent much of his life depressed. But while spending time in a facility for the insane as they were called then, he was led to Christ by one of the doctors of the facility. After leaving there, he would become a part of a family that would eventually sit under a pastor by the name of John Newton. Newton took Cowper under his wing. Really just doing ordinary things, taking him to visitations and going on walks. But together they wrote a book of hymns. In that book Cowper wrote the famous hymn “There is a Fountain filled with blood.” In that hymn this man, whose life was marked by brokenness, wrote about the assurance that comes from being washed in Christ’s blood. “There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel’s veins. And sinners plunged beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains. The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day, and there may I, though vile as he wash all my sins away. Dear dying lamb thy precious blood shall never lose its pow’r, Till all the ransomed church of God be saved to sin no more. E’er since by faith I saw the stream, Thy flowing wounds supply, Redeeming love has been my theme and shall be till I die. When this poor lisping stammring tongue lies silent in the grave, there in a nobler, sweeter song, I’ll sing Thy pow’r to save.” If you are here today and you have never sought the forgiveness of your sins, and you feel God telling you today is the day, don’t delay. I would love to pray with you, and let you know that the brokenness doesn’t have to last forever. Come receive that hope. Maybe you just realize that you have been distant from God, even if you have been here, come down and pray. The altar is open. But don’t leave here today, without taking hope in that the healing from brokenness comes from Christ. Let’s pray.