Repentance And Hinderances

By Ed Green
Content

In 2 Kings 5 we read of Naaman, the captain of the Syrian army. He was a courageous leader and had numerous military successes for the Syrian king. However, Naaman was a leper. Leprosy was a dreaded disease with no known cure. Let’s learn how he overcame the hinderance of a faulty attitude and obtained healing.

Having learned that there was a prophet in Israel that could cure him of his leprosy, Naaman leaves Syria with men, horses and chariot to locate the man of God. The prophet was Elisha. Finally Naaman arrives at Elisha’s house. Rather than go out to Naaman himself, Elisha sends his servant out to speak; he instructs Naaman to go to the river Jordan and wash seven times and he shall be healed.

But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the LORD his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper.

Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage. (vs.11,12)

Naaman’s response to these instructions is a lesson for us today. I wonder how frequently we miss out on spiritual healing for the same reason...refusing the means of healing that God has provided. We want healing...but we want it on our terms. We want “the event” of healing to occur in the circumstances and under the conditions we prescribe. We are like Naaman, aren’t we? Naaman’s attitude was about to cost him his health. Had it not been for the advice of his wise servants, Naaman would have returned to Syria unhealed.

And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?

Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. (vs. 13,14)

Naaman returned to Syria healthier and wiser than when he left. I’m glad he repented of his faulty attitude and obtained healing, but there is something else that bothers me:
“How come other lepers were not healed?” You just can’t keep good news like this suppressed...somehow people find out about it! Centuries later, Jesus refers to this incident and takes notice of this fact.

And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian. Luke 4:27

Naaman was not an Israelite but he obtained healing! In Israel there were “many lepers” but not one of them was healed! Why? Who was at fault? The means of healing was available... Elisha was a prophet to them; Elisha’s God was their God.

There is a parallel between physical healing and spiritual healing. The reason that “lepers in Israel” were not being healed of that dreaded infirmity...the reason Israel was not healed of it’s moral/ spiritual infirmity is the same-- neglect of God ordained means of healing.

During the time of Elisha, Israel was so intoxicated “doing their own thing” that they were spiritually desensitized... they had no cognition or awareness of the seriousness and gravity of their moral and spiritual malady. Today many are like them. Many have been brought up in a religious culture, or even in a home where religion had a significant role. Religion has been and is near-by to them in a spatial sense. But these, though it is near want little or no part of it, they are “doing their own thing” as in Elisha’s day, and thus have become numbed, deadened, and chronic in their malady.

I think it is reasonable to assume that some of the lepers in Israel in Elisha’s day came to the realization that they had a disease. Having realized they had a serious problem they were dealing with it in their own way... they were not being healed mind you, but they were finding comfort in something less than healing! I find that strange, don’t you? Naaman, the Syrian, was the only one healed; he wanted healing, not just comfort. Naaman was the only leper dealing with it in the right way; he went to the source of healing.

Spiritually Sick... but Feeling Good

I know it sounds strange, but sinners today have figured out a way to feel good while spiritually hurting! How can that be? It happens the same way it did in old times... neglecting God’s means of healing and finding comfort in something less than healing.

God’s method of healing his people goes like this; we acknowledge our sin, repent (turn from it), then He heals us. Pretty straight-forward, right? Then what’s the problem? “Why then is not the health of my people recovered?” Jer.8:22

The problem is two-fold. First, repentance requires that we turn from our sin. What aggravates our case is that we don’t want to let go... we know we ought to repent, but our sin is too near and dear; it is like a sweet morsel--so pleasing to our carnal taste!

The second part of the problem involves getting relief from our misery. As noted above, Repentance is out of the question...we’re enjoying our sin. After a time though, the pleasure we receive from our sin is dampened by a sense of guilt. Initially we obtain some measure of relief by ignoring our guilt. We busy ourselves at other things...anything will do, so long as it distracts us from the awareness of our guilt.

As the weight of guilt increases, so increases our misery. Our increasing misery and sense of guilt becomes increasingly difficult to ignore. If our ailment was physical, we would hasten to a hospital emergency room, but since our ailment is spiritual we minimize it’s danger. We seek relief from our sense of guilt, not healing from our sin.

We obtain that relief by the only recourse left for us... the discovery that we’re not as sinful as others! This becomes the source for our relief... comparing ourselves with others. We are astonished at how sinful other people are, meanwhile commending ourselves that our status is much superior to theirs. We comfort ourselves with thoughts of our steadfastness in the formalities of our religion.

We look with distrust at that unorthodox teacher laboring among those wretched outcasts. He, sensing our distrust, answers as he passes us by:

“Í came not to call the righteous, but sinners to Repentance.”

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