2 Kings 5: 1-15
Imagine a doctor accidentally stumbles upon a cure for a dreaded disease. He’s excited about the prospect but then he says to himself. It’s too much trouble to get this treatment approved by the Food and Drug administration. And what if someone sues me? So he keeps it to himself.
Sound a bit far-fetched? Maybe. Yet I know someone who knows the cure to something far worse than cancer or heart disease. He knows where that cure is to be found. He has experienced it himself and knows its joy. Yet all too often, he keeps it to himself. He remains silent when he finds himself with others in desperate need of that cure. Do you know such a person? You’re looking at one.
This morning we meet someone who spoke up. She was a young girl whose name we don’t even know. In some ways, she had plenty of reason to mind her own business, to remain silent, to avoid making trouble for herself. Yet she passed on what she knew and believed in her heart. For in more ways than one, she knew the cure to a terrible condition – and so do you. So we say:
YOU KNOW THE CURE – PASS IT ON!
I. It comes through a simple message.
II. It produces remarkable results.
It was about 850 BC, almost 3000 years ago in a small country called Aram just north of Israel. Today we call it Syria. Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the Lord had given victory to Aram.
So things were going well for Naaman. He was known for his bravery and probably richly rewarded by his king. But his world came crashing down in this one little word. Leprosy. Naaman had leprosy.
The Hebrew word for leprosy can mean a number of skin diseases including that one that is most feared. So to find a patch of leprosy on yourself was a frightening thing – frightening for you and for those around you that feared catching it from you. For there was no cure, no remedy for leprosy.
Of course today there are powerful antibiotics now used to treat leprosy. The same can be said for many other diseases once thought to be incurable. We have been blessed to find so many cures.
But there is one dreadful disease which no work of man has ever been able to cure. It’s inherited and not just by some, but by all. And sooner or later this disease puts us in the grave, every last one of us.
Well by now you guessed what I am talking about. Sin. The sin that clings to us from birth. The sin that enslaved my heart and caused me to enter this life not as God’s friend, but at odds with him. And even now, we see this disease show itself in so many ways. The selfishness, the anger, the impatience, the lack of self control that pulls so hard against my godly desires.
Well left untreated, unforgiven, this disease will do something far worse than the leprosy which causes toes and fingers to fall off. Left untreated, it will cause God to say to us one day, Depart from me.
Naaman, had no place to turn. No pagan priest, no physician, could offer him any hope of a cure. But there was this young girl. Her name is not recorded. We know very little about her but that she served the Lord in a small, yet wonderful way. And here its amazing how the Lord worked. A raiding party from Aram had taken this young girl captive from Israel. They took her away from the loving arms of her family and made her a slave. So imagine how she must have felt with her life so changed.
But the Lord was at work even here. He was at work as he is in all of our lives. He had taken this daughter of Israel and brought here to this time and place in Naaman’s household. For unlike so many in the Israel of her day, this young girl knew the LORD. She knew what the Lord had done through his prophet Elisha. So when she heard about Naaman’s dreadful disease, she approached his wife and told her: “If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”
You and I can learn a lot from this young girl. She recognized a need for the Lord’s help. She was confident that with the Lord there was a cure. And notice something. Here she gave no sermon. She spoke only a few sentences, a simple message that expressed her faith. But it was a simple message God would use to make all the difference in Naaman’s life and later on in the lives of others.
Well God has used a simple message in our lives too. We call it the gospel, the good news. But that simple message pointed us to more than a prophet. It pointed us to Jesus, the Son of God. It pointed us to Jesus who brought us the cure for our dreadful disease of sin. He didn’t discover it in a laboratory. He won it for us on a cross of grief and shame. The cure for our sin. The only cure — God’s forgiveness.
So think about it. Think about this young girl with her simple message. Don’t you have the same? God has given you a simple message that points people to a cure found nowhere else. It points people to Jesus. So we say: – You know the cure- pass it on.
You can see what a highly regarded commander Naaman was in the eyes of the king he served. When Naaman requested leave to seek the prophet’s help, the king said: By all means, go! And more than that, look what the King sent along to promote Naaman’s cause. He sent a letter to the king of Israel with gifts equaling 750 pounds of silver and 150 pounds of gold.
So off Naaman went. Directed by a simple message of a slave girl, he set off to find a cure for his leprosy. Think about that. Isn’t that the case with us. A simple message has directed us to the cure. A simple message of a cure that produces remarkable results.
Of course, here we see what often happens. That message of a cure is met with unbelief. Start with the King of Israel who should have known better. He read the letter and became suspicious. His heart lacked the simple trust that servant girl had in the Lord and his prophet Elisha. So the king tore his robes in anger and sent Naaman away.
But also look at Naaman. When Elisha heard what had happened, he sent for Naaman: 9 So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house. 10 Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.”
So Naaman jumped right in the river, right? No, he went away angry. What! You send me your messenger! I’m mighty Naaman. You tell me to wash in that measly Jordan river when we have the rivers of Damascus.
Naaman refused to believe that such a simple thing could produce such remarkable results. And you know, that’s how the world is.
You see, the Lord has chosen to come to us in simple unimpressive ways. He came in a manger, a feedbox for animals, born our brother, of a poor virgin. He came as a poor wandering Jewish rabbi. Then he came to a terrible end on a Roman cross. That’s how God came to us.
And what about now? He comes to you this morning through the preaching of a weak imperfect pastor. He comes to you today in a small piece of bread and a little bit of wine. Yet in that message of a crucified and risen Christ is God’s power to save us. And with that little bit of bread and wine, Jesus gives you histrue body and blood with pledge of God’s forgiveness.
Yet what does the world see? It sees something so simple, unimpressive. And so like Naaman, people often go away disappointed with the cure. Go to a prophet who then tells you to wash seven times in the river. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved? The world often goes away like Naaman. Unimpressed.
But witness the remarkable results. Thankfully Naaman’s servants calm him down. They convince him to do what the prophet said. 14 So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy. And that was just his body. Witness the remarkable results in his heart. He went back to Elisha and told him. “Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel. But hold on for the rest of the story.
In 1887, some tablets of stone were discovered in Egypt. We know them as the Amarna letters. There we learn that the right hand man of a certain Pharaoh was Naaman who returned to Egypt after being cured. Now here’s the amazing thing. Every other Pharaoh believed in many gods. But this Pharaoh worshipped only one, Aton. That’s the Egyptian name for what the Hebrews called the Lord.
How did this Pharoah come to know the Lord? It’s obvious. Naaman must have told him. And just think of where it all started. That young slave girl. That simple message of a cure that she was willing to share. Such remarkable results.
This day some of us have special reason to thank God for a cure. My wife had an amazing procedure which restored her heart from a dangerous heartbeat that could have given her a stroke. Some of you have had eye surgery where the cloud of cataracts has given way to seeing once more and sometimes like a teenager. Remarkable results. Remarkable answers to our prayers.
Yet as wonderful the skill of the surgeons or the power of our medicine to bring healing, it is nothing compared to the CURE that Jesus has brought to our lives. Where there was guilt, there is now forgiveness. Where there was terrible distance between us and God, we enjoy peace and the promise of his enduring love. And where there was a dreadful dead end, there is life, the bright shining prospect life with God.
That’s the cure we have in Jesus. And you know it. You know Him. You know the cure. So like the servant girl, pass it on. Pass it on dear friends while there still is time. Amen.