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We open our Bibles at two Kings, chapter four. We have been considering together the life and ministry of the prophet Elijah. There remain yet many stories in the Book of Kings about that prophet's ministry. On the other hand, as you have just heard, there remain in our series of talks just tonight's talk. And therefore, what I propose to do is not to attempt to preach a sermon on each one of these, uh, stories, though each of the stories doubtless would deserve a sermon in itself, if only I knew enough about them to preach a sermon on each one in itself.
But instead of doing the impossible, I shall seek to do the next impossible, and that is to conduct with you a survey of the stories of Elisha that remain to us, or most of those stories. So that rather than preaching you sermons tonight, I propose to share, put into the pool of your thinking, leading ideas that may help us all when next we study these passages, uh, to find keys to their interpretation and enjoyment. Most of the remaining stories from chapter four um onward fall into three groups of stories.
First, there is a group of stories dealing with the ordinary folk in Israel. That in itself is a delightful thing. Last week we were considering together, and in the weeks previous likewise, stories of the ministry of Elijah and Elisha as it impinged upon the kings, both of Israel and of Judah. We were learning gov- lessons about the government of God. Very naturally, they were placed in the context of the responsible leaders of states and the heads of government, the kings both of Israel and of Judah.
But now, for a while, the Holy Spirit turns the narrative aside. We're going to stop looking at kings and princes and heads of state. We're going to look at certain ordinary, nameless people amongst the people of God, to consider their problems and how God, in his mercy and kindness, came alongside them in the routine affairs of daily living, insignificant as they may have thought themselves, ordinary, nameless people, and yet, of course, important to God. For the only reason you have kings and princes and queens and governors is, of course, for the benefit of the people they govern.
Wouldn't be any sense of having kings, would there, if the kings had nobody to rule over? And they only have to rule, if they're decent kings, for the benefit of their subjects. Now God turns aside, therefore, from high politics to the ordinary affairs of the home and the business and the school, to demonstrate his grace to his people, available as it was to all of them, whatever their task in life and their circumstances. Yet God now picks out certain representative instances and cases that he might encourage us in our days of need. So that in chapter four we shall see a succession of stories about people who had got to the stage when they found it almost impossible to cope with the ordinary demands of life.
It does sometimes happen, even to the strongest of us, that life threatens to become too much, too big. The demands it makes on us, the responsibilities it thrusts upon us, seem to be too big, and we are in danger of not being able to cope. A number of stories then of that kind, in which these people found the grace and mercy and the miraculous power of God, as in their need they were pointed to supernatural resource and found life, life enough, and to spare.
What a lovely thing that is. When we find life ceasing to be a threat too big to cope with, and we find grace and power and resource enough and to spare, and we begin again to live the life of spiritual millionaires to which we are entitled. Let's just read one representative story out of that first group and begin in chapter four and verse one. Now there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha, saying, thy servant, my husband, is dead.
And thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord, and the creditor is come to take unto him my two children to be slaves. And Elisha said unto her, What shall I do for thee? Tell me, what hast thou in the house? And she said, Thine handmaid hath not anything in the house, save a pot of oil. Then he said, Go borrow thee vessels abroad of all thy neighbors, even empty vessels. Borrow not a few, and thou shalt go in and shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons, and pour out into all those vessels, and thou shalt set aside that which is full. So she went from him and shut the door upon her and upon her sons, and they brought the vessels to her, and she poured out.
And it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said unto her son, Bring me yet a vessel. And he said unto her, There is not a vessel more. And the oil stayed. And she came and told the man of God, and he said, Go sell the oil and pay thy debt, and live thou and thy sons of the rest. In the second group of stories, there is but one story. That comes in chapter five, and is the story of the conversion of Naaman the Syrian. And I use the word conversion advisedly.
Very often we hear this story described and entitled as the healing or the cleansing of Naaman the leper, and that is very good and accurate, for in the story Naaman the leper is in fact cleansed. But thank God that there is more to this story than just the cleansing of Naaman the Syrian. It is a story of the conversion of Naaman the Syrian. So that it is interesting after the chapter four with its stories of private individuals, how God met the need of his people and pointed them to their supernatural resources in God.
Now we're moving out, and the story concerns a heathen captain of the Syrians, and how in his need he was brought to God, and not only cleansed, but converted, and turned to God from idols to serve henceforth the living and the true God. And how that conversion was brought about, and what were the issues at stake in that conversion, that forms the interest of the details of chapter five. Just let me, uh, point to those verses that make it quite clear that Naaman was not only cleansed, but converted.
Verse fifteen of chapter five. And he, Naaman, returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and came and stood before him. And he said, Behold, now I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel. Now therefore, I pray thee, take a present of thy servant. But he said, as the Lord liveth before whom I stand, I will receive none. And he urged him to take it, but he refused. And Naaman said, if not, yet I pray thee, let there be given to thy servant two mules burden of earth, for thy servant will henceforth offer nothing but i- offer neither burnt offering nor sacrifice unto other gods, but unto the Lord.
In this the Lord pardon thy servant, when my master goeth into the house of Rimmon to worship there, and he leaneth on my hand, and I bow myself in the house of Rimmon, when I bow myself in the house of Rimmon, the Lord pardon thy servant in this thing. And he said unto him, Go in peace. So he departed from him a little way. So then we've had the needs of the private citizens met. And now we've got the conversion of the Syrian. It often does happen in that order, doesn't it?
When the people of God discover the resources there are in God to fulfill their homely, domestic, and other responsibilities, then so very often it leads to God's blessing going out through their testimony to extended realms, and folks outside get saved. Well, it's lovely when folks get saved. And for a while there's a great deal of enthusiasm after folks get converted. But now finally there's a set of stories beginning in chapter six and going through into chapter seven, three stories, in fact, that all have in common this particular feature, that the people of concerned came to feel that they were somehow closed in and confined, shut up, circumscribed.
That their experience was too small. And there came upon them a desperate feeling that their circumstances and experience were too small, and they wanted to break out into bigger things to stop themselves being absolutely stifled and strangled to death. It can happen to people. It can happen to Christian people, that in times past had very vigorous experience of the power of God in their lives and witnessed conversions, perhaps, in which they were used as the instruments of God's grace to men. It can happen to people later on in life, that presently experience somehow seems to have dried up a bit.
And what once used to thrill them seems now to have become very small and restrictive. And they kind of feel imprisoned in life. And the urge somehow to break out into something bigger before life smothers them altogether, the urge comes upon them. And in these final stories, we shall find God putting before his people what is the answer to their feeling of need in that situation, for all three stories are stories of escape into bigger and larger experience.
So let's start with the first set of stories, the people who found life a bit too much for them. And first of all, there was this widow woman, otherwise unnamed, and she comes to the prophet saying that her husband is dead and that the creditor has come to take her two children to be bondmen. Life was threatening this woman and her children with sheer slavery. Life can do that kind of thing. Life can do it for a Christian.
When our responsibilities, domestic or spiritual or professional, seem to be turning us into drudges and slaves. Let's leave aside all other realms of life and come to the spiritual side. It is true, of course, that there is a sense in which we all are slaves and never will be anything else but slaves. A sense in which we ought to glory in our very slavery. Read any one of Paul's letters that you like to read, or any of the other apostles, and they will regularly describe themselves as bond slaves of Jesus Christ.
Absolutely bought with a price, no longer their own, no longer the ones that are to determine life for themselves. They are the bond slaves of Jesus Christ, bought body, soul, and spirit, and belonging to their sovereign Lord and Master. That is true of every believer. But you know, as you read Paul's writings, you won't find him exhibiting a slave's begrudging spirit. Work? Cor, what mountains of work that man did get through. Preaching the gospel, exhorting the saints, visiting the poor, having a word with the elders, they need lot of words to them, and making his, uh, uh, sails for his ships and his tents, traveling, writing letters, praying, night prayer meetings, public disputations with the enemies of the Lord, preaching the gospel again.
Wow, however did he get through the stacks and mountains of work that he did for the Lord? Of course, it is true that, uh, you can take on too much, can't you? To take on more than God has given us the ability to do is a foolish thing. But you try and tell Paul that he's taken on too much. I'd be interested to hear what he said in reply. And for all he worked like a veritable slave. You'll never find a hint of slavish spirit about him.
He is the author of the words, isn't he, under God, that God doesn't want slaves. There was that woman Hagar, says Paul in his letter to the Galatians, you know, and her son Ishmael, but then you see Ishmael was a son of the bondwoman. God doesn't want slaves, says Paul. What says Holy Scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son. For when it comes to the way of being saved, it is not of our works, lest it should be a bondage. And when it comes to the terms of our inheritance, the slave shall not inherit along with the free, for God gives his inheritance to his freeborn sons.
God doesn't want slaves of slavish spirit. And yet, I don't know if my own heart can be witnessed, sometimes it can happen that there falls upon us a kind of a feeling of slavery. That the demands that are made on us are too big. And we do them out of a slavish spirit. We somehow feel forced to do them. And yet we begrudge the doing of them. You never felt like that? Well, I have.
And it is not simply that one takes on too much, it is one's debts. The creditor has come, said the woman. And the creditor is often at our doors, isn't he? Paul recognized his figure as he sat writing his letter to the Romans. There were a half a dozen creditors, uh, piled up outside the door even as he was writing, weren't they? He said, I am a debtor, both to Jews and Greeks. He had an inescapable debt that he must try and discharge. And so have we. But who of us hasn't known from time to time that feeling, do I have to do this?
Oh dear. Do I have to preach the gospel? Do I have to attend the meetings? Oh dear. Must I pray? Oh, it's th- th- that's Thursday night again, now it's the prayer meeting. Bothered. Oh dear. Huh. Well, I suppose I gotta pray. Well, what can I say now then? Or say something. Oh, what a bind it is. Huh? Never felt like that? Well, now I suppose I ought to read a bit out of the Bible. Oh, bother it. Bind it is. When I got a good Agatha Christie novel there, but I saw, all right then, I'll read a bit of the Bible. Oh, there's that, there's that woman's meeting.
I've got to make the cakes for that now. Huh. And our duties are turning us into slaves. You say, what do I do when that happens? You keep on doing your duties, that's what you do. You don't say, oh, I don't feel in the right spirit to serve the Lord. Like that terrible old man in the parable, you know, he was given the talent to use. And when the Lord came back and said, uh, uh, why haven't you used it? He said, well, I didn't feel like it. And I was afraid of you, you see, and I knew you didn't want anybody to work for you out of fear, so I hid it.
And who told you that? said the master. You were afraid of me, were you? Then you jolly well ought to have worked all the more then. And if we feel a bit like slaves, and we feel we've got to do it and don't want to, then that's no excuse for not doing it. But then, of course, God doesn't want us to work in the spirit of slaves, does he? He wants us to work for him of, uh, free will, so that the working for the Lord itself becomes a privilege and a joy. And how can it be done? Why, here comes Elisha to point this woman to resources that she didn't know she had.
Frankly, miraculous resources. Although it was concerned merely with that basic commodity of the Middle East and of Belfast itself, oil, finding enough oil to get through life with. Yet it was, in the end, a miraculous resource. It's lovely to get oil from the oil man. It's marvelous, isn't it, to feel that God's given you the stuff. And most of us bow our heads over our meals and thank God that though the baker brought it, it was really God that gave it. But for those spiritual resources that we need to discharge our duties in the right spirit.
Ah yes, for them too, there is a more than human supply. The little story goes that the woman had to borrow the vessels that was taking on board more obligations. More than her own little vessel. Why, if she hadn't enough oil to fill her own, how would she fill anybody else's? And yet she had to get our neighbor's vessels and bring them in, and she was told in faith to pour out, and as she poured, the miracle happened, and the vessels were filled, filled until no more was required. Interpret that how you will, for I wouldn't dare interpret that case I were fanciful.
So let me leave it completely. And let me turn over to the New Testament to consider that same problem. And you will remember one notable place where it is discussed in the Epistle to the Ephesians in chapter four. And here it is a question of the gifts that are given to the people of God for them to use in the service of the Lord. And some are apostles, and some are prophets, and some are pastors and teachers, and some are also rams like me. But each with his little job to do, gifts given us to use in God's employment. How shall I use them?
And how shall I discharge the responsibilities that come along with the gift? You're finding that your gift is making demands of you that, uh, you can't fulfill without feeling that you're a drudge and a slave? That you own that you have a debt to fulfill the duty? Well, a good idea is to get inside and shut the door. Oh no, I've gone back to the parable. No, well, let me put it somehow else. Let me confine my remarks to Paul's description. For as Paul outlines our sundry gifts that we have to use for the Lord, then he s- reminds us how these gifts were given.
And he that descended is the same, he that ascended is the same that descended into the lower parts of the earth. And he that descended is the same that ascended far above all things. Why? He ascended that he might fill all things. Oh, what a glorious gospel message. That the risen Christ, who has distributed to each one of us a gift that we might use for him, having distributed the same, has ascended up on high for that express purpose, that he might fill all things.
So that as I get my little pot and want to use it for the running of the household or the feeding of the church or the visiting of the sick or fulfilling my responsibilities in the gospel, my empty vessel I may freely bring. O thou who art of life, the living spring, my vessel fill. And there came oil enough until the need was met.
But how real is it? Of a gray Monday morning and a tired Thursday evening. How real is it that there is this Jesus? And if I come, he will fill my vessel. And as we raise the question, we can't help remembering what Elijah said to Elisha. You want a double portion of my spirit? If you see me when I ascend, then it shall be. Would I have a vessel of oil, enough and to spare to discharge all the duties and responsibilities and debts that come upon me in life.
Then I better ask, how real is it that there is a man in heaven? Have you seen him go up? And can you see him there by faith? And is he a reality to us? In the secret place of the closed door, where he may replenish our stores, and so fill our vessels, that we may serve. And then there follows another story. There was a woman in Shunem, and as Elijah passed her back and forth, and they recognized him to be a prophet, they made him a prophet's chamber, and he stayed with her, only to discover there was a bitter sorrow in that woman's life, sense of frustration.
She had no child. Hm. That too is a sad condition, isn't it? But what can happen physically can happen spiritually. And here, please don't conf- don't accuse me of being fanciful, because I'm going to quote an apostle at you. If you do such and such and such and such, says Peter in his second epistle in chapter one, it will make you that you be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of God.
Can happen, can't it, that we have a certain amount of knowledge of spiritual things, but somehow it doesn't produce fruit in the life. Whether it is building up of the character, or whether its fruit is in to be seen in the helping of other folks, Christian or non-Christian. A certain kind of barrenness besets us. Then Elisha came to that woman, and by the miraculous resource of God set in motion the deep running springs of life in that dear woman amongst God's people. And a child was born, and she was no longer barren.
Upon that side of it, we can't afford to s- to to stop any longer. What I want to concentrate on is what happened to that boy when he grew up. Came the proud day when he was big enough to go out with the servants to the harvest field. Came the proud day when he was big enough to go out with the servants to the harvest field and began to work in his youthful vigor and enthusiasm, doing what work he could. Lovely, isn't it, to see the spiritual youth are growing up, no longer babes in Christ, but young men and young women in Christ, and going out to their harvest field to join the workers and the reapers in the harvest field and begin to shoulder a little bit of their responsibility in the work of the Lord.
But harvesting is hard work and hot work and thirsty work and strength sapping work. It's bad enough for old hands at the job, strong, vigorous men, for harvesting the harvest will incline to sap the very last ounce of energy you have. It isn't a game. This lad went out to join the reapers in the harvest field, and presently the sun got at his head, and he felt bad. And his strength being exhausted, did he have sunstroke or something?
But was taken home looking very white, and presently died. Well, as far as you could see, he was dead. What a terrible thing to happen. Yes, indeed. I've known it happened many times too. Or come near to happening. You never known young men and young women keen for the Lord, running a Bible class at all the gospel meetings, serving the Lord with great zeal, joining the work in the harvest field in their eighteens and twenties, And then, and then? At twenty five something goes wrong.
And they get head pains or intellectual difficulties or something. And they retire from the field. And presently the very life seems to go out of them. And you couldn't tell the difference between them and an unconverted person. Have you never seen it happen? Well, I've seen it happen. And it can happen, you know, by letting young folks attempt too much work. Working beyond their spiritual capacity, draining their very resources, pleading with souls and arguing with souls until they've argued Christianity right out of themselves and haven't got any more left inside to argue about.
And they've exhausted all they can think of and exhausted their spiritual strength, and then comes a moment of temptation, the big moral difficulty and temptation, or the big intellectual difficulty and problem. And it's more than they can cope with, and they're laid low. And they cease from the work. Because they don't really believe it anymore, and they feel a hypocrite, so they can't go on taking a Sunday school because they've become to doubt the inspiration of scripture, or their own salvation, or this or that or t other, and they give up. It's a dangerous thing working for the Lord, you know. It's a spiritual battle. It can exhaust your spirit.
Now, what did Elisha do? Our Elisha is the man that, by God's good grace, has found the secret of having enough life for himself and some to give away to other people. But first he sent his apprentice, name of Gehazi, and Gehazi seized the opportunity. I don't think he had been working in a harpers field, not recently, not Gehazi. And when he saw the opportunity before himself that he could go in the name of Elisha with Elisha's stick of office, staff of office, oh, what a chance to show what a man Gehazi was.
Off he went as fast as his legs would carry him down to Shunem, to the place where this poor lad lay dead upon the bed. And entering the room, he said, now what's all this nonsense going on here, all these difficulties? Now look, my boy. And with that, he, he got the old, uh, scepter of Elisha, uh, put it in front of the boy's eyes. Now look at that. Now I'm the apostle's representative, his authoritative representative. Now listen to what I say, young man, and stop all this nonsense. But there didn't seem to be a lot of response. There very rarely is to that kind of, uh. He said, did you see this? You see who I am? I'm the next in line. I'm the suffrikan, uh, apostle.
I'm the suffrikan prophet, you know. Look at this. But there wasn't any response. Very rarely is. The lad hadn't come to this position by defying a- prophets and apostles and all the rest of them, and intended to come. It was a case of exhaustion for trying to do too much work without getting his batteries replenished. And Gehazi didn't affect anything at all worth doing with his authoritarianism and his formal bishopric. So Elisha came. He didn't try and beat the lad with his staff or impress him with his office.
He went up into the room and he laid on him, hand on hand and mouth on mouth, till the very warmth of Elisha's life was communicated to the body, that cold, stiff body that was lying beneath him. Now that's a chilly thing to do, ain't it? I don't know if you've tried it, but it got so cold, Elisha himself had to say, I have to stop this for a minute, get walk up, get around the room, get the blood going again. So he walked around the room a time or two, then he went back. But presently, the very warmth and life and vigor and reality of the life in Elisha communicated itself to that young lad, and he sneezed, and then he woke up, and he got up, and life was restored.
Sometimes when you get that kind of situation, that's the only thing that will restore it. Not authority, not even argument, but the coming alongside until your very vital life flow, that thing that keeps you alive and warm and ticking, is communicated to the man who, for the time being, has lost his spiritual resilience. But to do it, you'll have to discover life and despair. Can you do that? Sometimes we feel that's enough to keep my own self going, I haven't much to spare for other folks.
Oh, what a lovely thing it is to discover the risen Christ, to have enough life to keep yourself going, and to let others make drain upon that resource that helps to keep them going too. And then the scene shifts to a kind of a theological college. I know not how else to call it. For the sons of the prophets were there before Elijah, and for all doubtless they talked a lot of theology most of the day. There came the dinner hours when they had to be fed with food. And these good lads were allowed to contribute, uh, to the cooking and to the food supply to keep the college of theologians, uh, going.
And one day, one good man went out, and with all the best will in the world, meaning to contribute to the food supply, he gathered a lot of wild old gourds, not knowing the difference, poor lad, and put them in the pot too. Nearly the poisoned the whole professorial staff, and the students included. Didn't intend to, but it nearly happened. It can happen even in theological colleges, and not simply with the potatoes and the greens. It can happen with the spiritual food that is fed. People with the very best of intentions, and thinking they are feeding the nation, put into some of their books and their lectures and their sermons an unbelief that would poison a battleship.
Casting doubt on the authority of scripture, or on the historicity of the resurrection, or the reality of the ascension. And not intending to impugn the authority of God's word, but doing it. Which, if it was left to run, would poison the food supply and destroy spiritual life. What was to do? Well, it's it's interesting that Elisha didn't take the first move to say, give me a big spoon and I'll try and get this poison out.
So we're told, uh, you'll see he said, bring me meal. And getting a good lot of wholesome meal, he put it into the pot and thus counteracted the poison. Then there came, we are told, a man from Baal-Salishah, and he brought the man of God bread of first fruits and twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of corn in his sack and said, give the people to eat. And they ate, and though it appeared to be a small supply, they had more than enough and a lot left over. Yeah. And if ever you should find yourself in a situation where young folks or older, without knowing what they're doing, are spreading doctrines that, if carried to their logical conclusion, would prove poisonous and undermine the faith and destroy people's faith, then the first necessity is to have on hand a good fat bag of meal, or if you like it in modern terms, a good dosage of Colossians chapter one, followed by a great handful of Hebrews chapter one, with a sack full of
John chapter one. And that'll get their faith going again in the deity of the Lord Jesus. And when you've done that, oh, thank the Lord if you've got ready to pour into the food supply a great wallop of one Corinthians fifteen about the resurrection. Yes, but not mere as dry theology, but as the living creative word of God that can come in amongst poison and dispel the poison and create good health and faith. The words I speak to you, said Jesus Christ, they are spirit, they are life.
And oh, for the ability thus to walk with God, that in situations like that, one can come in and supply that living food that will positively counteract the effects of poison. Then there came this man with bread of first fruits, and if I told you what I thought that meant, why you would say I have a fancy, so I'm not going to. I'm simply going to observe that in the New Testament, Paul talks of first fruits, doesn't he? Now is Christ risen and become the first fruits of them that slept. And here's your answer to attacks on the faith and the undermining of young souls' faith by their liberalism.
Oh, Christ, risen from the dead, really alive, and alive in glory to intercede for the faith of his people, alive in glory, their representative before God's throne, alive in glory to succour them in the time of temptation with those vast spiritual powers that emanate from him and flow into the lives of his people. Oh, for a ministry like Elisha and that unnamed man that can set before the people of God the bread of first fruits. And make the very living Christ risen from the dead draw near to them, as he drew near on the road to Emmaus and went with them, and in that moment their intellectual difficulties melted like snow before the sun, and their hearts burned within them, because it wasn't just theology, it was the living Christ, risen from the dead, first fruits of them that slept, drawing near to expound his word and to feed his people.
What do you suppose is going on in this meeting room just now? Well, one thing is going on, you've got a very curious preacher, odd and difficult and inadequate. But behind him, my brethren, there is the bread of first fruits, the Lord risen from the dead, and coming along your side himself to minister to your faith and to strengthen it, to save it from all those poisonous influences that surrounded every day of our lives as we walk through this world. See him.
Bread of first fruits, risen from the dead, really alive. Oh, said Elijah, if you see me when I go up, you shall have a double portion of my spirit. The only thing that will keep us going through life and equip us to meet life's duties and responsibilities and dangers, be they physical or intellectual, is that vivid sight that spiritually can see as reality, the risen Son of God. But if the people of God get their needs met and find out what their resources are in the risen Christ, then there's a chance or two, isn't there, that there should be a conversion.
As a result of the testimony of a little slave girl who had been taken captive to Syria, or to Arameia, as it should be, Naaman the Syrian comes and he gets converted. I shall not need to relate the story to you in detail because millions of gospel preachers have done that already. I couldn't improve upon them anyway. But I would like to stress what we noticed at the first, that this is the story of Naaman's conversion, not just his cleansing. For you notice what happened after he was cleansed from his physical leprosy. He came to Elisha, and he requested Elisha two paneer fulls of, um, earth, do see.
And he wanted two mules burden of earth, for thy servant will henceforth offer neither burnt offering nor sacrifice unto other gods, but unto the Lord. You say, what did he want the earth for? Well, he wanted the earth for this, that when he got home, he wanted to worship the Lord, Jehovah, no longer worship Baal and Rimmon and all that nonsense. He turned to God from idols. He wanted to serve the living and the true God, and he didn't want to worship these old dead idols, Baal and Rimmon, anymore. So he's going to worship the Lord, the man's got converted. Ah, yes, but he said, you know, I want to do it the right way round. I want, I know, I don't think my ground up there in Syria would be good enough ground to stand on to worship the Lord.
I want better ground to stand on, he says. So please, Elisha, man, give me two mules burden of earth so I can put you on the ground, see? And, and, and when I worship the Lord, I'm going to stand on that ground. I'm going to take Israelite earth position, Israelite ground before God. You say, pity the poor pagan. Ooh, what the ignorant the man was. Just to imagine it, it mattered and made any difference what kind of earth you stood on whether when you worship the Lord. I mean, after all, what difference does it make whether you stand on the boards of the gospel hall or out on the tarmac in the street or on your deep-piled carpet at home? I mean, what means what ground you stand on? Well, you can laugh and you can despise the man's simplicity.
He thought it made a difference. He'd been an old Syrian, you'll see. So had the Israelites. Their forebears were Syrians. But then they got converted, and they left Syria, and they came into Canaan. Their position was different. Now Naaman's got converted. Well, he says, sorry, I can't come and live in Canaan, but I, I would like to take the same ground as you do, and when I stand there to worship, I shall be standing on the same kind of ground as you're standing on. That's a jolly good conversion, isn't it? What ground do you stand on before God, might I ask?
Has conversion made any difference to the ground you stand on? Well, let me tell you about this conversion. First of all, would you care to think about the man himself? You mustn't imagine that this was some disreputable sinner dragged up out of the gutter, out of the Dos House or Salvation Army hostel or something. This was Naaman, captain, field marshal of the Syrian Army land forces. Next to the king, his majesty leaned on his arm as they went to public functions together. Can't you see what a fine specimen of a man he was? Oh, upstanding, education immaculate, you know, Eton, Sandhurst, uh, Silver Sword of the Year, out top, brilliant commands.
The Lord had given victory to the Syrians through his hands, so he didn't know who it was. And now with his Victoria Cross and distinguished service medals, knighthood, uh, Baron, baronetcy, and all the rest of it. Ooh, what a commanding figure. See him in evening dress. See him in uniform. Oh, the cultured accent and the house he lived in. Oh, superb. And Damascus, you know that was a delightful city when all was said and done. I know it wasn't Israel, but come off it a little bit. They had a bit of style up in Damascus, even though they weren't dear believers. Cor, the spacious lawns and those rivers. Oh, the Thames wasn't in it. Fana and the Bapa, rivers of Damascus, what broad, stately rivers, not the ban or something like that.
Beautiful, lovely rivers they were. The culture was delightful. Don't you like those kind of things? Well, perhaps you don't, or do, I don't know. Anyway, he did. He was a delightful specimen. You say, well, however could a man like that need to get converted, I wonder? You need to get converted for? Such a nice, delightful, educated, charming humanist. Well, that was lovely, I know. The, the fact, however, was that he was a leper. And that was a nasty disease to get, wasn't it?
Because it kind of put a blotch on things. All that lovely charm, all that lovely culture, and yet that nasty blotch. And the hope was it would go away, but it didn't, and began to spread. And it spelt ruin. But it was difficult to believe, you know, so long as you could cover the spot up with an extra medal or two, so nobody could see it. Difficult to believe what stared him in the face, that he was ruined. Do you know, it is difficult for some folks, isn't it? Oh, I wandered off into spiritual things now. It's difficult for some folks.
Cultured, superbly educated, gracious, much more gracious than some dear Christians. Accent impeccable. Oh, full of good deeds, public service, honored by their country, upright, honorable people. So good at telling them their righteousnesses are as filthy rags, I wonder. Beautiful people. Difficult to admit that they are patched, blotched with sin and ruined. But it's a fact it would eventually spread till it had, uh, completely absorbed the man.
Well, being a sensible man, having tried various things and they didn't work, he decided to give ear to the advice of his little servant girl. She said there was a prophet down in Israel. So he went, and first he went to the king. Got things a bit mixed up. Went to the king. That was no use. And he was sent to the prophet. And so to the prophet he came. Now, do you know, we learned from the story that as he was coming to the prophet, and he had a long time to s- think about these things as he was journeying along the road, he had ideas in his head of how he would get converted. Or how he would get cleansed. They were quite vivid ideas.
He was saying to himself, now when I get there, you see, I shall have to send one of my servants to knock on the door, and uh, there I shall be standing, you see. Uniform, right? Yes, uniform, right. Beautiful. And uh, some knock on the door, then the prophet will come out. Oh, when he sees me, he will be impressed. Well, field marshal, ma'am. Well, come to my door, come to my service, half a minute. We- we- we- we'll- we'll do the church up, sir, uh, you'll see, for your coming. Now, now, you wanted to, you wanted to be healed. Right. Now, there would be a ceremony. There'd be a big dais there, beautiful red carpet, you know, a few aspidistas on the side.
Ah, yes, the TV lights would be there, and the cameras, and all the reporters. and the prophet in his robes, he says some very impressive words, and he lays his hands upon my head, and in that moment, just as the cameras are clicking, the man gets healed. Great headlines in the paper next day, visit of Naaman, remarkable miracle, and all this. Well, that was what he was thinking. Of course, he'd be, if he was a man before now, he'd be ten times that. So he got to the door, servant knocked. They waited, nothing happened.
Oh, there's a miserable little servant came to the door. Naaman, who are you? You haven't heard of me? Well, go and tell your master Naaman's here and he wants to be cured of the leprosy. Back comes a word through the servant. Oh, go tell him I'm washing the Jordan, seven times, if you will. He was absolutely livid. Stinking little drain of a Jordan. Do you think I'm going to go down in there? Who do you think I am? I deserve better treatment than this. Well, if it were coming for dipping in water and things like that, insulting and humiliating a man in front of his servants and everybody else, I got rivers better than that up in Damascus.
I could dip in if I took to dipping. He went away in a rage. How could you believe that was of God, to humiliate a man like that? It was of God, wasn't it? God doesn't despise our culture, or our achievements, or our education. When we've said all we can, we are blotched by sin, and the heart is corrupt. God's law declares that if we had our deserts, it would to be to be executed dead, buried.
Did it humiliate you the night you got baptized? Hope it did. You're saying that charming you deserve nothing but a grave. Isn't that true? You know, at the bottom of our gospel message, as we saw in our first talks, lies the judgment of God. We shall not come at the gospel of salvation unless, first of all, we accept the judgment of God. For all have sinned, field marshals and privates, and do come short of his glory and deserve only execution and a grave.
Well, the man was going home, and then the servants talked some sense into his head, and he repented, and he came back, and he dipped in Jordan seven times, and the miracle was done. His flesh became as that of a child. Ah, but that isn't the end of the story. He went home. Now see the man at his prayers, will you? Now see the man at his worship, and where is he? Pray, look what ground he's standing on. It's Israelite ground. It's a bit of land taken from the great inheritance, and the Gentile who once was a Gentile and no claim on the inheritance is standing upon a bit of the ground of the inheritance from the very land of Canaan.
He's standing there and worshiping the living God. Could a man get to higher heights in the Old Testament days? He can now, can't he? Or, my brother, have you been converted to Christ? You owned your depravity, you owned your guilt and rottenness, you owned that you had no ground to stand on before God. And all you deserved was execution, death, and burial, and you took that place. Oh, but now, now you've taken that place. See where God has raised you to and what ground you now stand on. Oh, how I'd like to see you at your prayers tonight, standing or kneeling, and have a look at the ground you're standing on.
What ground you're standing on, my brother? You come to God and say, do you know who I am, God? I am the Lord Mayor of Belfast. No, you don't do. That wouldn't be big enough. You come as a sinner saved by grace, standing on redemption ground. I'll tell you what more, standing on the ground that one day you'll stand on in heaven itself. Standing on a bit of the inheritance. You who were Gentiles and are far off and no claim to the great inheritance, but now by God's grace redeemed, and there's an inheritance reserved for you in heaven, incorruptible, that fadeth not away.
And yet the miracle is this very night, as you stand before God, you stand where Christ stands. Made to sit with Christ in heavenly places before the very majesty of eternal God. And the human mind could scarce conceive the immeasurable dignity and the glory of the ground on which the humblest believer stands.
