Hello . . . . Naaman

Now Naaman, captain of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man with his master, and highly respected, because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram.  The man was also a valiant warrior, but he was a leper… . [The king of Aram sent a letter to the king of Israel.]  He brought the letter to the king of Israel, saying, “And now as this letter comes to you, behold, I have sent Naaman my servant to you, that you might cure him of his leprosy.”  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 is sending word to me to cure this man of his leprosy?  But consider now, and see how he is seeking a quarrel against me.

It happened when Elisha, the man of God, heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, that he sent word to the king, saying, “Why have you torn your clothes?  Now let him come to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel.”  So Naaman came with his horses and his chariots and stood at the doorway of the house of Elisha.  Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh will be restored to you and you will be clean.”

But Naaman was furious 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 wave his hand over the place and cure the leper.  Are not Abanah 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.  (2 Kings 5.1-13, NASB)

Recently, I spent some time on another blog site addressing questions about “Word of Faith” doctrine and the Lakeland revival.  One of the posters had mixed several ministers together, shaken them all up, threw them against the wall, and said, “that’s Word of Faith for you.”  I don’t consider myself to be a Word of Faith defender, due in part to the fact that I disdain labels, but I thought the guy needed some help to separate some of the ying from the yang (I also writing for the comment readers).

After a number of comments, I came to the lamentable conclusion that Naaman was not some idiosyncratic personality.  In fact, Naaman’s response to Elisha in 2 Kings seems to be the rule of today.

As the account shows, Naaman had been used by the Lord, but he had contracted leprosy - a hideous disease that was associated with the worst of society back in those days.  Sent by his king to Israel, he receives word to go to Elisha to be healed.  He arrives at Elisha’s casa with all the appurtenances of a highly respected warrior, but Elisha doesn’t come to the door to meet him.  Instead Elisha’s servant tells him to wash in the Jordan seven times and he’ll be healed.

Hearing that, you’d think Naaman would be ecstatic.  All he has to do is dip in the Jordan and he’d become completely free of his dreaded disease and he might even find a girl.

He’s anything but ecstatic.  He’s mad that Elisha didn’t come to greet him.  He’s mad that Elisha didn’t pray over him.  He’s mad that Elisha didn’t lay his hands on him like he had others.  He’s mad about the Jordan river.  He’s mad about everything.  He’s so mad, in fact, that he storms away from Elisha’s house in a rage.

In today’s churchy world, we have Naamans all over the place.  If healing is in redemption, then how come I’m still like this?!?  “According to my faith - who are you to criticize my faith?!?  What do you mean I should go see that preacher?!?  Are you saying that I have to travel 500 miles just to hear some preacher so God can heal me?!?  God’s used me for this and for that, and now I need to do what?!?  Who do you think you are telling me that?!?  Well, my second cousin four times removed prayed and he didn’t get anything - you tell me why!!!  Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Granted, there are many preachers who preach healing in redemption who are not well-schooled in the scriptures, but there is also a marked difference between the testimonies of yesteryear’s healed and the Naaman hubbub so prevalent today.

In his book, The Meaning of Faith & The Sick are Healed, Charles Price offers the testimony of Mrs. Louis Johnston, who had been a victim of a combination of rheumatism and neuritis that left her in excruciating pain day and night for over ten years.  Here are pertinent parts of her testimony:

Although the greater part of my ten years’ illness I was in bed, yet at intervals during the last seven years I was able to sit in a chair.  My husband carried me wherever I had to be taken and when that became too hard on him we got two crutches but I never got well enough to use both of them, for my [legs] were too helpless.  The lower part of my back was painful also.

Sometimes, when my husband would not be in the house to carry me, I would slide down off my chair onto the floor, and crawl to where I wanted to go.  Oh no, I couldn’t creep like a little child, but just sat on the floor, and with my two hands a little behind me, I would shove myself.  It was a very painful piece of moving, and my hands became very sore, with hard calloused lumps on them.  Both [legs] became very small and the right one got to be only about three-fourths the size of the left.

. . .

How well I remember the evangelist’s message the first night, how he told us that, ‘He is able, He is willing and He will,’ both for soul and body.  ‘Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God,’ and as I listened to the clear and powerful exposition of God’s Word, as declared by the Lord’s faithful servant Dr. Price, every bit of my very being did hunger for more of Jesus.  It was Jesus, whom the evangelist exalted; Jesus, who was lifted up to draw all to Him.  As I looked and beheld the blessed Christ of Galilee, I was indeed drawn to Him, and lost sight of the evangelist almost entirely.

During my ten years’ illness, my husband and I had prayed, oh yes, we prayed often, that the Lord would bless the means we were using to make me well.  Truly we shed many bitter tears over my hopeless condition.  We were members of the Methodist Church, and had both been brought up in Christian homes.  Up to the time of our hearing God’s Word given out in such a real and living way in those meetings, we were led to believe that the age of healing through prayer was over, and that all we poor sick and afflicted ones could do was to wait patiently until we would be called home.

God was now opening His Word to use in [a] larger way in these meetings and as He removed the scales from our eyes, we saw that the healing stripes that Jesus bore on the cross for the healing of our bodies, were just as real, as the cleansing blood He shed for the remission of our sins.

. . .

[After four days of meetings]  Just then the Lord gave me such a precious vision of the straight and narrow way - a vision that has stayed with me ever since, for He showed me that the narrow way was the way in which I must walk.  At this time the evangelist obeyed the command in God’s Word, James 5.14, and offered prayer for the healing of my body, after which, I then sat upon the bench.  Someone offered to get my crutch, as the time had now come to leave the building, but I said, “No.  I do not need any crutch tonight.”  Then my husband went to lift me up, but I said, “No” again.

. . .

To this day, I do not know how I arose to my feet, but Jesus gave me the faith to try, and then He did the rest.  Up to that very moment, the pain was just as severe, (many times during the meetings I could not keep the tears back, for the pain was so hard to bear), but the very instant that I was on my feet, I had not an ache nor a pain… . My poor twisted [leg] became straight, and both [legs] received power to walk immediately, and I walked alone, with Jesus, unaided by any earthly help whatever… .

Ms. Johnston was not a modern Naaman.  She didn’t fly off into a rage about being in excruciating pain throughout four days of meetings.  She didn’t complain about the preacher’s sermons or that he didn’t pray over her the first three nights.  She didn’t question “God’s timing” or criticize the Lord for not answering her previous prayers.  She received her healing the New Testament way: she set herself to hear the words of “spirit” and “life” of Jesus’s redemption and when that Word germinated within her, she received her healing.

We would do well to follow her example, instead of Naaman’s.

[Note:

Naaman finally did receive his healing when Elisha’s servant caught up with him and said, “Hey Naaman, you really don’t have anything to lose by dipping in the Jordan.”  Naaman did so and was cleansed.

Today there is much criticism of the “Word of Faith” message, but Mrs. Johnston’s testimony is a wonderful example of the doctrine in action.  She set herself to hear the message of healing - not just once or twice, but until it germinated within her.  Once the seed of the Word germinated, she knew she didn’t need her crutches even though she had no physical evidence of healing and she was still in excruciating pain.  She knew she was healed - a spiritual knowledge beyond the ordinary.

Charles Price would enter a city and “preach until the heavens opened.”  What he did was preach until the Word germinated in the hearts of his hearers.  Most of today’s Word of Faith preachers have missed the fact that it is a living Word that must germinate in the soil of the human heart before it bears healing fruit.]

Tagged as: Healing, redemption