(2 Kings 5)
Naaman was a great man. He was the commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was famous throughout his country and feared by the armies of other countries. Because of his military victories, he was wealthy and respected. There was only one small problem with his life; he had the incurable disease of leprosy.
Doctors were unable to cure his sickness. There was no hope. He was doomed to be slowly eaten away by this feared horror, shunned by all his friends because of the contagious skin disease.
One day his wife came to him, “Honey, one of my slave girls told about a man who can heal you.”
“Which slave girl is that?” he growled at her.
“The little girl you captured in Israel and gave me as a present. She claims there is a prophet in Samaria who can cure you of leprosy.”
“How can anyone in that insignificant country cure me? Here we are far more advanced and none of our doctors can do a thing.”
His wife smiled at her husband, “At least give it a try, for my sake.”
So, Naaman found himself traveling to the house of the prophet Elisha. As he neared the town where Elisha lived, he imagined the prophet coming out of his house to honor him as a great commander. “Perhaps the prophet will wave his hand, dance up and down, and call upon his God to heal me,” thought Naaman.
Instead, Elisha sent his servant with a message for Naaman, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan River, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.”
Hopping mad, Naaman rode away in a fury. “We have cleaner rivers where I come from; why should I wash in the dirty little creeks of this country?” he asked his servants.
The servants humbly reminded him, “If Elisha had asked you to do a difficult task in order to be healed, would you have done it?”
“Yes,” he answered.
“Then, why don’t you obey him when he only asks you to wash yourself seven times?” the servants asked him.
Despite his misgivings, Naaman decided his servants were right. He changed into his bathing suit and began to wash in the river as the man of God had told him to do. The servants cringed at the sight of the ugly leprosy on his body.
He dipped in the water the first time and eagerly examined his skin. Nothing had changed. He dipped for the second time. No change. Three. “If this prophet is wrong, he’s going to lose his head,” he muttered to himself. Four. Nothing. Five times in the river. His skin was still diseased.
He dipped for the sixth time. His skin was exactly the same as when he had started. “I hope Elisha was right,” he whispered.
Naaman closed his eyes and dipped for the seventh and final time. When he came up out of the water, he could hear the shouts of his servants. Slowly he opened his eyes and looked at his arms. He was healed! All his flesh was restored. It looked like the skin of a new born baby.
Naaman went back to thank the prophet and vowed to worship the God of Israel. He returned to his own land as a missionary who fully believed in the healing power of Yahweh.
Power Points
- God responds to faith, not to need. Jesus said, “…there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed‑only Naaman the Syrian” (Luke 4:27). There are millions of people who are in desperate need of healing, yet God responds to those who have faith to believe for healing. Faith is the currency of the kingdom of heaven.
- Do not stop believing for your miracle right before it happens. Naaman was told to dip seven times. Absolutely nothing happened the first six times he dipped his body in the water. If he had stopped after the sixth dip, he would have died of leprosy. You may be doing everything you need to do to receive your healing, but you have not seen a manifestation yet. You could be on your sixth dip! Keep confessing the Word, planting seed, praying the prayer of faith, and believing God for your healing. Never give up hope. Do not stop believing right before receiving.
- God often heals sinners as a way to bring them into His kingdom. After Naaman was healed, he began worshiping the God of Israel. Experiencing God’s power is a “wake-up call” which causes many unbelievers to seek salvation.
Why do we need miracles? One of the primary purposes of miracles is to provide a witness for unbelievers. Leonard Ravenhill said, “We do not need a new definition of the gospel, we need a new demonstration of the gospel.” We need miracles because a miracle is worth a thousand sermons. There are a lot of ways to minister to people; you can feed them, love on them, and preach to them. But there is nothing like a miracle to bring a person to the Lord. Supernatural miracles prove the reality of God’s existence and spark faith in unbelievers.
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