ELISHA AND NAAMAN.

(2 Kings v:1-14.)

I. The Analysis.

1. The Fatal Word of Three Letters (verse 1).—If we could see as God sees we should say that the most fortunate man on earth is the most unfortunate if his sin has never been taken away.

2. The Faithful Witness (verses 2-4).—There is something touching both in the courage and compassion of this little captive maid. She was the victim of a great wrong, but free from resentment.

3. The Reasoning of the Flesh (verses 5-7).—See "The Heart of the Lesson."

4. The True Remedy (verses 8-14).—See "The Heart of the Lesson."

5. The Peril of Naaman from Three Enemies (verses 11, 12).—See "The Heart of the Lesson."

II. The Heart of the Lesson.

The story of Naaman has been the theme of countless Gospel sermons, and rightly so, for it is packed with Gospel analogies. These group about, or grow out of, certain significant words or phrases. The first of these is that little "but" which mocked all the good fortune of Naaman and shut the sunshine out of his life. Everything favored him "but"—. He was captain of the host—"but." He was a great man and honorable—"but." Mighty was he in valor —"but." He was even a man whom the Lord had used providentially—"but he was a leper."

That little qualifying word of three letters nullified all the great swelling words in which his state and prosperity were described.

The writer, in years agone, had a friend whom the world envied. He was stately of stature, great of intellect, clean, brave, successful. He had a beautiful young wife whom he idolized. One day his doctor met him on the court house steps. "I do not like your color; come at once to see me." The next day he passed two hours with three physicians in consultation. At the end they said: "Set your house in order; you have three months of life at farthest." The world envied him—"but."

And so one might go through this lesson, finding in all the pivotal words wonderful Gospel analogies.

But we are concerned with the heart of the lesson and that seems to lie in the fact that Naaman came so perilously near to missing his healing. With a perfect knowledge of the conditions which, once met, made his recovery sure, he actually "turned and went away in a rage."

Three enemies of Naaman's, all pampered and nourished by him as his dearest friends, came near to accomplishing his destruction that day. They were all within his own heart, as they are within the heart of every one of us.

The first enemy was Pride. In the very outset Pride began to work. Pride said: "You are a great man; go on this journey in state. Impress this prophet with the fact that he has no common leper to deal with. Then Pride was ready to suggest an affront because the prophet did not come out to so distinguished and celebrated a leper.

The second enemy was Preconception. "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? Naaman had a preconceived opinion or plan concerning the manner of his healing. Thousands of sinners have, often unconsciously no doubt, a plan about their conversion. Appealed to in a quiet conversation, or in a quiet meeting, to make an instant decision for Christ, they draw back—"Not now, not this way."

And the third of Naaman's enemies that day was Prejudice. "Jordan?" said Prejudice, "Wash in Jordan?" The rivers of Damascus are better. Suppose Spurgeon, Baptist born and Baptist bred, had said to the Spirit that stormy morning in the Primitive Methodist chapel, "What a Spurgeon converted in a Methodist chapel? Never!" How the current of his life, of uncounted thousands of lives, might have been changed. It is awful to die without Christ in an African jungle, but to turn away from the Gospel in a land of Bibles and churches, oh, this is more unspeakably tragic.