Naaman

During the days when Mohammed Ali was a great boxer, he would go around in his arrogance and say that, "He

was the greatest." Humility was never his strong suit. One day, back in his prime, he was on an airplane and the

plane was ready to take off and the flight attendant had repeatedly told him to put on his seat belt. He finally

told her, "I’m superman and superman don’t need no seatbelt." The flight attendant didn’t hesitate a minute but

shot back with, "Superman don’t need no airplane either, now buckle up."

A sailor once took a group of young people boating for the day. One young man bragged the whole way about

all he knew about the sea. Every time the sailor began to give instructions this young man would interrupt with

his supposed knowledge. After some time a squall blew up. The sailor began to hand out lifejackets. “Where’s

mine?” cried the know-it-all. “Don’t worry son,” replied the old sailor. “You don’t need a life jacket. With a

head as full of hot air as yours you will float forever!”

The lion was proud of his mastery of the animal kingdom. One day he decided to make sure all the other

animals knew he was the king of the jungle. He was so confident that he by-passed the smaller animals and

went straight to the bear. "Who is the king of the jungle?" the lion asked. The bear replied, "Why you are, of

course" The lion gave a mighty roar of approval. Next he asked the tiger, "Who is the king of the jungle?" The

tiger quickly responded, "Everyone knows that you are, mighty lion " Next on the list was the elephant. The lion

faced the elephant and addressed his question, "Who is the king of the jungle?" The elephant immediately

grabbed the lion with his trunk, whirled him around in the air five or six times and slammed him into a tree.

Then he pounded him onto the ground several times, dunked him under water in a nearby lake, and finally

dumped him out on the shore. The lion--beaten, bruised, and battered--struggled to his feet. He looked at the

elephant through sad and bloody eyes and said, "Look, just because you don’t know the answer is no reason for

to get mean about it!"

Naaman was a great general of the Syrian Army.

Listen to vs. 1 - host of the King of Syria

2 - Great man with his master

3 - Honourable

4 - delivered Syria from his foes under his commander skills

5 - Mighty man in valour

BUT he was a leper.

Isn’t it something how everything can be right about someone’s life but it

just takes one thing to mess things up.

Ill. - When my girls are playing - they’re happy, laughing, enjoying

themselves fully, but one wrong fall, or one wrong move and it breaks up

all of their fun. Instead of laughing, they are now crying.

Ill. - Just think about Majic Johnson of the L.A. Lakers. He was at the top of

his game. He had everything he wanted, then everything changes because

he makes wrong choices. Because of a little virus called H.I.V. gets into his

body.

Ill. Think about people all around us. I serve on the Henry County Chaplains

and I had a call a while back. A man had retired from his job. He had

bought a nice vehicle. It was a beautiful summer day. He was out washing

and waxing his pride and joy. When all of a sudden with no warning what so

ever his heart stops. He has a massive heart attack. Instant death, instant

eternity.

Think of all the lives that we are hearing about that has cancer now a days.

Isn’t life so precarious and so precious.

This Great General Naaman had the world under his control. He had

everything right where he wanted it. He was at the height of his career.

BUT there was this little disease that destroyed his body with nasty,

pusturous sores all over his body.

- When you had leprosy no one wanted to be around you, you were banned

from life. In fact, they had leprosy camps for all of those who were unclean.

I find it very sarcastically humorous that when everything is going well in

our life that we have no time for God. We don’t even acknowledge God. We

just live our life in whatever way we want.

That’s exactly what Naaman did. He had everything going for him. He was a

Syrian. The Syrians had their own gods. One was named Rimmon.

I wonder why he didn’t go to Rimmon for the healing of his leprosy. On the

other hand, I bet he had already tried everything including his false gods.