I recently read about a pastor in Arkansas who lost his wife. She died as a result of a terminal disease. She had been struggling with that disease for the two years prior to her death. They finally came to a place about three months before she died where conventional medicine told them that there was nothing else they could do. There was no more hope.
This pastor was still clinging to the hope of a cure. So he decided to turn to what we would consider more unconventional means. He even went to Mexico and sought out a clinic where they had good results, but they wondered if they had waited too long. They proceeded with the treatments anyway, and it involved everything from eating shark cartilage to drinking tea made from the bark of a particular tree. They were desperate for a cure.
Tragically, for them. there was no cure, which makes it all the more amazing and incredible when we read this story. We see that here was a man .... the Stormin’ Norman Schwarzkopf of his day .... and he had a deadly disease. Yet, when offered a cure for that disease, he refused it. He walks off. We can’t help but ask ourselves, "Why? Why in the world would he refuse a cure for such a deadly disease?"
Preconceived Notions
Actually, Naaman was not a whole lot different from you or me. He was not a whole lot different from many people today in that Naaman desired to design his own cure. Naaman wanted his own cure. He had his own idea, his own plan, his own design in mind. He explained, as he pulled up to Elisha’s door with his entourage, that he couldn’t understand, first of all, why Elisha didn’t come out himself.
At least, he had in his mind that Elisha would come out and stand there, dressed in his best, flowing robes, perhaps with a lovely assistant at his side. Naaman thought Elisha should wave his arms in some dramatic gesture, while all the time reciting some magnificent incantation. Then Naaman would be healed. At least that would be something special. But to go and dip seven times in what amounted to a muddy creek, in our way of thinking, to go and do something so simple and humble as dipping in this little muddy river?
However, Naaman’s servant in verse 13 said, "My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it?"
You see that’s the issue here. In Naaman’s mind, it would take some great thing.
I mean, he did have his pride. Again, this is Stormin’ Naaman, the commander. In his pride in his own mind, he thought at least there would be something that Elisha would ask him to do .... maybe go out and kill a thousand of Israel’s enemies and bring their scalps back. He expected that Elisha would ask him to do something so great so that the greatness of the task would at least begin to balance out the terribleness of this disease or the greatness of such an act would, at least, begin to somewhat approximate the magnificence of a cure.
An Inconceivable Reality
But to go and dip seven times in this muddy, little river? In Naaman’s mind, that just sounded foolish. What if it didn’t work? How would he look then?
After all, Stormin’ Naaman had an image to protect. It was just too simple.
In another way, it seemed just too good to be true. It was such a little thing for this magnificent commander to do in exchange for something so awesome, so great.
We would have thought the same way, wouldn’t we? We would be just like that.
Why didn’t Elisha come out? He couldn’t have been a Southern prophet, could he?
Where’s the hospitality? Who does he think he is?
In the back of our minds, we have to wonder. This does sound just a little foolish, doesn’t it? Just imagine if you were to contract some deadly disease and someone comes up and says, "Hey, listen. There’s a doctor over in Dallas that has a cure for this." You race over there. You find the doctor, and you’re sitting there in the waiting room. He sends his nurse out to tell you to go out to the back where there’s a little tributary of the Trinity River.
He wants you to dip in it seven times, and you’ll be healed. You would almost wonder if you were healed, what other disease you would get just for stepping foot in the Trinity.
But it does sound too good to be true. Haven’t we been told all of our lives that if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is? In other words, it probably isn’t true. I will have to admit that I received something in the mail a few days ago that looked like a newspaper and the headline said, "Robert K. Joyce wins $10,000,000." I was about to toss it in the trash can, and this fleeting thought went through my mind, "What if...?"
This cure did seem like so little in exchange for so much, didn’t it? It just didn’t match up. So what’s the deal? What’s going on here? What is God up to?
See, Elisha doesn’t come out because he wants Naaman to understand beyond a shadow of a doubt that this cure is going to be an absolutely free gift from God. This is as a result of nothing else or no one else.
It Sounds Too Good To Be True, But...
Yes, it is a simple thing that he asks Naaman to do in exchange for such an awesome result. Yes, it does sound too good to be true, but it is true. It even sounds a bit foolish, at least, from man’s perspective, but from God’s perspective, it was a God-designed cure. God calls it grace, amazing grace.
Have you gotten to the point of grace in your life? The Bible tells us that we all have a deadly disease that the Bible calls sin. In Roman’s 6:23, we read, "For the wages of sin is death..." Sin is deadly because God is a holy, perfect and righteous God. Because of something we are born with, we are sinful people, and we re imperfect, unrighteous, and unholy. Therefore, sin is deadly because an imperfect, unrighteous, unholy person cannot spend eternity with a perfect, holy, righteous God. So we’re told we have a deadly disease called sin.
Yet, the Bible also tells us something very wonderful. Paul goes on to say, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." God offers us a cure. It is an absolutely free gift of a cure. He just asks one simple thing for us to do.
In John 6, we read there was a crowd of people around Jesus who were all wanting to know: "What are the works of God? What are the things that we’re supposed to do?" And Jesus said, "The work of God is this!" They were all on the edge of their seats. "What? What is it that we’ve been wondering that we must do?" Jesus said, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."
You are to believe, to place your faith and trust in Him and Him alone .... the Lord Jesus Christ. "....The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
It Sounds Like Too Little For So Much...
Yes, it’s a simple thing. To many, it sounds foolish, but that doesn’t take God by surprise. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1:18, "I know very well how foolish it sounds to those who are lost when they hear that Jesus died to save them. But we, who are saved, recognize this message as the very power of God." Then in verse 21, he goes on to say, "For God, in His wisdom, saw to it that the world would never find God through human brilliance. Then he stepped in and saved all those who believe this message preached which the world calls foolish and silly."
Yes, it seems to good to be true. Yes, it seems like so little in exchange for so much. You see, the whole idea of this free gift thing goes totally against the grain of our nature, doesn’t it?
All our lives, if we want to get good grades in school, we work for it.
If we want to get a good paycheck, we work for it.
If we want to get awards and rewards, we work for those.
If we want to get ahead in life, we work for it.
We’re taught from the time that we’re very young that anything that has value in life is something that we have to work for, something that we have to earn.
We tend to go through life sometimes, thinking that God has a quota system.
Now think about this logically. If God had a quota system, how would we know when we’ve done enough to meet that quota? How would we know when we’ve done enough works to meet His quota? There’s nowhere in God’s Word where He ever says what the quota is.
You see, not only is God holy, but the Bible tells us that God is love. If God loves us and has a quota, He would tell us what the quota is. He would shout from heaven, "The quota is five hundred thousand, four hundred and thirty-eight.
If you do five hundred thousand, four hundred and thirty eight good works, you’re in!"
But no, He shouts from heaven, "This is My Son. This is the cross upon which He died to pay the penalty for those sins. This is the grave from which He arose to pay. It’s been paid for. All that needs to be done has been done. All you need to do is that one simple thing, that one work of God....to believe, to place your faith and trust in Christ and Him alone."
Have You Gotten The Point of Grace?
That’s what the Bible calls grace. G-R-A-C-E ... God’s riches at Christ’s expense. Grace is the unmerited, undeserved, un-worked for gift of God to us who are hopelessly lost in the throes of the grip of that deadly disease of sin.
It is freely given.
Have you gotten the point of grace?
Naaman was cured but he still continued to wrestle with this matter of grace.
He still had trouble adjusting.
In 2 Kings 5:15, we read, "He stood before him and said, ’Now I know there is no God in all the world except in Israel. Please accept now a gift from your servant." It was over a million dollars worth of gold, silver, and goods. He’s calling it a gift, but really what he is wanting to do is to pay for this cure.
He still doesn’t get grace. He still doesn’t understand.
I have had numerous opportunities to visit with people and often, if I’m not sure about where they stand with God, I will ask them, "Do you know for sure you’re going to go to heaven when you die?" and when they say yes, I ask them, "How do you know for sure?" Often, they will say something to the effect, "Well, because I have tried to live a pretty good life."
It is often grievous for me to talk to someone about their loved one who has just passed away. And when I ask them that question, they will say, "Well, I know that God would not deny them a place, because they were so dear to me or they were so good."
You need to understand something. Just because you want to believe that they were saved and just because you can’t imagine that God would allow them to go to hell and just because they were good does not mean that they are in heaven. Unless they ever had a saving relationship with Jesus Christ and unless there was ever any evidence of a changed life, you need to understand that chances are, they never committed their life to Christ. Occasionally, as I have talked to people who have shared some idea like this I am able to share with them the Good News of the Gospel and watch as they pray to receive Christ and share with them 1 John 5:11-13. Then they know for sure that they are going to heaven because they have believed. They have placed their faith and trust in Christ and Him alone for their eternal life.
Have you gotten the point of grace? You mean it’s that simple? It’s that simple.
You mean it’s that easy? There was nothing easy at all about it. The cross was heavy, the blood was real, and the price was extravagant.
It would have bankrupted you or me, so he paid it for us. Call it simple.
Call it a gift. But don’t call it easy. Call it what it is. Call it grace.
