03.48. Naaman's Displeasure

Naaman’s Displeasure

"Naaman was wroth!" In a moment he feels himself insulted by the prophet’s message to him. His thoughts seem to have been, ‘This is too much! to make so long a journey, to spare neither labor nor pains, to be put off from one to another, and at length shifted to this contemptible expedient of going and washing in Jordan seven times! Truly it was worth while to travel so far into this land of wonders for such an experiment! What do they mean? do they suppose that the captain of Syria is to be thus trifled with?’ Thus is he incensed in his splendid chariot, as though he would again grasp the sword. He is deeply mortified; he believes himself, perhaps, intentionally deceived; his reflections goad him towards despair at seeing, as he supposes, all his hopes wrecked at the very mouth of the haven. The anger of this troubled warrior is a spectacle of itself. How unreasonable was it, and how dangerous to him who indulged it! It had almost turned him away, with the whole burden of his misery, from the threshold of recovery and health. And who were the objects of this his displeasure? Perhaps not even the little Israelitish maid was excepted; for her hint had proved to him, as it now seemed, a piece of mere fatuity. And what could he think of king Jehoram, who had sanctioned his application to Elisha? Or what of the citizens of Jericho, who had confirmed him in his vain, unsubstantial hopes? But, lastly, he was angry against the prophet himself, by whom he might regard himself insulted and mocked. And yet had Naaman persisted in these proud notions, so as to have returned in anger to Damascus without a cure, there to have fallen a victim to his terrible malady, whom would he really have had to blame but himself? The rod of destruction to all his hopes would have been made up of his own pride, his own presumption, his own preconceived opinion, his carnal mind. The remedy is before him. Why does he not accept and welcome it? Simply, because it is indicated to him in a different form from the one in which he expected to meet with it.

"Behold," he says, as the chariot is turning to depart, "I thought, he would have" done this and that. But if there is one thing in the world more pernicious than another, it is oftentimes that disposition which the expression "I thought," as here used by Naaman, betrays. Our great adversary easily avails himself of the high opinion we have of our own judgment, to construct out of it the most formidable barrier between sinners and their salvation. Many have gone so far as to yield to a certain conviction that they are sinners, but, at this point, their own suppositions will begin to intervene; the sum of all which is, that they arraign the oracles of God at the bar of their own shallow reason, and judge concerning Divine truths and commandments, as they would concerning the traditions and commandments of men. But what desperate temerity is it thus to venture upon the dread ocean of futurity, in the frail and treacherous bark of fleshly understanding! Upon a mere opinion will no prudent merchant venture his capital in any speculation. He must have some reasonable certainty respecting a favorable result. And yet to risk the happiness of the soul upon the doubtful security of an opinion, how easily is this done, and how lightly accounted of by many among us, though a fearful retribution will certainly one day overtake it! Those who at present will think independently of the word of God, will have a miserable recollection of it in that day when all their thoughts shall have "perished." It will be the misery of disappointed miscalculations. Imagine only the agony of their self-reproach, the soliloquy of their disappointment. ‘I thought it would be well with me after all. I thought that sin was not a thing of so much importance. I thought that God would forgive me. I thought that punishment in a future state was questionable: that what was believed concerning the devil was merely imaginary; and that strict notions about religion were but state contrivances. I thought that I was as likely to be right in my opinions as others in theirs; but, oh dreadful delusion! I find it now to be far otherwise, my own thoughts have fatally deceived me!’ And what was it that Naaman here thought? He had indulged narrow and haughty ideas of his own, the fallacy of which he soon experienced. "Behold," said he, "I thought, He will surely come out to me!" As if he had said, "A person of my rank does not every day stop at his door." He evidently expected deference to have been paid to his station and quality; and was chagrined at a reception which seemed to lower him down to the meanest common applicants. His high thoughts of himself encountered most unexpectedly a check and mortification; so that he at once shrunk aside with disgust into the conclusion that the prophet was destitute of power. This was a hasty conclusion indeed; hasty, indeed, and extraordinary, but not uncommon. What is the ordinary reception which a faithful preaching of the gospel meets with from the world? Is it any better than Naaman’s notions of Elisha at Jericho? The gospel, in respect of its faithful application to the conscience, knows no distinction of rank or station, of education or moral worth, but addresses itself to all, indiscriminately, as fallen children of Adam, born in sin, shapen in iniquity, unworthy of the least of God’s mercies, and at best but unprofitable servants. Thus it directs every one to depend for salvation on free grace alone. But on this very account does the world often reject and set it at nought; and why, but because their own thoughts of themselves are very different? Nevertheless, as the word of God is true, their thoughts of themselves are a perversion of all right thinking. And what else were the thoughts of this blind Syrian, who thus further expresses himself; "I thought he will stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper." Yes, there we have it! He had brought with him ideas, formed not from Divine truth, but from heathen falsehood; or to speak more plainly, from the natural imaginations of the corrupt heart of man. He had probably imagined that a kind of exorcism was to take place at once, by Elisha’s calling on the name of his (Elisha’s) supposed national and local god, with a solemn approach to the diseased man, and a mysterious waving of the hands over his sores and ulcers; with other such-like pomp of heathen ceremony. But now, when nothing of all this his expectation was realized, but every thing of a contrary and humiliating tendency, his hope of supernatural relief vanished at once. Like a man who thought himself imposed. on, and even insulted, he seemed to give his last hope to the winds. How pitiable was his delusion! Had he laid but his own opinions and prejudices for a moment aside, the very simplicity and absence of all show in Elisha’s procedure, would have led him to a very opposite conclusion, for it would have forced upon him the joyful conviction, "This man cannot possibly be a cloud without water; surely he must have the aid of Divine power; he is calmly confident of the issue of his message to me; he would not risk his high reputation by giving instructions so direct and unambiguous, as, ‘Go, and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean.’" But Naaman sits entrenched behind his own opinions, measuring what is Divine by an earthly standard, and little considering that what is merely human, calls for the aid of imposing circumstance and appendage, only because it is poor and insignificant in itself; while that which is Divine, being sufficiently great and important of itself, would seem more or less deteriorated by any addition of external garniture. Yet, how many are there who still participate in the wrong sentiments of Naaman! And as they hold his sentiments, so are they involved in his fate as uncured lepers, though, alas! in a much more melancholy degree. Their unblessed opinions bedim their vision with a servile covering of worldly elements, so that they blink in the very dominions of light and truth, and "grope in darkness at noon-day." Hence it is the same to them as if there existed no word of God; for their minds are perverted by notions utterly foreign to every Divine communication, and to all the Lord’s doings as set forth in those sacred writings, for the very style and tone of which they evince a cordial disrelish. As little do they recognize the great and glorious agency of the Most High in all the features of nature and of human affairs; forsooth because nothing of what they see, in the one or in the other, accords with their own preconceived notions of Divine interposition. Thus they practically disown the God of revelation, of providence, and even of nature itself; so that their own thoughts, opinions, and sentiments, go to destroy every thing that is great, divine, and blessed in the world, and to deify, on the other hand, a philosophy or a vulgar sentiment, that is as vain and worthless, as it is exteriorly imposing and plausible.

Therefore must all who would persuade themselves that they "have chosen the way of truth," be ever jealous of any imagination or opinion that tends to flatter the pride, vanity, or indolence, of our fallen nature. Preconceived opinion, as, for instance, respecting the humble manner in which the Christian revelation was first ushered into the world, is the nurse and mother of infidelity. The corrupt inclinations and self-flattering prejudices of mankind form the very pillars of Satan’s empire. By their means it is that he governs the world; while wherever men begin to question the infallibility of their own conceptions, there is his kingdom shaken. And if we proceed a little further, so as to become convinced, that the manner in which God should reveal himself to his sinful creatures, can be learned only from Himself, we are not far from the kingdom of God. For those who inherit that kingdom are of childlike docility; neither do they presume to understand before they have been instructed. But there are multitudes in our day, who deny truth to be truth, because they have determined what is truth, before they have become acquainted with it.