NO doubt every one of you, my young readers, has heard of the beautiful story in the fifth chapter of the Second Book of Kings, concerning Naaman, the Syrian, who was a leper.
Now, what I want you to notice is that, humanly speaking, it all came about through some words which were spoken by “a little maid,” who “waited on Naaman’s wife.”
This little maid was “brought away captive out of the land of Israel.” But she possessed a great secret in her little heart, for she knew there was a prophet in Samaria who not only could, but would, cure her mighty captor, if he were only with him there.
Out of the abundance, therefore, of her heart, the mouth spake, and she said to her mistress, “Would God my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria! for he would recover him of his leprosy.”
“A word spoken in due season, how good is it!” and this word proved to be a word in season for Naaman.
It is not my object to relate the story here but only to point out to those who already know and love the Lord Jesus, that God could and did use even “a little maid” for the carrying out of His purposes of love; and that He has recognized this little act, and caused it to be placed on record by including it in the narrative of this miracle of grace.
Now, this miracle is rendered all the more striking when it is remembered that of all the lepers that were in Israel in the days of Elisha the prophet (and the Lord Jesus has informed us that there were “many”), only one of them was cleansed, and that was Naaman.
A yet greater result, however, than even the healing, flowed from the words “spoken in due season” by the little maid, and that is the conversion to God of this captain of the hosts of the king of Syria; as well as the wonderful tale it told to the heathen around, of the goodness, and mercy, and power of Him concerning whom Naaman afterwards said,
“Behold, now I know there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel,” and “thy servant will henceforth offer neither burnt offering nor sacrifice unto other gods, but unto the Lord.”
But not until the coming glory, will the mighty results in all their fulness be seen and known. Then, shall be revealed the fact that during the last nineteen hundred years, many and many a sinner, from “every kindred and tongue and people and nation,” yea,
From Greenland’s icy mountains,
To India’s coral strand,
will have been turned from darkness to light through the preaching of the Gospel of God’s boundless grace, as illustrated by the story of Naaman the Syrian.
ML 07/24/1927