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I. THE FORCE OF WORLDLY POSITION. Why all the interest displayed in his own country, and in Israel, concerning Naaman's disease? The first verse of this chapter explains it. "Now Naaman, captain of the host of Syria, was a great man," etc. Perhaps there were many men in his own district who were suffering from leprosy, yet little interest was felt in them. They would groan under their sufferings, and die unsympathised with and unhelped. But because this man's worldly position was high, kings worked, prophets were engaged, nations were excited for his cure. It has ever been a sad fact in our history that we magnify both the trims and the virtues of the grandees, and think but little of the griefs and graces of the lowly.

1. This fact indicates the lack of intelligence in popular sympathy. Reason teaches that the calamities of the wealthy have many mitigating circumstances, and therefore the greater sympathy should be towards the poor.

2. It indicates the lack of manliness in popular sympathy.

II. THE FORCE OF INDIVIDUAL INFLUENCE. The influence of this little slave girl should teach us three things.

1. The magnanimity of young natures.

2. The power of the humblest individual.

3. The dependence of the great upon the small.

III. THE FORCE OF SELF-PRESERVATION. The instinct of self-preservation is one of the strongest in human nature. "Skin for skin; all that a man hath will he give in exchange for his life." Men will spend fortunes and traverse continents in order to rid themselves of disease and prolong life. This strenuous effort for recovery from disease reminds us oral. The value of physical health. This man had lost it, and what was the world to him without it? Bishop Hall truly says of him, "The basest slave in Syria would not change skins with him."

2. The neglect of spiritual health.

IV. THE FORCE OF CASTE-FEELING. "And the King of Syria said, Go to; go, and I will send a letter to the King of Israel." He, forsooth, was too great to know a prophet — too great to correspond with any one but a king.

1. Caste-feeling sinks the real in the adventitious. The man who is ruled by it so exaggerates externalisms as to lose sight of those elements of moral character which constitute the dignity and determine the destiny of man. He lives in bubbles.

2. Caste-feeling curtails the region of human sympathies. He who is controlled by this feeling, has the circle of his sympathies limited not only to the outward of man, but to the outward of those only in his own sphere. All outlying his grade and class are nothing to him.

3. It antagonises the Gospel. Christ came to destroy that middle wall of partition that divides men into classes. The Gospel overtops all adventitious distinctions, and directs its doctrines, and offers its provisions to man as man.

V. THE FORCE OF GUILTY SUSPICION. "And it came to pass when the King of Israel had read the letter, that he rent his clothes, and said, Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man doth send unto me to recover a man of his leprosy? Wherefore, consider, I pray you, and see how he seeketh a quarrel against me?" The construction that the monarch put upon the message of his royal brother was, instead of being true and liberal, the most false and ungenerous. Where this suspicion exists, one of the two, if not the two following things, are always found.

1. A knowledge of the depravity of society. The suspicious man has frequently learnt, either from observation, testimony, or experience, or all these, that there is such an amount of falsehood, and dishonesty in society, as will lead one man to take an undue advantage of another.

2. The existence of evil in himself. The suspicious man knows that he is selfish, false, dishonest, unchaste, and he believes that all men are the same.

VI. THE FORCE OF REMEDIAL GOODNESS. Though the king could not cure, there was a remedial power m Israel equal to this emergency. That power, infinite goodness delegated to Elisha. The passage suggests several points concerning this remedial power.

1. It transcends natural power. "When Elisha, the man of God, had heard that the King of Israel had rent his clothes,... he sent to the king, saying, Wherefore hast thou rent thy clothes? let him come now to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel." The monarch felt his utter insufficiency to effect the cure. Natural science knew nothing of means to heal the leper.

2. It offends human pride.

3. It clashes with popular prejudice. "Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them and be clean?"

4. It works by simple means.

5. It demands individual effort. "Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God." Naaman had to go down himself to the river, and to dip himself seven times in its waters.

6. It is completely efficacious. "His flesh came again like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean."

VII. THE FORCE OF A NEW CONVICTION. Observe —

1. The subject of the new conviction. What was the subject? That the God of Israel was the only God. He felt that it was God's hand that healed him.

2. The developments of this new conviction. A conviction like this must prove influential in some way or other. Abstract ideas may lie dormant in the mind, but convictions are ever operative. What did it do in Naaman?

(1) It evoked gratitude. Standing with all his company before the prophet, he avowed his gratitude "Now therefore, I pray thee, take a blessing of thy servant.

(2) It annihilated an old prejudice. Just before his cure he despised Judaea. Jordan was contemptible as compared with the rivers of Damascus. But now the very ground seems holy. He asks of the prophet liberty to take away a portion of the earth.

(3) It inspired worship. Thy servant will henceforth offer neither burnt-offering nor sacrifice, but unto the Lord."

VIII. THE FORCE OF ASSOCIATES.

IX. THE FORCE OF SORDID AVARICE. Gehazi is the illustration of this in his conduct as described in vers. 20-22. In his case we have avarice —

1. Eager in its pursuits.

2. This avarice is in one associated with the most generous of men. He was the servant of Elisha.

3. This avarice sought its end by means of falsehood.

X. THE FORCE OF RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE. There is justice on this earth as well as remedial goodness, and Heaven often makes man the organ as well as the subject of both. Elisha, who had the remedial power, had also the retributive. Here we see retributive justice in —

1. Detecting the wrongdoer.

2. Reproving the wrongdoer.

3. It punishes the wrongdoer.

(Homilist.)

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KJV: Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master, and honourable, because by him the LORD had given deliverance unto Syria: he was also a mighty man in valour, but he was a leper.

WEB: Now Naaman, captain of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master, and honorable, because by him Yahweh had given victory to Syria: he was also a mighty man of valor, [but he was] a leper.