Men of the Bible Part 5

"Mr. Moody," they say, "I will tell you what _I think;_ I will tell you _my opinion_."

In the 55th chapter of Isaiah it says that G.o.d's thoughts are not our thoughts, nor His ways our ways. And so it was with Naaman. In the first place, he thought a good big doctor's fee would do it all, and settle everything up. And besides that there was another thing he thought; he thought going to the king with his letters of introduction would do it. Yes, those were Naaman's first thoughts.

_I thought_. Exactly so. He turned away in rage and disappointment.

He thought the prophet would have come out to him very humble and very subservient, and

BID HIM DO SOME GREAT THINGS.

Instead of that, Elisha, who was perhaps busy writing, did not even come to the door or the window. He merely sent out the message:

"Tell him to dip seven times in the Jordan."

And away went Naaman, saying, _I thought, I thought, I thought_.

I have heard that tale so often that I am tired of it. Give it up, and take G.o.d's words, G.o.d's thoughts, G.o.d's ways. I never yet knew a man converted just in the time and manner he expected to be. I have heard people say, "Well, if ever I am converted, it won't be in a Methodist church; you won't catch me there." I never knew a man say that but, at last, if converted at all, it was in a Methodist church.

In Scotland a man was converted at one of our meetings--an employer.

He was very anxious that all his employees should be reached, and he used to send them one by one to the meetings. But there was one man that wouldn't come. We are all more or less troubled with stubbornness; and the moment this man found that his employer wanted him to go to the meetings he made up his mind he wouldn't go. If he was going to be converted, he said, he was going to be converted by some ordained minister; he was not going to any meeting that was conducted by Americans that were not ordained. He believed in conversion, but he was going to be

CONVERTED THE REGULAR WAY.

He believed in the regular Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and that was the place for him to be converted.

The employer tried every way he could to get him to attend the meetings, but he wouldn't come.

After we left that town and went away up to Inverness, the employer had some business up there, and he sent this employee to attend to it in the hope that he would attend some of our meetings.

One night as I was preaching on the banks of a river I happened to take this for my text: "I thought; I thought." I was trying to take men's thoughts up and to show the difference between their thoughts and G.o.d's thoughts. This man happened to be walking along the banks of the river. He saw a great crowd, and heard some one talking, and he wondered to himself what that man was talking about. He didn't know who was there, so he drew up to the crowd, and listened. He heard the sermon, and became convicted and converted right there.

Then he inquired who was the preacher, and he found out it was the very man that he said he would not hear--the man he disliked. The very man he had been talking against was the very man G.o.d used to convert him.

Whilst Naaman was thus wavering in his mind, and thinking on what was best to be done, one of his servants drew near and made a very sensible remark:

"My lord, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? How much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?"

There is a great deal of truth in that.

If Elisha had told him to go back to Syria on his hands and knees, one hundred and fifty miles, he would have done it and thought it was all right. If he had told him to go into some cave and stay there a year or two, he would have done it and thought it was all right. If he had told him that it was necessary to have some surgical operation performed, and that he had to go through all the torture incident to it, that would have suited him. Men like to have something to do about their salvation; they don't like to give up the idea that they can't do anything; that G.o.d must do it all. If you tell them to take bitter herbs every morning and every night for the next five years, they think that's all right, and if he had told Naaman to do that he would have done it. But to tell him merely to dip in the river Jordan seven times, why, it seemed absurd on the face of it! But this servant suggested to him that he had better go down to the Jordan and try the remedy, as it was

A VERY SIMPLE ONE.

Now, don't you see yourselves there? How many men there are who are waiting for some great thing; waiting for some sudden feeling to come stealing over them; waiting for some shock to come upon them.

That is not what the Lord wants. There is a man that I have talked to about his soul for a number of years, and the last time I had a talk with him, he said:

"Well, the thing hasn't struck me yet."

I said: "What?"

"Well," says he, "the thing hasn't struck me yet."

"Struck you; what do you mean?"

"Well," said he, "I go to church, and I hear you preach, and I hear other men preach, but the thing hasn't struck me yet; it strikes some people, but it hasn't struck me yet."

That was all that I could get out of him. There are a good many men who reason in that way. They have heard some young converts tell how light dawned upon them like the flash of a meteor; how they experienced a new sensation; and so they are waiting for something of the kind. But you can't find any place in Scripture where you are told to wait for anything of the kind. You are just to obey what G.o.d tells you to do, and let your feelings take care of themselves. I can't control my feelings. I can't make myself feel good and bad when I want to, but I can obey G.o.d. G.o.d gives me the power. He doesn't command me to do something and not give me the power to do it. With the command comes the power.

Now, Naaman could do what the prophet told him; he could go down to the Jordan, and he could dip seven times; and that is what the Lord had for him to do; and if we are going to get into the kingdom of G.o.d, right at the threshold of that kingdom we have to learn this doctrine of obedience, to do whatsoever He tells us.

I can fancy Naaman still reluctant to believe in it, saying, "Why, if there is such cleansing power in the waters of Jordan, would not every leper in Israel go down and dip in them, and be healed?"

"Well, but you know," urges the servant, "now that you have come a hundred and fifty miles, don't you think you had better do what he tells you? After all, you can but try it. He sends word distinctly, my lord, that your flesh shall come again as that of a little child."

Naaman accepts this word in season. His anger is cooling down. He has got over the first flush of his indignation. He says:

"Well, I think I might as well try it."

That was

THE STARTING-POINT OF HIS FAITH,

although still he thought it a foolish thing, and could not bring himself to believe that the result would be what the prophet had said.

At last Naaman's will was conquered, and he surrendered. When General Grant was besieging a town which was a stronghold of the Southern Confederacy, some of the officers sent word that they would leave the city if he would let them go with their men. But General Grant sent word:

"No, nothing but an unconditional surrender!"

Then they sent word that they would go if he would let them take their flag with them. But the answer was: "No, an unconditional surrender."

At last the beleagured walls were broken down, and the city entered, and then the enemy made a complete and unconditional surrender.

Well, it was so with Naaman; he got to that point when he was willing to obey, and the Scripture tell us, "To obey is better than to sacrifice."

G.o.d wants obedience. Naaman had to learn this lesson. There was no virtue, probably, in going down to the Jordan, any more than in obeying the voice of G.o.d. He had to obey the word, and

IN THE VERY ACT OF OBEDIENCE

he was blessed.

Look at those ten New Testament lepers who came to Christ. He said to them: "Go show yourselves to the priests."

"Well," they might have said, "what good is that going to do us?

Here we are all full of leprosy, and if we go and show ourselves to the priests they will order us back again into exile. That is not going to help us."

But those ten men started off, and did just what the Lord Jesus Christ told them to do, and in the very act of doing it they were blessed; their leprosy left them.

He said to that man that had the palsy, whom they brought to Him upon a bed: "Take up thy bed and walk."