The Mission and Miracles of Elisha - Part Four

Extract

The Mission and Miracles of Elisha – Part Four
A. W. Pink

11. The Tenth Miracle
The healing of Naaman is the best known one of all the wonders wrought through Elisha, for it has been made the subject of numerous sermons in the past, supplying as it does a very striking typical picture of salvation. Not in all its varied aspects—for salvation is many-sided—but as portraying the condition of him who is made its subject, his dire need because of the terrible malady of which he was the victim, the sovereign grace which met with him, the requirements he had to comply with, his self-will therein, and how his reluctance was overcome. Yet there is not a little in this incident which is offensive to our supercilious age, inclining present-day preachers to leave it alone, so that much that has been said about it in the past will be more or less new unto the present generation. As it has pleased the Holy Spirit to enter into much more detail upon the attendant circumstances of this miracle, this will require us to give it a fuller consideration. It is their typical import which renders the Old Testament Scriptures of such interest to us upon whom the ends of the ages are come: “For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning” (Rom. 15:4). That which is set before us more abstractly in the epistles is rendered simpler of understanding by means of the concrete and personal illustrations supplied under the previous dispensations, when figures and symbols were employed more freely. Noah and his family in the ark preserved from the flood which swept away the world of the ungodly, the Hebrews finding security under the blood of the Pascal lamb when the angel of death slew all the firstborn of the Egyptians, healing being conveyed by faith’s look at the brazen serpent on the pole, the cities of refuge affording asylum to the manslayer who fled thither for refuge from the avenger of blood, …