2 Kings 5:1-14: Wash and be Clean (Includes a Similar Story of a Modern-Day Healing)

2 Kings 5:1-14: Wash and be Clean (Includes a Similar Story of a Modern-Day Healing)

God heals a king's captain named Naaman of leprosy.  However, this does not happen instantaneously, and when Naaman is given instructions from Elisha to wash in the Jordan River seven times in order to be healed, Naaman becomes angry because he is not immediately healed, and thinks the Jordan River is not as nice as the other rivers.  Yet his servants convince him to do as Elisha recommends.  

God humbled Naaman and when the captain was willing to submit to God's ways, he was healed.  

Let me now tell you another true story that reminds me of Naaman, this one from approximately forty-five years ago.  

My husband Mel lost his father when he was only 11 years old, but this story is about his mother Marie, who was diabetic.  Throughout the rest of her life, she suffered various ailments from complications with diabetes including problems with her eyesight.  By around 1980 Marie was legally blind and the doctors told her that she would eventually lose all of her eyesight.  Everything and everyone were a blur to her.  Everyone that is except one person.  For some reason whenever she saw her pastor, Bob Mixon, his face was as clear as it had been before her sight began to fail.

One day after church Pastor Mixon was praying for her, and he told her that God was willing to heal her, but she had to obey God's instructions.  She had to anoint both of her eyelids with oil seven days in a row, and then her eyesight would be restored.

Marie and her late husband Paul had been pastors and evangelists, and God had blessed them with a wonderful healing ministry where they saw many mighty miracles.  So, although this seemed like an unusual request from the Lord, she fully believed the pastor heard from God, and she obeyed. 

Seven days in a row she anointed her eyelids with oil, and on the seventh day, when she opened her eyes, her vision had been 100% restored.  Colors were crisp and clear, and nothing was even a tiny bit blurry.  She had obeyed God's command, and she was healed.  

Throughout the rest of her life she suffered other health issues as most of us do, but she always had perfect vision until she went home to be with Jesus at the age of 72. 

There is a great lesson we can all learn from both Naaman and Marie about obedience and humility for our own physical, and even mental and spiritual healing.

Marie was a Godly woman who loved Jesus with all her heart. What she had was not empty religion, but she had a close relationship with God.  She fully understood the power of Jesus Christ and obeyed His ways.  Now that Marie is in perfection in Heaven, she understands what our earthly minds cannot comprehend, and she now knows why God chose an unusual method similar to Naaman's to heal her eyes. 

Now that we live under a New Covenant, the blood of Jesus has washed us clean of sin, but we must keep our lives free of habitual sins to stay clean.  Quite often habitual sins can block God's healing, including healing of the mind such as depression. 

When God gives us instruction on what we need to do to be healed, do we also complain and let our ego get in the way as Naaman did or refuse to do what He asks of us?  Or are we like Marie and say with a contrite heart, "Whatever you ask of me, Jesus, I will do it,"?     

(James 4:6-10) Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the HUMBLE. SUBMIT YOURSELVES therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. CLEANSE your hands, ye sinners; and PURIFY your hearts, ye double minded... let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.  HUMBLE yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.

God may promise to help you but only if you first submit to His will, only then will the devil flee from you.  If you are stubbornly living for the world and refusing to let go of false religions and/or sinful behaviors you know go against what the Bible teaches, you have no right to complain when healings don't seem to come.  

What sins does God want you to give up?  When in doubt, do not rely on what anyone else tells you, but read your Bible (see also Matthew 19:16-21):  

(Galatians 5:18-21) But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. 

(Revelation 21:7-8) He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

We live in a fallen world which causes sickness to exist and living a right life does not automatically mean you will never be sick or that you will always be healed.  People who believe this end up hating God when they are sick.  Which is silly because Jesus said in John 16:33 that we would have tribulations. So, getting anything from the flu to cancer can just be the result of living on this corrupt planet.

Sometimes God allows sickness to bring Him glory.  (2 Corinthians 12:9-10 - And He said unto me, "My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness." Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.) 

However, when we obey the Lord, and pray for healing, and then actually have the faith that God will do exactly as He says He will do (see Matthew 9:22, Mark 5:34, Mark 10:52, Luke 8:48, & Luke 17:19), you too can have victory in Jesus for physical, mental, and spiritual healing. 

I think we all know when we are purposefully refusing to do what we know is right in the eyes of Jesus Christ.  He is more likely to answer your prayers (James 5:16 - The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth [help or benefit] much.) when you are obedient to washing yourself free of the sins you know He hates. So go, wash yourself of sin so you can be clean, healed, and whole.  

(2 Kings 5:1-14) 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...

So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha. And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, "Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean."

But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, "Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean?" So he turned and went away in a rage.

And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, "My father, 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?"

Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.