The Twisted Sovereignty of God, Conclusion
Continued from part 2
Naaman is God’s pawn against Israel. Now he is God’s toy. The instructions of Elisha infuriate him. Why wash in the Jordan when there is better water in Damascus? He refused to believe there could be salvation in anything associated with Israel. He had good reason to feel this way. Ever since Solomon, Israel has been a golden calf and Baal worshipping disaster. Their kings have been nothing like their captured little girls. Yet with some coaxing, Naaman complies, he washes in the Jordan. Just as Elisha, the man of God promised, he is healed. His skin is restored like the flesh of a “little child.” He is as clean as his captured little girl.
Naaman captured a little girl, but God used a little girl to capture Naaman. In order to bring salvation to the world, God sovereignly used a nasty human tragedy to bring a little girl who knew the source of salvation out of Israel, to a nasty man named Naaman. Like C.S. Lewis said, “Suffering is God’s megaphone.” The little captured girl used it and Naaman listened. Elisha saved Naaman’s skin. God saved his soul. He renounced the worship of Rimmon and vowed to worship no one but the God of Israel. If only Israel’s failing kings would do the same.
We live in a world full of nasty. Media is the megaphone of our leprosy. The symptoms of perversion are multiplying. In sin the soul loses its sovereignty. It becomes a war monger seeking relief. Yet there is a remnant, anomalies of a fallen planet. They respond differently when they suffer, they are defiant of sin’s bondage, they share good news. They do not wish death upon the nasty, as victimized as they may be, they seek their salvation. They see the terror of Naaman as the result of what he has heard as well as what he has not heard. The sages of Naaman’s soul called him to blood, so he drank. The voice of a little girl told him something that he had never heard, there is a true prophet in Israel. Naaman was saved.
The nasty must hear good news. Their life is the product of what they have heard. They need another voice. In His twisted sovereignty God uses tragic and odd circumstances to bring people to truth. He also uses people who defy the nasty to be His voice. If anyone had a right to succumb to nasty, it was the little girl that Naaman owned. Yet, she held to her faith and shared it with her captor. In the end, Naaman became like her, redeemed, and ironically, “restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.”
Naaman is God’s pawn against Israel. Now he is God’s toy. The instructions of Elisha infuriate him. Why wash in the Jordan when there is better water in Damascus? He refused to believe there could be salvation in anything associated with Israel. He had good reason to feel this way. Ever since Solomon, Israel has been a golden calf and Baal worshipping disaster. Their kings have been nothing like their captured little girls. Yet with some coaxing, Naaman complies, he washes in the Jordan. Just as Elisha, the man of God promised, he is healed. His skin is restored like the flesh of a “little child.” He is as clean as his captured little girl.
Naaman captured a little girl, but God used a little girl to capture Naaman. In order to bring salvation to the world, God sovereignly used a nasty human tragedy to bring a little girl who knew the source of salvation out of Israel, to a nasty man named Naaman. Like C.S. Lewis said, “Suffering is God’s megaphone.” The little captured girl used it and Naaman listened. Elisha saved Naaman’s skin. God saved his soul. He renounced the worship of Rimmon and vowed to worship no one but the God of Israel. If only Israel’s failing kings would do the same.
We live in a world full of nasty. Media is the megaphone of our leprosy. The symptoms of perversion are multiplying. In sin the soul loses its sovereignty. It becomes a war monger seeking relief. Yet there is a remnant, anomalies of a fallen planet. They respond differently when they suffer, they are defiant of sin’s bondage, they share good news. They do not wish death upon the nasty, as victimized as they may be, they seek their salvation. They see the terror of Naaman as the result of what he has heard as well as what he has not heard. The sages of Naaman’s soul called him to blood, so he drank. The voice of a little girl told him something that he had never heard, there is a true prophet in Israel. Naaman was saved.
The nasty must hear good news. Their life is the product of what they have heard. They need another voice. In His twisted sovereignty God uses tragic and odd circumstances to bring people to truth. He also uses people who defy the nasty to be His voice. If anyone had a right to succumb to nasty, it was the little girl that Naaman owned. Yet, she held to her faith and shared it with her captor. In the end, Naaman became like her, redeemed, and ironically, “restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.”
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