Naaman the Leper — Charles Alexander

Naaman's Leprosy and God's Deliverance Through a Man

Kings chapter 5 and verse 1. Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and honorable, because by him the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria. He was also a mighty man in valor, but he was a leper, a foolish monarch at one time of the name of George III, who might overloot Syria from a very, very defective and rapidly degenerating memory that would whim it.

He was very soon reminded of George III as soon as the service was over. Well, I'm glad at any rate of this token that I am listened to critically, and I hope that it will ever be so. Mind you, I can say in extenuation that George III is a right good monarch not to think about.

His reign is well worth forgetting, I should think, as far as he himself personally was concerned. But still, there was no excuse, was there? I shall never forget now that there were three reigns. The matter arose, of course, over the fact that Solomon had reigned 40 years.

The Length of Reigns and the Uncertainty of History

I was remarking that it was not a very frequent occurrence for people to reign so long as that, nor is it. If the world goes long enough, we might well be living in a reign now which will last, please God, that length of time.

For her present majesty came to the throne very young indeed, and she lives out the allotted span, and she certainly will be one of the longest-reigned monarchs. That's looking very far ahead, isn't it?

Remembering the Leaders of a Previous Generation

It's an occasion, perhaps a special reference to the passing of this. They were so young at that time that they have little or no recollection of these men, which seems rather strange to us older people.

We don't realize, do we? I'm speaking now to the older ones. We don't realize what a great length of time has passed since 1945. A long, long time, you know. I must be very careful with my arithmetic.

It will be 20 years this year, of course. I nearly said 19. I suppose my arithmetic is worse even than my history. But there it is, 20 years is a longer time, and some of our young people present, quite a number of them, can number up in birthdays.

Some of those who can, well, they say, well, so long ago, it was so early in my life that I have no clear recollection. It doesn't mean a thing to me anyway. Just like the Boer War or the Crimean War mean to some of us.

Those of us who have lived through two world wars know something, I think. Those who lived in Napoleonic times, in the name of the famous George III that we've been referring to, by the way, remember that great young, or have great recollections of that great young Prime Minister of England, William Pitt the Younger, intervenes in human affairs, scale certain individuals, alteration, deliverance, deliverance, statements in the Old Testament, that they had been delivered by the intervention of God through a particular man, largely taken up with the history of God's people, not of the heathen.

Naaman and Divine Intervention in the History of Nations

The heathen only come into it according as their history impinges upon ours. This was one of the occasions. Syria was a neighbour, enabled by the wise leadership of the King in deliverance unto his country, and because of that, he was fairly honoured.

Admiral Nelson as an Instrument of Providential Deliverance

His deliverance was, on the human level, that is the case. He had himself in nuclear operations or in the Waterloo campaign, who studied his life in the field of Waterloo, the scene of his last and greatest triumph.

He was appealed to by his officers, so much to hone down. Every member of his was the only in deliverance of this man, and God turned aside all danger, suffered it not. He slitten down with his campaign, demanded man to bring deliverance, not only to this country, but to the world.

Peril, Providence, and the Appointed Day of Death

An immense peril, similar to the one through which we went forth to his death. He knew that it was his appointed day. Captain Hardy and two others, he says, I shall not be touched up and down with Hardy at the high ponds, so that the French sharpshooters in the fighting tops, as to their mark, they knew their man.

They pleaded with him in his Scottish uniform.