No Substitute for Obedience
2 Kings 5:1–18
So he went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God. 2 Kings 5:14

The thing that most honors God and that God most delights to honor is obedience. And it is to be an obedience to the end. I highlight this because of our frequent failure to continue on this path. I think of what must have happened after the Syrian general Naaman had been told by Elisha that he would be cured of his leprosy if he bathed in the Jordan River seven times. We know he did not like the idea, because he protested about the inferiority of the Jordan River to the rivers of his own country. “Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” Naaman asked (vv. 11–12).

It must have been a great trial to this proud general to wash in Jordan’s muddy waters seven times, and I can imagine him objecting to his servant who, in this story, had more spiritual sense than Naaman had. After he had bathed once, Naaman would have protested: “Look, I bathed in the river, but I am just as I was before. Nothing happened.”

“The prophet said you had to bathe seven times,” the servant would have answered.

After the second immersion, the protest would have been the same. There was not even the slightest hint that the method was working. Not a single spot had cleared up. The only difference was that the general was wet and muddy. So on after the third washing and the fourth and the fifth and the sixth. “Nothing is happening,” the angry Naaman would have declared.

“You’ve only dipped yourself in the water six times,” the servant would have said. “The prophet said seven.” It was only after the seventh washing, after total obedience to the very end, that “his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child” (v. 14).

We need to learn the lesson that Naaman the Syrian learned in the muddy Jordan River. Not only is there no substitute for obedience to God, there is no substitute for obedience in all particulars—to the very end. And when God does not act as quickly as we think he should or in precisely the way we are convinced he should act, we are still not justified in pulling back or adopting an alternative procedure. We need to listen to God and obey faithfully to the very end. When we do, then in God’s own time, the walls of Satan’s strongholds will tumble.

Taken from Come to the Waters by James Boice ISBN 9798887790954 used with permission from P&R Publishing, Phillipsburg NJ 08865

Scripture quotations are from the ESV (the Holy Bible English Standard Version) copyright 2001 by Crossway a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved.