This post is a chapter from the book, Seeking the Cure, Finding the Christ, which is the book version of multiple sermons preached from 2022 to 2025. Since this book was meant to bless the church I am also making it available on this blog.

The King of Israel

Jehoram, the king of Israel,[1] is utterly unfamiliar with the workings of God in his kingdom. Perhaps this could be forgiven him if he and his army hadn’t just been saved from dying of dehydration in the wilderness of Edom by the intercession of Elisha the prophet. As though a massive spring of water in the desert weren’t easy enough for God, he went further to save Jehoram, his army, and his allies from the hand of the Moabites. Which is more difficult? To save a man from leprosy or an army out of the hand of the enemy into whom the Lord has given them?

They are both impossible, but with God nothing is impossible! Jehoram, despite the powerful lesson he had just received, failed to open his ears to the teaching of God. When confronted with Naaman’s leprosy and Ben-Hadad’s letter, he tore his clothes and lamented and was sure that this is some sort of trap to start (or continue) the war with Syria!

Jehoram is a hindrance to this journey that Naaman is on, so maybe we should just stop here. But if we stop the story here, then Naaman dies in his leprosy, the little girl is a liar, Naaman’s wife is full of vain confidence, and Ben-Hadad ventured for nothing.

The saying goes that God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick. There is more to Jehoram than meets the eyes, and he is not just a bad example, but he is a crooked stick. We can learn several things from him.

An Honest Self-Assessment

The first is that he was willing to admit his own shortcomings. “Am I God, to kill and to make alive?” Jehoram didn’t learn as much from his father’s sins as he should have, but he did learn that he couldn’t control God or be God. King Ahab–Jehoram’s late father–had four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and four hundred prophets of Asherah who thought they could bend the will of divinity to suit the will of men. If you know the story, you know those prophets of Baal were slaughtered on Mount Carmel by Elijah and the prophets of Asherah were pursued into hiding and slaughtered by Jehoshaphat, the previous king of Judah.

Jehoram learned by observation that he couldn’t make divine promises or force God’s will to his own service. He didn’t dare to go find a prophet of Baal or Asherah and make promises to Naaman; he had learned those false gods were not covenantal gods and were awful at fulfilling their promises or protecting their prophets. After all, if an idol could have healed Naaman, he might as well have stayed in Damascus and sought help from the statue of Rimmon. I don’t think anyone would be surprised if we found out that Naaman had already tried that.

We can learn a lot from Jehoram when he admits his own shortcomings and doesn’t promise things he cannot deliver. This may sound instinctive, but there is real humility here; many kings in history have elevated themselves to some state of deity or at least a super-human position and/or title. It was not uncommon for Caesars to accept worship, Nebuchadnezzar declared “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?” (Daniel 4:30).

Indeed, less than two hundred years later the people of Israel were seeking salvation, not from God, but from the king of Assyria: “When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his wound, then Ephraim went to Assyria, and sent to the great king. But he is not able to cure you or heal your wound” (Hosea 5:13).

Perhaps the most recent example was when Douglas MacArthur was closing the chapter on World War Two and required Emperor Hirohito of Japan to explicitly renounce his claim to divinity and declare his humanity.

We declare today, “Jesus is Lord” in direct defiance to the earlier declaration, “Caesar is Lord.” We have to give King Jehoram some credit that he admitted he was not God and could not do the things of God. I know some god wannabes who could learn a thing or two from him.

I was privileged a few years ago to train medical missionaries to share the gospel. There was a moment where they jokingly said that the best doctors in the world come in two sorts: 1) those that think they are God and 2) those who know they are not God.

Those that think they are God use their talents and energy to learn and apply as much as they absolutely can, and those who know they are not God do likewise with the addition that they rely on God’s wisdom and power through prayer rather than trusting and hoping in themselves. Ironically, the outcome on earth can be the same: skillfully healed people. But their outcomes in heaven are exactly the opposite.

The person healed by a doctor who has deified himself will be tempted to put their trust in the doctor and thereby preclude their hope from being in the living God. Martin Lloyd-Jones, a doctor turned preacher, observed that medical healing merely prolonged physical life, allowing people to go right back to sinning.

Consider if Naaman’s story happened today and you had Thalidomide, Rifampin, Clofazimine, and Dapsone handy (the multi-drugs used for fighting Hansen’s disease today), and you administered them to Naaman, his body would be healed, but his soul would still be as diseased as ever. Lloyd-Jones understood that the true need of his patients was an eternal healing of the soul, to put their trust in God rather than a doctor, and that’s why he left the medical field to become a pastor.

As a chaplain, I once had a young man approach me who knew I put a great emphasis on salvation. He was at the lowest point of his life–not knowing that an even lower point was just on the horizon–when he came to me in great despair. His question shocked me, “Chaplain, will you save me?”

I desperately want everyone to be saved; in fact while writing this I’m deep into a fast for the salvation of multiple loved ones, but I am utterly incapable of saving anyone. To paraphrase Paul: I can plant and I can water, but it is God who gives the growth. This is why God is everything and I am nothing (1 Corinthians 3:6–9), and why Christ must increase and I must decrease (John 3:30).

For all of the ways that Jehoram failed, he did not set himself up as the savior of Naaman.

Not a Glory Seeker

Had Jehoram desired the glory there are multiple ways he could have lied and taken the glory in this story. Jehoram could have assumed the role of prophet and waved his hand over the spot and declared the leper to be healed!

When Naaman invariably was not healed, Jehoram could have played the prosperity preacher and declared that the problem was neither God nor Jehoram, the problem was that Naaman did not have enough faith to be healed! Or his offering of the wealth of Ben-Hadad was not enough; he needed to bring more to sow the seed of faith that would lead to his healing. Or Jehoram could have declared that hidden sin in Naaman’s life was keeping him from receiving healing. The horrendous fact of accusing someone of “hidden sin” is that the prophet need not have any inclination of what the sin is, he only has to declare that it’s there!

Jehoram could have also promised all sorts of different cures, he could have gone to his local Pharmacist/Sorcerer and brought back a powder or a pill that claimed supernatural healing power. He could have called it an essential oil. He could have funded research into Hansen’s disease. He could have come up with a fanciful mud-bath or ritual cleansing or detox. He could have told Naaman he needed to eat more organic food and less dairy.

Would it have worked? No–but that’s beyond the point–giving false hope and generating superstition is as effective at turning sinners from the hope of the gospel as is claiming yourself to be the God who makes alive.

Jehoram could have also brokered the healing. There is a small chance that Elisha would have come if Jehoram had summoned him; and Jehoram should have known that Elisha was able to heal Naaman in the same way he had rescued Jehoram’s army in the desert by God’s intervention. If Jehoram had called Elisha and he had healed Naaman, then Jehoram could have claimed that he was a significant part in Naaman’s healing. Can you think of any priests or peddlers who claim that if you come through them that you can receive God’s blessings?

And we must not diminish the fact that kings are able to overstep their roles in the absence of a prophet. Earlier, Saul lost his kingdom for making a sacrifice in the stead of Samuel (1 Samuel 13:8–14). Later Uzziah would be struck by leprosy in the very act of thinking he could be a priest and a king (2 Chronicles 26:16–21).

We previously considered the saying, “I am not, but I know I AM.” I am not a healer, I am not a king, I am not a savior. I am glad I’m not a savior or a hope for anyone, but as a priest I can point people to the one who can save their souls. I’m just a nobody, trying to tell everybody, about somebody, who can save anybody.

If I could have saved that young man–mentioned earlier–would I have? If I had, I would have cut him off from the true Saviour, I would have set myself upon a pedestal that I have no business being on, and I would diminish the joy I have in seeing my disciples walking in the truth. I am not the way, the truth, or the life, and if I think for a moment that I am any of those things, or that people can come to the Father through me, then I have set myself in a very precarious place because God will not share his glory with anyone.

Thank God that Jehoram left the door open for Jesus of Nazareth–the perfect prophet, priest, and king–to be the way, the truth, and the life, and to prove that no one comes to the Father except through him (John 14:6). If you set yourself up as a savior, you very well might cut someone off from the one who would die to bring us healing and reconciliation with God, who secured his title as our Lord, our Saviour, and the King of kings.

Not a Hindrance to Salvation

To this living God did Naaman need to go, and Jehoram did not stand in the way. We have to see that Jehoram was willing to “let him come to [Elisha], that he may know that there is a prophet in Israel” (2 Kings 5:8).

Jehoram could have stood in the way of salvation by denouncing Elisha to Naaman, declaring him to be the troubler of Israel and Syria. Or Jehoram could have kept the message a secret so that Naaman would have returned to Syria dejected and doomed. Or Jehoram could have stated that God only saves Israelites and that a Syrian enemy was beyond redemption. Or he could have invoked the law, that leprosy had utterly cut Naaman off from any hope of ever being healed.

Beloved, please see that Jehoram didn’t do any of that: he allowed Naaman to go to Elisha. If Jehoram had refused, would God have gotten Naaman where he needed to go? Probably, but by the grace of God in their lives we don’t have to wonder about middle knowledge in this case, because Jehoram did the right thing.

Doing the right thing to help someone seek hope may also seem intuitive, but as of the writing of this book there are about fifty countries that have standing laws forbidding non-Christians from seeking Christ or Christians from proselytizing. We’ll consider more about the prophet Jonah later, but for now consider that Jonah would rather flee than have any chance of bringing God’s salvation and blessings to his enemies. Consider even Peter had to be rebuked for trying to make foreigners less foreign before they could be saved (Galatians 2:14).

Jehoram could have hindered Naaman in all sorts of ways at this point. But, for all of his failures, Jehoram did not stand in the way of Naaman seeking a cure.

Beloved, I hope you’ll never set yourself up as the savior or stand in the way of anyone’s salvation. Point to Jesus, declare “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29), make your message one of declaring that there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12)! Be like John the Baptist who confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, “I am Not the Christ” (John 1:20). Never consider that your writing or preaching or wisdom has more power than the Word of God to make people wise for salvation in Christ Jesus. There is great rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents and returns to the Father through the Son.

I have watched several of my personal evangelistic efforts reach fruition when someone other than myself has led a person to Christ. This was after I had planted and watered and tilled and sweated and strove over seeds for weeks and months. It was exhausting, and yet someone else was privileged to lead them to Christ.

Initially I was bitter that I was not the mid-wife in the rebirthing process at the moment that the Spirit quickened a dead soul and transferred them from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. But in retrospect I rejoice that I was just a messenger and that my Living Saviour gets all of the glory for his saving work! Truly, he must increase and I must decrease.

Just a week before writing this chapter a new convert told me that I was the only one who could make God’s Word make sense to him. Heaven forbid! It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh is no help at all! It is the Spirit who makes the Bible discernible to everyone to whom he chooses to reveal the truth. I hope he uses me to save many more lost souls, but I desperately hope that none of those sinners ever thinks I was anything special other than a faithful instrument in my redeemer’s hand.

Declare with George Whitefield,

Let the name of Whitefield perish, but Christ be glorified. Let my name die everywhere, let even my friends forget me, if by that means the cause of the blessed Jesus may be promoted.

Declare with Jehoram,

I am not God, I cannot heal or make alive!

But dear one! You have this advantage over Jehoram:

You know the God who can!

[1] Not to be confused with Jehoram the king of Judah who reigned concurrently.

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Wednesday, June 24, 2026