I KNOW.
There is no hesitation about it, no qualifying the expression. Naaman doesn’t now say, “I think”; no, he says, “I know there is a God who has power to forgive sins and to cleanse the leprosy.”
Then there is another thought. Naaman left only one thing in Samaria, and that was his sin, his leprosy; and the only thing God wishes you to leave with Him is your sin. And yet it is the only thing you seem not to care about giving up. “Oh,” you say, “I love leprosy, it is so delightful, I can’t give it up; I know God wants it, that He may make me clean. But I can’t give it up.” Why, what downright madness it is for you to love leprosy; and yet that is your condition. “Ah, but,” says some one, “I don’t believe in sudden conversions.” Don’t you? Well, how long did it take Naaman to be cured? The seventh time he went down, away went the leprosy. Read the great conversions recorded in the Bible. Saul of Tarsus, Zacchæus, and a host of others; how long did it take the Lord to bring them about? Why, they were effected in a minute. We are born in iniquity, shapen in it, dead in trespasses and sin; but when spiritual life comes it comes in a moment, and we are free both from sin and death.
The other day, as I was walking down the street, I heard some people laughing and talking aloud, and one of them said, “Well, there will be no difference, it will be all the same a hundred years hence.” And the thought flashed across my mind, “Will there be no difference?