“Why, that man has gone clean out of his mind!”
When he comes up the sixth time, he looks at himself, and says:
“Ah, no better! What a fool I have made of myself! How they will all laugh at me! I wouldn’t have the generals and aristocracy of Damascus know that I have been dipping in this way in Jordan for all the world. However, as I have gone so far, I’ll make the seventh plunge.”
He has not altogether lost faith, and down he goes the seventh time, and comes up again. He looks at himself, and shouts aloud for joy.
“Lo, I am well! My leprosy is all gone, all gone! My flesh has come again as that of a little child.”
If one speck of leprosy had remained, it would have been a reflection on God.
Ask him now how he feels.
“Feel? I feel that this is the happiest day of my life. I thought when I won a great victory upon the battlefield that that was the most joyful day of my life; I thought I should never be so happy again; but that wasn’t anything; it didn’t compare with this hour; my leprosy is all gone, I am whole, I am cleansed.”
First he lost his temper; then he lost his pride; then his leprosy. That is generally the order in which proud, rebellious sinners are converted.
So he comes up out of Jordan and puts on his clothes, and goes back to the prophet. He was very mad with Elisha in the beginning, but when he was cleansed his anger was all gone too. He wants to pay him. That’s just the old story; Naaman