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

WANTS TO GIVE MONEY

for his cure. How many people want to do the same nowadays. Why it
would have spoiled the story of grace if the prophet had taken
anything! You may give a thank-offering to God's cause, not to
purchase salvation, but because you are saved. The Lord doesn't
charge anything to save you. It is "without money and without
price." The prophet Elisha refused to take anything, and I can
imagine no one felt more rejoiced than he did.

Naaman starts back to Damascus a very different man than he was when
he left it. The dark cloud has gone from his mind; he is no longer a
leper, in fear of dying from a loathsome disease. He lost the
leprosy in Jordan when he did what the man of God told him; and if
you obey the voice of God, even while I am speaking to you, the
burden of your sins will fall from off you, and you shall be
cleansed. It is all done through faith and obedience.

Let us see what Naaman's faith led him to believe. "And he returned
to the man of God, he and all his company, and came, and stood
before him: and he said, Behold, now I know that there is no God in
all the earth, but in Israel: now therefore, I pray thee, take a
blessing of thy servant."

What I want particularly to call your attention to is the words

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 cleanse the leprosy."

Then there is another thought. Naaman left only one thing in
Samaria, and that was 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;