2 Kings 5:13

GREAT THINGS AND SMALL

‘My father, if the prophet had did thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?’

2 Kings 5:13

I. How many persons are there sufficiently desirous of salvation to have been tolerant of a very burdensome ritual, had the Gospel prescribed it, who yet find in the fewness and simplicity of its authorised observances an excuse for disregarding them altogether.—There is evidently something in human nature, not only which is roused by difficulties, but which is flattered by demands. Let a man suppose that heaven is to be won by punctuality of observance, and he will count every added ceremony not only a fresh stimulus but a new honour. And yet the same person cannot be brought to regard with proper respect the moderate and quiet services of his own Church, the humble instrumentality of preaching, or the two sacraments which Christ has ordained. If he brings his child to the font, it is in compliance with the world’s custom rather than with the Saviour’s word. He cannot see that the very simplicity of the sign is rather an argument for than against its Divine origin. If man had had the ordaining of it, certainly it would have been something more difficult, more cumbrous, and more costly. In the same way he refuses to believe that there can be anything beneficial to the soul in eating a morsel of bread or drinking a few drops of wine at the table of his Lord. He asks again, What can be the connection in such matters between the body and the soul? He cannot believe—he will almost say so in words—that it can be a matter of the slightest moment whether or no he performs that outward act of communion which nevertheless he cannot deny to be distinctly ordained and plainly commanded in the Gospel. If the prophet, if the Saviour, had bidden him to do some great thing, he would certainly have done it; but he cannot bring himself to believe and obey, when the charge is that simple one to wash and be clean.

II. The same tendency is exemplified in reference to the doctrines of the Gospel.—They who would have done some great thing will not do that which is less; they who would be willing to toil on under hard conditions, to walk mournfully and fearfully along the path of life before the Lord of Hosts, if haply they might at length attain, by pains and cares and tears, to the resurrection of the just, will not accept the tidings of an accomplished forgiveness, will not close with the offer of a positively promised Spirit; and thus fulfil, again and again, the description of the text, ‘If the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?’

III. Yet another illustration, drawn from the requirements of the Gospel.—So long as a person is walking altogether in darkness, the demands of the Gospel give him little trouble. They may be light, or they may be grievous, the commands of God are for him as if they were not. If he keeps any of them, it is by chance. But when, if ever, he begins to feel that he has a soul to be saved, how often is it seen that, in the pursuit of some great thing, in the search for something arduous and something new, he loses altogether the duty and the blessing which lay at his very door, in his very path, could he but have seen them, and shows, unknown to himself, a spirit of self-will and self-pleasing at the very moment when he seems to be asking most humbly, what is the will of God concerning him.

How have whole systems of religion been founded upon the forgetfulness of this principle? Men have either gone out of the world, or sought to render themselves or others miserable in it, just because they thought it necessary to do some great thing in order to please God! What is asceticism in all its forms and degrees, the refusal to one’s self of life’s simple comforts, the prohibition of marriage and the commanding to abstain from meats, the substitution of a system of self-torture for a spirit of temperance and of thankfulness, but a neglect of the same wise and wholesome caution, that what God looks for in us is, not the doing of some great thing, but the endeavour to be pure and holy in the performance of common duties and in the use of lawful enjoyments? How true is it, in all these cases, that the easy thing is not always the small thing! He who would have buried himself in a cloister, or forgone every luxury, without murmuring or complaint, cannot bring himself to be an exemplary man in life’s common relations, or set himself vigorously to that which brings with it neither applause nor self-congratulation, the fulfilment, as in God’s behalf, as in Christ’s service, of the little every-day duties of kindness, of self-denial, and of charity, the careful walking in a trivial round, the punctual, loving performance of a common task!

Dean Vaughan.

Illustration

‘May my pride of reason be humbled. “Behold, I thought,” said Naaman, “he will surely come out to me.” So I have my preconceived ideas of how my salvation is to be achieved. But God’s thoughts are not my thoughts; and, if I am to be blessed at all, my intellect must become more submissive and lowly. And may my pride of heart be humbled. “Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus,” Naaman asked, “better than all the waters of Israel?” So I, too, imagine that I have at home the means and instruments of redemption. I can carve out my own path to the City of God. I can build up my own character. Must I avail myself of a method of deliverance which has been provided for the chief of sinners? Must I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes? Yes, I must. It is only the contrite and broken heart that sees God’s face in love. “Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, and he was clean.” Blessed be God, in the fountain filled with blood I “lose all my guilty stains”!’