A Great Cloud of Witnesses Is Watching Us

Elisha refuses to accept any material reward from Naaman, and we see that this is another element in that process of confrontation and training, and a testimony to how things are done in the Kingdom of God, as opposed to how they are done in the world.

God was, once again, teaching us how we should conduct ministry, live as Christian leaders, behave in the world, bear witness to unbelievers, and how often we misrepresent the Word of the Lord in these times, when we have many ministries that do not show the integrity that should be shown in the things of God.

Interestingly, I’m going to skip ahead a little in the text, because in my last meditation I’m going to go back a bit, but we are on this subject of moral and financial integrity. When Naaman returns to his country, we see that Gehazi, who is the servant—what we might call Elisha’s assistant pastor—when Naaman is on his way back to his country with his whole entourage, his chariots and his horses, and they are returning to Syria, Gehazi starts mulling things over and says to himself: Good grief, what a tremendous waste! My master rejected these gifts Naaman wanted to give him instead of accepting them, and here we are needing certain things.

So he comes up with a terrible plan that results in a terrible loss for his life, and without saying anything to Elisha, he sends a couple of men. These men tell Naaman that Elisha has changed his mind, that some young servants from among the prophets have arrived at his house, and ask whether he could give them a few changes of clothes and some money for them. Naaman, delighted that he can finally show his appreciation for Elisha, readily agrees and says: Look, take even more, thinking that Gehazi is conveying Elisha’s words and wishes, that he is genuinely speaking on Elisha’s behalf.

Gehazi receives these gifts, Naaman continues on his way, and I imagine Gehazi must have thought: I got away with it. Hey, what can you do? You can’t be too foolish in ministry either. You work too hard, and this man wanted to help us, and we took away his chance to do so. That’s how he reasoned, right? Justifying his way of doing things. He hides the goods and washes his hands of it; nobody saw a thing. Incredible. I’ll carry on with my life and benefit from this gain. But God was watching. God sees the things we do in the dark, and sooner or later we have to face some consequence of our actions.

Many of us servants of God do things we shouldn’t and think, Well, a little sin here, another one there—that’s nothing; we’re human. But how terrible! Sooner or later there are consequences.

And when Gehazi returns to Elisha to speak with him, Elisha says to him: Gehazi, where were you? I wasn’t doing anything, just out and about. And Elisha says to him: Listen, is this a time to be worrying about money and material gain?

Elisha’s question is very revealing. We live in times, for example, when humanity urgently needs a powerful, upright, eloquent, living witness from the Church of Jesus Christ. We need ministries and servants wholly consecrated to God, who do not get entangled, as the apostle Paul says, in the things of the world. A soldier stays at his post and does not get involved in selling things on a street corner or doing other things, because he is a soldier; he has one mission to carry out, and that is how a servant of God should be.

He has to be focused on one thing; he cannot be out there distracted by worldly things and business, making money as though he were just any merchant. He has to be consecrated to his priesthood. And Gehazi lowered the standard God wanted to maintain in this episode, and in a sense brought shame upon the Kingdom of the Lord, and tarnished this perfect miracle that God wanted to bring about. And God was deeply offended, and that is why Elisha says to him: Well, your consequence will be terrible. Naaman’s leprosy will cling to you.

How serious the things of the Kingdom of God are, brothers and sisters. Sometimes we think God has changed His ways, and thank God for the mercy of Christ, and His grace, and His forgiveness: if we have offended the Lord, we can come to the feet of Christ and wash ourselves in the blood of the Lamb, and confess our sins. The Bible says that if we confess our sins, God is faithful to forgive us. If we have offended God in any way in our leadership, in our ministry, in our moral conduct, let us find grace before the Lord—but let us repent. Let us not keep doing things in secret, thinking that God does not see.

In this case, Gehazi made a grave mistake. God was moving in a tremendously powerful way in this situation, and doing that was like a bomb, a grenade that exploded in his face, because the more powerful the Presence of God is, the greater the danger when we behave in a coarse and shameful way. And that is why the consequence, Gehazi’s punishment, was terrible. It says that he lived all his life as a leper.

May the Lord watch over our lives, and I am the first to raise my hands and ask the Lord for mercy, and ask Him to keep us and protect us as we walk into the Presence of the Lord and God is doing things in our lives. May God keep us from defiling or lowering the standard by which we must walk as servants of the Lord in every area of our lives—with our children, our wife, and the people we disciple and to whom we bear witness.

We have a great cloud of witnesses, the Word says, who are watching us and observing our behavior, and we have to be very careful how we walk at such times. It is a sad story, but thank God there is also the other side: people like Elisha, who walked in integrity all their lives, and that is why God blessed them so greatly. I want to be, and I know you also want to be, part of Elisha’s tribe and not Gehazi’s. God bless you, and we will meet again soon for our next meditation.