#104: The Sovereign Call of the Gospel
And the Syrians had gone out on raids, and had brought back captive a young girl from the land of Israel. She waited on Naaman’s wife.
II Kings 5:2 NKJV
How often in your life do you remember something terrible happening and in the days and years that followed you saw the Lord’s good hand of providence in that event? We see this regularly in Scripture with such examples as Joseph who was sold into slavery by his own brothers, falsely accused by his master’s wife, and imprisoned, only to be lifted up to second in command of all Egypt. Certainly we see this in the death of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ on the cross, which paid the price for all of our sins making atonement for us before the Father. God is Sovereign over all His creatures and all their actions, working all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.
In our text today, the weakness of Israel is brought into focus. Israel had been brought low because its kings and people gave themselves over to idolatry. God, who is rich in mercy and long-suffering and full of grace and truth, continued to be kind in sending prophets rather than giving them over to their enemies; but they would not listen to the prophets. In addition to a famine, the Lord had also made Israel unable to defend itself from its arch enemy, Syria. So weak had Israel become that it could not defend itself even from small Syrian raids. The sense of the text is that Syrian raiders were able to come and go into Israel as they saw fit. On one such raid, a young girl from Israel was taken captive as a slave and spoil of war.
Like many of the godly individuals we meet in the Bible, the name of this young girl is not given. It is likely her parents were either killed during the raids or were also captives and slaves in Syria. But in God’s providence, this little girl was made to be the handmaiden of Naaman’s wife. She who would have been in a small village of Israel prior to the raids was now in the home of the commander of the host of all Syria. And how did she treat the situation God had put her in? “She waited on Naaman’s wife.” Even in this terrible circumstance, this young woman served the Lord in the place He had put her.
Only the Lord knows what will become of our lives. Will they be lives of ease or lives of hardship? Will we remain free or be subject to tyranny and perhaps captivity? God who is sovereign over all things will not leave us or forsake us but will be with us always, even until the end of the age. He has not told us the name of this young girl but the Lord used her for great purposes in His kingdom.
Israel’s idolatry, sin, rebellion, famine, war with Syria, captivity, and imprisonment, would all be used by God so that Naaman might hear the Word of God, believe, and be saved. God is sovereign over His gospel call and He even uses children to sow the seeds that will one day grow into fruit bearing trees.
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