2. This story of Gehazi is a sad story, but it is one which happens thousands of times every day, and in the lives of believers to one degree or another. It is a story that stands in strong contrast with the preceding passage where we saw Naaman healed of leprosy as he turned to God in simple faith. But here we see Gehazi struck with leprosy be-cause he turned away from God to blur the truth of the free nature of salvation.

3. In one story, leprosy portrays sin in its universal scope as it falls upon all men. But in the story of Gehazi we see the specific sin of greed (covetousness and materialism) and the way it destroys the ministries of men and their capacity to serve the Lord.

4. In the story of Gehazi we see the process and consequences of greed or covetousness which always hinders godliness and godly service. It is the picture of religious hypocrisy, of failure to progress spiritually, of false values that destroy a man's pursuit of righteousness, of human rationalization that seeks to find good reasons for a bad thing, of rebellion and insubordination to authority, of unfaithfulness or disloyalty, and of the process of regression or the downward spiral of sin.

5. The story is introduced with Gehazi being described as "the servant of Elisha, the man of God." Here is one of the things that makes this story so sad, and at the same time a warning to each of us. He was not a man without opportunities. As a servant of Elisha, he was also a student of Elisha. He had the privilege of knowing this great man of God. He had the example of Elisha's life and the message of his lips as a tremendous source of instruction, challenge, learning, and motivation for godliness and a life of service. Yet he failed to capitalize and grow through this privilege.

6. There are a number of important principles of warning and instruction we can glean and learn from this passage:

We must take advantage of the opportunities God gives us or we loose the blessings and impact of those opportunities. Just being around the Word and godly examples never guarantees the communication of biblical truth, spiritual growth, and personal godliness. The disciples were with the Lord. They heard His words. They saw His works. Yet they often gained no insight from these events. Think of Judas who was with Christ all this time and yet turned against Him. Likewise many sit in a Bible-teaching ministry; they hear the Word taught Sunday after Sunday, but because of their own self-centered desires and commitments, they never allow the Word to get in. They are like a barrel in the midst of the sea with both ends tightly sealed. There is plenty of water all around, but nothing gets in.

2. Jesus knew the tug of war in our hearts between heavenly and earthly homes. He knew our struggle between money, love and heavenly treasure. He told us we need 'a single eye.' He warned that without that single (or sound) eye, we would grope in terrible darkness (Matt 6:22, 23). Torn perpetually in two directions, we could never see clearly the issues confronting us. We would go through life confused and bewildered. Plagued with a sense of guilt and alienation and never sure where we were going.

3. When our vision is double, we are unable to lay up treasurers in heaven. Our lives, like Gehazi's, will be misdirected, disloyal, and a disaster from God's viewpoint.

1. There is simply no standing still in the pursuit of godliness. Either we are pursuing godliness, drawing close to God, or we are regressing, going downhill. This is one of the most basic principles of the Christian life. Growth is progressive and we never arrive. If we stop the process, we will not simply stand still, we will reverse it and begin to regress. Regression is slow and subtle and deceptive. The signs are there, but we often don't see them until it's too late. A person can be a believer who regularly attends church, is around the Word, even involved in Christian service, but on a downhill slide into regression.

2. The word "discipline" which Paul uses in 1 Timothy 4:7 is the Greek word (gumnazo) meaning "train, exercise, discipline." The key thought implied here is that it is a process which must be continued or we will lose ground. Anyone who has trained as an athlete knows that from experience.

4. There is a sense in which we are growing in our character every day. The question is in which direction are we growing? Are we growing toward godly character or ungodly character? Are we growing in love or selfishness; in harshness or patience; in greed or generosity; in honesty or dishonesty; in purity or impurity? Every day we train ourselves in one direction or another by the thoughts we think, the words we say, the actions we take, the deeds we do.

1. "But Gehazi . . . said, 'Behold . . . '" This expresses not what he said with his lips, but what was going on in his mind. Verse 26 shows us further what was really going on in his mind, as the prophet under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit knew what he was thinking and planning. Gehazi deceived Naaman in order to satisfy his desire for gold and silver because of what he thought it would give--happiness, security, significance.

2. Our thought patterns shape our character, and our character shapes our conduct. If you will notice, there is a definite relationship in these verses between thought patterns, personal character, and conduct. First, we see something of Gehazi's thought patterns which had helped to move him into the realm of greed or covetousness. From verse 20, it appears he was thinking that because they did something for Naaman, he owed them. This kind of thinking is not only contrary to God's grace, but has its roots in the attitudes of the world. Then, in verses 21-25 we see his conduct--deception and defection.

3. There is a very close relationship between our thoughts, our character, and our conduct. Repeated actions (conduct) reveal our inner character and the thought processes (mental attitude) that produced it.

4. Definition of attitude - "An attitude is a mental and neural state of readiness, organized through experience, exerting a directive or dynamic influence upon the individual's response to all objects and situations with which it is related." An attitude, therefore, is a state of mind toward a value. Consequently, any genuinely dynamic Christian life will be the outgrowth of a dynamic Christian attitude, shaped and locked into our thinking by the Word of God. And any faulty, unproductive Christian life will be the outgrowth of attitudes shaped and locked into our thinking by an unholy world system. This is the age-old relationship of cause and effect, root and fruit, a belief that behaves and an attitude which acts.

5. Part of the dynamic behind the temptation that Gehazi faced stemmed from his attitude. D. G. Kehl who provides an excellent observation about temptation in "Sneaky Stimuli and How to Resist Them" (Christianity Today, January 31, 1975). He writes:

6. We do not fall in a moment; the predisposition to yield to sin has been forming, building, germinating--but not necessarily consciously so. Sin has both a cumulative and a domino effect. Satan plants subtle stimuli, often subliminal ones; he influences an attitude; he wins a "minor" victory--always in preparation for the "big" fall, the iron-bound habit. The words of James support such a view: "Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust has conceived, it bringeth forth sin . . ." (James 1:14, 15). It is the time between "conceiving" and "bringing forth," that may be largely subliminal.

1. In verse 20, Gehazi is described as "the servant of Elisha." Further, he even refers to Elisha as "my master," all of which is tremendously suggestive of one of the key issues in the sin and failure of Gehazi and in all of us today to some degree. Divided allegiance, failure to submit to authority in God's chain of command, is often a sign of slavery to personal aspirations and desires that, if allowed to dominate and control, quickly take the place of God's authority and His direction over us through the chains of command He has established in Scripture. This naturally leads to discontent with one's lot in life, followed by actions of rebellion as seen here with Gehazi.

2. Divided allegiance quickly stifles submission to God for, No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. (Matt. 6:24). Let's face it, if the treasure of my heart is money, or any of the other lust patterns, then I will be serving myself and not God regardless of how I may appear on the outside. Judas is a classic case in point. He was as phony as a lead nickel, but he gave the appearance of being a disciple, even caring for the poor. But what are lust patterns? They are often nothing more than legitimate desires pursued to the point of idolatry; seeking from the things we desire what we ought to seek only from God.

3. If we are divided between God as our master and our reputation, our bank roll, our career, our hobbies, our plans, or our desires of any kind, we will end up in deception, acting out a lie. We will deceive ourselves and defect, selling the Lord short in some manner.

Divided allegiance is closely associated with our next principle.

1. In what are we seeking our significance, security, satisfaction or contentment? If you remember, the Lord gave us a double warning in Luke 12:15 regarding greed and discontent with whatever God brings into our lives by way of possessions or our place in society. He said Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. In the following verses of Luke 12, Jesus shares the story of the rich man who built more barns and then died.

2. Contentment is one of the most distinguishing traits of the godly person, because a godly person has his heart focused on good rather than on possessions, position, or power.

3. Gehazi became a slave to his lust patterns because he was not content with what God was doing in his life. He was no longer free to be devoted to God, so he became disloyal, unfaithful, and in general, a hindrance to the ministry of Elisha and the grace of God.

4. What does a commitment to contentment do for us? It frees us to make the right choices, it changes our vision of who we are as sojourners, of why we are here (servants), and it enables us to look at our life in a new way with biblical purposes. Freedom does not consist in doing what I want to do; but in doing what I ought to do and as I was designed to do it by the strength which God gives.

5. If we do not want our lives to end up like Gehazi's, we must look at our treasures--those things to which we cling and which have us chained as slaves--and cast them off by making our great goal in life the glory of God and treasures in heaven. May we commit ourselves to God as sojourners on this earth, and citizens of heaven.

Rationalization is seen in Gehazi's statement, "Behold, my master hath spared Naaman this Syrian" Elisha had refused to receive anything from Naaman after he had been healed for specific biblical and spiritual reasons. He was teaching Naaman the principle of grace and the freeness of God's salvation. But Gehazi was blind to this and saw it as failing to take from this Gentile that which he thought he rightfully owed the Jews. After all he had raided and stolen from the Jews time and again. He felt it was only just that Elisha accept something. Shouldn't he? And so goes the mind with its rationalizations when greed is controlling the mind.

1. Gehazi's statement, "As the Lord liveth, I will run after him . . ." is a classic illustration of mere external religiosity. He uses the right words, words he had often heard Elisha say, but their spiritual reality were far from his heart. There was no real fear of God in his heart as the Almighty who truly lived, the omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent God who knew his every thought, motive, and goal. The Lord later made this evident through Elisha in verse 26. If he really believed in the living God, he would have thought again about the motives and reasoning of his heart. Sure, he believed in God intellectually, but practically speaking he was acting as though God was dead or at least unconcerned and uninvolved with his personal life.

2. But oh, how we can be just like this! We learn to use religious words--which too often become trite religious clichés. We bring God into our plans, and prayers, and act as though we are trusting him and following his guidance, which we completely ignore through our greedy rationalizations. And we reject the plain truth of Scripture with its principles and promises.

thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Let us genuinely ask God to show us the truth about our hearts, our thinking, our values, and our priorities.