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One of the most rewarding methods of Bible Study is to do biographical studies of prominent characters where you read and analyze and scrutinize each detail and event in a person's life throughout scripture. It is one of my favorite methods of studying the Word of God. It is equally rewarding to study good people, for examples and lessons of what we should do ourselves, and bad people, for examples of what we should not do. Some Bible characters take years to study this way because we have so many stories and so much information about them. Take an Abraham, or Samuel, or King David, or Peter, or Paul and it will take you a while to read and scrutinize everything that we have recorded about them. Some characters, like Jesus Christ, you will spend a lifetime and still not have learned every lesson that can be pulled from their lives. Such character studies are fun and needful and make great sermons, but also important and just as powerful are some of the people in the Bible that were, say, only mentioned a few times. They may not be named or their name may be all that we know about them, but usually -- if they warranted mention in the scriptures -- there is a lesson or a principle in God's kingdom to be gleaned from them.

Take the two thieves on the cross for example. We don't even know their names, but even a glimpse of just a few hours at the end of their life, and we can draw very important lessons such as the importance of changing your mind and how two human beings in the same situation can respond and react totally different to God! How many messages have been preached from these two thieves whom -- other than what they said a few minutes before Jesus' death -- we know nothing else about?!

In this sermon, I would like to focus on one such minor character in the Bible. She's mentioned only three times in scripture all in one chapter of the Bible. We don't even know her name and she is only referred to in scripture as "a little maid." She's the focus of our sermon tonight because even though she may have been only "a little maid," she was "a little maid holding on to a big promise!"

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The story is found in the life of the prophet Elisha, whose ministry is recorded in the book of 2 Kings. At this time, Israel was waging a continuous off again, on again war with the nearby nation of Syria, and because of Israel's idolatry, God was allowing Syria to gradually win more than they lost. As they grew stronger, Syrian armies would go on raiding parties into Israel and plunder and pillage the towns of the Jews. They would often try to time their raids at an important time of the year such as harvest time where the men would sweep through the villages stealing the food that had taken all year to cultivate and ensuring that the Israelites would have to scrounge all winter just to have enough sustenance to survive. God allowed this to happen time and time again to remind the Israelites that had been offering grain and burnt offerings to idols that it was He who had really given them their blessings and it was also He who could take them away. As Daniel said repeatedly, God is truly the One who "ruleth the kingdom of men," and God is involved in your everyday life one way or another. In this case, because Israel was worshipping other gods and putting other things first, God was the "devourer" in their lives. In addition to raiding the produce and harvest of the Israelites, there were times that the Syrian raids would find a group of women or children unprotected and would capture them to live their lives as slaves in Syria. It wasn't a fun time to live in and it just proves the point that when people choose to live in sin, their lives are never all that fun because eventually the enemy begins to have a "heyday."

The Bible says that the "captain" of the armies of Syria was a man named Naaman. Naaman was obviously a mighty warrior and -- as mighty warriors often did in those days -- enjoyed a privileged existence. No doubt he had a large home and all the food and clothing and horses that he needed. He had the blessings of the king in whatever he did. One day when Captain Naaman was leading a raid on Israeli town, he came across a young girl who happened to be at the wrong place at the right time, depending on how you look at it. The scripture says that she was a "little maid." The Hebrew word here for "maid" indicates a young girl before the time of adolescence; the word for "little" is literally, "younger" which would indicate that she was in the younger end of that age bracket. That she was old enough to work and be a servant indicates that she was old enough to fulfill responsibility and most scholars place her somewhere between 7-10 years of age. When Naaman saw this young girl, he thought "my wife has been needing a personal servant to help her around the house" and so he grabbed the little Hebrew girl taking her back to Syria to be his wife's slave.

I would like for you to put yourself in the shoes of this young girl for a moment and imagine what it would be like to be in her situation. She was a young child who had grown up in fear of the Syrian raids. I'm sure there were years that her family had to scrounge for food because of the Syrians and the odds are that she at least knew somebody that had been killed in battle with the Syrian armies. One day as she was playing outside, suddenly the mightiest segment of the Syrian army, the division commandeered by the head captain himself raids the village and catches her a little too far from home. Suddenly she finds herself in every small kid's nightmare situation and in one day her entire existence forever changes. The little girl who before had happily been helping mom and dad with the chores and playing in the streets of their Hebrew village now suddenly finds herself in a Syrian general's home as a common slave. It is doubtful that she will ever see her Hebrew family again. It is doubtful that she will ever be free again. Her childhood is short lived by a day that will remain in her life forever and now she finds herself in a strange culture, having to learn a strange language, among people who worship strange gods that are not the true, Jehovah God of Israel. Such events have forever marred adults in such situations but this is a young girl experiencing this!

To make matters worse, the Syrian man who abducted her was a leper. Leprosy was the most feared and dreaded disease in Biblical times because there was no cure for it and it was contagious. The disease cause open wounds and sores on the skin from which oozed a whitish fluid. As the disease set in, it pulled the skin back from the eyes and the fingernails and attacked the nerves beginning in the extremities causing a lack of feeling in the outer skin. All of this combined to make leprosy a dreaded disease which left the victims deformed, and hideous looking with open sores and bared bones.

In Israel, God had decreed through Moses that if anyone contracted leprosy, they were declared unclean and had to leave their family and live outside of the cities in colonies. They could never touch or have any contact with the everyday society. Leprosy was a death sentence and since it was contagious, in Israel, the lepers were banned from the towns. But in Syria, there were no such laws. A leper continued to live as he normally did and so no doubt although Naaman's situation was continually growing worse, at this point in his life, he continued to live in the same house with his wife and perform his national and military duties and intended to do so as long as he was able. For this little Hebrew girl, it was a nightmare come true, and the worst possible scenario that anyone could imagine in which a young Hebrew girl would have to live and grow up.

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Had the little girl responded as most people would have in her situation, the story would have just been one of many horrible fairy-tales gone wrong, but the story is recorded in scripture because the "little maid's" response was of the highest and most holy sort. In our text, we read of the only spoken words recorded by the little maid which she said one day to her mistress as the leprosy of her master began to get worse:

The little maid, upon hearing that her Syrian master was having a rather bad day says "oh I wish that Naaman was with Elisha, because he would be healed of his leprosy!" This statement records an extraordinary response to a bad situation and also gives us the reason for it in one fell swoop! There is no animosity in the young girl. There is no attitude of "well, the old man deserves leprosy and pain because look at how he wrecked my life." There is no bitterness or unforgiveness at all, in fact, you can almost hear the love and wishfulness of the little girl desiring good for her master "Oh, would God that my lord were with the prophet..."

And then she reveals the reason that she is able to have such an attitude: "for he would recover him of his leprosy." Where had she learned that the man of God could heal leprosy? Elisha had never done so, neither had the man of God before him, Elijah. In fact there had only been one person EVER healed of leprosy to this point and that was Miriam by the prophet Moses hundreds of years before (of course, Moses pulled his hand out leprous as a sign from God and then was healed, but it was only for a few seconds and not as a curse). Recorded with that one story in the scriptures was also the laws of Moses which outlined what a leper had to do if they were healed of leprosy, but although the laws were there, no one had actually ever seen it done! How did the little girl even know that there was a prophet of God in Israel, how did she even know that he would be able to heal leprosy? Through the Word of God. Obviously as a little girl, her parents had instilled in her and taught her what the Word of God said. And by putting the Word of God within her, her parents had given her the greatest gift that they could have given her for it had gone with her beyond where their own ability and protection could travel!

She was a little maid all alone in a strange land. But because she had the Word of God within her heart, she was more than ready. Instead of responding by fear and resentment, we find her happily going about her tasks and the reason is obvious. If she had been taught the Bible well enough to know obscure scriptures about the restoration of lepers, then she surely knew the promises that God had made to His people to take care of them! No doubt she remembered such commandments as:

Therefore because she knew what God had said, even in the most difficult situation of her life, she was happy and content and trusting Him! Because even though she may have been just a little maid in a foreign land, she was a little girl holding on to a big promise. "He said that He'd never forsake me or leave me alone, therefore there must be a reason why I'm here and I'll just keep being faithful." "There's no reason to get mad or upset or revengeful or bitter; I know it's a bad situation but if God has me here, then there must going to be some good come out of it." A little girl. Holding on to a big promise!

Show me someone who is bitter because of circumstances in their life and I'll show you someone who doesn't really have the Word of God in their hearts! If someone is infested with revenge and unforgivness because of how things have worked out then they are trusting in their bad circumstances more than the promises of God. They've ceased to walk by faith. They've ceased to look toward the One who knows all things and who can turn every bad situation into something good. I've known adults that lived every day with wounds festering from things that had happened years before that were out of their control. They were little kids with resentments and hurts and now they have grown up into big boys and girls holding on to anger and pain as if reliving the past and what might have been would change a thing and help their future. But it doesn't have to turn out like that, because on the other end of the spectrum is this little maid. She's a little girl holding on to a big promise, and such a person can't help but win in life because they've got God on their side!

Let me preach to somebody tonight: Bad things and unfortunate situations are going to happen in your life and there's not a thing you can do about it. It just might happen that you find yourself in a nightmare and stuck to a bad circumstance. Welcome to life. Pain is real. Suffering happens everyday. We everyday have to live out the effects of Adam's fatal mistake in the garden. But what separates those who smile and those who don't. Those who are content and faithful and those who are bitter and revengeful. Since you can't be saved with unforgiveness in your heart, let me speak plainly: what separates those who make it from those who don't has nothing to do with the circumstances of life, but rather what they choose to hold onto! You can relive the pain and hold onto the past if you want to, but as for me I'll choose to be like the little maid in the Syrian captain's home: she had the courage to say, "I may be in a bad situation as just a little girl, but I'm a little girl holding on to a big promise!" Remember what the writer of Hebrews told us:

If I've got the Word of God on my side, then even though it might take a while to work out, things will get better and I'll eventually see the purpose which God saw the entire time! I can't waver. I can't give up, because "he if faithful that promised." If you find yourself in a bad situation, don't forget: it's not the severity of the trial or test that determines whether or not you survive, it's what you choose to hold on to! I'm going to hold onto the faith! I'll trust in God's Word! Somebody get a revelation today: it does no good to hold onto the past. It does no good to hold onto sin. I'll hold onto the sure promises of the Word of God!

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This little girl didn't get bitter in her situation because she had learned God's Word and thus learned to believe in it. If you've got children, then you need to actively teach them the Word of God even from the littlest ages. The Sunday School teachers can help you out, but it's not the Sunday School teacher's responsibility to teach your kids: God gave them to you! The pastor and his wife and youth pastor and his wife will help, but ultimately it's your responsibility to teach your kids. Read them Bible stories at home. Talk to them of scripture. Teach them by example. If the kids hear the Word of God one day a week and see you live the opposite six days of the week, which do you think that they will trust in the most? Which do you think that they will emulate? And it's never too early to teach your kids the Word of God. Thank goodness the little maid's parents had taken the time with her. By placing the Word of God within her, they had prepared her for anything that might come in her life!

Maybe you weren't raised learning about God's Word or His promises. Don't hold onto the past and use that as an excuse. You need to know the Word of God. You need to come to church. You need to read the Bible. You need to ask questions. You need to memorize a few scriptures. Remember the Word says:

You will only receive from God what you have faith for, and you will only have faith for that which you know the promises of God for, and you will know the promises of God that you have learned! The believing in God and trusting Him is the antidote to the ups and downs of life, but you will not trust in something that you do not know about! If you want to hold on to a big promise, then you've got to receive that big promise and know about it!

But on the flip side of the coin, it's not just knowing the Word of God that's enough. You can have the entire Bible memorized but if you do not believe it and step out in faith because of it, then it will do you no good! How many parents teach their kids the Word of God but by their actions don't teach them faith? How many people can quote you scripture after scripture that they've never bothered to obey in their own life? The answer is many in both accounts. But this little maid in our text, her parents had taught her not just to memorize the Word of God, but to act on it in faith believing. She had faith enough to believe God for something that she'd never seen before. How does a little girl learn that sort of behavior? By watching others. She'd obviously seen her parents trust God through bad situation. She'd obviously seen her parents believe and receive something that no one else had ever received. Maybe she'd seen an older brother or sister or someone in the temple that was a friend of the family. Somewhere this little girl had learned to respond to bad situations with faith in God's Word by example.

Faith is contagious, and so is doubt. Think about that. We find in Matthew 9:20 the woman with the issue of blood had faith to be healed in a way that nobody had ever seen before. She said:

And she was! She pushed through the crowd and touched the hem of His garment and instantly she was healed. She had tremendous faith to believe something for God in a unique way. And it's just five chapters later that we find this recorded:

A few months later, many are being healed by only touching the hem of Jesus' garment! Where they'd get that idea? From the woman with the issue of blood. Faith is contagious. So is doubt. When the twelve spies came back with the negative report of giants in the land and then ten of them began to express doubt as to whether or not the children of Israel could win the victory, it didn't take long -- in fact the next day -- before two MILLION Israelites were all doubting and scared. Fear and doubt in God's Word is very contagious! But so is Faith! What are you spreading? How about the people that you hang out with? What are you catching from them, faith or doubt? If someone had a physical disease that you knew would kill you, you'd quarantine them, avoid them, be very careful around them not to let them contaminate you, right? But what about doubters? A lack of faith in God's Word is the worst possible disease because it just doesn't kill your physical body, but can kill your eternal one!

As for me, I'm going to be like the little maid with the big promise! She had faith enough to believe God for something that had only happened once before several hundred years ago! She had faith that God would do it for a SINNER! That's great faith! She had never seen the lepers cleansed, but she had obviously seen God do other promises in her life. You'll never see the big things in God until you learn to trust Him in the small. But oh, if you ever get the revelation that if I will respond in faith to His word, that God will do exactly what He said that He would do, then your life will never be the same again!

Our problem is that we forget sometimes what God has said that He will do. Peter wrote to the church in his second letter and said:

"Stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance." "Be mindful of the words which were spoken by the holy prophets." Sounds like he's telling somebody that you need to remember everything that God has promised you. He cannot lie. He will not fail. He won't let you down. If God has ever made a promise to you, then you need to hold to it! You need to get your eyes off of the past and off of the circumstances and remember that "he is faithful that has promised!"

And we need people to hold on to promises that they have never seen fulfilled. The prophet has never healed a leper but hear the little girl: "Would God my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria! for he would recover him of his leprosy." She just believed with child-like faith that God would do what He said that He would do. It was simple, with no if, ands, or buts. She didn't say "well, the Bible says so maybe..." She didn't say, "well, it's possible that God might ..." There was no wavering in her voice. There was no hesitancy in her speech. She steadfastly declared "if you could get there, "he would recover him of his leprosy." And she stated it with such conviction and surety that her master immediately takes a trip to see the prophet. It's contagious! On a little girl's word and assurance of something that she had never even seen herself, before and yet even an old idolater like Naaman could see that there was something different about this little servant! She was not ordinary because she was a little girl holding on to a big promise! And her faith was spreading through a godless land like a wildfire!

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She's a little girl in the worst possible scenario in a bad situation and in an ungodly nation and yet she was a little girl holding on to a big promise with great faith in a Mighty God who cannot fail! And so what happened? What was the result? I'm glad you asked. The result is always the same when people do as this little girl did, a mighty revival broke forth in Samaria and those who caught her spirit received what they needed.

Naaman went to the prophet and then eventually dipped himself seven times in the Jordan river and found out that this Jehovah God of Israel really could do what that little girl had said! Despite never having actually seen it, leprosy was healed. God did something that no one at that time had ever seen. And beyond the physical healing, we find that in our text, Namaan took back two mules worth of dirt from Israel to make himself an altar to Jehovah God and left with these words:

Not only did physical healing come to Naaman's house, but a man in influence in a heathen nation was saved and no doubt an entire family was transformed because of one little slave girl who had held onto her promise! Because of one little maid who said "It doesn't look good but I'm in the hands of a God that's smarter than me and so if He has me here, there's a purpose in it and in the meantime, I'll hold onto the promise that I have from Him!"

And the revival of faith was contagious even unto the man of God, himself, because we find in the very next chapter of 2 Kings that the "prophets-in-training" under Elisha decided to build a bigger building for their schooling and as they were cutting down trees, one of them who had borrowed an axe, had the iron axe head sling off and sink in the Jordan river. In 2 Kings 6:5 we find that the young prophet cried out to Elisha "help, it was a borrowed axe head." Elisha threw a stick into the river and to everyone's amazement, the iron axe head floated back to the surface of the water! That had never happened before! No one else in the Bible had ever believed God to make iron swim before! Where'd Elisha get that idea? I'll tell you my opinion: I think that the miracle of Naaman was still fresh on his mind and as Elisha looked at those waters of Jordan where leprosy had been healed, something came over the man of God and he thought "if God did that which I have never seen before, then He can probably do this too!" Great revival. Greater faith. Unheard of miracles. And where did it start? With a little girl in a bad situation who refused to stop holding onto a big promise from God!

And not only did Naaman receive his healing and his salvation, but he unknowingly tapped into something a little bigger than he realized. He couldn't know it, but the same water and same river and same area where he had lowered his leprous body into the Jordan river and dipped seven times would be the same spot that a prophet from God -- get this: eight hundred and sixty-eight years later! -- named John the Baptist would begin baptizing unto repentance and then baptize the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, to introduce His ministry! 868 years had passed and no one else had been healed of leprosy since Naaman's day, but now this One who is dipping Himself in the Jordan will do more than heal one man of leprosy, but will heal thousands of lepers open thousands of blinded eyes, unstop myriads of deaf ears, and palsy and lameness and devil possession will all be dealt with in an unheard of fashion!

And it would be at the beginning of this ministry, right after Jesus had gone into the synagogue and proclaimed that he was there to heal and to bind up wounds and to do the supernatural that he would respond to unbelief in Nazareth by saying:

What were you saying, Jesus? There were many other lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha, but the only one that we find healed is Naaman. You know what I think Jesus was saying, if I can word it this way? There were many other lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha but the only one who was healed was the one who came in contact with a little girl holding on to a big promise!

Maybe you feel like that little girl, tonight. Maybe it seems as if you are in a difficult and even nightmarish situation with your family, your past, your circumstances, or your future. I'm preaching to you: don't give up. Don't waver. Don't get bitter. Don't let your situation dictate to you your reactions. Find you a promise in the Word of God about your circumstance. It doesn't matter if you've ever seen it actually happen or not, but find you one that applies and hold on to it! Don't let go! Because there are others that the only chance and hope that they'll have for healing and salvation in their own lives depends upon the example that they see in you. There are "Naamans" out there that will only come to God if they come across a little maid that's faithful! There are men of God out there who will only realize and see the supernatural power of God in a greater way because of the spreading of such great faith! And most importantly, there is a revival -- a revival with Jesus at the center of it that goes beyond anything that you've ever seen in this town and county -- that God has for us but that revival is dependent upon someone remaining true and faithful and trusting through some dark situations. God is looking for a little maid. He's looking for an adult with child-like faith that will hold on to His Word. God is looking for someone to emulate "a little maid holding on to a big promise!"