In Matthew chapter 8, it starts
off with two of the miracles that the Lord performed. And
as I've said, when you see the miracles of Christ, they are
not ends in and of themselves. They point to a greater miracle,
the miracle of salvation. And so we see, first of all,
how the Lord in Matthew 8, in the first few verses, he heals
a leper of that leprosy. You know, leprosy was an awful
disease back then. Very contagious for the most
part, and it relegated a person to like a living death. They
had to go to leper colonies, and they couldn't be around people. Anytime a leper came walking
on the road, when they came upon a group of people, they had to
holler out. This was what the law said, unclean, unclean, because
it was sinful under the law of Moses to touch a leper. And the
reason it was sinful, because it would defile the person who
touched them. But leprosy is one of the clearest illustrations or types,
you might say, of our sin. Leprosy is a disease that started
from the inside and worked its way out. And what you saw on
the outside with the sores and the wounds and all of that, that
was because of the germ that was inside. And that's the way
sin is with us. Sin is an inward problem. Christ
taught the disciples that. He told them, he said, it's not
what you drink or you eat that defiles you. It's what comes
out of the heart. And that's our sinful condition. We are, in the way of spirituality,
we are spiritual lepers by nature. And the only one who can cure
us is the great physician, the Lord Jesus Christ. And then the
next miracle he's going to show us here is a man who had a palsy,
which is like being numb. Paralysis, that's the word I'm
trying to think of. Being paralyzed. And the spiritual illustration
there is our inability to do anything to help ourselves. We
can't walk spiritually. We can't come to Christ because
of our spiritual inability. And the only one who can heal
that, who can give us life to come to Christ, faith to come
to Christ, is Christ himself, the great physician. So let's
just look at these. Look at verse one, when he was
come down from the mountain, that is the mountain upon which
he preached the sermon on the mount, great multitudes followed
him. Now you gotta understand that
not all of these people in this great multitude were true believers. There were multitudes who followed
him. Think about that, when a man who comes on the scene and who
heals people, who later on raises the dead, multitudes are gonna
follow him. Fed people with loaves and fishes.
I mean, think about those great miracles. So he had a following,
but not all of them were spiritual children of God who were drawn
by God to Christ by God-given faith. Many of them, most of
them I'd say, if you read through the whole scriptures, most of
them followed him just because of the miracles, or they wanted
to be healed of a disease, or they wanted to be fed. but not
because they saw him as the savior of God's people from sin, not
because they recognized their need of a righteousness that
they couldn't produce. So they weren't all true believers.
And there were times when he turned to the multitude and he
told them, he said, the only reason you're following me is
just for these physical miracles, but you've missed the spiritual
issues of salvation and of righteousness and of forgiveness and eternal
life. But now, in a good way, some
of these people who followed him were true believers, were
actually born again by the Spirit and saw the glory of Christ,
but it was usually a very few that did that. So when you see
these great multitudes, Don't think that they were all true
believers because they weren't. In fact, I think I've gotten
in your lesson, I don't know if I put it in there or not,
but it was a great multitude in Jerusalem who in unison cried,
crucify him. That was a great multitude. So
understand that. What it says in verse two, behold
there came a leper and worshipped him saying, Lord if thou will
thou canst make me clean." Now as I said leprosy it was a common
disease in that day, there was no cure for it, it was a death
sentence. A lot of the people considered
leprosy as a judgment of God upon people for some specific
sin and you have that in scripture but that's not necessarily the
case uh... you remember uh... uh... the
uh... uh... king Uzziah remember king
Uzziah in Isaiah's day when he went in to offer uh... strange fire upon the altar or
going to the temple himself or the tabernacle and God made him
a leper that was his punishment physical punishment As I got
in your lesson, what leprosy is to the physical body, sin
is to the soul. And sin brings both physical
death and spiritual and eternal death if it's not cured. And so it says here this leper
worshipped him and called him Lord. And this is what he said,
if you will, you can make me clean. So he recognized Christ's
sovereign prerogative to either leave him in his leprosy or heal
him, if you will. Lord, it's according to your
will. Now that may indicate that the leper really knew that Jesus
of Nazareth was and is the Messiah. I suspect it does. Whenever you
read these histories, you know, we don't have a lot of the information
about what the person stated, said, believed, or what was in
their minds, but just their words. Lord, if you will, you can make
me clean. And I see these false preachers
as they think they can command the Lord to heal somebody. You
ever seen that on TV? Lord, or they say, Lord, or I
command that spirit to come out. I do this. They don't know God. They don't know Christ. All they
know is their own pride. I hear these preachers talking
about, you know, kicking Satan out and doing this. Man, Satan's
got a hold of them, and they don't even know it. But this
leper, he came humbly. Lord, worship him. Now, in the Jewish economy of
the law, You know, a lot of them didn't know God, we know that.
But they knew this, that you didn't worship anyone who is
not God. They were taught that from their
youth up. You don't worship anyone who's not God. So that indicates
to me that this leper probably knew that Jesus of Nazareth was
God manifest in the flesh, the Messiah, upon whose sovereign
will he can heal me, Lord if you will. Make me clean. And I love that. Well, look at
verse three. And Jesus put forth his hand
and touched him. And he said, I will. I'm willing. Salvation is by the sovereign
will of God. He said, I'll have mercy on whom
I will. I'll be gracious to whom I will. And he said, I will,
be thou clean. And look at the next line, and
immediately upon his word, his touch and his word, the man's
leprosy was cleansed. It went away. Isn't that something? Now here's something that I studied
as I was going through this lesson. Under the law of Moses, as I
said before, touching a leper or anyone who was contagious
or unclean was forbidden by the law. And you can read about that
in Leviticus chapter five. Leviticus five and Leviticus
13 has a lot to say about leprosy and if it's cleansed and all
that, if it's healed. But Leviticus five especially
says that you will not touch any unclean thing lest you be
defiled. And it was forbidden. So I thought
about this. Now Christ came to keep the law
perfectly, didn't he? And he said this in the Sermon
on the Mount. He said, I came to keep at every
jot and every tittle. The least mandate of the law
that Christ kept it. But he touched this leper. So
how could it be said that Christ kept the law when he touched
someone who was unclean? And I got to thinking about that.
Well, the law says this, and you can read it, I've got it
listed in your lesson, Leviticus 5, two and three. It says, thou
shalt, you shall not touch any unclean thing lest thou be defiled. There's the problem. Would you
know, when Christ touched this man, he wasn't defiled. That's why he could do it and
still keep the law. Nothing could defile him. And his touch of that leper healed
the leper. So he didn't break the law to
do this because he couldn't be defiled. He's the Lord God of
heaven. He's the God man. Nothing can
defile him. Well, you know where I'm going
with that, don't you? How could Christ be made sin
for us and stand in our place? and still be the holy, impeccable,
pure, clean, righteous God-man? And the answer is he was only
made sin by amputation. He could not be defiled or contaminated
or corrupted with our sin. And yet he was made sin. How? by amputation. So when, you could
say it this way, when he touched us, sinful spiritual lepers,
he healed us. He wasn't defiled at all. So
these guys going around saying he was made sin in some other
way, they don't know what they're talking about. Immediately this man was cleansed.
The Lord spoke and this, he spoke the word. I will be thou clean. And that's what He did for us
in our salvation. It takes the blood of Jesus Christ
to save us from our sins. And that's the uncorrupted, uncontaminated
blood of Christ. The spotless Lamb of God who
remains spotless in Himself in order to save lepers like us.
And when He said, I will be thou clean, that's the case with us
spiritually. We're made the righteousness
of God in him, and that by imputation too. Now that doesn't mean that
there's nothing in salvation that goes on within us. There
is, because those whom God has cleansed by the blood of Christ
and made righteous by his righteousness imputed are going to be born
again. We're going to have the spirit
of God giving us life and a new heart. But Christ could not be
corrupted. or defiled by our sins. Look
at verse four. Jesus saith unto him, see thou tell no man, but
go thy way, show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that
Moses commanded for a testimony unto them. It's not that the
miracle could be concealed. He did this in front of a lot
of people. He wasn't trying to hide the
miracle, but he was telling the man, do what the law of Moses
says to do. Don't be concerned with going
around telling everybody you're being healed. Go do what you're
commanded to do under the law. And that's what a man or a woman
who was healed of leprosy, that's what they were to do. They were
to go to the priest, and the priest went through a series
of cleansing rituals, and that's described, I believe, in Leviticus
13. And then the priest would pronounce
the person cleansed, and then they could be free to go anywhere
they wanted to go in society. But we're told, I think it's
over in the book of Mark, that the man didn't listen to the
Lord, he didn't obey. He went out and he hollered about
his cure, and so he was so happy about it. Now look at verse five. Now this is the next miracle.
And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him
a centurion beseeching him, and saying, Lord, my servant lieth
at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented, and Jesus saith unto
him, I will come and heal him. Now here's a Gentile centurion,
a Roman officer in the army of Caesar. And he came to the Lord,
and listen to what he said, he said, Lord, my son, he called
Jesus of Nazareth Lord. And that may indicate of him
also what the leper's statements indicated. You know, Paul talked
about those of the household of Caesar who were saved. They
heard the gospel and God brought them to salvation. But this man
came and he begged the Lord, he said, my servant, this was
a special servant of his, one that he loved, and he said, he's
homesick, he's paralyzed, and he's sick. And in Luke it says
that the man came to him and says, the servant was dear unto
him, he was sick and ready to die. So this servant was at the
point of death. He was unable to come and meet
the Lord himself. That's how we are by nature,
isn't it, spiritually? We're spiritually dead in trespasses,
spiritually paralyzed, we're unable to come to God. He's got
to come to us. And this servant is a good picture
of us in our spiritual inability. Christ said, no man can come
to me except the Father which has sent me draw him. And I put
in your lesson here that when the centurion approached Christ
to beg Christ for his healing mercies, he didn't come pleading
his merits. He didn't come saying, Lord,
look at me. I'm a Roman centurion. I'm a man of authority. I have people under me. He didn't
even come pleading the merits of the servant who was sick.
All he did is come just saying, here's our situation, I'm a sinner. My servant's sick and he can't
do anything for himself. If you condition it on him, he's
a dead man, he's ready to die. And that's the way we are spiritually.
He just spoke of the servant's misery. And in this, look at,
he said, He said, come, and he's grievously tormented, and Christ
said unto him, I will come and heal him, and look at verse eight.
He says, the centurion answered and said, Lord, I'm not worthy
that thou shouldest come under my roof. Now this is not false
humility. He understood his unworthiness,
his worthlessness. Isn't that where the Lord brings
us to when He shows us our sin and our depravity? Our spiritual
deadness? Lord, I'm not worthy. You know,
salvation, that's what salvation by grace is all about. It's grace
and power and mercy and goodness and blessings and benefits to
the unworthy. How many times have you heard
me say that when it comes to salvation, we didn't earn it
and we don't deserve it. And this centurion recognized
this. I'm not worthy for you to even
come and be under my roof. But look what he says in verse
eight, but speak the word only and my servant shall be healed.
Is that God given faith? All you have to do is speak it.
Say it. And he says in verse nine, for
I'm a man under authority, having soldiers under me, and I say
to this man, go, and he goeth, and to another, come, and he
cometh, and to my servant, do this and doeth that. I understand
something about authority, but only you, Lord, have the
authority, the final word, the powerful word, to just speak
it, and it's done. And look at verse 10. It says,
when Jesus heard it, he marveled and said to them that followed,
verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no,
not in Israel. Now, this is, in your lesson
I put, this is one of two instances in the New Testament where we're
told that the Lord marveled. And here he's marveling at this
great faith. And think about it, you see,
his marveling, or being amazed, we'll say, most commentators
will say, well, this has to do with his humanity, his human
nature, perfect human nature. And it does. But his marveling
doesn't mean he was taken by surprise. You can't take Christ
by surprise. His marveling had to do with
showing forth this great faith of this man, which God had given
him. And that's what he said to the
people. He said to the man and to the people, I have not found
so great faith, no, not in Israel. But you know, the other time
that he marveled is in Mark chapter six and verse six. And there,
when he was preaching, he marveled because of their unbelief. And
I believe his marveling here has to do with his manifestation
to the people. Look at this great faith. Look
at the faith that God gives a sinner. And then over on the other side,
it's amazing that you've had so much light and you still don't
believe. And we ought to stand amazed
in that too. Verse 11, it says, and I say
unto you that many shall come from the east and west and shall
sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, he says, in the kingdom
of heaven. Verse 12, but the children of
the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness. There shall
be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Now that verse 11 speaks of the
salvation of the Gentiles. God's elect among the Gentiles,
coming from the east and the west. Sitting down with Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom is indicative of the fellowship
that we have as spiritual sons and daughters of God in the kingdom
of God. Sitting down and eating with
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the patriarchs. Fellowship, that's
what that's about. Salvation by grace. These three
men, these three patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were
saved by grace, justified by Christ's righteousness imputed,
and so are all who come into the kingdom. Their faith was
the gift of God. But the children of the kingdom,
now there he's talking about the Jews under the old covenant,
who could be called children of kingdom, of the kingdom, but
only in a temporal, ceremonial sense under the old covenant. And he says, that's over. He
says they're going to be cast into outer darkness. They rejected
Christ. And the point of this is this,
whether you're Jew or Gentile doesn't matter. If you have Christ,
if you're washed in his blood and clothed in his righteousness,
you're going to sit down and feast with the people of God
in the kingdom of heaven forever and ever and ever. And if you
don't have Christ, you'll be cast into outer darkness. And so in verse 13 it says, And
Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way, and as thou hast
believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed
in the self's same hour. It was an immediate healing.
He didn't have to go to doctors to prove it. It was just the
self's same hour. Christ spoke the word, it was
done. That's the way salvation is.
When God reveals himself to his people, he speaks the word of
faith in the gospel, empowered by the Holy Spirit. And when
he gives them faith to come to Christ and hold on to him, they're
healed of that spiritual leprosy and spiritual inability.