here this morning. Would you
turn to number 19 on your spiral notebooks, number 19, if you
could please stand. Pleading for grace. Sovereign ruler, Lord of all,
prostrate at your feet I fall. You are holy, wise, and just. I'm a creature of the dust. All things move at your command,
governed by your mighty hand. you ? Heaven, earth, and hell
I see ? Fulfill all your wise decree ? Dares a man resist his
Lord ? Stand against the sovereign God ? I will bow before your
throne ? Seeking grace in Christ your Son through his blood and
righteousness. Lord, I plead with you for grace. If you will, you can I know. Grace and mercy to me show. Will you, Lord, my soul forgive? Grant this sinner grace to live. I've no other hope but this,
Jesus' blood and righteousness. Now I'm conquered by your grace. In the dust I hit my face. Give me Christ or else I die. I upon your grace rely. ? O for mercy now I plead ? Grant
me Lord the grace I need ? Turn O turn to me and say ? All your
sins are washed away ? In my Son your debt is paid He for
you the ransom made. Be seated please. Thank you Bert. Leave your hymnals
open for just a moment because there's something we just sang
that goes so well with the passage of scripture I want us to look
at this morning. We want to thank you all for remembering Jennifer
and John and our family. They were supposed to map Jennifer's
liver on Thursday and then go back on November 21st and radiate
the tumors that they located. And the doctors had their minds
changed Thursday. rather than everything changed.
They went in Thursday and they were actually able to cut off
the blood supply to three quarter-sized tumors in one lobe of her liver
Thursday. And she goes back December the
7th and they did it without radiation. So she goes back December the
7th to have the other lobe treated and we're very hopeful that this
is going to at least kill those large tumors that are causing
her most of her problems and continue to pray. We saw the
Lord change the minds of the doctors Thursday. The heart of the King is in the
hands of the Lord and He directs it with us so ever He wills.
If He's got the heart of the King in His hands, He's got our
hearts in His hands, He's got the hearts of the doctors in
His hands. We're just so thankful for our Lord and appreciate so
much your prayers for us. All right, you have your Bibles,
let's open them together to Mark chapter one. Mark chapter one. Armita's daughter, Solange, That's
Reinaldo's sister has advanced bone cancer that is moving very
rapidly. She's in San Domingo, Dominican
Republic in the hospital. Is she still in the hospital,
Reinaldo? Yes. Armida doesn't know about it.
So Solange has been here on several occasions over the years. And
so we want to pray for Solange. and for Mike and for the Pena
family. And I'm sure that most everybody
heard that Mary Wiginton's mother passed away on Thursday. I think it was Thursday. Is that
right? Thursday morning? Friday. Was it Friday? Friday morning. We were in Jacksonville,
so I wasn't here. Mary was going to be here this
morning and she's keeping her grandkids and both of them woke
up sick this morning. So she was very disappointed
not to be able to come and be with you all this morning and
let you know how much you appreciate your prayers for her. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, what great
comfort and peace we have when you speak truth to our hearts
and reveal to us the glory of thy dear son and how hopeful
we are that you would be pleased to do that again today. We thank
you for the revelation of Christ that's made to us in your word
and thank you for your Holy Spirit and pray Lord that you would
open our hearts and open our eyes open the windows of heaven,
open your word, cause the bread of life to be broken fresh for
us again today. Lord, we come before you completely
dependent upon you for your mercy and for your grace. And we thank
you for the hand of mercy and providence that we're able to
see. We know that you do so much more
than what we even take notice of. But Lord, when you bless
in such a great way, we are caused to pause and to give you thanks
and to look to you, Lord, for all blessings. We thank you for
changing the minds of the doctors this week for Jennifer, and we
pray for her now as she recovers. and ask that your hand of strength
and healing would be upon her. We thank you for Mary and for
the grace that you've given her and we pray, Lord, that you would
comfort her with your peace now as she grieves the loss of her
mother. We pray for Solange. We ask,
Lord, that you would bring to her heart those things that she's
heard. Cause her to cast her hope on
Christ. Give her comfort and peace in
the hope of salvation. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. I ask you to leave your hymnals
open. There's a line in the third stanza that says, if you will,
you can, I know. And if you'll look with me to
verse 41 of Mark chapter 1, and Jesus moved with compassion,
put forth his hand and touched him and said unto him, I will. Look at verse 40, the last part
of verse 40. This leper is a picture of every
sinner, comes to the Lord and says, if thou wilt thou canst
make me clean. Now that's faith. Lord, we know
you're able. We know you're able. And we plead
that you would be willing. That's just the opposite of what
you hear in man-made religion. Man-made religion says, oh, God
wants to save everybody. He's willing, but he's not able
unless you do your part Let him have his way. God's dependent
upon you for something in order for his will to be accomplished. Faith says, Lord, I know you're
willing. I mean, I know you're able. I
know you're able. I pray that you'd be willing.
And that makes us mercy beggars coming to his throne of grace,
dependent upon him and his will. I've titled this, The Cleansing
of a Leper. And there's so many glorious things in this passage,
but we'll begin where we left off last Sunday in verse, well, we'll repeat verse
28. And immediately his fame spread
above through all the region around about Galilee. The fame of the Lord Jesus Christ,
his glory went before him. And his authority, as we saw
last Sunday, and his power was, well, it was divine. It was omnipotent,
unchallenged, able to do whatsoever he wills in providence and in
salvation. He'll save whomsoever he wills. He's the potter and we're the
clay. And forthwith, when they were
come out of the synagogue, they entered into the house of Simon
and Andrew with James and John." Now there's three things we know
about Simon. Well, two up to this point. We know that he was
a fisherman. This is Peter, Simon Peter. And
we know that he had a brother named Andrew. Remember the Lord
saw them with their father fishing, said, come follow me, and they
dropped their nets and they followed the Lord. Irresistible call of
grace. When the Lord says, follow me,
those who He gives ears to hear, they follow Him. For this cause
came I into the world. For this reason was I born, to
bear witness unto the truth. They that are of the truth hear
my voice and they follow me. When the Lord speaks, He doesn't
plead with men. He speaks to their hearts and
they come. But Simon's verse 30, and I want
you to see this. Many of you, like me, came out
of Catholicism, an evil, evil religion. I say that without
any apology. That's all it is. It's just,
it's rooted in evil. And Simon's wife's mother lay
sick of a fever, and anon they tell him of her. I looked in
the Catholic Bible to see how they translated this because,
of course, they promote this idea of Simon Peter being the
first pope and being celibate and the priesthood now being
celibate and all that. it's actually not changed in
the catholic bible many things are changed uh... but this verse
is not changed how can they peter had a mother-in-law you know
peter's wife's mother was sick uh... he was married we know
that he was a fisherman we know he had a brother by the name
of andrew we know that he was married and then i realized that
uh... they have no respect for the
authority of scripture anyway, so it doesn't matter what God's
word says. But it matters to us. Here we
find Simon Peter, a married man, takes the Lord in the early days
of the Lord calling him, maybe the early hours, into his mother-in-law's
home, and she's lying there sick with a fever. And he came and
took her by the hand and lifted her up and immediately the fever
left her and she ministered unto him. Now you know that all of
these miracles of healing are pictures of the real healing
that you and I are in need of. And that's the healing of our
sin problem. And when the Lord touches a person
immediately, immediately. Remember that woman with the
issue of blood? She felt in her body that her disease had been
healed. And that's always that case.
The Lord never partially heals anybody. When He touches one
of His elect, He removes all their diseases, all their sin
taken away. By His stripes, we are healed. That's the healing that we're
concerned with. We pray every time we're sick that the Lord
would heal us. But the real healing that has
eternal consequences is the need that we have to have our sin
taken away. And these are pictures of that. The Lord touches this
woman who's burning up with a fever. And immediately, her fever left
her, and immediately she got up and ministered to them. Whenever
the Lord touches a sin-sick sinner and takes away their sin, their
only desire is to minister, to minister to Him, to minister
to His people, to express their gratitude in service to their
Lord. And that's exactly what she does
here. And that even when the sun did
set, they brought unto Him all that were diseased and them that
were possessed with devils. Satan's the cause of our problem
and he's the root behind it. This matter of Satan's influence
is upon all unbelievers. Our need to be delivered from
his power is something only the Lord can do. And all the city were gathered
together at the door, and He healed many that were sick of
divers' diseases, and cast out many devils, and suffered not
the demons to speak, because they knew Him." The Lord told the demons, don't,
just shut up. Don't speak, don't reveal who
I am yet. And they were stopped. They were stopped from speaking.
People that pretend to have the power to heal diseases today, why don't they just go into the
hospitals and just go from room to room and put their hands on
sick people? Why don't they do that? The reason
why they don't do it is because they don't have the power to
heal. They're frauds, every one of them. They're charlatans,
they're fakes, they don't have the power of God on them. And, you know, here our Lord, our
Lord just, everybody that came to Him, everybody that He touched,
He healed them. He healed them. Still doing the same thing. We're
gonna see that in a moment. Look at this. And in the morning,
rising up a great while before day, He went out and departed
into a solitary place and there prayed. You know what perfect worship
is? Perfect worship is the worship that the Lord Jesus Christ offered
to his father. That's perfect worship. And when our Lord was hanging
on Calvary's cross, the father worshiped him. There's a perfect union that's
taking place here between the Lord Jesus Christ and His Father. His dependence upon Him, His
expressing of His glory, His prayer to Him, it's perfect worship. We see now in part, don't we? And we desire to worship the
Lord. The disciples wanted to be able to pray like the Lord
prayed. When they saw Him praying, they said, Lord, teach us to
pray. Teach us to pray. Teach us to have such power with
God, to have such access to His throne of grace, to be able to
fellowship with Him and worship Him as we ought. Our Lord certainly
had that union with the Father. And Simon and they that were
with him followed after him. And when they had found him,
they said unto him, all men seek for thee. Everybody's looking for you.
Everybody was interested in what he had done. Unfortunately, most of those
who were seeking after him, as our Lord said, after he fed the
5,000, you remember, He said, you seek after me that you might
have your bellies full. You're just interested in those
temporal blessings. See, the Lord didn't come just
to heal lepers of their leprosy. He didn't come just to heal people
of their fevers. He didn't come to give blind
people sight. He came to save sinners. And
the natural man, apart from the from the God-given desire and
interest for his immortal soul is only interested in the temporal
blessings. And the Lord knew that. He knows
the hearts of men. He knew all they were interested
in is to have his hand give them some comfort and some blessing
in this world. But he says, that's not why I
came. I've healed those people that you might see my power and
know what the real healing is all about. But I'm not going
to be subject to their desire for temporal blessings. I didn't
come as a bellhop to jump to everybody's desire every time
they ring the bell and want me to come and give them some time. I came to save sinners. And here's where I hope the Lord
will take us. Lord, my real need is for the
salvation of my soul. My real need is for the forgiveness
of my sin. Lord, give me an interest in
my soul to that end, to that end. Help me to number my days. He said, all men are seeking
after thee. Yeah. I know their hearts. They're
not interested in their souls. They're just interested in getting
some relief from their temporal problems. And he said to them,
let us go into the next towns. He left people that were still
in need of temporal things. He left them. Let us go into
the next towns that I may preach there also for therefore came
I forth. I didn't come here to heal people
of their diseases. I came here to save sinners.
That's why I came. That's my objective, that's my
whole purpose. And I'm going to accomplish that for which
the father sent me. You shall call his name Jesus
for he shall save his people from their sins. That's what
he came to do, to save sinners. So the question that you and
I have to ask ourselves is what is my need? What is my need? What interest do I have in the
things of God and why do I have interest in the things of God?
Is it just that I might have some peace or some comfort or
some deliverance from some problem in this life or am I in need
of salvation? Am I in need of a savior? A sinner's
substitute? One who's able to stand in my
stead before God and represent me, be all my righteousness and
all my justification before God. That's my real need. Has God put on your heart an
interest in something beyond this life? Because most folks are just thinking
about today and tomorrow and next week, next year. Most folks don't think about
dying. They don't want to think about it. You talk to them about
it. I think I told you, I mentioned to a neighbor of mine recently
and he was complaining about something. I said, well, we're
not going to be here much longer. He said, oh, are you moving? I said,
no. I said, I just figured, you know,
life is short. We're going to die soon anyway.
He could not get away from me quick enough. I mean, he just,
I don't want to talk about that. And he's older than me. But that's where men are. They
don't think about their souls. They don't think about eternal
life. Do you? Do you? Is that the burden of
your heart? To meet God? To be right with
Him? It's coming. And in that day, nothing else
will matter. No diseases, no problems, nothing else is going
on. All the things that so consume
our minds and our interests and our attention right now, none
of that will matter a bit. So our Lord just walks away from
those people who are just interested in their in their temporal needs
being met and he says, no, let's go to the next town because I
came to preach the gospel. I came to save sinners. And he preached in their synagogues,
verse 39, throughout all Galilee and cast out devils. Now, there's
four verbs in the next verse that I want you to take notice
of. And there came, a leper, and beseeching him, kneeling down, and saying unto
him. So this leper came, he beseeched
him, he knelt down, and he spoke. This is a pattern for every leper. Leprosy is is a glorious picture
of all throughout of our real problem. This is the disease
that plagues us the worst. Leprosy is a, from what I understand,
it's a disease of the blood. A lot of people who show symptoms
of leprosy later in life were actually born with that disease
in their blood before it manifested itself. Is that not how we? The only difference is that our
sin nature manifests itself real soon, doesn't it? Real soon. So it can lie dormant for some
time. Leprosy is contagious. Isn't
that the way sin is? You know what it is, don't you? Scripture says that I can't quote
it exactly as in Galatians, but bad company corrupts good morals,
something to that effect. You hang out with the wrong people,
you're going to want to be like them, aren't you? And sin is
contagious. It's terminal. There's no cure for leprosy apart
from the miracle of God. God had to cure a leper in order
for him to be cured. There was no medication for it. No doctor can minister to it. Leprosy attacks the nervous system. One of the reasons that lepers
lose their extremities is because they get injured and they don't
know it. They burn themselves and cut themselves. Our nervous
system is what alerts us to danger, isn't it? But leprosy attacks
the nerves and you don't feel anything anymore. Isn't that
the way sin is? And it ends up causing a person
to look grotesque. If we could see sin like God
sees it, we would see how grotesque it really is. And leprosy makes the victim
unclean. A leper could not enter into
worship. He could not go to the temple.
He could not present an offering. He was put outside the camp. He was unclean. So this disease
of leprosy pictures our real problem. This is our, we're born
lepers. That's what we are. It's a grotesque disease, but
it's what the Lord came to heal us of. And here's the work of
grace. How do I know that God has done
a work of grace in this leper's heart? Well, number one, I've
come. I've come. Number two, I've beseeched
him. Now that word beseech means to
come alongside. It's the same word translated
advocate. It's the same word translated
given to the Holy Spirit as our comforter. He's the one that
comes along. In other words, here's what coming to Christ
says. Lord, I can't get to you. You're going to have to come
alongside to me. I can't enter into your presence.
You're holy. I'm defiled. If you're going
to cleanse me, you're going to have to come to where I am."
And that's exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ did when He left
the glories of heaven, was born of a virgin, and was made in
the likeness of sinful flesh, born of a woman, born unto the
law to redeem them who are cursed by the law. God became flesh
and dwelt among us. We couldn't get to where He is,
so He came to where we are. Lord, I beseech you, come alongside
to me. I can't get to where you are. I have nothing to offer you.
I have no means of traveling that infinite distance. You're gonna have to condescend
to where I am. So they come, they beseech him,
and they kneel down. Now, what is that a symbol of?
It's worship, isn't it? It's worship. You remember the
Syrophoenician woman when the Lord told her that she was a
dog and she said, truth Lord, and she worshiped him. She worshiped
him. Now perfect worship is the worship
that God the Father had towards God the Son and God the Son had
towards God the Father. That's perfect worship. And we'll
know something of that worship one day. But if the hand of God
is on us as a leper, we will kneel to him. will sit at his
feet." You know, I hear people say all the time, well, you know,
I take into consideration all the different factors and then
I decide what I'm going to do and what I'm going to believe.
I hear people say that about religion. You know, well, I've
tried this religion and that religion. I take a little bit
from each one and then I have my own religion. I'll pick the lie that I like
the most. What pride, what self-righteousness
to think that you have the ability to discern what truth is. Don't say, well, you know, well
I just, I listen to all the options and then I pick what I think
is right. All you're doing is making yourself out to be God.
You know what faith does? Faith just bows to what God says
whether you understand it or not. You don't evaluate it. You don't decide whether it's
true. You believe every word of it. You kneel down before
Him. You're a leper. You're completely
dependent upon Him to cleanse you. You're going to die of this
disease if He doesn't take it away. Lord, I beseech you and
I kneel down to you and whatever you do, whatever you say is right.
I just want to hear, thus saith the Lord. I just want to hear
what God says. I don't want any wiggle room. I don't want to put my opinion
in it or throw in my two cents worth. I'm not capable of knowing
the truth. I just want to believe what God
says. Now, the proud, self-righteous,
pseudo-intellectual will say, well, that's just stupid. That's blind faith. Well, let them say what they
want. The only hope the leper's got
is to kneel down before him. Be like Mary, choose that one
thing that's needful. Remember Mary and Martha? Martha wanted the Lord to make
Mary come help her in the kitchen. And what did the Lord say? Martha,
Martha, you're encumbered with so many things. But Mary, she's
the one sitting at my feet. She's got her mouth shut. She's
listening to what I have to say. And she has chosen that one thing
that's needful. There's only one thing that's
needful for a leper, and that's Christ. Don't pride yourself
in thinking that you can sit there and take in all the different
opinions and choose for yourself what's right. If God has called
you You have beseeched him to come to where you are and you
have knelt at his feet and you have said, Lord, I know you can,
if you will. That's what the leper said. That's just humble faith. That's
what a sinner does in the presence of a holy God. Let men pride themselves all
they want in their own ability. They have no ability. And if
God's called you, you know you don't have any ability, don't
you? You just completely depend upon
him. Let's finish this chapter. And
Jesus moved with compassion, verse 41, put forth his hand
and touched him. Now that's one thing you didn't
do. You didn't touch a leper. Lepers,
you remember when the woman with the issue of blood, after the
Lord healed her, she told him all the truth? You see, she was
supposed to announce to everybody before she got anywhere near
a crowd of people that she was unclean. But she knew that the
only way she could get to Christ was to keep her mouth shut. And
so she confessed to everybody, and I was unclean. I was unclean. This leper, the lepers were to
stand off at a distance and if anybody even started in their
direction, they had to holler, unclean, unclean. You didn't
get near a leper. The Lord touched the lepers.
And he's still touching lepers, isn't he? Yes, Lord, I'm unclean,
but oh, how I need you to touch me. I need you to take away my
disease. He put forth his hand and touched
him and said unto him, I will be thou clean. Here's our hope brethren. Anyone
who comes, beseeches him, bows at his feet, kneels before him,
worships him and says, Lord, I know you can, if you will.
This is the answer you're gonna hear. I will be thou clean. You think I want to but I can't?
You'll never hear that. But if you know I can, if I will,
you'll hear him say, I will, be thou clean. And as soon as
he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him and
he was cleansed. and he straightway charged him
forthwith, and sent him away, and said unto him, See thou say
nothing to any man, but go thy way. Show thyself to the priest,
and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded
for a testimony unto them. But he went out, and he couldn't
contain himself." I mean, here's a guy that had been cleansed
of of a life-threatening disease. He could not contain himself.
He just had to tell everybody. Everybody saw, I'm no longer
unclean, I'm clean, I'm clean. But what'd the Lord tell him
to do? He said, you go back to the priest and you do that which
Moses required for a testimony unto them. Now we don't have
time this morning, but I'd encourage you to read Leviticus chapter
14. I'll tell you briefly what it says. Leviticus Chapter 14. After Leviticus Chapter 13, which
was the identifying of the leper and the cleansing of the leper,
and the essence of Chapter 13 is that the leper was only clean
if there was no clean flesh on him. If from the top of his head
to the bottom of his foot, he was completely covered with leprosy,
then the priest was to declare him clean. You say, well that
doesn't make sense. It does if you understand the
gospel. the only way you see these are
spiritual messages this isn't a physical healing the only way
that uh... that any lepers ever going to
get clean is to come before the priest that's christ we have
a high priest and he inspects us and we can't brag on anything
we can't say well you know lord i've got a spot of leprosy here
a spot of leprosy there i know i've got a problem here lord
from the top of my head to the bottom of my foot i'm nothing
but sin I've got no clean flesh on me. And the priest says clean. And then chapter 14, that leper
is to go get two birds, two birds, bring them to the priest. And
the priest is to take one of the birds and kill it in a basin. And he's to take cedar wood and
scarlet and hyssop and dip it in that blood and then take the
live bird and dip it in the blood of the dead bird. And take the
live bird out into the field and let it go. Now the Lord said you go back
to the priest and follow the requirements of Leviticus chapter
14 as a testimony unto them. Now who's that bird that was
killed? You know who it was. as the blood of Christ. And it
was the blood of Christ that was put on the live bird and
the live bird was let go. What is the scarlet? Let me tell
you something about scarlet. You can read this up on yourself.
Read about the scarlet worm if you want to. Back in those days,
there's a little worm. I guess the worm still exists,
but they don't use it anymore. But the worm, the female worm,
when it got ready to give birth would crawl up on the side of
a tree and attach herself to a tree so that you couldn't move
her. And she would lay her larvae
between her and the tree. And as soon as she did, she would
die and emit a red scarlet fluid that those larvae would live
off of until they came out and started their life cycle. And
that fluid is what they used to make scarlet die back in those
days. Now the Lord Jesus Christ speaking
through David prophetically says, I am but a worm and no man. And he attached himself to a
tree and he gave birth to his church and by his blood they
survive. What a picture. And men thinking,
and men believe in evolution. People look at that and say,
well that worm evolved from another kind of worm. No he didn't. God
made him just like that. Everything in creation points
to the glory of God. You go take that scarlet and
that cedar wood. Now cedar wood's what Solomon
used to build the temple out of. Picture of the church and
I'm sure we can see a picture of the cross in it. Those stately
trees, the cedars of Lebanon that they took these timbers
from and they were bug resistant and straight and sturdy. There's
a picture of the cross. And then the hyssop, take the
hyssop. The hyssop is what the priest
used to dip in the blood and sprinkle it on the people. And
can we not see the picture of the scourging of the Lord Jesus
Christ? By his stripes, we are healed.
And the Lord tells this leper, you go to the priest and do exactly
what Leviticus 14 says to do as a testimony unto them. because
i came to heal lepers to save lepers let's take a break Thank you.