I want us to look at an extraordinary passage of scripture in Leviticus 13 and 14 this morning, and it talks about leprosy. I'll read it in a little bit. I thought we'd begin by looking at what it is for a sinner to know their leprous state. to feel the weight of what sin is. So why don't you turn with me in your Bibles to Psalm 38.

And the leper, as you know, probably was cut off from fellowship in Israel. He was cast outside of the camp of Israel and only in that camp Could he possibly be cured by someone coming to him? Thank God our Saviour came into the world to save sinners.

Psalm 38, a Psalm of David, to bring to remembrance O Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure, for thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore. There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger, neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sin. For mine iniquities are gone over mine head, and as a heavy burden they are too heavy for me. My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness. I am troubled, I am bowed down greatly, I go mourning all the day long, for my loins are filled with a loathsome disease and there is no soundness in my flesh. I am feeble and sore-broken. I have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart. Lord, all my desire is before Thee, and my groaning is not hid from Thee. My heart panteth, my strength faileth me. As for the light of mine eyes, it also is gone from me. My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my soul, and my kinsmen stand afar off.

The Psalms speak of Christ. Please, I pray that the Lord causes you to see the Lord in this. They also that seek after my life lay snares to me. They that seek my hurt speak mischievous things and imagine deceits all the day long. But I, as a deaf man, heard not. And I was as a dumb man that openeth not his mouth. Thus I was as a man that heareth not, and in whose mouth are no reproofs. For in thee, O Lord, do I hope. Thou wilt fear, O Lord my God. For I said, hear me, lest otherwise they should rejoice over me. When my foot slippeth, they magnify themselves against me. I am ready to halt. I'm ready to be lame. My sorrow is continually before me. For I will declare mine iniquity. I will be sorry for my sin. But mine enemies are lively, and they are strong, and they that hate me wrongfully are multiplied. They also that render evil for good are mine adversaries, because I follow the thing that is good. Forsake me not, O Lord, O my God, be not far from me. Make haste to help me, O Lord of my salvation.

My Heavenly Father, we do thank you and praise you for the wonder of redeeming love. that there is a people in this world whose sins were laid on the Lord Jesus Christ. And He alone, Heavenly Father, knew the depths of them and knew the depravity of them and knew the evil and the wickedness of them. He alone, Heavenly Father, knew that as David prayed against Thee and Thee only have I sinned and done this evil in Thy sight. We praise You, Heavenly Father, that Your spotless Lamb lived in this world in perfect obedience and in perfect holiness. But on the cross He was made sin. And Heavenly Father, we praise you that we can rejoice in things that we cannot understand fully. We just rejoice that you have declared it. Your words are pure and it is true. And we pray, Heavenly Father, as we look at your word this morning, we pray that you would again be our teacher, that you would again cause us to see that in the cleansing of the leper, In Leviticus 13 and 14 is a glorious, glorious picture of the Gospel. We can't understand your word, we can't know your word, we can't even rejoice in your word unless you are our teacher. And especially Heavenly Father, we can't see your Son in your word unless you come and open our eyes and open our understanding and give us a new heart. a new heart to love him, to rejoice in him, a new heart that sees something of the depths of the sin of this old man of flesh.

Father, we have a saviour. We thank you that he came to save. He doesn't try, he really saves and we pray for those around us, Heavenly Father, and for the preaching of your gospel and we pray that the proclamation of this gospel will go out and it will be loud and clear And thankfully, Heavenly Father, you send it to reach your people wherever they are in this world. We praise you, Heavenly Father, that there's a Saviour that came to a leper colony and said, come unto me and I'll give you rest. May we rest in the glories of your dear and precious Son this morning, our Father. We thank you that we can come to you in his name, in all that he is. We praise you our father. Amen.

We're going to sing number 11, just as I am without one plea. Here we go.

Well, turn with me in your Bibles to Leviticus chapter 13. And as you're turning there, I want to just let you know why this chapter has been so significant to me for such a long time. And Lisa, I keep talking to Lisa about this. She's been saying for a long time, why don't you preach on that passage? And so here we are, we finally have the opportunity.

But there are two particular reasons, other than the fact that this is the Word of God, two particular reasons that I wanted to and have been interested in this passage in Leviticus about the cleaning of the leprosy and the healing and the cleaning and the diagnosis of leprosy.

And one is, as you know, I was in India for five years. So for five years, every time I went to school and every time I came home, there, sitting by the road, I'm sure Ramesh was his name, there was a leper. And he sat there with his beggar's cloth in front of him and his little tin there in his rags. And he had almost no fingers on his hands. The leprosy had eaten the fingers and his hands away. So he had sort of stubs, but he could just manage to sort of pick up the coins off his cloth and just manage to feed himself. And he'd lost a leg and his nose was half sort of eaten away and I think his ears. Anyway, he was a sight and I just loved him and I used to stop and chat to him. And because he had a little bit of English, Ramesh.

But anyway, so leprosy was something that we saw in India. We saw the sort of remnants of modern day leprosy there. When we went down to the village where we spent a lot of time, we'd walk the little kids from the orphanage to school and you would walk them past a leper hospital. And they were closing down in India in those days because they discovered not so long ago that the leprosy of the modern world is actually cured. It's a bacteria, so it's just cured by simple antibiotics. It's just extraordinary how so many people suffered for so long and with such disfigurement.

And the other reason I wanted to say, and I think it's really significant for me, I trust it's significant for all of us, is that You, last time Greg Elmquist was here he stood where I'm standing now and preached in this pulpit and Greg Elmquist has an interesting history and it's similar to the history of all of God's children.

He was a young man read in California in the in the sort of 60s and 70s and was wild and then he got caught up in the Jesus movement and then he settled down from the nonsense of that and then he went to Bible College and joined a great big Southern Baptist Church that had 6,000 members and he was the missions pastor in that church and he travelled the world preaching from that Southern Baptist Church.

And then he discovered what's commonly called Calvinism. I don't like using the word because people don't understand what they're talking about but he discovered Calvinism so he joined and he began a church which grew to several hundred members and was very successful in Orlando, Florida and he was He was in the company of the biggest and most famous reformed people in America. His wife was the secretary of one of the most famous ones.

And then this famous man was due to speak in Greg's church one Sunday morning, and he was sick. And there was a lady in his church who had a brother called Todd Nybert. And she said, well, my brother's in town. He'll preach. Greg preached 27, 28 years ago now, he preached from Leviticus chapter 13 about the cleansing of the leper. And Greg and his wife and 15 or so other people were converted and for the last 27 years there have been proclaiming the glory of the gospel of the sovereign and free grace of God in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And I value both his friendship and fellowship and Todd's and others like them. But I think it's an interesting lesson that has been the story of Many of our friends in America, and it's certainly been my story and the story of many others, is that The Lord will rescue his people out of religion and again and again and again. I can give you the list of all of the men in America that I know of personally who were saved out of the religion and Greg was in the best that was going around at the time and he was famous and travelling the world as a reformed preacher and the Lord saved him.

And so this passage of scripture has often been on my mind and I love obviously the stories of the lepers. The leper in Mark chapter 8 is one of the most beautiful stories in all the Bible, isn't it? He came to the Lord Jesus Christ and he bowed and he worshipped him before anything was done to him, which is exactly how the Lord Jesus Christ ought to be treated, so glorious as he is worthy of worship, before he does anything for us.

And he said, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. Lord, if you will, that man knew exactly how to come and approach God Almighty in the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. Lord, if you will, you can heal me.

So let's read some of these verses here and I want us to see that this is a gospel picture of a disease that God sent to nation Israel and he sent it such that he would be able to declare the glories of salvation in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I love the fact, I love the fact that this passage of scripture, like all passages of scripture, cannot possibly be understood in any way that makes any sense. and has any meaning outside of the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified. So let's read Leviticus chapter 13. And the Lord spoke unto Moses and Aaron, saying, when a man shall have in the skin of his flesh a rising, a scab, or bright spot, and it be in the skin of his flesh like the plague of leprosy, Then he shall be brought unto Aaron the priest, or unto one of his sons the priest. And the priest shall look on the plague in the skin of the flesh.

And when the hair in the plague is turned white, and the plague in sight be deeper than the skin of his flesh, it is a plague of leprosy. And the priest shall look on him and pronounce him unclean. If the bright spot be white in the skin of his flesh, and in sight be not deeper than the skin, and the hair thereof be not turned white, then the priest shall shut him up. that hath the plague seven days, and the priest shall look on him on the seventh day.

And behold, if the plague in his sight be at a stay, be no longer spreading, and the plague spread not in the skin, then the priest shall shut him up seven days more. And the priest shall look on him again the seventh day, and behold, if the plague be somewhat dark, and the plague spread not in the skin, the priest shall pronounce him clean. It is but a scab, and he shall wash his clothes and be clean.

But if a scab spread much abroad in the skin, after he that hath seen of the priest for his cleansing, he shall be seen of the priest again. And if the priest see that, behold, the scab spreadeth in the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean. It is leprosy. When the plague of leprosy is in a man, Then shall he be brought unto the priest, and the priest shall see him, and behold, if the rising be white in the skid, and if it turn the hair white, and there be quick raw flesh in the rising, it is an old leprosy in the skin of his flesh, and the priest shall pronounce him unclean. and shall not shut him up, for he his own clean is sent out of the camp.

Now this is the gospel part of this, there's a gospel in all of this, but this is remarkable. You read this next verse. And if the leprosy, if a leprosy break out abroad in the skin, and the leprosy cover all the skin of him that hath the plague, from his head even to his foot, wheresoever the priest looketh. Then the priest shall consider, and behold, if the leprosy hath covered all his flesh, He shall pronounce him clean. That hath the plague, it is all turned white. He is clean.

Let's sing again, number 62. Thank you. If the Lord opened your eyes to see something of that, you'll be amazed. You'll be amazed that there is such a priest for those who are full of leprosy. It's wonderful. Oh, what matchless condescension. Number 62, thanks.

Okay, well turn back in your Bibles with you to Leviticus chapter 13 and I'm very anxiously praying the Lord will be our teacher this morning and we will come away from our time together just rejoicing in the wonders of healing and in the wonders of cleansing that's in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Leprosy is Like all disease and all the travails of men in this world, it is a picture of the fall of man in the garden. Man was deceived in the garden to believe that he had free will to choose the good and to avoid the evil and by doing so he would be like God. And ever since the fall, man has been made to live in a world in which his supposed free will is shown to be a lie. We can't cure a toothache. We can't cure the common cold. We are left bearing in our bodies and in our view of this world the sin that is the judgment of God upon Adam's fallen race.

And it's the hardest thing in the world to get to... and it's the work of God the Holy Spirit alone for people to actually understand that they are sinners. and that they are lepers and that when someone like me walks past Ramesh there on the garden road in southern India, in that town that we lived in, I'm the leper. I'm the leper.

God saw, Genesis 6-5, God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Leprosy is an extraordinary and poignant picture of sin being pictured and the leprosy that we're talking about here is maybe in very many ways like the leprosy of, thankfully not so much in modern times but in times gone past, but it may not have been. This is a leprosy that came from God. In Leviticus 14.34, he says, When you come into the land of Canaan, which I give you for a possession, and I put the plague of leprosy in your house, in the land of your possession.

Where did leprosy come from? For those of you who don't know about leprosy, it's a shocking disease. It's completely incurable. There is no cure. There was no cure in Israel unless God himself intervened in grace. Thank God the Lord Jesus Christ carried our diseases, bore our infirmities.

The other thing that was extraordinary about leprosy was that it was painless. The victim had no knowledge of it. until it was doing great damage to him. Leprosy was disfiguring of men. People were marred. They no longer bore that image of God, and that's what sin does. And leprosy was deeper than the skin. That's what the white hairs speak of. It was an inner disease. And leprosy was a separating disease. The lepers were shut out from fellowship with man, shut out from fellowship with God. They never heard those pronouncements from the high priest, the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon me. You were cut out, you were shut out from them.

And leprosy was diagnosed only by the priest. It wasn't diagnosed by the doctor. And Moses did nothing. This was just the work of the priests and they were trained and ordained to declare skin diseases, leprosy or something else. They were charged with sending the diseased person outside the camp and they went to the leper colony to examine the lepers who were brought out to meet them. What a great responsibility the priest had, if you mistake the disease, that the disease could spread through the camp.

We remember just in recent times the fear that spread throughout this world when this thing called COVID came along. People were fearful, really fearful, weren't they? And some people are still fearful. Such gives us some indication of what it was like. To have this disease, it was incurable. Leprosy was only cured by blood and by grace. What a picture of sin.

How must an Israelite have felt? When he woke up in the morning and there was a lump on his skin, under his skin, or there was a boil or there was a pimple. How much anxiety were you felt being shot away for seven days? They wrapped it up, we won't get to see, but in the text you can. They wrapped it up and then the priest came seven days later and they unwrapped it and they looked in their hand. How anxious your thoughts would have been. To have leprosy was to be a dead man waiting to die. That's what it was, wasn't it? You had seven days and then you were examined, then you had another seven days, as we saw in the text, and then you were examined again. How much anxiety! No wonder Paul, who lived under this law, said, you who want to be under the law, don't you hear the law? Would you want to go back to where these Israelites were? Would you want to go back and live that way, separated, cut off?

And throughout the rest of the Old Testament scriptures and into the New Testament, there's so many pictures of leprosy and how people were shut out. Listen to how Job describes his life. He hath put my brethren far from me, and my acquaintance are verily estranged from me. My kinsfolk have failed, my familiar friends have forgotten me. They that dwell in my house, my maids, count me for a stranger. I am an alien in their sight. I called my servant and he gave me no answer. I entreated him with my mouth. My breath is strange to my wife, though I entreated for the children's sake of my own body. Yea, young children despise me. I rose and they spoke against me. What sort of thoughts went through the camp when they thought about that leper colony out there? All my inward friends abhorred me, and they whom I love turned against me.

Lover and friend, thou hast put far from me and mine acquaintance into darkness, says the psalmist in Psalm 88. My lovers and friends stand aloof from my sore. My kinsmen stand afar off. We read that in Psalm 88.

To be made a sinner is a precious, precious gift from God. To be made a sinner, a real sinner, is a precious gift from God. To be made to see that you are sin, and because sin is what you are, sin then comes out. That's what leprosy did, didn't it? Came out from the inner man.

I have been preaching the gospel in a broken earthen vessel for some considerable time now and it always strikes me that the most extraordinary, impossible thing to do is to convince someone that they are a sinner in God's sight. If they believe that they can do something, that they can get better by some activity of theirs, that they can be more holy by their obedience to some commands, they're just not sinners. A sinner is like this leper, shut out. No wonder my friend Joseph Hart said, a sinner is a sacred thing. The Holy Ghost has made him so. New life from him we must receive, before for sin we rightly grieve.

Who will see themselves to be sinners in God's eyes? Who will see themselves to be lepers in God's eyes? Those who are born from above and only those who are born from above.

You listen to how Ezekiel describes the great work of God the Spirit. Ezekiel 36 verse 25, then I will sprinkle, I'll wait till you get there because it's such an amazing passage of scripture. I want us to see what this leprosy is picturing and I want us to see, once we see how serious the disease is, then the cure becomes really special, doesn't it? The one whose blood was shed is precious.

Ezekiel 36 verse 25, listen to the work of God, the Holy Spirit. This is the passage that the Lord Jesus Christ took Nicodemus to. Nicodemus came out of the darkness into the light. Thank God he did. He didn't know he was a sinner. He didn't know this passage of scripture at all.

Ezekiel 36, 25, Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you. And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statues and you shall keep my judgments and do them. and you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers and you shall be my people and I will be your God. I will also save you from all your uncleannesses and I will call for the corn and will increase it and lay no famine upon you. I will multiply the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field that you shall receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen.

Then, get the order, God gives a new heart God gives a new heart. God takes away the heart of stone. God gives a new heart. Verse 31, just read it with me. Then, as a result of all of that, then shall you remember your evil ways and your doings that were not good, and shall loathe yourself in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations."

That's exactly what Job said. Behold on vile, it's exactly what happened to Isaiah when he met the Lord Jesus Christ. Woe is me.

To understand, go back to Joseph Hart, to understand these things are right, this grand distinction should be known, though all are sinners in God's sight, there are but few so in their own. To such as these our Lord was sent, there are only sinners who repent. I'm a sinner, brothers and sisters. I'm not here standing above you in any way at all. I'm just a sinner. I'm a sinner that was found by a saviour.

That priest, that glorious high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, left the glory of heaven and came to a leper's colony. And then he went through that leper's colony and he says, be thou clean, be thou clean, be thou clean.

Okay, let's go back to our passage of scripture in Leviticus chapter 13. See, only the priest, as we saw, as we read, only the priest could pronounce the leper unclean. And only Christ, by His Spirit and His Word, can convince a man of his sin. Only the priest could make atonement for the leper. Christ alone made atonement for sin. Only the priest could apply the atoning blood to the leper. Only Christ can apply His blood to your conscience. We need Him. We need Him.

And I think we want to see something very poignant at the very beginning of this. There are some people who seem to have something akin to leprosy, and yet they're not. Read with me in verse two. When the man shall have in the skin of his flesh a rising, or a scab, or a bright spot, and it be in the skin of his flesh like the plague, like the plague of leprosy, then he shall be brought unto Aaron the priest, and unto one of his sons the priest. And the priest shall look upon the plague in the skin of the flesh, and when the hair in the plague is turned white and the plague inside is deeper than the skin and flesh, it is the plague of leprosy. And the priest shall look upon him and pronounce him unscathed.

But listen to this, if the bright spot be white in the skin of his flesh, and in sight not deeper than the skin, and the hair thereof not be turned white, then the priest shall shut him up that has the plague seven days. And as you go on reading, you'll find that he's clean. He's actually clean. He doesn't have leprosy. It's not deeper than the skin. It's not spreading. Now this is a picture of people in religion who have some stirrings, some feelings of remorse, some sense of danger. They have an old scar in their conscience. You don't have to look hard, do you, to find something in your history about which you are so thankful that everyone in this world doesn't have the foggiest notion about it anymore and you've forgotten it all the time. And you might have a bright spot, you might be able to look back and say, although I did this, I had a bright spot of righteousness.

We're talking about a healing of real lepers. So what do the false teachers do according to God? They heal, Jeremiah 6.14 and Jeremiah 6.18, they have healed also the daughter, the hurt of the daughter of my people, slightly saying, peace, peace, where there is no peace.

What's the preaching of peace in this world? God loves you. Jesus died for you. God wants to save you. He sent his son to do the best he possibly could. You have a free will. You can obey God by the use of your free will. Anything that leaves man not a leper, like the leper we'll read about here in verses 12 and 13, is healing the daughter of my people slightly, saying, peace, peace. That's what Satan says to people, peace, peace.

And what happens to the one who is the leper? Verse 8, And if the priest see that, behold, the scab spreadeth in the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean. It is leprosy. If you've seen movies from the old times, you will know what happens. I've seen some of those movies where there is this leper colony and it's the most horrifying sight.

But listen to what happens to the leper. Turn with me to verse 42 of this same chapter. Ezekiel 13 verse 42. Sorry, I'm on the wrong page. And if there be in the bald head or the bald forehead a whitish-reddish sore, it is leprosy sprung up in his bald head or his bald forehead. Then the priest shall look upon it, and behold, if it is arising of the sore to be white-reddish in his bald head or in his bald forehead, And as the leprosy appeareth in the skin of his flesh, he is a leprous man. He is unclean. The priest shall pronounce him utterly unclean. His plague is in his head.

And the leper, in whom the plague, don't forget, it's not just a superficial thing. Real sinners see sin very, very deeply. The leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip and shall cry, Unclean. Unclean. All the days wherein the plague shall be in him, he shall be defiled. He is unclean. He shall dwell alone. Without the camp shall his habitation be. Outside the camp.

What an extraordinary thing to wake up in the morning in Nation Israel. You could be defiled while you slept. You could be defiled when you got up and something unclean had fallen into one of your pots and you'd not noticed it while you were eating or drinking. You could be defiled by leaning against a wall. You could be defiled by Oh dear, oh dear, thank God that we have a saviour. Thank God we have a saviour.

He's put outside the camp. Where did the Lord Jesus Christ go when he came to do his atoning work for us? Turn with me to Hebrews chapter 13. It's such an important verse for us to understand the work of this priest is the work of our Lord Jesus Christ, the great high priest. Verse 12 of Hebrews chapter 13. Wherefore, Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people, make them holy, make them clean, with his own blood, suffered without the gate. Where did he suffer? outside the gate, outside the camp. Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach, for here we have no continuing city. But we seek one that is to come. By him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually. That is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name, the cleansed leper. The cleansed lepers give thanks to his name. Everything the leper touched was defiled. His clothes, his houses, his bed, everything the leper did was defiled. All that's required for something to be defiled is for me to have something to do with it. Everything that is accepted is only accepted because Christ has done it.

The law is so strict, isn't it? The ploughing of the wicked is abomination, is sin unto the Lord. The ploughing of the wicked. We live in a farming community. You go out there and you think those farmers are doing a wonderful job, they're feeding these people. Why is it wicked? Why is it sin? Because man is doing it. See, the leper reveals the true position of a sinner in the eyes of the Lord. And this truth, as I said earlier, is only revealed by the new birth. And there's only one solution. Christ comes to us. We don't come to him. Christ calls for us and we don't call for him. The Holy Spirit comes and brings the sinner to the Lord Jesus Christ.

And the leper could do nothing about his state. Just imagine what it was like. There you were in the leper colony. Absolutely nothing you could do. There was no medicine. You would be relying on people who loved you and cared for you and didn't want to be anywhere near you to leave food nearby so you could go and get it. It's an extraordinary picture of sin, isn't it, and separation from God.

So let's go down to verse 9. When the plague of leprosy is in a man, then he shall be brought unto the priest. And the priests shall see him, and behold, if the rising be white in the skin, and have turned the hair white, and there be a quick, raw flesh in the rising, it is an old leprosy in the skin of his flesh. And the priests shall pronounce him unclean, and shall not shut him up, for he is clean.

That word's raw, quick and raw. Quick means living, of course. And that means flesh that's not affected, and raw means healthy flesh. So here, is the diagnosis. If you have one spot, you're a leper and you're defiled. If 99.9% of your body is perfectly clean and you have one spot, what are you? A leper. You are cast out of the camp of God altogether. But if you are 99.9% leprous and there is one spot of clean living flesh, then that man is unclean. It's extraordinary, isn't it, how strict and clear it is. It's a glorious spiritual picture, isn't it?

If a man is 99% leprous and there's one spot of good, clean living in him, he's unclean. And if man is 99.9% clean and there is just one spot of leprosy, he is unclean. Go back to the leper colony. This is a spiritual picture here, isn't it? A glorious spiritual picture. If you come into the God's presence with some health, some ability, some goodness, God must say to you, back to the leper colony. If you have any clean flesh, you're shut out from the benefits of the priest. You can't be in the company of God's people.

As long as a man has something to boast of, there is no need of Christ. If you can do something that pleases God, in that doing, you don't need the Lord Jesus Christ to be the doing. He has to be the doing of 100% of all of our activities. That's what this picture of the leper is. Christ plus anything equals nothing. Christ plus nothing equals everything.

Now let's turn before we close down to verse 12 and 13 and I want us to look at this extraordinary picture of what it is to be declared clean. And it's a picture that can only possibly be understood by the gospel, because this person to look at would be someone that you'd turn away from in horror.

Verse 12, and if a leprosy break out abroad in the skin, and the leprosy cover all of the skin of him that hath the plague, from his head even to his foot, where so ever the priest looketh. He looks at that man and he cannot find one single spot that's clean, one bit of good flesh. Then the priest shall consider and behold, if the leprosy hath covered all his flesh, He shall pronounce him clean. That hath the plague, it is all turned white, he is clean.

There is this person who's nothing but sin, from head to foot. Imagine what he looked like, this person, covered in white. How did we see the Lord Jesus Christ when he came? I'll not have that man rule over me. If the leprosy has covered all his flesh, he shall pronounce him clean. If you come into God's presence with anything good, I'm sent away. He says, depart from me, you that work iniquity. That's what Isaiah said about the state of man, wasn't it? From the sole of his foot to the top of his head, He's nothing. Isaiah 1.6, chapter 1, verse 6.

This is a picture of a sinner being saved. It doesn't matter what there is in man. If they have the power of free will to say, I'll do this and I'll obey, If I'm just put in the right environment, if I just have the right education, I'm going to turn things around, I can get rid of these temptations. If you come into God's presence according to this law of the liver, with any healthy flesh, with any ability in yourself, you are sent back to the leper colony.

But if you come with nothing but sin from head to toe, no ability, no promises to reform, nothing to look back on, nothing to look forward to in yourself, all in the Lord Jesus Christ, it's not in me, it's in him. What did Paul say? I know that in my flesh dwells no good thing. I'm nothing but sin. When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. The good that I want to do, I don't do, but the evil that I don't want to do, that I do. This is a Roman seventh sinner that's being described here. And it's not an excuse for sin. This letter's not going to say, I'm going to sin because I can't help it, it's just the way I am. God's children are horrified by the sin that they are. And they hate it and they hate the expression of it. And they continually plead with God to take it away from them.

God's children come to this priest as self-condemned sinners and they're just guilty. They're guilty. What did the thief on the cross say? I'm a leper. This is all my fault. I'm getting what I deserved. The story in the Gospel is so abundantly clear in this, isn't it? God says in Romans 5, doesn't it, when we were yet without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. You're ungodly. If we see ourselves as ungodly, if we see ourselves as without strength, without spiritual strength, without power, then Christ died for you. Peter says he died the just for the unjust, 1 Peter 3, 18. If you're unjust in all, then the just one died for you. At the very moment, someone confesses their complete defilement, that they're covered from head to toe in sin, and that's all they are. They identify themselves as sinners for whom Christ died. What disqualifies someone? What sends someone in this picture here in Leviticus 13 back to the leper colony? Some good flesh in them. Whether it's 99% good flesh or 0.001% good flesh. Back to the leper colony.

What a saviour we have that came to a leper colony. Your sin, as horrible as it is, as evil as it is, As bad as it is, it never disqualifies you for the saving benefits of the Lord Jesus Christ. He came into this world to save sinners.

What's the problem? What's the thing that sends people to hell? Their righteousness. You will be as gods. Courses through the veins of early worship. It's your righteousness that disqualifies you.

What a glorious, glorious picture we have of a great high priest. God's children are guilty sinners. We can come into the presence of God as guilty sinners. That's what David did, didn't he? Psalm 25 verse 11, For thy name's sake, O Lord, pardon me mine iniquity, for it is great. Spurgeon said a long time ago, use your guilt, even the greatness of it, like David of old, as an argument for mercy.

It's wonderful, isn't it? It's wonderful that there's a saviour for sinners. We come like the public and in the temple, God be merciful to me, the sinner. The sinner, he said, not a sinner. He wasn't worried about the other sinners in the world. He wasn't saying, I'm one among many. He said, I'm the sinner. I'm the sinner. Paul declared himself to be the chief of sinners.

Thank God there's a saviour for sinners. A saviour for sinners. Thank God there's a priest that declares sinners clean. He says, it's clean he is clean leviticus 13 verse 13 he is clean may the lord Make these words resound in our hearts and may we find the comfort of coming as sinners into our Saviour's hands.

We're going to come back after the break and have a look in chapter 14 at the wonder of the cleansing of the leper and we'll see our Lord Jesus Christ in great glory.