Alright brethren, let's go back
now to Mark chapter 1. I want to read this again, make a few
comments. He said unto them, verse 38,
Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also. For therefore came I forth. And
he preached in their synagogues throughout all Galilee, and cast
out devils. Now Matthew tells us that the
Lord had just preached the Sermon on the Mount and He'd come down
out of the Mount and there were great multitudes of people that
were following Him. And verse 40 says, And there
came a leper to Him. From this large crowd of people
comes one man, a leper, and he comes to Christ, beseeching Him. kneeling down to him. Matthew
said he was worshiping him and he addressed him as Lord. And
he said unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And
Jesus moved with compassion and put forth his hand and touched
him and saith unto him, I will be thou clean. And as soon as
he had spoken, Immediately, the leprosy departed from him and
he was cleansed. I want to speak tonight about
the will that cleanses. The will that cleanses. Salvation is not by the sinner's
will. Salvation is by the will of our
Lord Jesus Christ, God our Savior. Salvation is not by our will,
or our ability in any way. This leper didn't come to Christ
boasting of His will. He didn't come making demands
and boasting of His will. He came and He said unto him,
If thou wilt, if you will, you can make me clean. What will
make a sinner stop trusting himself And this is what every unbeliever
is doing. He is trusting himself, looking
to himself, exalting himself. What will make a sinner stop
looking to himself and exalting his will and his abilities and
come to Christ, bow down and worship Him and reverence Him
and say, Lord, if Thou wilt, You can make me clean. What will
make a sinner do that? Well, first of all, the Spirit
of God must reveal to us our desperate need. He must reveal
to us that we have a desperate, desperate need. Verse 40 says,
there came a leper to him. Luke said, he was full of leprosy. Out of all that multitude, It
was around our Lord Jesus Christ. Only one man came out of that
multitude and had this spirit about him where he bowed down
and he put his face to the ground and he addressed Him as Lord
and he said, Lord if Thou wilt, Thou can make me clean. Just
one man did that. And the reason he did that is
he knew he had a need. He had a need. He had a need. And this man believed that Christ
was the only one that could meet that need. That's why he came
to it. You know what you have or do
you know that you have a need that only Christ can meet? If you're a believer, a true
believer, You know that. You know Christ. You have a need
that only Christ can meet. If you're an unbeliever, you
don't know that. Because everybody that knows
that does what this man did. He came to Christ. It was why
he came to Christ. He had a need. And he believed
nobody but Christ could meet that need. See, the disease of
leprosy in the Scripture, all through the Scripture, the disease
of leprosy, is used to typify sin. Now, every sinner in his
own sin nature is a spiritual leper. That's what we all are
by nature, is a spiritual leper. Think about some of these similarities.
There was no cure for leprosy at this time. Man had no cure
for leprosy. Well, there's no cure. There's
nothing you and I can do to cure ourselves of sin. It's impossible. Leprosy began unnoticed. You
didn't notice leprosy when it began. It was a blood disorder. But very soon it was manifest,
and before it was over with, it just ate a man's flesh entirely
up. Well, sin begins unnoticed in
our nature, but soon it manifests itself. The psalmist said, Behold,
I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive
me. That's the unseen, unknown nature of a sinner, conceived
by the corrupt seed of Adam. But then not very long after
that, the psalmist says, then we go astray as soon as we're
born, speaking lies. We read, from the sole of the
foot even to the head, there's no soundness in it, but wounds
and bruises and putrefying sores, they've not been closed, neither
bound up, neither mollified with ointment. That's a description
of leprosy, but he's describing our sin. You see how it starts
unseen, unnoticed? It's a blood disorder. It's a
problem with the nature. But then it starts to manifest
itself. And the longer we live, the more
it's from head to toe. Total corruption. Leprosy. I didn't know this. I read this.
Somebody had written about leprosy and they said that it destroyed
all the nerve endings so that a leper couldn't feel his sores. When he would be scraping his
sores and his toes would rot off and these different things
would happen, he couldn't feel it. He was numb to it. That's exactly what sin does.
Sin makes us numb to sin. You become accustomed to it. You know the things when you
were a little child, it just took the smallest thing to just
break your heart and you saw this was wrong. When you get
older, those same things don't even faze you. And then you get
to where Horrible things don't faze you.
You can become numb to sin, just like leprosy. And then another
thing about a leper was a leper stank. His wounds were put forth
a horrible stench. Well, God says of sinners that
we're an abomination. That means a stench, an abomination. He said, even the best deeds
of a wicked man is an abomination. All his sacrifices and his offerings
stink to God. That's you and me by nature.
That's what we are before God. And God required the leper to
be isolated from all contact in His law. He said the leper
had to be isolated from the general population. He had to go and
live alone. He couldn't be with the people
because it was so contagious. Well, Scripture says God will
not receive any sinner into His presence while we're in our sin. Scripture says of heaven where
God is, there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth. That's what leprosy did, it defiled.
That's what our sin does, it defiles. There will enter nothing
into God's presence that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination,
a stink, or maketh a lie. but they which are written in
the Lamb's book of life." So out of all this great multitude,
the reason this one man came to Christ, right there in front
of everybody, he came to Christ because he saw his need and he
believed Christ was the only one that could meet that need.
The only one. Now is there anybody here who
knows that you have a need? You are a sinner and you have
a need of Christ. I can say this, I can show you
scriptures, but it's going to take God by His will to make
us see it. This shows you that it's not
of our will. It's going to take God's will working to make us
behold. Look over at Romans 3 with me.
This is so of every child of Adam. I want you just to see
this. Romans 3, verse 10. There is none righteous, no not
one. There is none that understandeth.
There is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of
the way that together become unprofitable. There is none that
doeth good, no not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher,
an open grave. With their tongues they've used
deceit. The poison of asps, of snakes,
is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness,
their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery
are in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known.
There is no fear of God before their eyes. Isaiah said, we're
all, this is so of all of, we're all as an unclean thing. And
all our righteousnesses, they're just like the leper. They're
filthy. Filthy rags. We're not talking about our very
worst sins. We're talking about our very
best righteousnesses are filthy before God. And it's not due
to our surroundings. It's not due to the way we were
brought up. We can't blame it on anybody.
Look over at Mark chapter 7. Mark chapter 7 verse 20. Christ said, that which cometh
out of the man, that defileth the man. For from within, out
of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications,
murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness,
an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things
come from within and defile the man. You know, you could take
a child, a newly born child and isolate that child away from
all human contact. And that child will know how
to sin just as good as people right in the middle of society.
It comes from the heart. The heart is sin and therefore,
you know, it comes from a sinful heart, sin. That's all. That's all. And so, before any
sinner will seek mercy, before he'll understand he's a sinner,
before he'll understand Christ is the only one who can meet
his need, before he'll ever seek that mercy, he's going to have
to have God, by His will, to purge our conscience, to cleanse
us, just to make us see our sin. That's why the psalmist said,
who can understand his errors? Cleanse thou me from secret faults,
from faults I can't see. Cleanse me so I can know my errors. Job said, teach me and I'll hold
my tongue. Cause me to understand wherein
I've erred. I can't even by my will see my
sin. I can't even by my own will acknowledge
what I am by nature. It takes God by His will to cleanse
me just to make me be able to see my sin. When you see your
sin and you realize you need to be cleansed and you start
seeing Christ as the only one that can cleanse you, the only
reason you know any of that is because the Spirit of God has
come and purged your conscience. He's cleansed you already from
dead works so that you see now you need Christ. We're so desperate,
so desperately wicked, it takes the will of Christ sending forth
the Holy Spirit to convince us of sin before we'll ever even
acknowledge our sin. So it can't be of our will. This
is of God's will, of His will alone. I pray, brethren, that
He does. I pray for our young people. I pray for each of us. I want those that don't know
what they are. I pray the Lord would send the
Holy Spirit and convince them of sin. Make them to see what
they are. Make them to see they have a
true need that they have no ability whatsoever to provide for that
need. And I pray that God don't ever let us forget that. You
who believe. Don't ever let me for a minute
think that I can stand without Christ because we can't. We have
this need now. just like we did the first hour.
Well, secondly, salvation is by the will of our Lord because
only He can give us a new heart of faith in Christ. Not only
do we have to have a new spirit to be able to see we're sinning
and we have a need, we have to have a new heart to make us believe
on Christ. He says here in verse 40, there
came a leper to Him, to Christ. Now you think about this. He
didn't come to His disciples. And I'm certain this leper heard
the Sermon on the Mount. He knew about Christ, that's
why he came to Christ. But he didn't come just telling
Christ what he had learned from his teachings. He didn't do that. He came to Christ. He came to
Christ. You know, if you feel a little
sick and you have some aches, you know, just some minor aches
or sniffles or something, you might get down a book, you know,
a medical book or get on the internet, try to find out what,
you know, what's causing these symptoms. And you learn a little
bit about it and you go tell your wife or your husband or
your kids, you know, well, this is what I learned about this.
This is what's causing this, you know, and you talk about
it a little bit. You don't do that when you're deathly ill.
When you're deathly ill, you go to the physician. You're not
interested in learning a few facts. You're ready to get there
and have something done for you. And you know, when a man's just...
getting curious about religion and thinks he's got something
that's sort of making him uncomfortable about himself. He'll learn some
religious knowledge. He'll learn a system of doctrine.
He may come to that. He may come to the preacher.
He may come to a profession of faith and come to the waters
of baptism and come to the church. But when God makes you know what
you are, and shows you Christ is the only one that can heal
you. You'll come to the great physician.
That's when you come to the great physician. I'm not discrediting
doctrine. Doctrine is how we know who Christ
is. Doctrine, you can't be saved
without a knowledge of Him. And that's what doctrine is.
It's teaching us of Him. But the difference between where
God's working in the heart and really taught us what we are
and the man who's just carried away with a bunch of religious
knowledge is, you have a heart that knows, I have to have Christ. And why you look in doctrine
is because you want to see Christ in it. You want to learn about
Christ. You want to see Him because you always come into Him. That's
the difference grace makes. Now a man who doesn't know his
sin condition, He comes to all these other things, but he doesn't
come to Christ alone. He doesn't understand that he's
totally, thoroughly unrighteous and that Christ is the only righteousness
of his people. And be the only one he can obtain
a righteousness from is coming to Christ. A man that just knows
a little bit about himself being a sinner and it's just a doctrine
to him, that man will try to cleanse himself. And he doesn't
realize Christ is our sanctifier and our sanctification and only
He can give you a holy heart, make you cleansed. This is the
difference. That sinner that comes to Christ,
the great physician, is one who has truly been taught by God,
given a new spirit, a new heart, a heart of faith in Christ. And
where God's given a new heart, there'll be a fear of God. We
just read there, our natural state, there is no fear of God.
That's how come people can speak so carelessly and so flippantly
and joke around about God and His Word and the Lord. Matthew
said when this man came, he bowed down and he said, Lord, you know
something I never did when I lived at home? I don't do it now. I
never have addressed my dad by his first name, ever. out of
reverence. When you met Christ, He stops
being Jesus and He becomes the Lord Jesus, my Lord Jesus. It's reverence. It's a fear of
God that He puts in the heart. It's a new spirit He puts in
the heart. Look here at verse 40. There came a leper to Him,
beseeching Him and kneeling down to Him. Matthew said, worshipping
Him. Luke said, laying on His face
before Him. Now look at this. The natural
heart demands. That's what religion is all about.
Your rights and what you need to go and demand from God. He can't offend you now. He can't
offend your will. It all comes back to you having
this will where you can save yourself. The natural heart demands. The new heart beseeches. That's
the difference. Natural man, natural heart exalts
self. The new heart comes and kneels
down to Christ, bows down to Christ. Do you know the word
worship means to bow down? When we talk about worship, when
we truly talk about the definition of worship, we're not talking
about coming into a place like this and sitting and hearing
the message preached. We're talking about the heart being made to
bow down before Christ and worship Him. That's worship. Natural
heart is too proud to hit His face. You think about all these
people around there, and I guarantee there were people in that crowd
and they were thinking, I wouldn't come and lay down like that.
I wouldn't come and bow down at that man's feet like that.
That man didn't care what anybody thought. He didn't care what
any of those people thought. He had a need. He was dying. He knew Christ was his Lord.
He knew he was the one who could heal him. And he believed him.
And he came giving this man reverence, bowing down to him. And he didn't
care. See, I'll tell you one of the
greatest things that ever happens to you. You know when you're
young, and it's still with us, I'm not saying you ever lose
this, When you're young and you're trying to make your mark, make
your name amongst your friends, everything is about exalting
yourself. Wanting them to say nice things
about you. Wanting them to brag on you. That's all it is. It's
just trying to exalt, exalt, exalt, exalt yourself by stuff
you do. That's why some kids are wilder and they do it by
that. The clowns, they do it by that. Others try to be more
daring and some thievery. It's trying to make a name, trying
to get people to brag on you and be a legend. You know the greatest thing in
the world is when God gives you a new heart that's broken and
contrite and you quit caring what people think about you. You quit. It's not about you
anymore. You just see Him and you know
Him and you want to bow before Him and worship Him and honor
Him. And you don't really care if people aren't into that. You
don't care if they're going to make fun of you for that. It
doesn't matter. I don't care. I don't want to do anything to
dishonor His name. I'm not saying that. I care about
that. But I don't care if people are going to really kill me and
mock me and reject me. This man didn't care about that.
That didn't matter to him. He came there and he couldn't
even lift his eyes up to the Lord. Do you remember the Lord's
parable? It's obviously important. The parable didn't really happen. The Lord is just telling a story
to illustrate something. So that must tell you this is
important to our Lord Jesus Christ that He made the man that was
justified in His parable to have this trait. A republican standing
afar off would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven,
but smote upon his breast saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. He told that story to tell you
that's how God receives sinners. The man that's broken and contrite
and mourning and meek, he's the one that will be filled. And
this new heart that God gives, it doesn't boast in self-will.
It boasts in God's will. It doesn't boast in self-will.
This leopard didn't come speaking of his own will. He came, verse
40, and he said, if thou wilt. This is a fact. I'm going to
give you something here that is an absolute fact. We do not
know God. until we're made to know that
salvation is entirely by the will of God. That's right. We don't know God
until we're brought to see salvation is by His will. It's not by my
will. He said to Moses, I will have
mercy on whom I will have mercy. And I will have compassion We'll
see that word here in just a minute, compassion. I'll have compassion
on whom I will have compassion. So what's the answer then? What's
the conclusion from that? So then, it's not of him that
willeth, it's not of him that runneth, but of God that showeth
mercy. That's why you don't ever hear
Romans 9 preached. That's exactly why you don't
hear Romans 9 preached. It takes salvation out of our
hands, puts it in God's hands. It was His will that elected
the people unto salvation. It was His will that came and
fulfilled His own law for His people and made them righteous.
It's His will that calls His people to Himself and gives them
a new heart and a new spirit. It's His will that preserves
us and brings us to Himself, presents us to Himself without
spot or blemish. It's His will. Salvation is by
the will of God. Not by our will, by His will.
And any professing believer, now listen to me, I'm not saying
believe, I'm saying any professing believer who boasts that part
of his salvation is by his will, he has not been made to see that
he is a total dead dog sinner. Completely unable to do one thing.
He hasn't been brought to see that yet. Look over Romans 6. I want you
to see what this little thing here Paul says about us. Romans
6. He's talking here about us being
freed from the dominion of sin so that now we can believe on
Christ. Look what he said here in Romans 6.20. When you were
the servants of sin... And you know what you can put
there for that word servant? Slave. When you were the slave. When you were the... The bound
slave of sin. You were free from righteousness.
You didn't have any. Look, what fruit had ye then
in those things whereof you are now ashamed? The end of those
things is death. Well, how did I get from being
a slave of sin? Look at the next line. But now,
being made free from sin. You became the servants to God. He made me free. He made me free. That's about as passive as you
can state it right there on my part. Now being made free. He freed me. That's how I was
made free. I can't boast that my will freed
me. His will freed me. And then look back now at our
text in verse 40. God given faith, or He's given
faith, is going to come believing Christ and Christ alone. Not Christ plus something. Christ alone. This leper came
to Christ because he believed on Christ. Verse 40. He came
saying, ìIf thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.î See, he believed
Him. You can make me clean. If you're
willing, you can make me clean. I want you to get something here.
Get this now. At this time, that this man is
saying this, there was no cure for leprosy by any sort of medicine
or surgery or anything like that. Everybody this man knew in his
lifetime that had leprosy died. There wasn't a cure for it. And
up to this point, Christ had never cleansed a leper. That didn't stop this man from
coming to him, no, did it? Why? Because he believed he could. He believed. That's faith. Why did Abraham take Isaac up
there when God said, offer up Isaac? Why did he do that? Paul
said he was persuaded that what God promised, God was able to
perform. That's faith. Faith is believing
God can do it. Christ can do it. And if He's
willing, He will. If He's willing, He will. That
means if He's willing, nobody can stop Him from doing what
He can. If He's willing, you can't stop
Him from doing what He's able to do. He's able. Faith believes he's able. I pray
God give us a heart broken, make us see our sin, give us a broken
contrite heart, give us faith in Christ, draw us to Christ,
make us come to Him believing, persuaded. He's able to save
me. He's the only one able to save
me. I'm either going to be saved
or I'm going to perish. It's up to His will. But He's
the only one that's able. Why is that so important? Because
without faith, it's impossible to please God. He that comes
to God must come to Him believing on God, believing that God is
the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. That means believing
God's the one that does everything to save us. That's the only way
you can be saved. Anything less is not really faith. If I believe on Christ but I'm
still looking to me to do something, that's not faith. That's not
faith. And yet we see time and again
where the apostles didn't have a perfect faith, they didn't
have a complete faith, they had a little They really did think
right up until Christ arose from the grave and came back and taught
them. Even after He arose and came
back and left them at Jerusalem, told them to go back to Jerusalem,
they still thought He was fixing to restore an earthly kingdom. And I'm saying that it's important
to have faith but it's the object of our faith that saves us. Alright, how does Christ receive
such a sinner? How is He going to receive a
sinner that comes that way? Mark 1.41, And Jesus moved with
compassion, and put forth His hand, and touched him, and said
unto him, I will be thou clean. Christ is our compassionate high
priest. He said, I will have compassion
on whom I will have compassion. You know, when you go back and
you read Matthew 8, Matthew 8 tells us about this and it tells us
about the centurion who came who asked the Lord to go and
heal his servant, I believe it was, and then he talks about
the woman that came in the press that had the issue of blood.
She touched his garment, you know, and then he ended up that
day, he ended up at Peter's house and his mother was sick with
a fever. He went in and touched her. And the Scripture says,
all that was done, that Scripture might be fulfilled, Isaiah 53,
4, that said, He took our infirmities and bore our sickness. He took
our infirmities and bore our sickness. That same verse is
translated by the Apostle Peter. He bore our sins in his own body
on the tree in 1 Peter 2.24. You see, if He's going to have compassion
on you and me and He's going to cleanse His people, it's going
to be by a living union with His people. He was made flesh
and dwelt among us that He might be made like unto His brethren.
And He did that that He might make His brethren like unto Him.
It's a union. It's a union. He reached out
and He touched him. Would you have reached out and
touched a leper? It wouldn't have done you any good. All you
would have done was gotten leprosy from him. But you see, Christ
is the physician. He's the one that... You know
what He did when He touched him? He took the leprosy. But more
importantly, He took responsibility for the sin that caused the leprosy. And He gave that leper cleansing. He absolved him of his sin. He
forgave him of his sin. He cleansed him of all unrighteousness. So what's he got to do now that
he's done that? He's got to go to the cross and he's got to
pay for that sin. He's got to go to the cross and
He's got to pay for the sin that caused that. He's got to be made
sin for His people and stand before the holy law of God as
the leper cut off. Because that's what the law demanded.
You know there's a picture, there's a scripture in Isaiah where it
says we hid our faces from Him. If you read the margin it says
He hid His face from us. Do you know what the law demanded
of a leper? He had to hide his face from the people and cry,
unclean, unclean. Christ fulfilled that law in
every jot and tittle. He was cut off just like the
leper. John Gill said that the book
of Job and what Job suffered and how he described what he
was bearing. He had leprosy, that's what he
had. John Gill said it's the best description of what Christ
suffered on Calvary's cross you'll find anywhere in Scripture. And as soon as he spoke, immediately
the leprosy departed from him and he was cleansed. See, in
order to speak the sin-cleansing Word, to absolve our sins, to
make this new creation, He had to carry our sickness, our sin
Himself. And He had to bear the wrath
of God for His people as the only one the law looked to as
being the only leper and cut off. This is why He touched them.
It was a union. He said, I in them and thou in
me that they may be made perfect in one, in Him, in Christ. You got God in Christ and you
got His people, Christ in His people. so that we're made perfect
in one. We're brought together perfectly
in union with God our Father in Christ the Lord by what He
did. Without any of that defilement, without any of that awful abomination
that prevented God from having anything to do with us. That's
what Christ accomplished. That's why He went around healing
people. It wasn't just to heal people. If He healed you, and
He can heal, He does heal, He has healed our brethren. Some
of them He don't heal though. And if He does heal you, you're
still going to die. But if He heals you this way,
what I'm talking about here, that's taking care of the sin
that caused the sickness, you won't ever die. Look here now,
I want you to see, He made this leper a testimony of something. Look here, Mark 1.44, And He
said to him, See thou say nothing to any man, but go thy way and
show thyself to the priest. What He's saying is, He wasn't
preventing this man from going and telling people what the Lord
had done for him. He's just telling him, you go
directly now, before you start going and telling people, you
go straight to the priest so they can't So they have to acknowledge
this was done by me. You go to them right now and
show yourself to them. And he says, "...and offer for
thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded for a testimony
unto them." A testimony of what? All these things that he said
do here, that was all in God's law concerning a leper. But it
was concerning something special about a leper. Listen to this. Let me read this to you. Leviticus
14.1 says, The Lord spake to Moses and He said, This shall
be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing. When he's
cleansed. And He said, He shall be brought
unto the priest, and the priest shall go forth out of the camp,
out to the leper colony, and the priest shall look on him
and behold, and if the plague of leprosy be healed in the leper,
then shall the priest command to take for him is to be cleansed,
two birds and there were two different kinds of offerings
he was to offer. But this was when he was cleansed. Now listen,
what was the point of having this law? Because leprosy was
incurable as far as man was concerned. This law had never been fulfilled
in Israel. Ever. That law had never been
done in Israel because not one single leper in Israel had ever
been cleansed by the priests or by their washings. Not one. What was this leper bearing testimony
unto before the priests? That Christ had made this man
a testimony to the truth that Christ is the High Priest. And
He is the offering that that law pictured. This was the first
time in Israel that that law of the leper, after he was cleansed,
being fulfilled. And Christ did it. And it was
to show us He's the High Priest. He's the offering. It's to show
us Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
that believeth. He fulfilled it. He fulfilled it. You see,
all this stuff about leprosy, what it comes down to is this.
We broke the law. And God gave a law and said,
now this law is going to have to be fulfilled for you to be
cleansed. And high priests went through the motions and they
said, you know, we got this law here and those lepers are out
there. You want to go out there and check on them lepers, see
if any of them is cleansed? I'm not going out there. They
never cleansed a one of them. But then the high priest came.
And he said, that law that's got to be fulfilled for you to
be cleansed, here's the high priest that fulfilled it. Here's
the offering that fulfilled it. Now you're not under that law
anymore. Follow him. Follow him. And that man went
and told everybody he came in contact with about it. So much
so that everybody started coming wanting to meet Christ. He had
to go out in the desert because so many people came. Now here's
what he tells us, 1 John 1.7. What do you do if you know you're
a sinner? What do you do if you know that you've got this need
that only Christ can meet? You come to Christ the light.
And here's what He said, 1 John 1 verse 7, If we walk in the
light as He's in the light, come out of the darkness, come into
Christ the light, we have fellowship one with another. With Christ,
that oneness, that touching, just like He touched that leper.
You'll have that oneness with Him, that unity. And the blood
of Jesus, Look here now, the blood of Jesus, of Jesus Christ
His Son, cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no
sin, we deceive ourselves, the truth is not in us. Can you imagine
that leper saying, Oh, I'm not a leper. All the people around
looking at him and they're standing back because nobody wants to
touch him and he's walking through the crowd and he's saying, I'm
not a leper. What are you talking about? He's
deceiving himself. But look at this. But if we confess
our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins. He's
faithful and just because of His blood. And to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. I pray God make us a leper. God
make us a leper. Make us come and see we can't
do anything to save ourselves. Make us come to Christ. We'll
find the high priest, the offering, the fulfiller of that whole law
and we'll be cleansed. We'll be cleansed. And don't
ever stop coming to Him. He cleanseth us. Keeps cleansing
us. He's the only one that can. Amen.