May it please Almighty God to
bless us together this evening as we meditate in his word. Let us turn to the Gospel of
Luke, chapter 5, and we'll read verses 12, 13, and 14. The Gospel
of Luke, chapter 5, reading verses 12, 13, and 14. And it came to
pass when he was in a certain city Behold, a man full of leprosy,
who seeing Jesus, fell on his face, and besought him, saying,
Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And he put forth
his hand and touched him, saying, I will. Be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed
from him. And he charged him to tell no
man but go and show thyself to the priest and offer for thy
cleansing according as Moses commanded for a testimony unto
them. We have here a very wonderful,
a very simple, and a very blessed miracle that the Lord Jesus performed
on this unknown man. But it was a man who was in need,
great need of healing. He had that very severe illness
of leprosy. And we're told he was full of
leprosy. And it would appear from such
a statement that unless the Lord was to heal him, then he would
soon die. because of that leprosy which
of course does very quickly eat away the body and death comes
and so here was this man now we know from the word of God
as the Lord says when Naaman was healed there were many lepers
about but it was only Naaman who was healed. No doubt here
on this occasion there were many lepers about but there was only
this one leper at this time who came to Jesus and came to Jesus
seeking to be healed from his leprosy. Indeed the words he
uses is to be made clean and that's a lovely expression if
you consider it. And the reason why it's a lovely
expression is this, because no unclean thing can ever enter
into heaven. And so this request, although
it refers here of course to a natural body, the same request is needful
for our spiritual life. Because we are individually all
sinners. And we are bad sinners. Head to foot as it were. And
we need cleansing. All of us. Without exception. We need cleansing. And you and I will never get
to heaven unless we're cleansed. Unless we're clean. There must
be no sin remaining. Nothing. No sin. We must be clean. What a mercy
then, if we come. Come to Jesus. Just as we are. This man came to Jesus, didn't
he? He had to come just as he was. He was full of leprosy. But nonetheless he came to Jesus.
My friends, as you and I are full of sin, no doubt about it,
full of sin, you may not realise it, you may not want to realise
it, but it's a blessing when the
Holy Spirit of God reveals to us how we stand before a holy
God. It's not as you and I appear
to one another. Because we can appear to be all nice and clean
outside, but it's the inside, isn't it? It's the indwelling
sin. It's that which only God sees.
There may be, of course, those outside sins as well, but whatever
they are, we need to be cleansed from every sin. Every sin. Do not. Forget that. Do not carry on without being
cleansed, without being healed. Do not think, well, of course
I've had this experience and I've had that experience. The
needful thing is to be cleansed, my friends. It's to be clean. It's to be relying, not on what
you've done, not how good you've been, you might think in your
eyes. And all the things that you might have done, perhaps
in the Christian world, they're good in their way but irrelevant
when you consider the state of the soul. How we all need to
be cleansed. Now this person, he came to Jesus. He didn't come in a proud way,
he didn't come expecting the Lord to look upon him. Because
of some merit, he was the very opposite. And we read what happened. He fell on his face before Jesus. He fell down, fell down before
the Lord God. He realized in his heart who
he was coming to. He was coming to the man Christ
Jesus, but he was also coming to the Son of God. And so he
came here, falling down on his face, and he had this request. He besought him. That gives a
very clear picture that he was exceedingly concerned and greatly
desirous Lord will look upon him and therefore he comes and
he says this, Lord if thou wilt thou canst make me clean. Now note the phraseology which
he uses. He doesn't demand cleansing and
you and I cannot demand cleansing because we do not deserve cleansing.
We deserve to be cast out of God's sight. We deserve to spend
eternity in hell. Is that true? You've been brought
there, your sins deserving hell. Now you see, if you've been brought
there, that will then bring you to a place of great need. And you'll perhaps understand
what this leper came and requested, if thou wilt. Lord, if it's thy
will. But there was an urgency and
a concern that God would hear his prayer, And he had this confidence. He came and said, thou canst
make me clean. And we might view that as a humble
boldness, because it's true today that Jesus, the Son of God, can
make us clean. This leper wasn't coming to a
person he didn't believe in. He came to Jesus as that one
who he believed could make him clean. Now, what did he possess? He possessed living faith. He possessed that which was given
to him, faith to believe. And you and I today need nothing
less than that. We need the gift of faith to
believe that this same Jesus can indeed come and can cleanse
us from all our sins. Every sin, every sin. Don't forget
that. Every sin needs to be washed
away. And how is it washed away? How
is it taken away? There's only one way. There's
only one place. And we are very thankful for
that which the apostle wrote to the Hebrews. And in the ninth
chapter of Paul's epistle to the Hebrews, in the 22nd verse,
we read this. And almost all things are by
the law purged with blood. And without shedding of blood
is no remission. There is no forgiveness. You
and I will never be forgiven unless there is shedding of blood
and our blood will not atone because we are sinful. So how
is it that our sins are to be remitted, are to be taken away. Here's a statement, very true,
without shedding of blood is no remission. What does that
mean? We need to know that the Lord
Jesus Christ, God's only begotten son, the second person in the
Trinity, has died and shed his blood. to remove our sins. This is not a figment of imagination. This is the great truth of God's
Word. And the great blessing is that
this truth directs us, therefore, to the only one who can redeem
our soul, the only one who can cleanse us from our sin, and
the only one who has shed his blood, that wonderful currency
that pays for our sin, takes our sin away. The ransom that
was on our head, the Lord Jesus Christ pays the ransom through
the shedding of his most precious blood. So don't forget this ninth
chapter of Hebrews, verse 22, and it's so clear, isn't it? Without shedding of blood there's
no forgiveness. It is therefore so essential
that you and I, sinners as we are, and we are And don't look
around and don't think, well, I'm not too bad. We're all bad. Very bad. Deserving hell. And we need salvation. We all
need salvation. And we must have salvation before
we die. Otherwise, we are eternally lost. Doesn't bear thinking about,
does it? Doesn't bear thinking about. And yet that is the truth
of God's Word. And therefore we have here a
wonderful example, a wonderful testimony of a person who came
seeking that he might be cleansed in this very simple statement,
Lord if thou wilt, thou canst make me whole. Have we prayed
that prayer? Have we prayed that prayer? So these things are so important.
They're not irrelevant. They are very, very important. You know, when the Apostle Paul
wrote to the Corinthians, and they were sinners like we
are, no different and the apostle when he goes through narrative
to them. He speaks to them and tells them
about the situation and he says, how bad they are, he says, now
therefore there is utterly a fault among you because you go to law
one with another. Why do you not rather take wrong?
Why do you not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded? You
know you do wrong and defraud and that your brethren know you
not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God."
And we might think, and we might say, well, I understand that.
I understand that. The righteous shall not, the
unrighteous, shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But then
the apostle then writes these words. Listen. Be not deceived. Be not deceived. It's a strong
word, isn't it? be not deceived, neither fornicators,
nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of
themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards,
nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of
God. That's a fairly comprehensive list. And if you and I are honest
with ourselves, we will have to recognise that we are condemned
by such a catalogue before us. And then, just to make sure,
the Apostle then says, and such were some of you. Well, do we
agree with the Apostle? Do we say yes? Oh Lord, I'm amongst
those base and vile sinners. But the apostle then tells us
the good news. But, and there are of course
many buts in the word of God. And here's a wonderful one. But
ye are washed. You are washed. Washed in the
blood of the Lamb. You are washed. But you are sanctified. But you
are justified. in the name of the Lord Jesus
and by the Spirit of our God. So we see here, it's by the Spirit's
work, as the Spirit speaks to our hearts and reveals to us
our great need. This person had a great need.
You and I have an equally great need in our spiritual life. A
great need it is, and yet to have the wonderful realisation
that we are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus. It's through what he has done.
It's through his finished work. Now, I hope that will make the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ precious to us. Not just a name
which is taken in vain today, but a name which is above every
name, the name of Jesus. And it may be true in our lives
how sweet the name of Jesus sounds in a believer's ear. Now again,
that's an evidence of the life of God in the soul, if the name
of Jesus is a sweet sound. It should be, because there is
all our hope. All our hope of eternal life.
It's in what the Lord Jesus Christ has done. Yes, no hope in ourselves
at all. And this man then, who seeing
Jesus, fell on his face, and besought him, saying, Lord, if
thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. Now, this man was blessed
with living faith to believe. And you and I must come to God
in faith. And you may say, well, I don't
know if I have faith. Well, pray to God to give you
faith. He won't turn you away. No, he
said, seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened
unto you. Come to Jesus. There are so many,
many encouraging words to come to the Lord Jesus. And perhaps
we have no more suitable word than the Lord when he was on
this earth and he spoke the last few verses in the 11th chapter
of Matthew, and this is what he said, and gracious words come
unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden. Now, physically
this leper was labouring and heavy laden under the disease
that he had. And you know, you and I labour
under the terrible disease of sin, which we can't cure ourselves
of. The leper couldn't cure himself.
You and I can't cure ourselves. But here we have a wonderful
remedy. A gracious, wonderful gospel
invitation. Come unto me. Nobody else. Don't look around. Come unto
me. All ye that labour and are heavy
laden. That's the qualification. Those
who are labouring and are heavy laden. But come to the Lord,
and as you can come to the Lord, you can pour out your heart to
Him. Because He understands. No one else, perhaps, will understand
you. The Lord Jesus understands. Come
unto me, then, He says, gracious, wonderful invitation. All ye
that labour and are heavy laden. And then a promise. And I will
give you rest. Well, perhaps you've been laboring
under this burden of sin. I hope you have. It's a good
place to be in, but it's not a good place to stay in. It's
a place that you want deliverance from. And the deliverance only
comes from looking unto Jesus. And then he says, he gives us
gracious encouragement then to take his yoke, take my yoke upon
you. And learn of me, for I am meek
and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For
my yoke is easy and my burden is light. These are the true
words of Jesus. And don't pass them over. Consider
them. Realize how relevant they are
to each of our lives that we may take his yoke. He gives us,
you know what a yoke is I'm sure, a yoke was used to link cattle
together so that they work together and they walked in union when
they were ploughing or whatever they were doing and they were
yoked together. Well there's no greater blessing
for you and me to be yoked to none other than the Lord Jesus
Christ. That is quite an amazing consideration,
isn't it? And yet here the Lord graciously
and lovingly says, take my yoke upon you. Take that yoke and
learn of me. Perhaps we might wonder, well,
I want to learn about Jesus. Well, here's the way. You won't
learn about Jesus if you're a long way away. If you're walking in
the opposite direction, you won't learn about Jesus. You may learn
about the worthless things of this world, but if you're blessed
with this wonderful grace to be yoked to the Lord Jesus Christ,
you'll be walking with him. Walking with him. And you know
what effect that had? You only have to look, don't you? To that
occasion on that Emmaus road, those two that were walking on
that road, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. They were together. And what
a blessing that was. What was the effect? They tell
us, did not our heart burn within us while He spoke to us by the
way? And my friends, when Jesus draws
near and speaks to you from the Word of God and encourages you,
you'll know what it is to be lifted up, to rejoice in the
words of the Saviour, to rejoice in what He's done. and you'll
gladly come to the blessed Saviour. Don't listen to the devil. He'll
tell you to stay away. He'll say, well you're not fit
to come, of course you're not, none of us are. The Lord Jesus
came to seek and to save those who are lost, not the righteous,
no those who were unrighteous. And so here we have this picture
before us of this leper needing to be cleansed. And so today,
we know what it is to have this great need to be cleansed. And he came therefore to the
Lord Jesus. And what did Jesus do? Did Jesus
turn around and say, well, I don't think so. I don't think you're
worth it. I don't think I'm going to heal
you. And he put forth his hand and
touched him. Just a touch, my friends, from
the Lord will do you eternal good. Just a touch. But you need a touch. And the Lord touched him saying,
I will be thou clean. What an answer to his request. My friends, read the word of
God and you will find there are many I wills in the word of God. I will, said the Lord Jesus,
be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed
from him. Yes, his leprosy was gone. My
friends, when the Lord comes and says, I will, be thou clean,
our sins are gone. Yes, they're taken into the depth
of the sea to be remembered no more forever. You see, when the
Lord forgives, it's a complete forgiveness. It's not a half-hearted
forgiveness. It's a complete forgiveness because
The cost of that forgiveness has been his life, his lifeblood,
and the agony that he endured in order to satisfy the holy
law of a righteous God. What a blessing it is then, if
you and I come in this way, all needing so much. Yes, there is
a way. There is a way to be cleansed.
And this is the way, isn't it? Set before us, isn't it? The
way forward. To go forward. And sometimes
we go backward. Sometimes we stagnate. We don't move on. But you see,
the Word of God, this Lepi, came to Jesus and What a blessing
if we come to him as the Lord says, come unto me. You might
remember when Israel were, they come out of Egypt and there was an impossible situation
before them. They just didn't really know
what to do. They come to the Red Sea. They had a wonderful deliverance
and now the Red Sea was before them. How were they to get to
the promised land? There was an impossible situation,
it seemed to them. And Moses came and he said to the
people, fear ye not, stand still and see the salvation of the
Lord, which he will show you today. There is a set time to
favour Zion. There is a set time to deliver
your soul. A set time in the promise and
purpose of God. And so here Moses encouraged
them. And the Lord said, through Moses,
for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you shall see them
again no more forever. You may be under severe temptation
of the devil, who may be snapping at your heels trying to stop
you. Well, Moses told Israel, the Lord shall fight for you
and you shall hold your peace. So many occasions in the Word
of God when the opposition seemed impossible, the Lord arose and
fought for them. And my friends, the Lord today
can arise and fight for you so that your evil heart of unbelief
is dispelled. And you go therefore in the strength
of the Lord. And the Lord then came and said
to Moses, Wherefore cryest thou unto me? Speak unto the children
of Israel that they go forward. There is a going forward. And
how do you go forward? In your own strength? Not at
all. As Paul says, he went in the strength of the Lord God.
That's the only way that you will go forward and it's a very
safe place. It's a place of confidence. It's a place of reality because
you're putting your trust in the Lord. Now this man here,
he put his trust in the Lord. He came to him in this way and
therefore The Lord heard his prayer, heard his cry, and said,
I will. May we all hear such a word from
the Saviour. I will. Be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed
from him. You might think, well, that's
the end of the matter. Well, it wasn't the end of the
matter. because the Lord then spoke to him. And he charged
him to tell no man but go and show thyself to the priest and
offer for thy cleansing according as Moses commanded for a testimony
unto them. Well, you can read what the law
of God said in the 14th chapter of Leviticus. It's a very wonderful
account and it speaks of what should be done. I won't go through
it now. but nonetheless you can read it when you get home, or
at least perhaps soon, read the 14th of Leviticus. Many people
don't read Leviticus, they think it's too complicated. Well, pray
over it, open it to your understanding. But the relevance of it really
is very simple and very important, because what the person had to
do, he had to go to the priest, He had to show himself, show
what had been done. And then he was to come and to
offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving. Those two things were important. They were a requirement, and
they were a blessed requirement. Because what did it do? Well,
first of all, it proved to the leper that he was cleansed. And
secondly, by offering up a sacrifice, thanksgiving, he proved that
he was truly thankful for what had been done to him. And translating
that into New Testament terms, what does it mean? It means that
if God has come and heard our prayers, God has come to us and
spoken such words as this, I will be thou clean. And our sins have
been washed away. We're so amazed to think that
this great God should have looked upon us and have touched us. Touched us, yes. And that touch had healing power. It only comes from God. Healing
power. No one else can heal you. And
we all need healing. We all must be healed. Let us
not forget that we must be healed. I will be thou clean. We're blessed
with this. What does it mean? It really
means we must go and tell of what God has done and to come
with a sacrifice of praise and the sacrifice of praise is spoken
of in the Word of God through our lips. We praise God for what
he's done. We must never leave such blessings
tucked away. We should declare what God has
done for our souls. Come all ye that fear God and
I will declare what He has done for my soul. Oh, it's a glorious time, isn't
it? It's a time of wonderful favour. And my friends, we all need to
walk that way. We all need to know what God
has done for us. And we all need to come and declare
it and have the wonderful evidence in answer to our prayer, our
cry, Thou canst make me clean. The man came with faith to the
Saviour. Oh, may God give us faith to come to the Saviour, pleading, crying, that He will
here, and then to receive that touch. Oh, that cleansing touch. I will, be thou clean. And immediately, the leprosy
departed from me. Immediately, there was that cleansing. Immediately. Our soul is set
free. Yes, free from the condemnation
of the law of God as the apostles spoke in those early verses in
the 8th of Romans. There is therefore now no condemnation
to those who are in Christ Jesus. And my friends tonight, just
ask yourselves, are you in Christ Jesus? And don't deny it. If the Lord has touched your
heart, don't say, well, I'm not sure you're bringing dishonour
unto the Lord. Has the Lord touched your heart? Have you felt a little love to
the Saviour? You're in Christ Jesus, and what's the result?
No condemnation. Oh, wonderful blessing, isn't
it? There is therefore now no condemnation
to those who are in Christ Jesus." And what a good thing it is.
And again the Apostle Paul, he doesn't just leave it there in
the eighth chapter, he just goes on and he tells us these words,
who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. Now the
Spirit's work has brought to pass the truth of no condemnation,
and therefore there is a requirement to acknowledge what he has done. For the law of the Spirit of
life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and
death. For what the law could not do,
and that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own
Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemn sin
in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled
in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."
Well, tonight, rejoice and bless God for the truth of the Word
of God, which is founded in heaven, and will never fade away. The Word of God is true. May
you and I be blessed tonight with true and humble faith to
believe the great truths of the Gospel and in believing we may
find enormous comfort as the Holy Spirit comes and confirms
to our soul that we are clean, that we are washed, that we are
redeemed by the precious blood of Christ and be able to truly
rejoice in the wonderful finished work of the Saviour and to realise
in our own hearts that there is therefore now no condemnation
to those who are in Christ Jesus. Amen.