And we come to an event recorded
for us in Luke, chapter 5. Luke, chapter 5. And Matthew
and Mark both record this event. And it concerns the healing of
the leper. Healing of the leper. Now, we're
going to be in Luke 5, but let me just read what Matthew says
in Matthew 8, verses 1 and 2. were told that when Christ was
come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him.
And behold, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying,
Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. Now, the significance
of Matthew's placement here is that the leper comes to Christ
following the sermon on the mount. He comes after our Lord, preached
the Sermon on the Mount. And Matthew says, behold, there
came a leper. This man needed cleansing. This
man needed mercy. He needed mercy. And this is
the first miracle that Matthew records of our Lord, which verifies,
which tells us that what this man has spoken, what this man
said, what you just heard him preach on the Sermon of the Mount,
He has the authority and the power to say such things. This
Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah. He is the Christ of God for the
salvation of his people. And while the exact timing and
placement of it is different, I believe Matthew is telling
us exactly when it occurred, Luke is just gathering together
what's happened, showing the miracles of Christ and that He
is able to give us mercy, to save us, to cleanse us from all
sin and all wickedness. He's able. And so the difference
there, Luke's gathering together these events and showing them
to us, and Matthew's laying it out probably in a more chronological
manner here. But the details are the same. They are the same. They say the
same things. Matthew said, Lord, if thou wilt,
thou canst make me clean. That's what Luke tells us also.
Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And then our Lord's
response. He put forth his hand and touched
him, saying, I will be thou clean. And what the emphasis here in
the evangelist, and if you want to see, you can look in Mark
chapter one at some point, and you see that's the same, that's
where the Lord records it there in Mark. But what it's showing
us is that all who come to Christ seeking mercy find mercy. That's the emphasis here. That's
what the Lord's showing us. You that need mercy from the
Lord, He shows it. He gives mercy to all who seek
Him for it. To all who come asking, Lord,
I need mercy. Show me mercy, Lord. That's what
the Lord is teaching us. Now, what our Lord does for this
leper should give every needy sinner hope. Every needy sinner
a good hope, a faithful expectation that what the Lord did for this
leper here He does for me concerning my sin. That's what the Lord
is teaching us. And leprosy in scripture is very
appropriate to compare to our sin because it's the most like
our sin. That corrupting, defiling, ruining,
horrible disease of leprosy is exactly what my sin has done
to me. It's corrupted, defiled, ruined
me, killed me, slain me, destroyed me. That's our sin. And the way
it's used in Scripture, the Jews were terrified of leprosy in
the Scriptures because the way it's used in Scripture is it
always shows the displeasure of God against a sinner. For
example, we have Miriam, the sister of Aaron and Moses. And when Miriam and Aaron withstood
Moses, the Lord smote Miriam with leprosy. Now Moses cried
out for her. He interceded for her. And the
Lord did heal her, but she waited seven days. She waited seven
days in seclusion. And then we read of Gehazi. And
Gehazi was the servant of Elisha. And Elisha had told Naaman, the
Syrian, the leper, what to do to be cleansed of his leprosy,
to dip himself seven times in the Jordan River. And he did
that, and he was cleansed, and he wanted to give Elisha a reward
for his cleansing. And Elisha said, no, no, I'm
not taking anything of your hand. Well, Gehazi secretly went out
after, and he got the reward. And when he came back, Elisha
said, Now the leprosy that Naaman had is on you, showing that displeasure. And then another example is King
Uzziah. King Uzziah, he was a good king. And Isaiah the prophet loved
Uzziah. They were cousins, I believe.
And he was a good king, but when he, as the king, thought to light
incense like the priest, that's when the Lord smote him with
leprosy. And so you can see in the scriptures
this direct correlation of God's displeasure on these individuals
for their sin and rebellion. And so leprosy's effect in the
body is what sin is to our soul, our spirit. That's destroyed
us. And when a man was struck with
leprosy, he didn't go to a physician. They didn't have any treatment
for that disease. They didn't go to a physician.
Instead, they went to the priest under the law. And by the law,
a person could not be healed, but they could be pronounced
clean or unclean by the law. And that's to show us that we
can't be healed by the law. We're either clean or unclean
before the law. And only God can cleanse the
leper of their disease. And so this man rightly came
to Christ. Only the sinner can be cleansed
and healed and delivered of their sin. And that's where you go.
You go to Christ. Christ is the Savior. Christ
is the one who delivers his people from their sin. And so, in this
short passage, it answers these questions. Who finds mercy from
the Lord and why? Who finds mercy and why? So we're
told now in Luke 5, verse 12, it came to pass when Christ 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. There's only one reason this
man is recorded here in scripture. There's one reason why this man
is here in scripture. This man had a need. This man
had a great need. He had a need and he knew it. There's no getting around leprosy. When you're struck with leprosy,
there's no getting around leprosy. And the way that it struck people
in ancient times, it sounds like an awful, awful disease. I have recently received a gift
of Vines Dictionary and I was looking in Vines Dictionary on
leprosy and it describes it as something akin to psoriasis,
which is an inflammation of the skin and if you ever see anything
about it, they'll present it with shards of glass to show
an inflammation and a burning and a real painful outbreak on
your skin. But when you read the ancients
and the ancient disease of it, it was horrible. It was much worse than psoriasis. And the way they described it
is that it would be an inflammation of the skin and they were said
to have had a very hot fever. So that if one held an apple,
they said, it would wither and die, all the moisture being sucked
out from the heat in their hand. And you can imagine how it smelled
because their flesh was rotting. and decaying. And if you pulled
at it, you'd likely rip something off and have rotting flesh attached
to it. So it was a horrible disease. And it got to the point where
your nerves would deaden which is probably a good thing, so
you didn't feel it, but people would lose their fingers, and
their toes, and their nose, and their gums would rot, so that
their teeth came out, and it would mess with their palate,
and eventually, they died a gruesome, lonely, often lonely death, because
they weren't allowed to be around people, and they would put them
outside the camp, and it was just a gruesome thing, and it
was a shameful thing. It was a shameful thing. You
can imagine the shame that you would feel having this disease. My teeth are still moving. As
I get older, they're moving. And I think that was a cause
why I chipped a little bit of my tooth, because it was pushing
up on another tooth or something. I felt ashamed for that. I felt
a shame just because my tooth, a little bit, broke, just a tiny
amount, broke, and I feel shame. I don't even like telling you
that. It makes me feel old. And that makes me feel shame.
I can't imagine being struck with leprosy and losing a digit,
you know, finger or toe or something or some other part. It just,
I'd be embarrassed. I'd be embarrassed. And that's
really a great picture of my sin. Because my sin is that corrupting. It's that defiling. And for you
to know my sin and me to know your sin, it's a shameful thing. That's what sin is. And that's
why it's so well likened in the scriptures there or to the mind
of us who have been made to know our sin. Made sensible of our
sin. We don't know the exact degree
of this man's leprosy, but we're told that he was full of leprosy,
full of leprosy. And we'll look at the law and
what the law says concerning leprosy in a bit, but this point
here to grasp is that this man had a shameful disease, a defiling
disease. It just kept corrupting and going
and going, and there was nothing he could do about it. And it was an outward mark that
describes the awful nature of sin in us and what it does, how
it just spreads and defiles and ruins and corrupts. And so the
first thing we are to understand here is we have a need, brethren. We're sinners. The scriptures
tell us every one of us is dead in trespasses and sins and we're
all corrupt and ruined by our sin. We have a great, great need
for mercy. And the scriptures are very careful
to show us our sin nature. Even the, the, the, I don't know if I want to say
the heroes, but even those brethren, Abraham and David and the prophets
who are highlighted to us in the scriptures, the scriptures
don't hold back from showing their sin and their faults. And
it's to show us that we're all sinners. Every one of us is a
sinner ruined by sin. And so the Lord is making us
through the scriptures to know, to see. The Scriptures tell me
I'm a sinner, and the Spirit shows us I'm a sinner, and I'm
defiled and ruined. And the Scriptures make us to
know I deserve the wrath of God. I deserve eternal punishment,
and if God casts me into hell, He's just and righteous to do
it. And what can I say to Him? How can I argue against it? Because
I know what I am. I see it. I see it the way the
leper saw that they were ruined. The Lord shows his people that
they are ruined in sin. He makes us to know that. He
makes his children to know that, that we would seek him for mercy,
that we would go to him and not, not tell ourselves lies that
we're okay. We're okay and we can figure
this out and I'll just talk to God and he'll negotiate with
me. No, he won't. He's holy. And
we speak foolishly now because we're not in his presence in
that sense before the throne, but we won't be thinking that
or saying that then. We'll be carried away with our
iniquity if we come in the strength of our own flesh. And so here
in Luke 5, this leper came to Christ seeking mercy and he found
mercy. He sought mercy and he found
it. It says in the middle there, behold, Luke 5, 12, behold, the
Spirit's calling our attention to this. 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 Mark
tells us, Jesus moved with compassion. Jesus was moved with compassion
for this man, this man full of leprosy, who came seeking mercy. And then he adds in verse 13,
and he put forth his hand and touched him. I don't like filth
and disease. When I get the chicken eggs from
outside, I come in and I wash my hands. I just wash it. I don't want to touch dirty,
filthy things. And Christ touched this man full of leprosy. What compassion, what love, what
kindness and grace. of our Lord. And he touched him,
saying, I will be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed
from him." And this is the grace of Christ for sinners. This is
the love and kindness of Christ for those whom the Spirit has
stirred up and showed them their sin and led them to Christ to
seek mercy. It's all of His grace. It's all
of His mercy for the sinner for whom Christ died. And so the
scriptures show us what we are. We're told by Isaiah 64 6, we
all are as an unclean thing and all our righteousnesses are as
filthy rags. And mind that not all our sins
are filthy rags. Our good works, our religious
works, the works we count as our holiness and goodness, those
things, the things we call righteousness, are filthy rags, polluted, vile,
filthy rags. And we all do fade as a leaf. We've succumbed to the withering
fever of our sin. Like that leper who held that
apple and it withered and just sucked the moisture out, that's
us. A dying leaf. a dead leaf, the one that blows
away. Our iniquities like the wind
have taken us away. And so we've got the same need
as this leper who came to Christ and Christ was moved with compassion. You that are sinners, you that
need mercy, go to Christ, flee to Christ, fly to him, go to
him, say, Lord, save me. Have mercy on me, Lord. Save
me. Deliver me. And Christ is merciful
to all who ask Him, to all who seek Him, to all who go to Him
for grace and mercy. He is a merciful Savior. So that's
what we see in this leper. Who finds mercy? The vile, stinking,
ruined, wretched sinner who has no righteousness of their own
and can't get any healing or righteousness for themselves.
That's who Christ is merciful to. The sinner. The needy sinner. and he draws them to himself,
and all who come to him find mercy. Now I want to show you
why holy God may be merciful to such sinners. Why is God able,
who is holy and just, why is God just and holy to show mercy
to sinners? Because there's a reason why
this man cleansed this leper. And there's a reason why sinners
have that same sure and certain hope that Christ will be merciful
to them who are drawn to him and cry out to him for grace
and mercy. There's a reason why God is just and may be merciful
to sinners. So let's see that turning to
Leviticus chapter 13. We've got Genesis, and Exodus,
and Numbers, or Leviticus and then Numbers. So Leviticus would
be the third book there in the Old Testament. In Leviticus 13 and 14, they're
long chapters, and we're not going to read all of it. But
for suspected cases of leprosy, they would go to the priest and
the priest would observe them. They'd shut them up for seven
days and then look to see if the leprosy had spread. And if
they weren't sure, they'd shut them up for another seven days
and then observe again. But eventually, they would consider
and declare a man unclean or clean based on that observation. Now let's pick up in Leviticus
13 verse 9. When the plague of leprosy is
in a man, then he shall be brought unto the priest. And the priest
shall see him, and behold, if the rising be white in the skin,
and it have turned 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. There's no more observation needed.
He's unclean. And so this is what he would
do. This is the procedure the priest
would follow in determining whether someone was unclean. And it's
describing there someone with a patch of leprosy. They had
maybe certain patches of leprosy breaking out, and they were,
before the law, unclean. Now, let's look at verse 12. And 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 have covered all his flesh, he shall pronounce
him clean that hath the plague. It is all turned white. He is
clean. And so if a man has part leprosy,
then he's unclean. And if he's completely a leper
and full of leprosy, then he's actually clean. Now, how does
this relate to our sin? Well, if you have sin, you have
little outbreaks of sin once in a while, and you're not so
bad. You're not as bad as the other guy. Sure, you have these
little mistakes or trips or falls or whatever, but you're OK. You're
a good guy. You're going to work it out with
the Lord. You are unclean because you're a liar and you're calling
God a liar. You're bearing false witness.
You're saying, I'm not so bad. I can fix this. This is okay. And that one is unclean before
the law. because they oppose God, and
they say they're not a sinner. But the one who is completely
covered in leprosy, that one, in like manner, says before God,
I am a sinner, a wretched, vile sinner. I am covered from head
to toe in sin. I have no righteousness. I have
nothing to boast of before holy God. I'm undone. And before the
law, the Lord says, that man is clean. That man is clean. because he confesses he's a sinner. He knows what he is and he's
been shown what he is by the grace of God, by the Spirit of
the Lord showing him his sin. That's the beginning work of
the Lord for that sinner. That's what he makes us to do,
to come to him as sinners. Not people who need just a little
help because we can do the rest of it ourselves with the law
and in religion. No, we need all the grace of
God. This man, when he came to Christ,
he was a needy, bankrupt, vile, wretched sinner who had no hope. And that's how the sinner comes.
That's how sinners saved come to Christ. Lord, except you be
merciful to me, except you heal me of my sin and wash me of my
sin, I'm undone. I'm going to hell. I have no
righteousness. And that's the work of the Lord
and what he's begun. he'll finish what he's begun
in you he'll finish and that's why you're clean before the law
who confess your sin by the grace of God. John 640 and this is
the will of him that sent me that everyone which seeth the
Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life and I will
raise him up at the last day. When that leper saw Christ it
said who seeing Jesus fell on his face, and besought him, saying,
Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. He saw Christ
by faith, that man, the God-man mediator. He is all my salvation. He is all my righteousness. He
is my hope. In him I have deliverance. I
know, I know if I go to him, he'll be merciful. If you will,
you can make me clean. And that's what the Lord does
for his people. That's what he does to deliver
us in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he went
to him, and that's exactly what Christ did. He healed him. He
showed him mercy. He received what he sought by
the grace of God. This brings us to why God is
merciful to sinners in Christ. In short, we are told the blood
of Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from all unrighteousness. God is merciful to the guilty
sinner because Christ's blood cleanseth His people from all
unrighteousness. And he works that redemption,
that salvation, he works it in the sinner because of the redemption
of Christ. And he brings them to Christ.
He heals them. He does all this work for them.
Now we see this death, we see this pictured, this death of
Christ for the sinner pictured in the law here. And let's be
turning over to Leviticus 14, chapter 14. And let's pick up in verse four. Then shall the priest, this is
when they've been declared clean, it says, then shall the priest
command to take for him, that is to be cleansed of his leprosy
there, two birds, alive and clean, and cedarwood and scarlet and
hyssop. And the priest shall command
that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel over running
water. As for the living bird, he shall
take it, and the cedarwood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop,
and shall dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird
that was killed over the running water. And he shall sprinkle
upon him that is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times,
and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird
loose in the open field." Alright, so let's summarize. Let's see
how this pictures Christ for us, and how Christ's death is
our cleansing and deliverance from the corruption and the vileness
of our sin. So, and this is picturing for
us the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. So,
the two birds that were cleansed and alive, they are typical of
our Lord Jesus Christ. They picture Christ. And Christ
came and he is holy. blameless, undefiled. He's perfect. He's perfect. He's pure. And one of these birds
was killed in an earthen vessel over running water. Why? What is that earthen vessel?
It pictures our Lord who came in the flesh like unto his brethren. He was born not of the corrupt
seed of Adam, but of the seed of woman by the overshadowing
of the Holy Ghost upon Mary. And so He was born of flesh,
incorruptible flesh. And that's what the earthen vessel
pictures, our Lord in His body. and he must be killed over running
water. Well Christ's blood was shed
for sin and that running water pictures the purging, the cleansing,
nature of his blood to purge us of the the stain and the ruin
and the guilt of our sin. That's what's pictured for us
when he hung on the cross and they were breaking the legs of
the others but Christ's legs they didn't break because Christ
was already dead and and they took the spear and they stuck
it up under his rib and pierced his heart I believe and blood
and water flowed, picturing that Christ's death justifies us by
His blood and that water is showing that He sanctifies us. Christ
is all our justification. Christ is all our sanctification. of God as Christ made unto his
people wisdom and righteousness, that's our justification, and
sanctification and redemption. In other words, he's made everything
to the child of God by the grace of God in Christ. And so we see that blood in that
water. And the other bird is then dipped
in the blood with the cedar wood and the scarlet and the hyssop. There's a few pictures, beautiful
pictures there, but let's just focus on how this speaks to the
incorruptible, sin-purging nature of our Lord's blood resulting
from his sufferings. So that the bird is dipped in
the blood of the one that was slain. with the incorruptible
cedar wood. Cedar wood, it's used because
it doesn't corrupt, it doesn't rot, and bugs don't get in there
and destroy it. Christ's blood is incorruptible.
His seed is incorruptible. We're born of the incorruptible
seed of Christ. When we are born again by a spirit,
we're born of that incorruptible nature of Christ. And that scarlet
wall pictures the sufferings of our Lord. And hyssop was used
to purge, and it just shows how Christ His sufferings, His blood
purges us of our sin, purges us of all that defiles us, delivers
us from that body of sin that's destroyed by Christ and has nothing
more to say to us. We are delivered from that body
of sin in Adam. We'll see that more in the next
hour, but our Lord delivered us fully, completely, entirely
so that we are new creatures in Christ before the true and
living God. And this was to sprinkle that
leper seven times. And then the bird was let go
in the open field. And that picture is what? The
resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. That other bird was let
go in the open field. It's Christ. And all you in Christ
are set free from the death and the ruin of what we were in Adam. We're now complete and whole
in Christ. So who receives mercy? Who receives mercy? The needy
sinner receives mercy. The one who has no righteousness,
nothing to give to God. They receive mercy in Christ,
by Christ, because of Christ. And why do we receive mercy?
Because Christ laid down his life. for his people who were
ruined in sin. He laid down his life for the
remission or the forgiveness of their sins. And God forgives
them of their sins. And God blesses them with life
and every spiritual blessing in Christ. All thanks to Christ. And so he's precious to us, brethren. Our Lord is precious to us. And
I'm thankful. I'm thankful for him. I pray
the Lord bless that word to your hearts. Amen.