Chapter 5. This morning we'll
be looking at verses 12 and 13. Luke chapter 5, verse 12. 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. Now, the title of the message
this morning is Christ Heals True Lepers. True Lepers. After the Lord Jesus Christ called
his disciples to the ministry of preaching, and they left all
and followed Christ. They followed Christ into this
certain city, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, There comes a
man full of leprosy. Now you must understand, this
was a surprise. This was an astounding thing. That a leper would come through
the crowd in the midst of a certain city. Because you remember, according
to the law of the leper, they were not allowed in the city. This man was not one that could
disguise his leprosy either. This was a man full of leprosy. He could not hide it. It was
full on display for everyone to see. And yet here he comes,
rushing through the crowd, crying, unclean, unclean! And the crowd
obviously making way for this man, not desiring to be touched
with him, to be unclean with him. And so he makes his way
through the crowd and he comes to Christ. And you see the leper
falling down at the feet of Jesus Christ. And the leper cries out,
saying, Lord! Oh, what this leper knew. This
leper knew something. He cried, Lord, if you will. Oh, he knew something about sovereignty,
didn't he? He knew something about sovereignty.
He said, Lord, if You will. And he knew something about His
power. He said, You can make me clean. This leper had faith. This leper had faith in Christ's
ability, Christ's power, Christ's deity. And he falls down and
he says, Lord, the only thing stopping You from cleansing me
is Your will. Will You cleanse me? And Christ,
reaching forth His hand, touched him and said, I will be thou
clean. And immediately the leprosy was
gone. This is a beautiful, beautiful
thing. Nobody but Christ could do this.
This was a surprise as man came in. The Holy Scriptures, we learn
that leprosy, this man, it says, was full of leprosy. And that's what I want to deal
with first, is leprosy. What does this mean? Because
we know all miracles that the Lord performed were only to be
pictures, were only to be types of the true. Now, none of us
here are lepers, so what does this have to do with us? Well,
it has everything to do with us. Because it's a spiritual
type. It's a picture. Leprosy in Scripture
was never a disease to be cured. You read it from cover to cover,
you won't find anywhere leprosy being a disease that doctors
deal with. Leprosy is always seen in Scripture
as a plague, as a curse of God. It is meant here by the Holy
Spirit to be a picture of the greater plague of sin that not
only destroys the body, but this soul. Leprosy is the malady of sin. And this malady of sin is the
plague that is passed down from Adam to all his race. And as we see this man, there
is only one remedy. Only one remedy, Jesus Christ. What is the remedy for sin? Only
Jesus Christ is the remedy for sin. Now, if you go back, take
your Bibles, I want to show you a couple things about this, the
leper as a type of sin according to the law. Go to Leviticus 13.
In Leviticus 13, you will find the law of the leper, the law
regarding the man that has leprosy, the man cursed of God. In Leviticus
13, it reveals the law of the leper And what does this law do? Well, if a man had leprosy, he
was not to go to the doctor, but to the priest. And when he
went to the priest, the priests were only to inspect, not cure. That's it. The priest had one
job in this law of the leper. They were to inspect. It says in verse 2, when a man
shall have a skin in his flesh, a rising, a scab, a bright spot,
and it be in the skin of the flesh, a plague of leprosy, then
it shall be brought into error in the priest, or to one of his
sons. And the priest shall look at
the plague. See, that's what they did. This
whole book, if you go through this whole chapter, that's all
you're going to find. Priest, the guy comes in and says, man,
I think I got leprosy. And the priest said, okay, let
me look. And he looks, and he says, yes, you have leprosy,
or no, you don't. This is all they did. And if
they weren't sure, what they'd do is they'd lock him up. They'd
set him aside for seven days, and then they'd come back and
look at it again. So the priest only look and see. You know,
that's a picture of what the law can do. All the law can do
is look. and expose you whether you're
a leper or not. Now listen, I want you to be
very careful about this. Only lepers need to be cleansed.
Is that right? So if you're not a leper, then
obviously, go home. I got nothing for you. I got
nothing for you. Only lepers need to be cleansed. And so what the law does is it
exposes sin. The law of the leper It exposes
sin. Now, that's what chapter 13 does.
In chapter 14, we read, if a man is cleansed of leprosy, then
we're going to read as to the ceremony that was to be performed
by the priest, which is a picture of Jesus Christ, who cleanses
the leper. Now, so leprosy in Scripture
is not treated as a disease, but rather a curse. I have a
couple of illustrations, I'm just going to give them to you,
I'm not going to return there. Miriam. When Miriam and Aaron rose up
against Moses, they thought they were hot. They thought they were
just as important as Moses. And they said, Wahoo you Moses!
And God said, y'all come over here and let me show you who
I chose. And Miriam was struck with leprosy. You see, it was a curse of God.
And you remember King Uzziah, when he went in and offered what
was only the priest to do. He went and burned those incense.
What came down on him was the curse of leprosy. So leprosy
is a curse. And what happens to the leper?
When a man is diagnosed with leprosy by the priest, what happens?
He's cut off. He's kicked out of his own home,
away from his family, out of the worship of God. He is totally
segregated outside the camp. That's why I told you when this
man came in the city, it must have been a surprise, because
they weren't supposed to be there. They weren't supposed to be there.
They were supposed to be outside the city. So they were cast out. Listen, the same is true of the
spiritual leper. Man by nature is cast out from
the presence of God. You know, you are born into this
world cast out from the presence of God. You are born into this
world outside the camp. You cannot by any means please
God or worship God in the flesh. It is impossible because we are
full of sin. Sin. The sinner is cut off from
all the promises of God. And now it is true. Now, it's
true that all men are sinners. But listen to me, not all men
are lepers. If all men are lepers, the force
of the type is ruined. You see, only those that need
cleansing are lepers. And only those Christ cleanses
are lepers. So it would ruin the type. And I tell you specifically,
only the elect of God feel the effects of sin and are full of leprosy. Only God's people know the effects
of this. See, only true lepers need cleansing. True leprous sinners, only true
leprous sinners will come to Christ and submit to Him of His
full, free, and sovereign grace in Christ. Now, in Leviticus
13, we may see the difference between a true and a fake. There
are many fake lepers. There are many people who fake
leprosy. They fake to being sinners. And then there are true sinners. You see the man, he says in verse
2, he says, if a man have a scab arising. In other words, when
you have a scab, what is it? The flesh is not smooth. It's
rough. There's something wrong. There's
something wrong. And so when a man gets a rising,
it's like a man who has a conscience. His conscience is convicted.
Something's not right in my flesh. Something's wrong. It may be an appearance of a
scab or an inflammation of the skin. But a fake leper is only
superficial. These were pronounced clean and
sent home. Even so it is with some men,
they feel a rising in their conscience of leprosy. They feel a rising
in their conscience. They may feel some old wound
of sin. They may even feel the burning
wrath of God upon their souls. If the priest suspected any of
these risings in the flesh, these boils or inflammations, what
he would do is shut him up, and there are four signs of a true
leper. Now, it's important because if
you ever need cleansing, you will meet all of these four signs.
First of all, in order for it to be leprosy, it had to be deeper
than the skin. Look at that in verse 3. In verse 3 it says in the latter
part, "...in the sight be deeper than the skin of his flesh."
It is the plague of leprosy. Second of all, the hair had to
be white. In other words, the hair had
to be consumed or dead. A dead hair. So if you have a
rising and it appears deeper than the skin, and then there's
a white hair coming out of it, means the hair's consumed. Thirdly,
if it's true leprosy, it didn't stay in one place, but spread. It spread. Look at that in verse
8. If the priests see that, behold,
the scab spreadeth in the skin. Then the priest shall pronounce
him unclean, it is leprosy. And the fourth thing is that
it would have raw, tender flesh. Raw, tender flesh. Verse 10.
And the priest shall see him, and behold, if the rising be
white in the skin, and have turned the hair white, and there be
quick, raw flesh in the rising, it is an old leprosy. in the
skin of the flesh. Sinner, is your leprosy, first
of all, deeper than the skin? Some may feel the scab of sin. Their conscience might be pricked
by some tragic event. Their sin might be exposed to
others.