Here's Luke chapter 5. There came a leper. Title of
the message, There Came a Leper. Now, I've preached from this
portion of Scripture and Mark and Matthew on their account
of this leper. But sometimes we kind of forget what it was to have leprosy in
that day. There in verse 12, it says that,
Behold a man full of leprosy. Full of leprosy. Well, I got
this from John Gill today, and he quotes eight men back in the
old days and their account of leprosy. especially when it was
in its full-blown stage. So I printed it off and I'm going
to read it to you so you and I will have a real idea of the
man that came to our Lord and His healing of this leper. And
I want to reference it to us as I go along tonight. He starts
out here, the symptoms of the ancient leper, and he gives names
of eight men who give this testimony. He says here, the patient's voice
is hoarse and comes rather through the nose than the mouth, the
blood full of little white shining bodies like groins of millet,
which upon filtration separate themselves from it. The serum
is scabious and destitute of its natural humidity and so much
that salt applied to it does not dissolve. It is so dry that
vinegar poured on its boils and so strongly bound together by
little imperceptible threads that calcium lead thrown into
it swims. The face resembles a coal half
extinct. unctuous, shining, and bloated,
with frequent hard knobs, green at bottom and white at top. The
hair is short, stiff, and brined, and not to be torn off without
bringing away some of the rotten flesh to which it adheres. If
it grows again, either on the head or the chin, it is always
white. Toward the forehead, it says
it runs large wrinkles or furrows from one temple to the other,
The eyes red and inflamed and shine like those of a cat, the
ears swollen and red, eaten with ulcers toward the bottom and
encompassed with little glands. The nose sunk because of the
rotting of the cartilage, the tongue dry, black, swollen, ulcerated,
divided with furrows and spotted with grains of white. The skin
covered with ulcers and that die and revive on each other
or with white spots or scales like a fish. It is rough and
insensible and when cut instead of blood yields a sensuous liquor. It arrives in time. to such a
degree of insensibility that the wrist, feet, or even the
large tendon may be pierced with a needle without the patient
feeling any pain. At last, the nose, fingers, toes,
and even private parts fall off entire, and by death, procured
to each of them, anticipate that of the patient. It is added that
the body is so hot that a fresh apple held in the hand an hour
will be dried and wrinkled as if exposed to the sun for a week.
Think now what a miserable, deplorable object this man was said to be
full of. He was full of leprosy. This is the man who came to Christ. This is the man whom the Lord
made completely whole and clean. Can you imagine? I understand
why he couldn't shut up. I understand why he went out
and he had to tell everybody. That was his condition. He was
full of leprosy. It was in its full-blown stage.
Now, leprosy in the Scriptures is used as a symbol of sin. You
can read that over in Leviticus 13. Sin, like leprosy, takes over
the whole man. It may seem small in its beginning,
but it consumes the whole man. Sin, like leprosy, had no cure
for it in that day. The priest could only pronounce
what he saw. He could only pronounce if the
man was clean or unclean. You know, the law cannot cure
sin. It can't cure sin. The law can
only pronounce us as we are, clean or unclean. And sin, like
leprosy, causes much pain, both physically and emotionally. Can
you imagine? This man couldn't be touched.
If he was touched, whoever touched him was unclean. Whatever he
touched was unclean. His family, if he had a family,
if he had a family, if he had a wife, if he had children, they
couldn't touch him. They couldn't touch him. Do you
know what it is to not know what a human touch is? I mean, just
right now, do you know how hard it is trying to get you to not
touch each other? Trying to get you to not hug
each other and shake hands. It's like pulling teeth almost. Really. I was talking to another
pastor today. It's like, you know, it's just
the human touch. There's such power in the human
touch. And he couldn't be touched. Couldn't
be hugged again. And sin, like leprosy, separates
its victim from the healthy. Leviticus 13, I'm going to read
this to you. Verses 44 through 46. Speaking
of a leprous man, he's unclean. The priest shall pronounce him
utterly unclean. His plague is in his head. This
is when he's got that full-blown leprosy. "...And the leper in
whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare,
and he shall put a covering over his upper lip, and he shall cry,
unclean, unclean." When he walked, anywhere he walked, this is what
he had to do. He had to put a covering like
this, and he had to cry, unclean, unclean. And people would separate
from him. They'd get out of his way. And
listen, verse 46. And all the days wherein the
plague shall be in him, he shall be defiled, he is unclean, he
shall dwell alone." Alone. Without the camp. He shall dwell alone, without
the camp shall his habitation be. That's his condition. That was our condition by nature.
And then sin, like leprosy, separated from worship. He couldn't go
to the temple. He could not enter into the temple with that leprosy. Now, I want us to find out what
we can learn from this. Seeing that leprosy is like sin,
it's a symbol of sin, is what it's used as in the Scriptures. We can see in this leper's case
our case. As I studied this again, it was
like it was studying it all over again afresh. And I could see
in him myself. Spiritually, I could see in him.
I'm not making that up. I could see in him myself. Here
is a painful reality. He saw himself as He really was. When God gives us life for the
first time, we see ourselves as we really are. He saw Himself
as He really was, a leper. He made no excuse for what He
was. He owned what He was. He knew it and He owned it. And
that's the first thing we do when God saves us. We own. We own our sinfulness. We own our sins. We own what
we are by nature. We own it. He says he was full
of leprosy. And then he felt his sin. He
faced it every time he woke up in the morning alone. He woke
up every morning alone. He felt it. He felt it. And he felt the pain of it. Sin
brings great pain. Sin has affected our whole being. It has affected our minds. We
can't use our minds like we ought to use our mind. I don't know,
as far as a human being, the makeup of a human being, the
greatest thing God's given us is a mind. And yet how little
we use it and how much we waste it. But sin has affected our
mind, it's affected our body, We're growing old. That's an
effect of sin. It has affected our soul. It
has affected our affections. Everything about us, from head
to toe, sin has had a devastating effect. Devastating effect. And then he felt its uncleanness. You know that. At his point, at his stage of
leprosy, he felt his uncleanness. He felt
his putrefying flesh. He had to wake up every day smelling
it. Every day he had to wake up smelling
his putrefying flesh. It says in Isaiah 64, 6, But
we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are
as filthy rags, and we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities,
like the wind, have taken us away. Even our righteousness,
he said, are as filthy rags. In God's sight, they are. They
are. And thank God if He's made them
that way in our sight. The sinner sees his sin of disgrace,
he sees his sin as a danger to his life, and he sees his sin
as disgusting. Disgusting. Job said, By the
hearing of the ear I have heard of thee, but now mine eye seeth
thee, and I abhor myself. I hate myself. I abhor myself. But I'll tell you this, this leprosy, this problem he
had here, brought him to the Lord. This is what brought him
to the Lord. The Pharisees would not have
anything to do with Jesus Christ. The self-righteous Pharisees,
they're the ones who said, we will not have this man to reign
over us. But here is a leper. I mean just
rotten from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. And
he heard, he's like that woman with the issue of blood, he heard
of Jesus Christ. And he heard of how he was able
to heal and to save. And this man came. Oh, how important that is. He
came to the Lord Jesus Christ. He heard, He came, He approached,
and He submitted Himself to the Lord of glory. When we really hear the gospel,
we hear of Christ, the great Physician. We hear of a Savior. That's what we hear. We hear
of a Savior, a Savior of sinners. They're hard to find, but He's
a Savior of sinners. There's some here. There's some
here. We hear of Christ, His ability
to save. We hear of Christ, the High Priest,
the One who can make us clean and pronounce us clean. It is written in Jude 1.24, Now
unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present
you faultless, able to present you faultless
before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, not with
fear and trembling, but with exceeding joy, Joy that can't
be comprehended to be there in God's presence. You know, apart
from regeneration, that you would not and I would not enjoy heaven?
We wouldn't enjoy it. It would be like hell without
that. Without regeneration, you're
not going to fulfill the lust of your flesh there. You're not
going to fulfill the lust of your flesh there. It's a different
place. It takes a different nature to
enjoy heaven. But the Lord is going to present
us faultless before the presence of His glory. Now what drew him
to the Lord? He was drawn to the Lord by his
desperate need. That's the first thing I thought
of. And then as I was writing this, I thought he was drawn
to the Lord by his desperate need and by faith. By faith. This leper believed with all
his heart. He believed with all his heart
that the Lord could cleanse him, heal him, And he proved it by
coming to Him. He did. Those who never come
are those who never believe that the Lord is able. They never
believe that they really need the Lord Jesus Christ to cleanse
them. I need cleansing. I need cleansing from my sins. And notice his position when
he came to the Lord. How many times did the Pharisees
just walk right up to the Lord and start talking to Him face
to face and just start challenging Him and questioning Him? It says,
here He came and kneeling down. Kneeling down at His feet. He
knew His place. This man knew His place. Thank God if He makes you and
I to know our place at His feet. at His feet. That's where Mary
was, that's where she sat, at the feet of Christ, learning
of Him. This leper knew his place, and
he knew his case was urgent, and that's the way it is with
salvation. My salvation is an urgent matter. If I don't see it that way, I
have not yet seen my real condition. If it's not urgent, If it's not
urgent, the Lord saves some of you. And you know your case was
urgent, wasn't it? It wasn't something I ought to
do. Something maybe, you know, it'd be a good thing to do. Absolutely
urgent. It was that way with me, and
I know it's that way with all those whom God saves. It's urgent. And his position here was one
of worship. He took his place in the dust.
He took his place before the Lord and he bowed to Him. We
see his faith here in his submission. He acknowledges the Lord's sovereign
will and power. He says, if thou wilt. He did
not go up to the Lord and say, here I am, save me. This man was so aware of his
leprosy, of his sickness, of his disease, of his wretchedness.
He was so aware of it, when he bowed to the Lord, he said, Lord,
if you will, if you will. Salvation is of the Lord. He
can save me or leave me alone. That leper knew that. He knew
that the Lord could save him or leave him alone. He didn't
know it to him. But he knew this. He knew that
the Lord could save him if He will. He knew He had saved others. He had heard of it. And that
gave him hope. He's like, He's given sight to
the blind. The lame can walk. He's healed
many that were diseased. He can heal me too. Why not me,
Lord? Why not me? I know this, if he was going
to be refused, he was going to be refused by the Lord. He wasn't
going to let anybody stand between him and the Lord. It's like that
woman with the issue of blood. She went through that crowd.
This woman was so weak. She had this issue of blood for
12 years. You know, she's very anemic,
very weak, but she pushed her way through that crowd. And she
kept saying in her heart, if I can just touch him, if I can
just touch the hem of his garment, I'll be made whole. That's faith.
That's faith. If I can just touch Him, if I
can just get to Him, I'll be made whole. And here's something I saw today
when I was looking at this again. Submission to the Lord's will
is the first step of being conformed to the image of Christ. That's
the first step. through the Lord's will. I tell
you this, that's the hardest thing. It's really probably the
most impossible thing. It is impossible. Without the
work of the Holy Spirit, there's not one human being that will
submit to Jesus Christ. They will not submit to His righteousness.
They will not submit to His Lordship. Here's evidence, here's evidence
that the Lord has done something for this one. He submitted. He bowed down and submitted.
And he recognized the Lord's power and ability. He said, If
thou wilt, thou canst. I know you can save me. You know that, don't you? You
know that, don't you, Ed? You know the Lord can save you.
You know He can. There's no doubt. Thou canst. I can't save you. I can't save
you. Go to Him. Go to Him. Someone said one time, I heard
this Henry say this in a message, I think it was Ralph Barnard,
it was either him or A.D. Mews. He said one time, he said,
come to Christ, but don't you move a hair or muscle. Because
it's a heart work. It's the heart going out. I can't, you can't, but the Lord,
He can. He can. He came to save sinners,
why not me? I think of that every time I
think of him coming to save sinners. It's like, I'm wanting this line.
I'm in this line. And the leper here, he raised
no difficulty. He didn't say, Lord, I know I'm
full of leprosy. I know that I am putrid from
top of my head to the bottom of my feet. He didn't say that,
did he? He didn't mention how bad he
was. He said, Lord, if you will, you
can make me clean. You can make me clean. Here's what he does. He absolutely
puts himself in the Lord's hands. I'm in your hands to do with
as you will. Sink or swim. Sink or swim. You're
the only hope I got." And he has no hesitation as to
what he came for. The Lord didn't say, what do
you want? And he said, well, no, he said, make me clean. He
came to be cleansed. He came to be made clean. He comes as a mercy beggar. That's what He is. He beseeched
the Lord. He begged Him. That's what He
did. He begged the Lord to make Him clean. He knew He did not deserve what
He was asking for. He knew that. Boy, I tell you what. And God
teaches us that we don't deserve what we're asking for at any
given time. He's taught us something. What we see here is misery in
the presence of mercy, humility pleading with grace, faith appealing
to faithfulness, and helplessness worshiping at the feet of power. helplessness, worshiping at the
feet of power." Can you imagine? I just try to imagine. For two
or three days I've been working on this. And I rewrote this outline
from an old outline I had, but I took that old outline, set
it aside, and rewrote this one. And I tried to imagine this man
in all his leprosy, standing there before the Lord, no doubt
in pain, And it took courage for him to come out in public
and do this. It took courage for him to do this. But it took desperation too.
He was desperate. He knew this, not to come is
certain death. Not to come is certain death. But we also see here, in the
healing of this leper, the Scriptures fulfilled. written in Matthew
8, verse 16 and 17. When the evening was come, they
brought unto him many that were possessed with devils. And he cast out the spirits with
his word. There wasn't no hocus pocus. There wasn't none of that goofy
stuff going on. Just by his word. And he healed
all that were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken
by Isaiah the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities
and bear our sicknesses." And that's what He did. In the saving
of sinners, in the saving of a multitude of sinners given
to Him by the Father, He took their sins to the cross. It says in 2 Corinthians 5.21,
"...for He hath made Him to be sin for us, that we might be
made the righteousness of God in Him." He fulfilled the Scripture in healing this man. And then it tells us here in
verse 41, "...and Jesus, moved with compassion. You can imagine the disciples
standing around there. The disciples, you know, they
were probably, they probably backed off. They probably got
behind the Lord. But I'm sure they didn't get
too close to him because they knew what the law said, that they would
be unclean. And they saw our Lord moved with
compassion on this leper, this one who needed Him. It was Christ
or die. It was Jesus Christ or die. And
that's exactly the way it is. Lord, if you don't save me, I
will perish. Isn't that what Peter said when
he was drowning? He walked on that water and started
to go down and said, Lord, save me, I'll perish. That's the way it is. You know.
You know it. And Jesus moved with compassion,
put forth His hand. You know, I don't know if there's
a crowd standing around there, but if there did, they'd probably gasp. Because
nobody's supposed to touch this man. No one's supposed to touch
this man. He's a leper and he's full of
leprosy. I mean, there's not a person in this room that would
have touched that man. I mean, good night, we're just
talking about a virus and we're scared to touch each other. This man
was full of leprosy, stinking, running sores. And the Lord moved
with compassion. He reaches out and puts his hand
on him. And he said unto him, I will
be thou clean. And right in their presence,
this man's flesh becomes whole. Can you imagine that sight? He
comes and he's a running sore. I mean, he's a stinking, running
sore. And when the Lord said, I will
be thou clean, he stood there completely whole. No sores, no
scales, no scabs, no stink, nothing. And it was just by the Master's
touch. I started to title this, A Touch
of the Master's Hand. That's all it takes. All it takes
is the Lord just to reach down and touch me. In mercy, in grace,
in forgiveness, that's all it takes. And the Lord, being moved
with compassion, reached out and touched. He wasn't afraid
to touch him. You say, Lord, if you touch him, you're going
to be made unclean. Listen, this is the high priest. Now listen, go over in Leviticus,
like I told you, Leviticus 13. The high priest is the one who
pronounces him clean or unclean. They would go show themselves
to the priest. If they had leprosy, the priest would pronounce him
either clean or unclean, if he had it or he didn't have it.
But here the high priest is one who could not only pronounce
us clean, but make us clean. This is what he said. There's
something really in what he said when he said, you can make me
clean. Not just pronounce me clean,
you can make me that way. By his touch, he's made clean. or the power of the Master's
touch. Look over in Matthew chapter 8. Let's look at a few of these
where the Lord touched them. Matthew chapter 8, look in verse
14. And when Jesus was coming to
Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother laid and sick of a fever,
and he touched her hand, and the fever left her. And she arose
and ministered unto them. Turn over to Mark chapter 7. Go ahead, I'll come back to something
else. Mark chapter 7. Let me get there. In Mark chapter 7, I'm not going
to tell you the verse until I get to it. I don't want you to read
it before I get there. Because I want to see where I
want to start at. Let me see. Verse 31, And again, departing
from the coast of Tyre and Sidon, he came into the Sea of Galilee
through the midst of the coast of Decapolis. And they bring
unto him one that was deaf and had an impediment in his speech.
And they beseeched him to put his hand upon him. And he took
him aside from the multitude, because he was not there to entertain.
Our Lord is not going to entertain sinners on their way to hell.
He took this man aside from the multitude and put his fingers
into his ears, and he spit and touched his tongue. And looking
up to heaven, he sighed and said unto him, Epithah, that is, be
open. And straightway his ears were
opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake
plain. But he put his fingers in his
ears, and then he spit on his hands. The way I see it, he spit
on his hands and touched his tongue. You say, that's offensive.
The gospel is. If the gospel is not offensive,
it's not the gospel. When you see that, and you see
him spitting on his fingers and touching that man's tongue, you
say, ooh, that's offensive. That's because the gospel of
Jesus Christ is offensive. And then turn to Matthew 9. Back to Matthew. Verse 27. And when Jesus departed thence,
two blind men followed Him, crying and saying, Thou Son of David,
have mercy on us. They knew and believed who He
was, the Son of David. And when He was coming to the
house, the blind men came to Him. And Jesus said unto them,
Believe you that I am able to do this? They said unto Him,
Yes, Lord. Then touched He their eyes, saying,
According to your faith, be it unto you. And their eyes were
opened. And Jesus straightly charged them, saying, See that
no man knoweth. But they, when they were departed, went out
and spread abroad His fame throughout all the country." You can't keep
from it. The Lord has no secret disciples. Even when that woman with the
issue of blood came behind Him and touched the hem of His garment,
He turned around and called her out. He turned around and said,
Who touched me? And the disciples said, Lord,
you see the throne and you're saying, Who touched me? He said,
Someone touched me. Someone, and He knew who it was,
He knew who she was, but He's going to make her come out and
confess Him before all those people. And it says she confessed
before them, before all, why she had touched Him and what
had happened. There are no secret disciples. Everyone whom the Lord saves
will confess Him. And the way we do it now is by
baptism. That's how we confess Christ. And then there's salvation. It was immediate. As soon as
he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him and
he was cleansed. He was cleansed. Immediately. Not put on probation. No probation. It's immediate. But I want you to notice here
in the last verse, and I'll close in verse 44, how that our Lord
fulfills the law. He says, And the Lord said unto
him, See thou say nothing to any man, but go thy way, show
thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing those things
which Moses commanded for a testimony unto them. You'll see that in
Leviticus 13 if you go back and read it. Why did He do that? Because the law was still in
effect. He had not died yet. the law was still in effect.
So he told him, he said, you go back and you do that in honor
of the law, because that was given. And also, it was the priest
who was using the law that was given that pronounced him unclean. And he's going to go back to
that same priest, And that same law that he used, that was given
by Moses, is going to pronounce him clean. Faultless. Spotless. Spotless before God's law. In the Old Testament, the
leper was never sent to a physician. He was always sent to the priest
to be pronounced either clean or unclean. See, only God can
cure the leprosy. Listen, everything that's cured, whether
it's medicine, or whether the Lord just commands it to be healed,
it's all of God. Now, He may use medicine to cure,
but it's still God's medicine. it's still God who does the healing.
And that day, just like this man here, he came to the Lord
and the Lord healed him. He healed him. And I tell you
this, if the Lord heals us of sin, well, to the praise and
glory of His grace. But if He heals us of our physical
ailments, that's to the praise and glory of His grace. Because
either way, it's the Lord healing me. I know that. I know that. I know people that won't take
medicine. You know, they say, well, the
Lord will heal me. I'm not going to take medicine. I'm going to take the medicine
because it's the Lord's medicine. It's His medicine. I mean, all
medicine comes from herbs and all that God made. He's just
given a few men some brains to put it together and give it to
me. And all this medicine that the
world partakes of and all this medical technology that we have
right now is for the elect's sake. It's for you. The world just gets benefits
of it. You know that sun that shines?
They get the benefit of it because of you. God still has a people
in this world, and this world gets the benefit of you being
here. You're the salt of the earth, you're the light of the
world, is what Scripture says. Salt acts as what? A preservative. When God saves that last one,
This is over with. His bride is complete, His body
is complete, and this is over with. Because right now, all
this stuff that's going on, God is bringing together the bride
of Christ. Just like when He put Adam in
a deep sleep and took from his side the rib and He closed up
the place instead thereof. Well, the place in Christ is
still there. Because Christ said to Tom, stick your finger in
there. The Father is taken out of Christ and making for Him
a bride, which Eve is a symbol of. God took her out of Adam
and made Adam a bride. He made him His wife. That's
exactly what's going on right now. And when He's finished,
when the bride is all put together, which is that last sheep, it's
that last member of the body, This will be over. This will
be over. But until then, the world benefits
by our presence. Let me point this out and I'll
close. When this man went to the priest
to be examined, he had to undress. And that priest examined him,
I mean, from head to toe, all over. And he pronounced him clean. We are not afraid to be examined
by God's law. Because in Christ we've been
made perfectly whole. Not a blemish. Not a blemish. Isn't that a beautiful story?
I never get tired of this story. I love it. I love the Gospels. I love these incidents where
the Lord heals the blind, like this leper, because all the healing
our Lord did, they are examples of what He does for us spiritually.
He gives us spiritual eyes to see, ears to hear, a tongue to
speak and praise Him.