We're going to be in the book
of Luke. There are four gospels that tell
so much about the life of the Lord Jesus. That's Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John. And we're going to be in the
book of Luke, the third gospel. And there's some incidences that
we've been going over in the times that we've been with you,
and they all have to do with some miracle or miracles that
the Lord Jesus Christ did during his personal ministry. Now, Him
being God, not a God, but the God, the Son of God, God the
very God, He showed on this earth during His public ministry the
great power of God. God is able to do these things. And in healing physical bodies,
He is demonstrating what He can do spiritually for us. So if
we find Him healing a blind man, which He did, We find that he
shares with us that by the same power, he can heal our spiritual
blindness. And if he heals a person that's
lame, that can take care of, shares with us how he takes care
of our physical or spiritual lameness. And it just goes on. So many things are brought out.
Well, in this passage of scripture, we find that the Lord Jesus is
going to heal 10 lepers. 10 lepers. Now I don't, I've
never seen a leper. I've read about them in the Bible.
I've read about them in some books, but I've never seen one.
But I read to find out that when it was, when people had it, it
was a serious, serious illness. And it was not, it was not, there
was no cure for it. There just was no cure. But here
in the book of Luke chapter 17, And it tells us in verse 11 of
Luke chapter 17, it came to pass as he, the Lord Jesus, went to
Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee.
Now he has a course that he wants to go through. It's like if we
wake up someday and say, I'm going down to Portland. Well,
to get there, we're gonna go through Mosier and Hood River.
And so he's on his way to Jerusalem and he said, we're gonna go through
these places first. And he's passing through the
midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered into a certain
village, now it doesn't even give us the name of that village,
but to him, he knew what it was because it was a place that he
intended to go to. He intended, he purposed to go
to this village because in that village, there were some people
he needed to deal with. Now, I've shared this in almost
every message I've brought here. That is, the Lord never went
anywhere without a purpose. He had a purpose in mind. He
never made a mistake. He never went somewhere and says,
I wonder why I'm here. He never visited with anybody
without a purpose to visit with them. And so we find, again,
he is in a place, a certain place, a certain village, and there
met him 10 men. That's quite a few, 10 men. And yet we have some words to
describe their condition. It says they were 10 men, as
he came through, 10 men that were lepers. Now they had a very
serious illness. And most lepers died with leprosy. There just was hardly any cure
for it whatsoever. And here we have the son of God,
the God that created the heavens and the earth, the Lord Jesus
Christ in all his power and all his glory coming to a place,
a certain town, and there he met 10 men and they were lepers. Now they have something to say.
It says, and as he entered in there, they met these 10 lepers
and they stood afar off. Now that was required by the
law. The Old Testament law, if you were a leper, you were to
cry unclean, unclean, unclean, and that warned people not to
come close to you. And that was required by them.
So they're standing afar off. They know what they have to do.
They have to stand afar off and they, cannot approach the Lord
Jesus as they may have wished to, but listen to what he, and
they lifted up their voices and said, Jesus, master, have mercy
on us. Now, when we get into this little
passage of scripture here, we find out that the Lord is going
to heal all 10 of those lepers. What power. This One, Jesus has. He is the Messiah. He is the
Lord Jesus Christ. Lord means Master, Sovereign.
Lord Jesus. Jesus means Savior. He will save
his people from their sins. Christ means Messiah. The one
that had been promised forever. The one that had been promised
in the days of Adam and Eve. The one that had been promised
before the foundation of the world. The Savior to come. This one. A lamb slain from the
foundation of the world. So we have the Lord Jesus Christ
here dealing with 10 lepers. He wasn't caught off guard. He
knew exactly where they were. He knew their names. We don't
have their names listed, but he knew their names. He knew
their condition. He knew their problems. And he
knew that they were being respectful by standing afar off and staying
away. That's required by the law. But
they lifted up their voices and said, Jesus, master. Now we're
gonna find out that nine of these lepers just use the words. One of the lepers knew what Jesus'
master meant, but nine of them just used the words. You know,
a lot of times we find people that just use the word God and
have no knowledge of who they're talking about. I used to be in
that same condition. I would use Jesus, but didn't
know who I was talking about. I'd use Lord, but didn't know
who I was talking about. I'd use all kinds of words about
God, names of God, but didn't have any idea. I saw Bob Dole one time. He was running for president,
and he was down in Klamath Falls, Oregon, and I got to shake hands
with Bob Dole. But you know what? I don't know
a thing about him. I don't know where he was born.
I don't know his age. I don't know. I just got to meeting."
And that's kind of the way these folks were when they used this
term, Jesus, have mercy on us. Master, Jesus, have mercy on
us. They had no idea who this was, but they did understand
that if something was happened, he would take care of it. So
they lifted up their voices and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy
on us. And when he saw them, he said
unto them, go show yourselves unto the priests. Now this again
is Old Testament law. If a person is healed of leprosy,
they are required to go to the priest and be declared clean.
So he sent them off to the priest, that's gonna be in Jerusalem.
He sent them off and it says, as they passed and as they went,
they were cleansed. So on their way to the priest,
all 10 of these people are cleansed of leprosy by the power of the
Lord Jesus Christ and from a distance. The Lord didn't have to be in
the presence of these people to heal them. that he has power
over all things. He had power to heal him from
a distance, he had power to heal him from closeness. But he let
them go, says, go to the priest, do what the law requires, go
see the priest, see if he'll declare you clean or not. And
as they went, it tells us that they were cleansed. Now, when
Jesus does a job, he does it well. When he heals somebody,
they're healed. And when he healed these people,
they are healed of their leprosy and they are cleansed. Now, nine
of them no doubt went on to see the priest and they were okayed
and they were back in society again and they were with their
wives or their children, their family, whatever, but they cared
no more about who it was that healed him. You know, the Bible
tells us in the book of Matthew that God is very merciful and
long-suffering in this sense, that he sends the sun on the
just as well as the unjust, and he sends the rain on the just
as well as the unjust. He doesn't just rain and have
sunshine on his children. He does it for the entire world.
He sends his sunshine every day. He sends his rain in the appointed
seasons. And in that sense, he is very
merciful to this world. For without it, we wouldn't be
able to eat. We would have no food at all.
He is very merciful and long-suffering in many respects until that day
when he shall come again. So here we have nine lepers that
he is so merciful to, and yet they have no reciprocation at
all. They have no concern. They're
just going to go on to the priest. The priest is going to say, you
are clean. He had to look over, inspect
them, go through all of the religious stuff that they would do, and
he could declare them clean, and off they went. But one of
those lepers, one out of 10, When he was healed, he said,
one of them, when he saw he was healed, turned back. Now that's a gracious act that
God would ever have even one turn back and thank him for all
what he had done for them. Now, nine of them just went their
way. Nine of them said, that's great. I went to church today
and I got the blessings of going to church today, but that's as
much as I need. And so they went down to the
priest, they went home, but this one leper. Now he was no more
a leper than the rest of them. He was no less a leper than the
rest of them. He was a leper like the rest
of them. But the Lord healed them all, but one of them had
his heart changed. One of them had an interest in
going back to the one who had healed him. And it tells us there
when he turned back and with a loud voice glorified God. Now how far away these guys got
before they were healed or cleansed, it doesn't say. But it does say
to us that with a loud voice he glorified God. So it might
have been within earshot of the Lord. It might have been a very
short distance down the road that they got before this one
turned around. Now the rest of them could care
less. They didn't have any compunction at all to go back to the Lord.
They were rainy day Christians. No, they were sunshine Christians,
rainy day Christians, whatever. They didn't care. But one of
them cared because God had given him a care to go back and thank
this one that had healed him. He knew who had done it. This
one that he called Jesus Master, This one he knew had done what
now he was a cleansed man. Where he walked away as a leper,
he came back as a healed person. You know, in one of the Old Testament
scenes where there was a leper healed, it says that his skin
was like a baby's skin. No, just as fresh as a baby's
skin. It wasn't, didn't show scars,
didn't show anything. God had done such a great job
on him. And I'm sure that the same thing
is here. Now, not only did the Lord have to deal with this man's
sickness, but he also dealt with his clothes because his clothes
was just as bad as he is. So one of them, when he saw that
he was healed, turned back and with a loud voice glorified God. And that wasn't all. He fell
down on his face at his feet, giving thanks, and he was a Samaritan. Now, a Samaritan was a person
that was part Jewish and part Gentile. And the Jews didn't
care for him at all. The Samaritan woman at the well
that Jesus went to visit says, how is it that you being a Jew
will talk to me? Because normally Jews would not
talk to them. They were Orthodox and these
people were half breeds. And so why would they ever talk
to him? Here is a man that Jesus healed that had a problem that
he had leprosy. And he is one out of the 10 that
had a nationality that normally would not come to a Jew. And
yet he came to Christ. It says there, he fell down at
his feet, giving him thanks. Lord, thank you for healing my
body. Lord, thank you for healing me. And, you know, he didn't have
to bring up the other nine. Jesus does that. The other nine
are not his, his business, not this one man's business. The
Lord healed him. And the business was, I need
to thank someone who did this, and he knew exactly who had done
it, and that was the Lord Jesus Christ, this almighty, all-powerful,
sovereign God that had been sent down to this earth to die in
the place of his children, of his own people. He's on his way
to Jerusalem to die soon on a cross. But on that way, he took the
time, purposed to heal this man. And then Jesus answered and said,
Were there not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Well, that's
not a question for Jesus didn't know. That's a statement that
Jesus is making. He knew where they are. They
went off to see the priest. They went back to the law. They
went back to there. And this one came back to the
Lord Jesus Christ and thanked him profusely for what he had
done. Grace, the mercy and grace of
God was so evident in this person. He had a heart full of thanksgiving. Where are the nine? There were
not found that return to give glory to God save this stranger. So they went, whatever they said
to the priest, maybe they said, you know, we're just walking
along and we got healed. It doesn't tell us what they
said, but this one came back. He knew by what power he had
been healed. So he was a stranger. It says, Jesus said, he said
unto him, arise, go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole. Now when that word is used by
the Lord, it's a very beneficial word, made whole. The opposite of that is not whole,
having a shipwreck, having a problem. And he is demonstrating here
by this, that we by nature are truly not whole before the Lord,
but we can be and are made whole by the Lord Jesus Christ. So
there's nine out there. The Lord dealt with them just
like he deals with this world and sends sunshine and rain.
How wonderful is that? But one of them, God touched
his heart and he came back to the master and bowed before him
and thanked him for what God had done for him, that he had
been healed. And the Lord says, you know,
there's only one that returned to give God glory to God. And that is this stranger. This
Samaritan, but I have my eye on him. What a blessing it is
to have God's eye on an individual that he would take care of the
needs of that individual. And truly, that's what the Lord
does for his people. He knows the shipwreck we're
in. He knows the cure for our shipwreckness, and that is his
grace and his mercy. And he also knows that he can
create in those that he saves, that they will be thankful for
what he has done. Jesus answering said, were there
not 10 cleansed, but where are the nine? there are not found
that return to give glory to God save this stranger glory
to God save this stranger thanksgiving to God for making him whole well
we'll stop there and we're thankful for the opportunity