In John chapter 20, the Apostle
John gives us the reason that this book was given. And he shared
this. Towards the end of the Lord's
ministry, he shared these words about the Lord Jesus Christ.
And he says in John chapter 20, verse 30, and many other signs
truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples. which are not
written in the book, but these are written, that you might believe
that Jesus is the Christ and that believing you might have
life through his name. That's why this was written,
so that we believing might have life through his name. Now, for
many years, I was just a religious man. And one time by the providence
of God, I got to hear the gospel about a savior that actually
saves people and a redeemer that actually redeems people. And
it was absolutely the best news I ever heard in my life. that
there was someone who could take care of the problems I had when
it come to seeing. Now, he didn't stop my aging
process, and I used to have really nice dark hair, and he didn't
stop that process. I turned gray. and I'm getting
old and older, but he did take care of the problem that I had
with him. And that was he forgave me of
all my sin. That was the most, the best news
I'd ever heard that there was someone that was able to take
care of my sin. Now, there are many illustrations
in the Bible that the Lord gives us himself about how he does
that. And he uses, oftentimes, he's
going to run into someone that has a great disease. The one
we would like to look at today is he runs into a man who has
the disease of leprosy. Now, I have never met anybody
that I knew had leprosy, but when I read about it, it is a
terrible thing to get. And people in old ages died from
that. It was a terrible disease. And
in the passage we'd like to look at today, we find that the Lord
Jesus is in the right place at the right time to meet a man
that has this terrible disease of leprosy. Leprosy is terrible. It's beyond explanation. It's
beyond, well, I think if we were to look at it today as the disease
that compares with the today, it's the big C, cancer. so often incurable, but we find
someone was met by someone who could help him. And that's found
also in the book of John, John chapter five, just a few verses
here that we want to read in John chapter five about the Lord
Jesus. making it a purposeful drive
to meet a man that had this great disease. I like to read about
a God who does things on purpose, that he's not reacting, but he's
acting. He's not reacting to me, he's
not reacting to the world, but we find that he is the one who
does all things after the counsel of his own will. So he is active
doing what he purposes to do. Well, here in the book of John
chapter five, we read these words. John chapter five, excuse me,
I'm in the wrong book. I wanna go to Matthew chapter
eight, and I'm always doing that. So you forgive me, won't you?
Matthew chapter eight, verses one through three. When he was come down from the
mountain, great multitudes followed him. And behold, there came a
leper and worshiped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst
make me clean. Now I'm reading from the old
Bible that uses lots of wilts and believeths the old King James. So thou can make me clean. And Jesus put forth his hand
and touched him saying, I will be thou clean. And immediately
his leprosy was cleansed. I'd like to make a few comments
about this. First of all, someone had to
tell that leper that this person could do something for him. We
all like good news about finding a doctor that can help us. Someone
gives us a word of mouth and say, you know, I have the best
doctor in the world. He's found all my problems and he's able
to prescribe exactly what you need. And that's the doctor I
want to go to. But sometimes we don't find it
that way, do we? Well, this man had heard someone
say something about the Lord Jesus. This man said something
about someone who is able to do what nobody else is able to
do. There wasn't a doctor in the
land that could take care of this dreaded disease. There wasn't
a king in the land that could take care of this dreaded disease.
There wasn't anybody in the land that could take care of leprosy.
But someone had told this man that if this person ever comes
into your path, that he is able to help you. And that's what
exactly we find. Now, the Lord Jesus is not ignorant
to all of this. In fact, he is purposing all
of this. He is not ignorant that this man has leprosy. He has
full knowledge of it because he's God. God knows all things. God carries out all things. In
the Old Testament there is an example similar to this. There was a very, very powerful
man by the name of Naaman. Naaman had this same disease. He was powerful in the army of
Syria. And they had had a war with Israel. And at the time of the war, they
carried away a young girl with them captive. Now, no doubt it
broke the hearts of the little girl's parents and everything
else, but she was carried off. Now we find out she was carried
off on purpose. there was a man in the household
where she was that had leprosy. And she just mentioned, now,
if that man could go to the prophet over in Israel, he could be taken
care of. Well, if that were true, and Naaman seems to have believed
that that was going to be true, but he took two or three Dido's
in the instructions. First of all, he went to the
king of Syria. And the king of Syria said, I can't help you.
Go to the king of Israel. And the king of Israel says,
what are you trying to do, start a war? I can't help you. And
there was a prophet though, a prophet of God. Now that's the most important
person that we could find on the face of the earth is someone
who knows something about God. Oh, to have someone tell us something
about God. That's the truth, that God is
able to save his people from their sins. That's a wonderful
blessing. Well, the prophet of God sent a message to the King
of Israel and said, send that man over to me. And guess what? Naaman the leper
went over to see that prophet of God. Send him over to me,
I have hope for him. There's hope for him. So he goes
over there to the prophet of God, and the prophet didn't even
come out of his house. Now, some people would say, well,
that's just being very dishonorable to this man, this commander of
the Syrian army, very terrible. He wouldn't even come out of
his house. Well, when it's the message of God, we don't have
to see the man if it's the message of God. So the message of God
came through that prophet and said, this is what you need to
do. And he gave him the instructions
of how to take care of his leprosy. And Naaman the Syrian, who was
leprous, said, I'm not going to do it. I thought he would
come out and touch the spot and say some words over it, and then
I would be healed. And Naaman the leper decided
to leave. Well, someone that he had in
his entourage says, you know what? If that man had told you
to do something great, marvelous, outstanding, you'd have done
it. But all he's asked you to do
is go down to the Jordan River and sink under the level of the
Jordan River seven times, and you'll be clean. Now, I would
advise you to go do that. Well, Naaman finally decided
to go down there and follow the command of the prophet. Go down
to the Jordan River, dip seven times, and it said he came out
and his skin was like a baby's skin. Well, we know how soft
a baby's skin is, just as soft. He no longer had any leprosy.
Well, when we come to the New Testament, we find that the Lord
Jesus spoke about that man. He said there were many lepers.
in Israel in the days of that prophet, but only one was healed
and he was Naaman the Syrian, a Gentile, was healed by the
grace of God. When we get down here to Matthew
chapter 8, verses 1 through 3, we have a man that's a leper
and he has heard from someone The best message we can say is
Jesus saves, Jesus saves. That's the best message we can
give somebody. We can't save ourself, the priest can't save
us, the doctors can't save us, but Jesus Christ is the Savior
that was given by Almighty God. You know what his name is? They
shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from
their sins. That's the most glorious message
that we can ever hear is someone that can take care of the problem
that we have, the problem of sin. Now we're born with it,
and we can't eradicate it on our own, but there is one that
can, the Lord Jesus Christ. So this, the Lord, he come down
from a mountain where he had been praying, he comes down,
there's many people following him, and there's only one that
gets his attention. There's only one that he's going
to meet up with. We don't even know his name.
It says, and Jesus put forth his hand and touched him, saying,
the man realized that this one, Jesus of Nazareth, king of the
Jews, this one that was born of a virgin, this one that came
to be the savior of his people, this man realized that if he
got into his presence, if that man was willing, he could be
healed. He did not demand it. He did
not demand healing. He said, if thou wilt, I can
be clean. If you choose to do that, I can
be clean. If you don't, I'm in the same
strike I've always been in, I will have leprosy. Well, we find out
the Lord goes on to say, and he put forth his hand and touched
him saying, I will be thou clean. What struck his ears? What glorious words struck his
ears that day, and particularly when he was able to look at himself
and see that this man was able to do what no other man could
do, and that was to heal him from leprosy. Well, this same
man can do what no one else can ever do, and that's take care
of a problem that we have been facing all our life, and that
is approaching God without our sin, to have it paid for and
taken care of completely, paid in full. What a blessing we find
that that is. And immediately, the leprosy
was cleansed, immediately. It didn't take a long process
of time. We're talking about God here. We're reading about
God here, the God that created the heavens and the earth by
his own voice. We're reading about him taking
care of a problem that a man had that nobody else could take
care of. And that was this leprosy, you
know, coming to Christ. is really Christ coming to us.
We find out so often in the scriptures that it is the Christ that moved
in and through people and brought the good news about his great
saving power to people. Most people are not seeking after
him. The only ones that do are those
who already know something about Him. We're just blind to the
fact that there is someone that is able to heal us, to save our
soul, until someone comes along and shares the message, there
is a Savior that saves His people from their sins. Now, this goes
on to say, and Jesus said unto him, see thou tell no man, but
go thy way, show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that
Moses commanded for a testimony unto them. Up to that time, they
were still under the Old Testament economy, and it was only the
priest could actually declare someone completely clean. So he sent him to, in obedience
to the law at that time, to go have the priest look at him,
and you know what the priest is gonna do? Once Jesus Christ
heals someone, the priest is going to say, clean, clean, clean. No longer was this man going
to have to cry out as he went through the towns and so forth,
unclean, unclean, unclean. That's what a leper had to say
as he traveled along, unclean, unclean, get out of the way,
get out of the way. I'm unclean. Well, the Lord, in his wonderful
salvation, is so clear about this, just as we found out with
Naaman, the leopard. The man heard something. Someone
had talked about a man, the man. Somebody had told him of this
man's ability. You know, someone brought me
the news about this man's ability to save. Up to that point, I
had no knowledge about it. I had made a little decision
for Jesus, but I didn't have any possession of him. I didn't
have any idea, really, who he was. I knew about him, but I
didn't know him. And there's a big difference.
Somebody had told him of this man, Jesus' ability to save. Somebody had told this man, This
one does all things after the counsel of his own will. And
that's why it's important. Wilt thou, if thou wilt. If you
please, are you please, Lord, to do this. The leper came and
worshiped him, saying, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.
And the Lord Jesus did all the work. That's a wonderful thing
about salvation in Christ Jesus. He does all the work. There's no work left for us.
What did he do? He touched him. He spoke to him. And he made him clean. The man,
what did he do? He brought his leprosy. That's
all he could do is bring his leprosy to the Lord. He didn't
have any ability. If he could have done something,
he would. And probably he went through a lot of medication to
try to avoid the results of this disease. But we find that he
found someone who did all the work. Though the Scriptures tell
us it's not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according
to his mercy he saves us. So it's out of our league. We
can't reach it, but there is one that can, and his name is
Jesus. Jesus Christ did all the work. He touched him, he spoke to him,
and he made him clean. Now if we back up, we find a
man left the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in much better
condition than he arrived at him. He walked away clean. You
know, that's what God does for his people. He makes them clean. Now, I'm not talking about physically.
I'm talking about spiritually. He cleanses us. He washes us
in his own blood and cleanses us from our sin. What a glorious
act God performs to do that very thing, to make us acceptable
in the presence of Almighty God. Well, there are other examples
in the scripture about the Lord doing this, and as time goes
on, we might bring some more. But here we have a man was in
the right place at the right time to hear somebody to see
this man do something that he couldn't do on his own. He couldn't
get clean of leprosy. Well, the scriptures tell us
that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.
Who can know it? Incurable. We have an incurable
disease, but there is one, and we call him the good physician,
the good physician. He's able to take care of the
problem. He washes us and cleanses us
in his own blood. Well, we're going to stop there
today. Lord willing, we'll be here next Sunday, fourth Sunday,
and fifth Sunday of the month, and we'll continue this next
time. Before we have a song in closing,
is there anyone here that has a prayer request that we might
remember you in prayer? I ask you to pray for me. If you'd pray for me. Any prayer requests? Well, I
hope to get, yes, sir. Okay. I hope to get to know you
by first name over time. So, Mike, if you'd come and we'll
close.