open your Bibles to the book
of Luke, and this morning we're going to chapter 17. Luke chapter
17. I certainly want you to be aware
of the schedule of our Bible conference, especially Next Lord's
Day, we begin at 10 o'clock for our first service. And then we'll
have a little break. And then the second service will
begin at 11. And so that's a bit different
than we usually have. And so I hope that you will bear
that in mind next Lord's Day. Luke chapter 17. My subject is
give glory to God. Give glory to God. Our Lord Jesus heals 10 lepers
in this portion of scripture in Luke 17, 11 through 19. He
grants healing mercies to these men who had a death
sentence. The death sentence was not issued
by men, it wasn't for any crimes specifically that they had done,
but rather it was a death sentence of an awful disease. A disease
that would end in death unless God himself intervened. Now, our Lord Jesus often, often
performed miracles throughout His public ministry. There was no disease that He
ever met that He couldn't conquer. There was no demon who possessed
anyone but what He couldn't cast the demon out. There was even
no issue of death. But what our Lord Jesus, who
is life, could not bring back the dead from that state of death
and give them life. We read a verse in Acts, the
second chapter, and you need not turn to it, but it's at the
beginning of Peter's message on the day of Pentecost. And
he said, ye men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth,
a man approved of God among you, and the word approved means demonstrated
or one who was set forth among you by miracles and wonders and
signs which God did by him in the midst of you as ye yourselves
also know." Our God indicated he approved of Jesus of Nazareth
by the great deeds that the Savior performed. Even when Nicodemus
came to the Lord Jesus by night, he readily acknowledged the ability
of this great teacher who had come from God to do mighty miracles. Nicodemus said unto him, that
one who came to Jesus by night, he said, Rabbi, we know that
thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these
miracles that thou doest except God be with him. And during the
days of our Lord's earthly ministry, There were multitudes who received
temporal, outward benefits of the works of the Lord Jesus Christ,
who were healed of their diseases, and He never met a disease that
He couldn't conquer. There were multitudes who were
healed of their physical ailments, who never, never experienced
the healing of the soul. You see, our Lord Jesus, He never
turned anyone away. And there were many people who
came to Him not in faith to believe Him as the Savior, not seeking
salvation, not seeking any saving grace, but seeking only a relief
from whatever their physical infirmity might have been. And they never saw Him as the
great physician of souls. Others came to Him who had deaf
ears. And they indicated to Him, perhaps
on a tablet, but they indicated to Him, we need the healing,
I need the healing to hear. And He granted them that ability
to hear, but He did not give them the ability to hear the
gospel with an inward ear. You know, He said to His people,
He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. But He did not give
to everybody to whom He gave physical hearing. He did not
give to all of them the ability to hear spiritual, the spiritual
voice of God in the soul. Likewise, there were many blind
people who came to Him. Oh, that I might receive my sight. And to them He gave sight. They were perhaps blind from
birth, and they couldn't even see the brightness of the noonday
sun. They said, Oh, show me mercy,
Son of David, give me sight. And to them He gave sight. He never turned anybody away
when they saw from Him healing mercies. And He gave to them
the sight that they wanted, and yet He was not pleased to give
them spiritual eyesight, to see the glories of Him who had healed
them physically. Others touched Him physically.
Others touched His body, rubbed up against Him, bumped up against
Him as they walked, because oftentimes many people crowded around Him. But they received no healing
virtue of the soul from just touching the physical body of
the Lord Jesus Christ. They had to be touched by Him,
touched by Him with the healing of grace, of mercy, of life. But he didn't heal everyone that
touched him. or lots of children who came
to Him. He set off such as the kingdom
of God. Don't hinder them from coming
to Me. And children of all ages could
approach to Jesus of Nazareth as He sat perhaps on a park bench. And they came up to Him and maybe
their mom and dad said to them, there's Jesus of Nazareth over
there. Do you want to go see Him? Uh-huh.
And he went over there and he held out his arms because he
was very compassionate. He was very approachable. He
was very tenderhearted. He is the perfect man, remember. And the children would crawl
up in his lap. He would embrace them, but he
would only embrace them physically. He did not embrace all of them
spiritually. There were many who tasted the
bread that He had miraculously multiplied. A little lad had
a couple of fish and five little barley loaves. And 5,000 men plus women and
children were the recipients of a vast buffet at the hands
of the sovereign, miracle-working Christ. He just multiplied the
food and they ate. They ate of him who is himself
the bread of life. And the very next day, he identified
himself as being the bread come down from heaven. My father sent
me, he said. I am the bread of life. And they
ate of the literal bread that he provided for them, but they
never ate of him spiritually. In fact, of all the myriads who
then followed him due to eating of the bread and of the fishes,
they all left him. At the end of John chapter six,
they all forsook him because of his doctrine. They said, these
are hard sayings, who can hear them? They did not feast on him
who is the true bread who came down from heaven. There were many who drank of
the water that He had changed to wine at His very first miracle
in Cana of Galilee. When the wine was running out,
all was left was the barrels of water. And He miraculously
made those barrels of water to be the best wine that had ever
been made. And people drank of it and they
said to the owner, to the head of the feast, this is the best
we've ever had. Usually, you get the best first
and when everybody's well drunk, then you get the cheap stuff.
But they said, you've saved the best till last. Till last. And they drank of the wine. But they didn't drink of the
wine of the gospel that makes the soul to rejoice. that makes
the soul happy in Christ Jesus with the thought of forgiveness
of sins and righteousness imputed and all is well with God and
I have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, the
golden elixir of the wine of the gospel. Drink and be filled,
child of God. Never fear drinking of the wine
of the gospel too much. You cannot be You cannot be overly
taken up with the wine of the gospel. But most of the people
who drank of that liberal wine that he himself had changed from
water, most of them did not drink of the wine of the gospel. And in this miracle that we have
before us in Luke chapter 17, there's another instance of this.
Because as we shall see, there were 10 men who were lepers. And our Lord Jesus, upon hearing
them say, Jesus, Master, have mercy on me. Have mercy on all
of us. And he did. And of all the 10 that were healed,
only one went back to thank him. Only one was healed of his spiritual
leprosy. Listen, all of us in times of
illness, And when faced with a disease, we want physical healing. Lord, spare me. I corresponded
yesterday to a man who has lung cancer. And I said, I pray that
God will give you some relief. Perhaps God will heal you. And
I hope he does. I hope he does. It's only natural
to want healing of a physical ailment. Nobody wants to feel
bad. Nobody wants to hurt. And we
don't want to see others feeling bad, and we don't want to see
them hurting. And we pray, oh God, if it's
your will, heal. Grant healing. But there's another
kind of healing that is much more needed. Oh, that God would
show us this. There's another healing which
is much more needful. much more vital. It may be or
it may not be concerning your physical ailment that God will
heal you, that God will touch you. And there have been multitudes,
all who've gone before, people who have died of sickness, of
illness, of diseases. That's just, that's a way of
life. That's what happens to us. We're
born, we live, we get sick usually, and die, unless we die due to
an accident. But that which we must long for
and seek after is the mercy of God for our souls in Christ Jesus. the healing of the soul, the
healing of the mind, the healing of the heart. And this healing
only comes about through the stripes of the Lord Jesus Christ. First Peter chapter two says,
with his stripes, you were healed. The stripes that God put on his
soul. That's how we're healed of our
spiritual ailments. Folks, we're sick spiritually.
We're sick inside of us. We're sick in the heart. We're
sick in the soul. We're sick in the mind. We're
diseased. And the only thing that's gonna
happen to us unless God intervenes is certain death. That's what
awaits us. Oh, that God would heal us. Oh,
God grant healing. The healing of the soul. Look
at the text. 17, 11. Chapter 17, verse 11. And it came to pass as he went
to Jerusalem that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. Understand this, our Lord is,
he's headed toward Jerusalem for the last time. This is his last visit to Jerusalem. He's on the homeward journey
now. Now from old eternity, he has
been pointing to the event of his death. He is the Lamb of
God slain before the foundation of the world. He's the one God
has appointed to be the savior of sinners, and he would save
sinners by his substitutionary sacrifice, that is the sacrifice
of himself. He's always been going toward
Calvary. He's always been going toward
Jerusalem. He set His face, Isaiah says,
as a flint for Jerusalem. And now He's on His final journey. And He's not making this journey
reluctantly. He knows what's ahead. But he
goes forth for the joy that was set before him, the joy of saving
us, the joy of redeeming us, the joy of reconciling us to
God, the joy of putting away all the multitudes of the sins
of his people. And so he goes toward Jerusalem. He goes to lay down his life.
He's the good shepherd who will give his life for the sheep.
He goes to taste death for all of the Father's children. He goes to lay down His life
and then take it again. He goes to do the work and then
He will say with His dying breath, He will cry out, it is finished.
And He will yield up the ghost. Nobody takes His life from Him.
He's the perfect Son of God. He would lay down His life at
the exact precise moment ordained for Him in the old eternity in
the covenant of grace. And so He's on His way to Jerusalem. He passed through the midst of
Samaria and Galilee, not stopping along the way. but making his
journey right toward Jerusalem. In verse 12, as he entered into
a certain village, there met him 10 men that were lepers, which stood
afar off. They were cut off from society,
you see. And lepers, they stuck to themselves. They had to. They couldn't meet. They couldn't meet in the synagogue
with the people. They had this awful deadly disease. There was the fear of giving
the disease to someone else. And so they're ostracized from
the synagogues. They're ostracized from society. Nobody wanted them around and
they didn't want to be around others. If anyone came toward
them, they were supposed to put a cloth over their face and say,
unclean, unclean. They weren't even supposed to
breathe on anybody else, lest others be infected. These were
lepers who were cut off. They stood afar off. And you
see leprosy in the Bible is a picture of sin. That's all of us. See,
all ten of these men had the same disease. There were no distinguishable
differences in their misery. Oh, there were some differences
among these men, different background, different education, different
families. One of them, at least one of
them was a Samaritan. Well, we see that in the scripture
a little bit later on. They had a lot of differences
among them, but they all had this in common. They were all
lepers. They all had the same problem,
a deadly disease that is going to end in death. And in this,
we see ourselves. We all have this deadly disease. It's called sin. We do come from
different backgrounds, different educational levels. perhaps different
economic levels, different families, lots of differences among all
of these people, all of you folks here and those who are watching
by way of the internet. And yet, here's what brings us
together, one common problem. That's what brings us together.
That's where we're all alike. And there aren't big sinners
and little sinners. We're just sinners across the
board. We all have spiritual leprosy. You're infected. I'm
telling you. No, it's not me that's telling
you. It's the Word of God that says
we're infected. We're all diseased. We're diseased
with spiritual leprosy. We're sick in sin. That is our
common malady. notwithstanding the differences
that we have, here is the one distinguishable thing that brings
us together in unity, really, as the family of Adam. We're
all guilty. That's what we got in common.
We're all diseased. And therefore we're cut off,
not from society, because society is just like us. Society is just like us. And
we're cut off not from the local church, where the gospel goes
forth, because everybody who's in here this morning, we're all
alike in that, we're all sinful people. So we're not cut off
from society in general, we're not cut off from the place of
worship. Because this is a place where
sinners can get together and hear the good news of Christ
and His substitutionary work on the behalf of sinners. Well,
who are we cut off from? God. God. We cannot approach Him. We cannot
come near to Him. God is a consuming fire. He would
destroy you if you could come to Him one-on-one without a mediator,
which you can't. This is what we all have in common.
We're all naturally, here's the Bible, we're alienated from God. We're cut off from God. We're
lepers. And we, like these ten, we stand
afar off. a far off, we can't come near,
we can't come nigh to God on our own because of who he is
and what we are. But these men had a good plea. Verse 13, and they lifted up
their voices and said, Jesus, what does that mean? Jehovah who saves. Oh, Savior. Master, that means overseer. Savior, you're the overseer of
all things. You look after and watch after
all things. You're the overseer. Have mercy
on us. Have mercy. That's what we need.
I don't want the wages of my disease. I don't want my disease
to play out in death. I want mercy. This is their cry. And verse 14 says, and when he
saw them, he said unto them, go and show
yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass that as they
went, They were cleansed. Look with me in Leviticus chapter
14. Look in Leviticus chapter 14.
As they went, he didn't cleanse them immediately. But here is kind of like what
one writer said, a promise in a shell. The very words that
he said, go show yourself to the priest, to the priest, seemed
to indicate that there was some hope for them. Now here's the law of God pertaining
to the pronouncement of the priest upon someone who had been healed
of leprosy. Now there was no healing among
men. There wasn't anything anybody
could do to bring about the healing of leprosy. But God could, and
God often intervened and He healed leprosy. Now here's the law pertaining
to the lepers and the showing of themselves to the priest.
Leviticus 14, are you there? All right, verse one. And the
Lord spake unto Moses, saying, This shall be the law of the
leper in the day of his cleansing. He shall be brought unto the
priest, And the priest shall go forth out of the camp. And
the priest shall look, and behold, if the plague of leprosy be healed
in the leper." He's already healed. God has healed him. But it is
the priest himself who must pronounce him to be clean. In order for
him to go back into society, in order for him to go back into
the synagogue, to the tabernacle later into the temple. It's the
priest who must give his blessing, as it were, and in his official
capacity as one who dealt with men on the behalf of God, he
must pronounce that the healing has taken place. Verse four,
and then the priest shall command, he shall command for him that
is to be cleansed two birds alive, two birds. Alive and they must
be clean birds, like pigeons or turtle doves. And then also
cedar wood and scarlet and hyssop. With me, two birds, clean birds,
turtle doves or pigeons. And then also cedar wood, scarlet
and hyssop. And the priest shall command,
verse five. that one of the birds be killed
in an earthen vessel, in an earthen vessel over running water. As for the living bird, he shall
take it and the cedar wood 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 then he shall let the living
bird loose into the open field. And he that is to be cleansed
shall wash his clothes, shave off all his hair, wash himself
in water that he may be clean, and after that he shall come
into the camp and shall tarry abroad out of his tent seven
days." Here's the picture. Two birds. One lives, one dies. The one that dies. He's killed
in an earthen vessel. Does that not put you in mind
of the Lord Jesus Christ in this earthen vessel of flesh and blood
in His body? He must die. He must give His
life if we're to be cleansed of our leprosy. If all of our
guilt is to be washed away in the bloody flow that came down
from Him at the cross of Calvary, then He must die, and He must
die in this earthen vessel, in this body of clay, overrunning
water. That is, according to the water
of the Word of God, according to the way God has laid down
in His book, And then the living bird, you
see the bird that died, that represents the death of our Lord
Jesus. There's no life for us unless
Christ dies. The living bird represents the
results of the death of the Lord Jesus. It represents his resurrection. As for the living bird, he shall
take it, the cedar wood, the scarlet, and the hyssop, dipping
them in the blood of the bird that was killed." The blood.
Have you noticed? I know you have. That in the
Bible, we're always put in memory of the blood. The blood, the
blood of a bird, the blood of a goat, the blood of a lamb,
the blood of a bullock, the blood of the Son of God who loved us
and gave himself for us. There is no cleansing of our
leprosy apart from the blood. It's the blood that makes atonement
for the soul. Without the shedding of blood
is no remission of sins. But as a result of that sacrificial
death of the Lord Jesus Christ, He arose. He arose. There's our healing in His death
and in His resurrection, in His blood. The blood is indeed sprinkled
upon us. We're washed As we sing, we're
washed in the blood of the Lamb. So as you go back over here to
Luke chapter 17, here's what the Lord Jesus does. He sends
him to the priest. Go show yourself to the priest.
And they did, and as they went, When they cry out to the Savior,
they have leprosy. I don't know what stage their
leprosy is in because the Bible doesn't say. But there are 10
lepers, and all of them are infected, all of them are dying, various
stages. It's like all of us here this
morning. We're in various stages of our disease, but one thing
is for certain, we're gonna die. We're all gonna die physically.
I sure don't want to die everlastingly. I don't want to die eternally. I want the eternal life that
only Christ can give, and that eternal life is to know God and
His Son, Christ Jesus, whom He sent. Here they are all diseased, and
they begin going to the priest. And all of a sudden, They began to look at their hands. Joe, did you look at your hand?
Claude? You don't see your face, Claude.
You don't have any more spots. You don't have any disease. How
do I look? Where's the nearest brook? Let
me see if I can look and get a reflection of myself in the
brook. Oh my, I've been healed. I've
been healed. Oh, thank God I've been healed. And nine of them went to the
priest, declare us to be healed. And one of them said in his heart,
I've got to go back and see the one who brought this to pass. I've got to go back and worship
him. And verse 15 says, one of them,
one of them. When he saw that he was healed,
he turned back. And with a loud voice, he glorified
God and fell down on his face at his feet giving thanks. And
he was a Samaritan. He was a Samaritan. He got more than he bargained
for. All he wanted was physical healing. But oh, the Lord did a work of
grace within him. Something happened, something
miraculous. Besides an outward healing, there
was an inward healing, a healing of the soul. Oh, that's what's
vital. That's what's gotta happen. And
nobody can heal of spiritual diseases but God alone. You can't
heal yourself. You can't heal anybody else.
I can't heal you if I could or would, but I can't. That's beyond
my ability. I can't do it for myself, much
less do it for you. The only one who can heal us
of our spiritual diseases of leprosy is the one against whom
we've sinned. And He's not obligated to do
it. He doesn't owe us anything due
to our own natural rebellion against Him. But He is plenteous
in mercy. He has never sent anybody away
who came to Him needing saving grace. I'm telling you the truth.
He never turned, He never said, no. You come to Him with a needy
heart. Seek the Lord while he may be
found. The Lord says, you will search
for me and you'll find me when you search for me with all your
heart. I'm a poor leper in my soul. Oh my God, I need healing. Oh
God, is there healing for me? Is there mercy for me? He never turned anybody away. Never has. And this man, he comes back and
he falls on his face. He's worshiping the Lord Jesus. He's worshiping the great physician. And Jesus answering said, didn't
I heal 10 men? Where are the nine? Where are the nine? Well Lord, all they were interested
in was the healing of the body. That was the extent of their
interest in you. Where are the nine? They're on their way to see the
priest. When God's great high priest was the one who healed
them. But they didn't have any interest in any more healing.
They weren't interested in glorifying God. But this man is. You see something different has
happened to him. And this is what we want. Oh
God, this is what we long for. We long for the healing of the
soul. For the Lord to bring us to Himself. It's as though the Lord Jesus
was drawing him with cords of love. And there they all ten
began to go toward the priest. And our Lord Jesus in His omnipotence
and in His effectual grace, He drew one of them back and one
of them said, wait just a minute. I gotta go back and thank this
one who healed me. And I'll tell you what, as he
was going back, God did something to his heart. Oh my goodness. Blessed be the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ. He came back and he began to
glorify God. In verse 18, Christ continued,
there are not found that return to give glory to God except this
one stranger. This one stranger. He's a Samaritan. He's a Samaritan. He's a stranger. And our Lord Jesus said, arise. Go on your way. Your faith has
made you whole. Your faith's in the right place.
It's in me. I know the Lord gave him faith.
No question about that. He couldn't believe without the
gift of faith. But He's the one who believed.
And my friend, you must believe in your heart on the Lord Jesus
Christ. And if you do, it's a miracle
of grace. If you don't, it's your fault.
He's a Savior who can be freely approached by anybody who needs
Him. You need Him? Well, I want him
to heal me of this sore on my hand. What about healing your
soul? Well, no, I think I'm all right
on that. I ain't got done enough good
deeds that'll get me into heaven with that. Unless your heart
won't get you in. I tell you, when the Holy Spirit
strips you down and shows you that you're nothing but a poor
old leper just like everybody else, and convinces you of your neediness
before God, you'll come to Christ Jesus, and you'll say like Charlotte
Elliott did in that song she wrote, just as I am without one
plea, but that thy blood was shed for me, and that thou bidst
me come to thee, O Lamb of God, here I come, here I come. May God bless His word to our
hearts and heal us of our spiritual diseases and we'll give God the
glory. That's for sure. Let's sing a
song.