Please turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Leviticus. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus. And I want to read just a few
verses in the beginning Leviticus being a book of the
Law. And listen to what it says, beginning
in verse 1 of chapter 13. Chapter 13. All this instruction that Moses gave to the nation
of Israel, he received from God. It says, And the Lord spake unto
Moses and Aaron, saying, When a man shall have in the skin
of his flesh a rising, a scab, or bright spot, and it be in
the skin of his flesh, like the plague of leprosy, then he shall
be brought unto Aaron the priest, or unto one of his sons the priest. And the priest shall look on
the plague in the skin of the flesh, and when the hair in the
plague is turned white, and the plague in the sight be deeper
than the skin of his flesh, it is a plague of leprosy. And the priests shall look on
him and pronounce him unclean." One of the most precious statements
in all the Bible is that statement that Paul is
led by the Spirit to make in 1 Timothy chapter 1 and verse
15. He says, "...this is a faithful
saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners, of whom I am chief." If we believe the Bible, if we
believe the plain statements of the Bible, just like the one
I've read to you, Who does it say that Christ came into the
world to save? It says sinners. And I just wonder if there is
today, or will be wherever this message might be heard at whatever
time, I just can't help but wonder, is there under the sound of my
voice a sinner? I say that because a sinner is
a rare thing in this day. Most people do not think themselves
to be sinners. and especially not sinners in
the scriptural sense. And they don't think themselves
such because they don't know themselves. The heart is deceitful
above all things. And they don't know themselves
because they don't know what God in His Word says about us. I'm not talking down to you or
anybody else. I'm putting my own self in the
same category. And we do not know by nature,
nor do we desire to know what God says in His Word about us,
about what we are, about our true condition as we are in ourselves. And because of that, there is
no conviction of sin. No conviction. in the matter
of our sins. And it's the same in every age,
because an old preacher had this to say. He said, a sinner, a
real, bonafide, self-confessed sinner, he said, a sinner is
a sacred thing. The Lord hath made him such. And what we find is that sin
is illustrated in the Bible oftentimes by the disease of leprosy. That's right. The disease of
leprosy. And that is true in both the
Old Testament and in the New Testament. And that is what is being spiritually
represented in the text that we have just read in Leviticus
chapter 13. And it was used because this
was the most dreaded, most horrible, and incurable disease of the
day. And people were oftentimes found,
as this text shows us, they were oftentimes found in this condition
that is described as being full of leprosy, full of this disease. And they were full of leprosy
just as we are as sinners full of sin. Full of sin. And this is actually the description
that God gives us of ourselves through the prophet Isaiah in
chapter 1 when he says this, All sinful nation, a people laden
with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corruptors,
they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One
of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. Why should you be stricken anymore? You will revolt more and more."
And then he describes our state. And it is the state of being
full of the leprosy of sin. He says, the whole head is sick,
and the whole heart faint, from the sole of the foot even unto
the head there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises
and putrefying sores, they have not been closed, neither bound
up, neither mollified with ointment." He likens us in our spiritual
condition from head to toe as being leprous sinners. No soundness in us. And he shows in that that sin
has permeated our whole being. Just like you drop one drop of
dye in a glass of water and it tints the whole glass. There is not one part of us that
is not polluted by and tainted by and affected by sin, especially
that one part that people often say is surely good. Here's a person who lives in
blatant wickedness, a man or a woman, that somebody will always
say they do some awful things, but you know he's got a good
heart, she's got a good heart. But sin has as its root our hearts. And it manifests itself in every
thought and every motive and every word and every deed. It taints everything we do. You just take a drop of paint
on the end of your finger. You just rub it, try to get it
off, and then for the next little while, everything you touch leaves
this mark. And so every thought and every
motive, and especially every deed, is tainted and it is sin
because it arises out of a sinner, it arises out of a false and
impure motive, so that he describes us. And he says, there's none
good. No, not one. And he shows in this that we
transgress God's law in every part, and we are as lawbreakers,
corrupt and vile as sinners in His sight. So that there's no pretty way
to describe us. The leper. was an awful looking
sight. As if a figure of rotted flesh
with its stench that naturally would come from that. Unbound. Untreated. Dying. A picture of death itself. And that's what God uses to describe
us. rotted flesh. And then he gives
us examples all through the Bible to show by this disease just
how it has affected all of Adam's race. Miriam, who was Moses' own sister,
was smitten with leprosy. Uzziah, who was a king in Isaiah's
day, he was smitten with leprosy. Naaman, who was the captain of
a great host, he was a leper. Elisha's servant, who proved
to be disobedient, he was smitten with leprosy. Four men outside
of the city gate of Samaria. They're all lepers. So what we
have is from some of the least of society to the very greatest
of society, even kings themselves, and they're all described as
lepers. Why? Because we're all in that
state. Doesn't matter if you're a king.
Doesn't matter if you're a pauper. It doesn't matter if you're a
man. It doesn't matter if you're a woman. It doesn't matter if
you're young. It doesn't matter if you're old. It doesn't matter
if you're very learned, educated, or very uneducated. We're all
in this same boat and condition. And the problem is we fail to
know that we are because we fail to listen and fail to believe
the only one who really knows what we are. Who determined whether or not
one had leprosy or not? Well, if you look back in chapter
13, in verses 2 and 3, he says, shall have in the skin of his
flesh a rising, a scab, a bright spot, and it be in the skin of
his flesh like the plague of leprosy. Then he shall be brought
unto Aaron the priest, or unto one of his sons. And the priest
shall look on the plague in the skin of the flesh, and when the
hair in the plague is turned white, and the plague in the
sight be deeper than the skin of his flesh, it is the plague
of leprosy, and the priest shall look on him and pronounce him
unclean." That's who diagnosed leprosy. That one that was appointed
by God. It wasn't a matter of some philosopher's
opinion. It wasn't some religious scholar's
own thinking. It wasn't their own ideas or
opinions. The only way that we are ever
brought to know our true condition is to know it by what God says
our state is. He says, we're sinners. He's
holy, and we're sinners. He must punish sin, and we're
sinners. The soul that sins shall surely
die, and we're sinners. And so only by the priest, that
one that he has appointed, the one that all these priests pointed
to and illustrated, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself who is described
in the Bible as that one appointed priest forever after the order
of Melchizedek. He knows. And if there had been
any other way to deal with our condition, if there had been
any other way to save us, He would have, in His infinite knowledge,
have acted toward us or for us in that way that would have been
far less than what was actually required to save us. You know, we ought to be so thankful
that God has not dealt with us on the basis of what we think
our state is. He's dealt with us on the basis
of what He knows our condition is. You know, we get really kind
of angry if a doctor doesn't make a right diagnosis of our
situation. And the reason we get angry is
because we know if He does not make a right diagnosis of our
condition, He cannot write or give us a right prescription
or treatment for our condition. And so why would we, though we
certainly do, Why would we ever imagine our situation to be less
than the priest says it is? He came into the world to save
sinners. And he tells us, if you notice
here in verse 3, he says, and if the plague in sight be deeper
than the skin of his flesh, It's the plague of leprosy. It wasn't
some superficial scar or scab or blemish, but if it was deeper
than the skin, it was the plague of leprosy. And that's what sin
is. It's that which is far deeper
than the skin. It's not simply about all those
external things that are surely sin, but listen to what it says
in Romans 5. He says, "...wherefore, as by
one man, sin entered into the world." What man was that? It was Adam. Our father Adam. He sinned against God. But when he sinned, he was more
than just one man to himself. He was the representative man
of our whole race. And from that day, like would
beget like. A sinner would give birth to
more sinners. And so he says though, by one
man's sin entered into the world, and death by sin. And so death passed upon all
men, for that all have sinned. For or because all sinned when
our father Adam sinned. And it's for that reason it says
also that we are born in sin. We come forth from our mother's
womb speaking lies. And we sin. Nobody has to teach
us. We sin because we're sinners. And if you notice this also,
there's more than I can read here, but the picture is everywhere
in these two chapters especially, and elsewhere throughout the
Scripture. But if you notice also, sin, like leprosy, is never
cured until it's acknowledged. Paul wrote to Timothy and he
said, "...and the servant of the Lord must not strive, But
be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient in meekness, instructing
those that oppose themselves. If God, peradventure, will give
them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth." One thing about repentance is
God turns us. From thinking, believing what
we want to believe about ourselves, to acknowledging His truth about
ourselves. That word acknowledge means to
recognize, or to become fully acquainted with, or to perceive. We acknowledge the truth, Not
only about who God is, but we acknowledge it about who we are.
And the truth is, sin is not just what we do, it's
what we are. Every one of us. And Paul states
it really clearly like this. He says, the carnal mind, and
all that means is our natural mind. is enmity against God. We not only do sinful things,
but the reason we do is because our natural minds, our heart, is sin. And if you notice, the
leper was shut out of the camp, he was exiled, just like Adam
and his whole race was cast out of the garden, cast out of the
presence of God. And so God says later, He says,
it's your sins that have separated you from God. Your sins. And I'm telling you
this, you know nothing about sin, and you know nothing about
your own sinfulness, when you can just casually acknowledge
saying, I know I'm a sinner, and just move on. If somebody told you in the morning
that you had a terminal disease, You think you would have the
same attitude the rest of the day and the rest of the week
and the rest of your days? No, you'd be seeking to find
out somewhere, somehow, some doctor, some drug, some something
that might turn the course of that disease. And the truth is also, you'll
never know what sin is. until God opens your eyes to
see sin for what it is in the cross death of Jesus Christ. You say, what do you mean? Well,
I mean this. Taken by those wicked hands according
to God's foreordained person is the only man without sin. He was born without sin. He had
no earthly father. He was that holy thing in Mary's
womb. And He lived all His days without
sin. He never sinned in thought or
motive or deed or word or anything. Nobody could convince Him of
sin. But when he's taken out on that
cross and nailed to that cross because all the sins of God's
people have been charged to him by an act of God, and he is in
that sense made sin for them, made to stand in their place
before God in the matter of their sins, And God turns His back
on him. He can't look on sin. He cries
out, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Because he's
there bearing the sins of his people. He's there bearing that
awful leprosy of sin so that God in His strict justice can
only deal with him in one way. That's the killing. You say,
I thought it was the Romans, or I thought it was the Jews.
Well, they are just second causes. He died by the determinate counsel
and foreknowledge, foreordination of God. Why? Because he was charged
with the sins of his people. And that's something we have
to be brought to acknowledge. I don't mean just nod our heads
at it, but I'm talking about confess and believe and know
to be true about ourselves. Look down in verse 44. He is a leprous man. He is unclean,
the priest shall pronounce him utterly unclean, his plague is
in his head, and the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes
shall be rent or torn, and his head bare, and he shall put a
covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, unclean, unclean." all the days wherein the plague
shall be in him, he shall be defiled, he is unclean, he shall
dwell alone, without the camp shall his habitation be." Anybody
walks close to him, he has to cover his mouth. And he has to
confess his state, his disease. Unclean. That's what I call this
message. Unclean. Unclean. And if we're ever by the Spirit
of God, and He surely is the One who must convince us of this
and convict us of our sin, we shall confess We'll shut our
mouths as far as trying to present ourselves to God and others in
some way that we really aren't. And we'll confess ourselves to
be sinners. Sinners. We'll confess our sinnerhood. And it is only by grace, and
it is only when God shows us ourselves, it's only when He
enables us to believe God that there is none good, no not one. And when Paul, when he said,
this is a faithful saying, that Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners, what did he say next? of whom I am chief." And I tell you, that's the real
remedy in a great way of this business of finding fault with
everybody else. If I am in my own eyes the chief
of sinners, I'm not going to find a whole
lot of fault with other sinners. Paul said, I'm the chief of sinners.
I'm the greatest sinner that's ever been. And I have a feeling
that everyone that God has ever convinced of their own sinnerhood,
from that day forth, they all come behind Paul and they say,
that was before I came along. Now I'm the chief of sinners.
My sin's against light. My sin's against goodness. Most
of all, my sin's against God. That's what all sin is. It isn't
just a matter of between us or something like that. It's against
God. Why? Because He's holy. And He must punish sin. And He's
going to be just in all that He does. Listen to David. He says, "...wash me thoroughly
from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin, for I acknowledge
my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me against thee,
and thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight." The Bible says in Isaiah, Isaiah
says, In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and
lifted up. He revealed himself to Isaiah
in this high and holy character. Then, Isaiah says, Then said
I, Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean
lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips."
What does that mean? Well, Christ said, Out of the
abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Out of the heart, that
heart that men say is so good, out of the heart comes all this
wickedness and murders and adulteries and violence. That's the product
of a natural human heart. And he said, I'm a man of unclean
lips, and I dwell amongst a people of unclean lips. How do you know
that? He said, "'For mine eyes have
seen the King, the Lord of hosts.'" Paul warns us about comparing
ourselves with one another. You think that's God's standard?
You can say, well, I'm as good as that preacher. I wouldn't
say that. I'd say you're better. But that's
a pitifully low standard to measure yourself by. Because we are all
measured by one man, and that man is the Lord Jesus Christ.
That is the God-man. For there is one mediator between
God and men, the man, Christ Jesus. He's the standard. You can be just as holy as me
and myself and still be lost like I'd be if left to myself.
Mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then flew
one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand,
which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. And he laid it
upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips, thine
iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged." What did that coal
mean? That coal was a coal that was
still glowing on the burning altar where a sacrifice had been
made. And all that is, is a picture
of the benefit of that sacrifice being applied to Isaiah, this
man who confessed himself unclean. And God says, by this sacrifice,
Your iniquity is purged. Your sins are washed away. That
was a picture of Christ's sacrifice. Job says this, he said, I've
heard of thee by the hearing of the ear. You can't read Job's
words through most of those chapters without catching a little hint
of self-righteousness, you know. But he said, I have heard of
thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eyes seeeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and
I repent in dust and ashes." Jeremiah. God says, "...only
acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against
the Lord thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under
every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the
Lord." Acknowledge your iniquity. He says, by Hosea, I will go
and return to my place till they acknowledge their offense and
seek my faith. In their affliction will they
seek me early. And then Isaiah, he says, but
we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are
as filthy rags, and we do all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities,
like the wind, have taken us away." That's what God says. Unclean. Unclean. All have sinned. In Adam, all
sinned. All born in sin. All sinners. And the wages of sin is death,
and only a sick man seeks the position." You're not sick. Christ said,
the well, the hole, doesn't seek the position. And only those that the Holy
Spirit convinces of their sin, shows them what they really are
in the light of who God is, and in the light of what He says
about us. Only then. You see, somebody always says
something like this, Preacher, I don't like to come here. You
preach because you always try to make us feel bad. No. But I have, if I tell you the
truth, I have to point out the disease. I have to call sin what
God calls it. I have to seek from the Scriptures
to show you and my own self what sin is in His sight, and why
we need such a Savior as the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, you know, it's amazing
to find that the same priests who when the leper came to him
pronounced him unclean, he was the only one who could then in
turn at some point pronounce him clean. He first went to the
priest. Verse 34, it says, "...and in
the seventh day the priest shall look on the skull, and behold,
if the skull be not spread in the skin, not be in the sight
deeper than the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him clean,
and he shall wash his clothes and be clean." Now why does God
come to us? as the sinners we are. But what
you might say, first of all, is the bad news. It is in order
that He might give us the good news. You go to the doctor. The doctor says, you have a terrible
disease. This is a disease that consumes
and it is a disease that kills. And you say, oh no! And you burst
into tears. And he says, but wait a minute! I know a cure. I have the remedy. This remedy has worked in every
case that it's been applied. And here is a remedy in the Lord
Jesus Christ through His cross wherein every sinner who would
come to God by Him, who would have Him as their Savior alone,
They've everyone lived. They've everyone been cleansed.
Every time you get a record, a report of the efficacy of some
new drug or something like that, it says in 90% of the cases,
in 50% of the cases. That doesn't apply in this situation. He's the Savior of sinners. And every sinner that God convinces
of their sin, convicts them of their sin, maybe for whatever
length of time, maybe for a short time, maybe for a long time,
brings them to an end of themselves and causes them to see and to
feel their sinnerhood. Everyone that He brings to an
end of themselves, He brings to Christ. You see, the gospel
is glad tidings. Good news. It's like Brother Richardson
said one time, he said, what makes good news good news? It's
bad news. And he said, since I heard the
good news, there hadn't been any bad news. He was to come
to the priests. And the only one, the only priest
who could determine the leprosy of sin was the only priest who
could pronounce that leper clean. It wasn't the priests of Rome. It
wasn't some preacher. It was Christ and only Christ. And when the Lord convinces us
of our sin, there is no other Savior who will do. No other
remedy. No other gospel other than the
gospel of God's free grace. You see, if I'm a beggar, I don't
have anything to offer. I don't have anything to pay.
But this is about God's free grace. This is about salvation
in Christ alone and accomplished by Christ alone. If you were convinced that you
had some awful dread disease, you wouldn't be found down at
the store that sells Band-Aids. And here are all these people
who talk about sin so lightly, and it's obvious that they regard
sin so lightly, because they go somewhere where a preacher
can entertain them on the way to hell. They may be seen to
them as they lay there in that dead state spiritually. They listen to preachers who
say, peace, peace. when there is no peace. There's
no peace outside of the Prince of Peace. There's no salvation
outside of Him who's the Savior Himself. And it says that the
priest, when this man would come back, this leper, to the priest,
if everything was okay, he'd pronounce him clean. What is that picture? It doesn't
say that the priest did anything. He looked and pronounced him
clean. Why? Because there was no healing,
there was no remedy under the law for leprosy. But if God miraculously,
by Himself, healed that leper of leprosy, that priest could,
by the authority of God, pronounce him clean. You say, why was there no remedy
for leprosy under the law? Because it was picturing salvation
by grace. There was nothing a sinner could
do. There was nothing a leper could
do to heal himself or cleanse himself or purify himself. But if, by a miracle of grace,
God did it, the priest could pronounce him clean. And that's
the authority of the gospel. It is not only to proclaim the
Savior and proclaim the salvation that is in Christ crucified,
it is also in that to pronounce sinners justified. That's what justification
is, isn't it? It is God declaring, pronouncing
one clean on the basis of the doing and the dying of the Lord
Jesus Christ. I don't have any authority in
myself. Not only can I do nothing but pronounce the situation that
God describes all of us in, and to say that all who look to Christ,
all who trust wholly in Him, all who cast off their own works
and their old experiences and all these other things, and look
to this one remedy, they'll be saved. I said that. I believe that, but it's not
because I can find myself the one who has a right to end myself. I say that because God says that. That the blood Christ poured
out on that cross for His people, they'll everyone be found convinced
sinners, and they'll plead the blood and righteousness of the
Lord Jesus Christ, and they'll find in Him cleanliness. They'll find in Him salvation. You say, well, maybe that leper
after that, maybe he had a spot. Maybe he had a little scar or
something. Somebody could walk by him and
say, you know, I believe you're still a leper. I see that little
scar. And he could say, it doesn't
matter what you think, and it doesn't matter what you say,
the priest has pronounced me clean. And everyone who is unable to
believe the gospel of Christ, this good news that Christ has
stood in our place on the cross and bore the leprosy of our sin
in His own body on the tree, everyone that is brought to Christ,
believes on Him alone. God says, clean. Clean. And if you look over in Leviticus
14, and I've got to hurry, but if you look over in Leviticus
14, it goes on to give us further explanation. It says, "...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, then shall the priest command to take for him
that is to be cleansed two birds alive and clean." Wait a minute
now. I thought he was already clean.
You see, cleansing is necessary on two fronts. If I am to be
cleansed, On the one hand, it has to take place before God. And that's what's happening on
that cross. Christ is by Himself purging
our sins on the tree. But there's somewhere else it
has to take place. It has to take place in my conscience. I ought to be cleansed in my
conscience. I ought to be brought to that
repentance from dead works. I have to be purged in my mind
of every other hope but Christ. I have to confess that is my
hope. Not in order to be saved, but
because I am saved. So he says, "...then shall the
priest command to take for him that is to be cleansed two birds
alive and clean, and cedarwood, and scarlet, and hyssop. And
the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in
an earthen vessel over running water. As for the living bird,
he shall take it, and the cedarwood, 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 shall let the living bird
loose into the open field." Two birds. Why two birds? Two birds to represent how God
in His justice looks at that sinner who is united to that
Christ. What happens to one of the birds?
He's killed. His blood is poured out. That's
Christ. What happens to the other living
bird? That bird who died, his blood
was shed, and then that was taken and mixed with scarlet and hyssop
and fragrance and all, and the living bird was dipped in that. Then he was turned loose. In
other words, this is the way of salvation from sin. through
the substitutionary death of the Lord Jesus Christ. He died,
so we live. He shed His blood, His blood
cleanseth us from all sin. And with Him, with that shed
blood comes all the benefits, all the blessedness, all the
sweet fragrance of that salvation, and we go free. He did that, and then he pronounced
the leper clean. And we confess that this is the
only way. What those two birds represented,
which is actually two atoms, the first atom and the last atom. We go three. We go free. Well, in Matthew chapter 8, a leper comes up to the Lord
Jesus Christ. You go home and read it. Matthew
8. He goes to the Lord Jesus Christ. He's a leper. And you
know what he says to the Lord? He said, if you will, you can
make me clean. There's no doubt about it. You
have the ability to do it. And you're sovereign. I can't
make you do it. Nobody else can. If you will,
you can make me clean. That's the way a sinner comes
to Christ. We don't come boasting. We don't come claiming as some
people talk about. We come like leprous sinners
with our hands over our mouths, crying unclean, unclean. And
Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. You know what Christ
said? He said, I will be thou clean. And he was clean because Christ
said he was clean. I don't care what anybody found
fault with him after that. And I'm sure there was a lot
to be found, but he was clean because Christ said he was clean. If you will, you can make me
clean. I will be thou clean. Paul said, being justified, being
pronounced clean, being declared righteous by his grace, through
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Oh, what a happy day it
is when a sinner is brought not only to know his sin, but to
know the run remedy for sin. To know the Savior. But if all
we are is just got a little spot or something, we'll never seek
Him. We'll never acknowledge that
our leprosy of sin is deeper than the skin. It goes all the
way to our core. And therefore, seek Christ, who
being the brightness of God's glory and the express image of
His person and upholding all things by the word of His power,
when He had by Himself purged our sins, He sat down on the
right hand of the majesty on high. The first thing we have
to be brought to believe is that we're unclean. And if He ever
brings us to that, He'll bring us to believe, based on His truth,
that in Christ we are clean. And that's why Christ, in that
song of Solomon that I tried to write that old hymn about
some time ago, can say to His bride, Thou art all fair, my
love." There is no spot in God's sight. No spot. No sin. In Christ and washed
in His blood, a sinner can show himself to the law without any
fear. Because he's clean. He brings us from unclean to
clean. God help us to believe both parts. Yes, I'm a sinner. But I'm a
sinner that's been saved by the grace of God through the suffering
and the blood shedding and the cross death of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Father, this day, cause Your
Word and what it says about us, and what it says about what Christ
has done for us, to become a reality to us, and bring us to rejoice,
bring us to rejoice that we have been brought from unclean to
clean. To hear as Simon Peter heard
from our Lord Jesus Christ, when he said, wash not only my feet,
but my head and my whole body, and yet Christ said, you're clean. And you don't need to be washed
again and again and again. You're clean. We thank you for
the precious promises that are yes and amen in Christ. All glory
be to you and all thanks from the hearts of forgiven sinners. We pray in the name of our blessed
Redeemer. Amen.