The Ten Lepers

Luke 17, we're going to read from verse 11. Luke chapter 17, verse 11. And it came to pass, as he, that is the Lord Jesus, went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off.

And 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. And it came to pass that as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God. and fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks, and he was a Samaritan.

And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God save this stranger. And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole. Amen. May the Lord bless this reading to us. The Lord Jesus was going to Jerusalem.

There he would celebrate his last Passover, and there he would suffer and die for his people. Dying on the cross was the purpose for which Christ had come, and the redemption of the elect was the great end, the great object of his ministry. He was on his last journey through the countryside. He was going from Galilee in the north, down through Samaria, or at least around the boundary of Samaria, into Judea and to Jerusalem. But this was his last trip. This was his last journey through the country. And the day will come when Jesus passes one last time.

Christ's work of coming into the world and going to the cross to die had been purposed and ordained for the benefit and blessing of those whom he loved before time. The Lord knew what was required to accomplish this task and he knew the time to die was fast approaching.

Not that there was any hesitancy on his part, We know from other passages in the New Testament, in the Gospel accounts, that the Lord was zealous for this work, even, we might say, eager for the arrival of the moment. Nevertheless, there was work still to do and there were people yet to meet. And we will discover in coming studies over the next few weeks, that this journey to Jerusalem in which he was now embarked would be full of amazing incidents and wonderful encounters. And today's verses record one of these encounters. Although the Saviour is eager to be about his Father's business in Jerusalem, that is the work of redemption, yet he had another job to do first.

He had a man to meet, a leper and a Samaritan. And I love how the Gospel writers show to us so frequently how the Lord searches out individuals and he comes to where they are in order to bless them with mercy and grace. The Lord met the Samaritan to cleanse him of his disease, but more importantly, to save him from his sin. Jesus came to this unnamed village to save this unnamed man. But it was no random meeting. It had been ordained from eternity, as surely as was the Lord's death on the cross.

Christ's journey to Jerusalem took him to the borderlands of Galilee and Samaria, it's probable that he was travelling along the Jordan River Valley. He was heading towards Jericho, and over the next few weeks we will discover some of the things that happened to him as he went through Jericho. But he was going down between these borderlands, Samaria and Galilee, and there was deep antagonism between the Samaritans and the Jews.

It was a hatred that reached back hundreds of years. And we've been considering some of the elements of that with the young people in our Lord's Day studies. how that Judah and the 10 tribes were separated, how that they warred with one another, how that the northern tribes were taken into captivity, how that they were repatriated with people from completely different parts of the Assyrian Empire, and therefore these people, although they wanted to claim some pedigree as being Jews, were regarded as mongrels by the people in Judea, and therefore they were hated. This dislike, of course, was part of the backstory of the woman at the well, and also the parable of the Good Samaritan. The Lord used some of these political animosities in order to teach some very important lessons.

But there was something notable here as well in this village into which the Lord entered. As he entered, he was met by a group of leprous men and they suffered from this terrible disease that appears to have been incurable and infectious and excluded them from their families and communities. They lived together on the edge of this village. and there they waited to die. Theirs was an awful predicament.

But notice, they were not offended to be a mix of Jews and Samaritans. Of this 10, at least one of them was a Samaritan. And when they knew that they were lepers, It didn't really matter what race they were. It didn't really matter what religion they were or what social class or background that they came from.

And I think it's the same for us. We are a very disparate group here. We come from different places, we're of different ages, we're of different backgrounds, but what forges us together here today is our similar need. When we know that we're sinners, it doesn't matter what race, what state, what educational background we might have. What unites us is that we know that we are sinners, and we know we need a saviour. And we all have spiritual leprosy in our soul. And furthermore, our sin has separated us from God and our uncleanness will forever make us outcasts from his family, except it be healed and removed. Leprosy in the Bible is often a picture of sin.

The disease was incurable unless God himself supplied healing. In the Old Testament, only God could cure a leper. Remember the account of Naaman, the Syrian, and how he went to Elisha and he was cured, and that was a picture of the fact that God had intervened and God, through the prophet, had blessed this man, Naaman. So in the Old Testament, only God could cure a leper. and curing leprosy as the Lord did openly on several occasions during his own ministry was evidence and proof of his divinity.

Had the people thought about it and had wisdom to see it. I suspect that these lepers had heard something about Christ's healing power. This kind of news would spread quickly from town to town amongst the colonies of lepers in the land at that time. They certainly knew something because even before Jesus had entered the village, we read that they lifted up their voices and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And I wish men and women today had the understanding and wisdom and spiritual sight to cry out to Jesus for mercy.

It bespeaks their blindness of heart and soul, because one glimpse of their sinful condition, one peep into hell, would cure all their reluctance to meet with Jesus. Or let us think about that another way. How foolish these men would have been to let this opportunity pass. What sort of testimony would that have been?

Imagine one saying, Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, who cures lepers, came to my village. I'm a leper. but I was too busy to think much about it. I was too busy to bother and go and meet him. One moment after death, every lost soul will wish that they had cried for the healing and mercy that Christ alone can give. But then it will be too late. These 10 lepers knew they had a need. and they hoped that Jesus would heal them and they cried out to that end.

They would not let Jesus pass them by. And how merciful the Saviour is. He heard them. He saw them. and he did not pass them by. The Saviour had come here to meet this group, to transform the lives of these 10 poor men, and that is what he did. But have you ever noticed how differently the Lord dealt with those that he healed? Sometimes he spoke a word and they were healed. He healed at a distance. He healed with a touch. He healed when he was touched, when he was touched in faith. Once he spat on the ground and made clay and applied it to a blind man's eyes.

On this occasion, upon their appeal for mercy, the Lord told them, Go show yourselves unto the priests. That was his words. Go show yourselves unto the priests. Now this was in line with the Old Testament laws concerning leprosy, which the Lord upheld, those still being in place.

Now I don't want to be too categoric or emphatic here, because I'm reading into the passage But I assume that this would involve them leaving the village to travel to Jerusalem. Go and show yourselves unto the priest. They were in a little village on the borderland between Galilee and Samaria. They would, in order to show themselves to the priest, have to travel to Jerusalem and there see a priest. and we learn that the healing took place as they went.

It didn't happen at once. It occurred when they were obedient to the Lord's command. It was when they began to do what he told them to do that the healing took place. The Lord called for an act of faith and as they went, they were healed. It appears, therefore, that the healing occurred after they left the Lord, but before they came to Jerusalem. Whilst on the road, all at once they found themselves healed of their disease. It was Christ's power that healed them. They hadn't reached Jerusalem, they hadn't reached the priests, so nothing of the priests was involved in their cleansing. And I think that this is very interesting. It shows us that the healing came as the men were doing what the Lord told them to do. Their healing was effected while they were being obedient to the Lord's instruction. And I would draw an analogy or I'd draw a connection there between the Lord's words to those who labour under the yoke of sin. Come unto me, all ye who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

I wonder if there is a lesson here for us. The Lord has given us the gospel as the means by which faith comes to sinners and sinners come to Christ. Faith comes by hearing. sinners, and that includes you and me. Because we are all sinners, we need to be under the Gospel, not just for salvation, not just for conversion, not just for that moment in time when we first are brought to appreciate our sinfulness and our need of salvation, but throughout our Christian experience, it is by this means that the Lord blesses his people. This is the means God has given. Listen to preachers who preach the gospel and the Lord may, the Lord will, open our hearts to receive the healing that we need. it's good to be found using the means that the Lord has appointed to bless us.

It is even better as we use that means to discover the sovereign power and goodness of the Lord to bless us within those means. Another thing that we notice is that one man only, the Samaritan, returned to thank the Lord. When he realised that he was healed, he at once returned to thank the Lord. He returned to the Lord to thank Him. Now others, the Jews, continued on their way to Jerusalem to see the priest.

Their desire, in accordance with the Old Testament law, was to be declared clean by the priest. They wouldn't be clean in their own mind. They wouldn't be clean under the law until the priest declared them so. Despite what they saw with their own eyes, despite the fact that they knew of Christ's involvement, despite the fact that they saw cleansing and the effect of cleansing in the faces of their fellow lepers, they would not believe they were clean until the priest declared them so. And I wonder if it is too strong a point to say that these men saw the gospel through the prism of the law. and that was their fault.

Doubtless with the Samaritan, they realised that they had been cured by the Lord Jesus, but their great priority now was not to return and thank him or acknowledge and worship the one who had cleansed them. Their desire was to obtain the endorsement of the priest. the affirmation, if you like, of their religious leaders and re-entry back into the community. And all of that was meaningful in a natural sense, but it fell short of the spiritual impulse that gripped the Samaritan and drove him back to the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ as quickly as possible. And it's evident by his words and his actions in verses 15 and 16 that the Samaritan realised who Christ was.

We read there that he gave glory to God and fell on his face before Christ. He had spiritual awareness of who Christ was, a sense of Christ's divinity, which the others seemed not to possess. This was gospel understanding. He realised that this miracle revealed power only God possessed. None but God could heal the leprosy. Christ had healed him. So in his view, Christ was God. And with this spiritual awareness, he had no need of a priest. He had no need for religious validation, no need for anyone but Christ.

And as fast as he could, one out of ten returned on his heels and returned to Jesus. And he declared his gratitude with a loud voice. I'm sure he declared it with a voice as loud as had been his cry in the very first instance. And being no longer unclean, He had no reservations about coming to the feet of the Saviour. You see, he had stood back and shouted at the Lord Jesus Christ when he felt that he was a leper. Now he came and he knelt at Jesus' feet because he knew that he was clean. He didn't stand back as a leper, but fell down at Christ's feet as a renewed man and worshipped him.

And there are some lovely parallels here when we consider God's gift of salvation, regeneration, and the coming of true faith into an individual's soul. That person's primary desire is to know the Lord Jesus. When a sinner is brought out from under the weight of guilt, the sense of judgement and the burden of sin by the cleansing power of Christ's blood, that person has an immediate love for the Lord, a desire for His company and a passion for His presence. They have a hunger and thirst after righteousness, after the holy, heavenly things of Christ.

They want Christ. They won't be distracted by religious ceremony. They won't be diverted to follow the old earthly values by which they had so recently been trapped and judged. They want Christ, not religion, they want Christ. They want to hear the gospel of Christ, hear of the accomplishments and the works of Christ, to discover more of the attributes of Christ. They view him as altogether lovely, the fairest of 10,000 to their souls. And this was the heart of the Samaritan. And so he turned back to Christ.

There are many people who enjoy church, but they have never found Christ. There are many who practise religion without knowing the Lord Jesus, who hold a profession of faith and can even demonstrate, apparently, the effects of Christ's works in their lives, as could these nine healed lepers. And yet they've never discovered the Lord Jesus as this Samaritan did. I may be wrong, but it's my opinion that the only one of these men to experience a true work of grace that day was the Samaritan.

Nine met the Lord in a natural way and obeyed him according to their natural desire for healing, for restoration, for happiness. But their allegiance to the law betrayed their failure. to truly discern Jesus Christ as their Saviour. And we may repeat the Lord's question, where are the other nine? Where are they today?

I take the Lord's words in support of this opinion. He says in verse 19, arise to the Samaritan, arise, go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole, by which is meant Christ, the object of faith. Christ, the object of faith, had saved him. It's not our believing that saves us, but the one in whom we believe. Men and women are saved by God's grace. They experience the blessings of salvation by faith. Faith brings the blessings of salvation. It doesn't cause them. The nine received healing in their bodies. the Samaritan received healing in body and soul. Too many are content with the form and the practice and the trappings of religion at the expense of true saving faith in Christ. May that not be us. Amen.

The Ten Lepers

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The Ten Lepers

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