Group 17, the title of the message,
Where Are the Nine? We're not ten twins, but where
are the nine? Many are religious. We are born religious. Many partake of the goodness
of God daily. We looked at that a little bit
in the Bible class. Listen to this scripture in the Psalms.
I've already got it marked. Psalm 145, 9. The Lord is good
to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works. Many
partake of the goodness of God daily. God's Son, S-U-N, shines
on the just and the unjust. every day. God's reign falls
on the just and the unjust every day. But how few, how few really
know Him and glorify Him and return thanks unto Him for what
He's done for them in Christ. How few know Him. Now it says
in verse 11, it came to pass. This can be said every day. Every day this can be said. It
came to pass. Whatever God has purposed shall
surely come to pass. You just mark it down. It came to pass. Christ is going
to Jerusalem. It is appointed unto him to suffer
and to die. He said the Son of Man must suffer,
and he must die. And he set his face like a flint
to go to Jerusalem. He did not in any way try to
avoid suffering, to avoid the cross. But on his way, On his way, he's going to go
through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And that's not by chance. You're
not here by chance this morning, I promise you. You might have
came here to please somebody, but you're not here by chance. Our Lord, on purpose, is going
to pass through the midst of Samaria in Galilee. He's not going to go around him.
See, he's a Jew. The Jews had nothing to do with
Samaria. But this one, oh, this one's
different. This one's God. This is God in
the flesh. And he's going to go through
Samaria. Look over in John chapter 4. I told you, he's going there
on purpose. The Gospel doesn't come to us
by chance, does it? This is interesting. John chapter 4, when therefore
the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and
baptized more disciples than John, though Jesus himself baptized
not, but his disciples, he left Judea and departed again into
Galilee, and he must needs go through Samaria. You reckon, and this dawned on
me when I was reading this last night, you reckon those ten lepers
heard about him from her? Remember, she went back to Samaria,
and she went and told it to the town, and all those men came
out there, and they all come out and they said, we believe
now, not because of what she said, but we've heard him for
ourselves. And here he goes through the
midst of Samaria, Galilee, and here's ten lepers. I just suspect
I just suspect from the witness of that woman at the well, or
possibly that leper that he healed before, he said, Lord, if you
will, you can make me whole. You know his fame went abroad.
And you know, you know all those lepers knew that there was one
person who could cleanse them, make them whole. I just thought
that was interesting when he said, I must needs go through
Samaria. And here at the end, At the end of his earthly life
on this earth, he's going to go to Jerusalem and be crucified.
He's got to go through Samaria one more time. He's got to pass
through one more time. Why? Because there's a leper
there that's his. There is a leper. There's ten
lepers now. They all have the same need,
but one of them is his. This is interesting. I thought
this was so interesting. It is a must. He must go through
Samaria. He has a sheep there. He must. I thought about this last night.
He must go through Ashland. He has some sheep here. He's
still going through our midst, isn't he? My, so what a blessing. Fifty-some years. Over fifty-some
years. The Lord's still passing through
Ashland. That's amazing. It's amazing.
Why? Because he has some sheep here. He has some sheep here, that's
why he keeps coming through here. And then it says in verse 12,
he goes to a certain village. He's looking. The shepherd is
on the trail of his sheep. He's on the trail of his sheep,
and there's one there. And he's in a certain village.
There's ten lepers. No doubt there is a leper colony
there. They got cast out to the leper
colony. They couldn't even dwell with the common people no more. And he knows where he is. He knows where his sheep is. There's a certain leper there
that he must save. He must cleanse. And then in verse 12 it says,
Ten lepers. They stood afar off. They're
not allowed. They weren't allowed around the crowd. They stood
afar off. You know, in Scripture, let me
say this. In Scripture, leprosy represents sin. It's a representation
of sin. It was a devastating disease.
It affected the whole person. You didn't just get a spot. I
mean, if you had leprosy, it would go throughout your whole
body. And eventually you died. You
died. And the law, while you were alive,
pronounced you unclean. If you touch something or if
you touch someone, they were considered by the law to be unclean. Whenever you have time, read
Leviticus. Leviticus, I think it's 13 or
14. It's the law of leprosy. Unclean, cast out. Oh, it's devastating. It was devastating. These men at one time, I'm sure,
had a good job. They had families. But now they have leprosy. They have leprosy. And they're
passed out. They are unclean. Unclean. What if you walked in
this room and everybody had this scattering? Wouldn't that be
a devastating feeling? What if you had to walk down
the street? What if you had to walk down the street of Ashland and
you had to cry unclean, unclean? Cover your mouth, cover your
face crying unclean, unclean. You had to let people know you
was unclean. How devastating is that? Sin is more devastating. It's more devastating. Every
problem I have, I don't care what it is, every problem I have,
sin is the root of it. Sin is not, well, if you guys
weren't here, I wouldn't have any problems. No, you'd have
problems. Someone said, I don't know if
I can remember this right, he said, most accidents happen close to
home. The guy said, well, why don't
you move? Why don't you move? Well, it'll
still happen wherever you are, no matter how sinful you are. I don't care where you go. You
got you. We are the worst enemies. We
are our worst enemies. Sin is devastating. It's the
root of all my problems. And like leprosy, it leaves me
Unclean. I don't care how much you bathe. I don't care how much you straighten
up your life. I don't care. You're still unclean. There's only one who can clean
us. There's only one who can cleanse us. There's only one
who can truly heal us and make us whole. And it's Christ. We'll see this as we go along.
And then sin leads to death. Eternal death. Those lepers had nothing to look
forward to but death. They would get worse and worse
and worse. Probably the only thing that
may be equal to it in our day, to give you some idea, would
be cancer. Just worse and worse. And then you die. In our day
we had treatments and stuff, but they didn't have anything. They didn't have anything. Sin leads to eternal death unless
Unless there's someone. Unless you can find a physician
who can put it away. And God has given us that physician.
God has given us the balm of Gilead in Christ. He is the great
physician. The whole don't need a doctor,
but the sick do. And that's why he's going through
Samaria. There's one of his there that
he's going to heal. If you'll notice in verse 13, they lifted
up their voices. They all cried for mercy. They
all wanted to be healed of their leprosy. They all had leprosy. Whatever they were before, they
may have been prominent businessmen or prominent religious leaders,
but now they're lepers. They're lepers. They're just lepers. But they recognized the Lord.
They recognized him, and they called him Master. Master, they
called him. Does that mean that God had saved
them? No. I read to you about that
one who came and said, good Master. And he said, there's none good
with God. And he left. He left. Many called him Master. They didn't know him as the Savior.
They didn't know him as the Lord. Listen, they didn't know him
at that time as the Lord or the Master, but one is going to.
One is going to. Look over in Matthew 7. Matthew chapter 7. Don't think
because people use or call him Master or even call him the Lord
that they are saved. Look in verse, let me see here,
in Matthew 7, look in verse 21. Not everyone that saith unto
me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he that
doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to
me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied or preached
in thy name? And in thy name have cast out
devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works. They said,
we preached in your name. We stood in the pulpit and we
preached in your name. We cast out devils in your name.
We did a lot of wonderful works in your name. And then, will
I profess unto them, I never knew you. I never knew you. Depart from me, you that work
iniquity. Nine of these he does not know. It doesn't mean he
doesn't know who they are or doesn't know the heart. God knows
the thoughts of every heart. But they're not his. They're not
his. And here's the command in verse
14. Go show yourselves to the priest. Now, if you read in Leviticus
13 and 14, when a person, if they thought they had leprosy,
they had to go to the priest. Then the priest would either
pronounce them clean or unclean. You know, you can read that.
That's what they were to do. And so they did that. He said,
go to the priest. I tell you what, nine of them
knew about it because nine of them were Jews. One of them was
a stranger. One of them was a Samaritan. One of them was a stranger. Nine
of them were Jews. They knew what he was talking about. And he
said, go show yourself to the priest. And they did. They went.
And as they went, they were cleansed. They were cleansed. Their leprosy
left them. Let me point something out here.
All true healing is of God. That has nothing to do with the
salvation of their soul. How many people, loved ones,
have you prayed for that have been sick and they've been raised
up? They're still lost, aren't they?
They're still lost. Nine of these lepers, all ten
of them were cleansed, healed of their leprosy. But that's
not salvation. Healing of the body. Our Lord
said this in one place. He said it's better To be crippled
and enter into heaven, that would be what? Made whole and go straight
to hell. To be physically made whole and
perish. All truth healing is of God. We need to recognize that. But
not all healing is salvation. It's not salvation. Not all of
it. How many turned to give thanks?
How many turned to glorify God? Yeah, these ten men that all
had leprosy. How many returned? One. One. The rest of them, they probably
went to the priest. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't.
I don't know. They had already received their
cleansing. So the nine of them were so taken up, I think they
were so taken up with their health and their cleansing, and it's
like, they didn't even turn around
and thank Him for the cleansing. They did not turn around and
acknowledge anything. They just kept on going. But
one turned around. One did. One returns to glorify
God. One leper out of ten was saved.
You say, what about the other nine? They were cleansed, but
they were not made whole. They were not made whole. They
received a blessing, but they missed the blessor. They missed the blessor. Many
were fed one day. The Lord took a lad's lunch,
a child's lunch, and he fed 5,000. That's just the men, not counting
the women and children. He fed them. And then they followed
him. He said, you're not following
because of the miracle, but because you ate of the loaves and the
fishes. They ate that bread that he gave them. He blessed it.
He blessed the bread. He blessed the bread. And he
gave them to eat. But they were still lost just
as the day they were born. He turned the water into wine.
That didn't save anybody. Even that governor said, that's
the best wine I've ever drank. He turned that water into wine
and it didn't save any of them. But something happened. Something
happened to that one. The cleansing went a lot deeper
than the skin, than the flesh. It was a whole lot deeper than
the outward man. You see, cleaning up the outward
man is not salvation in any way, shape or form. It's the creation of a new man
in Christ. In verse 16, it says, the one
returned. And that one that returned, he
fell down on his face at the Lord's feet, glorifying God,
giving Him thanks. Thank you, Lord, for saving my
soul. He glorified God. Something happened
to the inside of that leper. Listen, the leprosy of sin was
cleansed from him. He was made whole. He was made
whole. And there's something really
interesting to me. He said, go show yourself to the priest.
And they turned. And they were going to show themselves
to the priest. Whether they did or didn't, I
don't know. But one did. One truly showed
himself to the priest, God's high priest. He returned back
to God's priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. Here's a good question, verse
17. We're not ten cleansed? Well, where are the nine? Where
are they? We're not many fed this week?
We're not many made well this week? Where are they? What are they? He says, there are not found
that return to give glory to God save this stranger. This one stranger returned. One
sinner. One sinner returned to glorify
God for what He had done for him. This
one sinner here recognized He recognized the same one the Samaritan
woman at the well recognized, the Lord, the Messiah, the Savior. Only sinners saved by grace return
each week to glorify God. That's what we have done this
morning, haven't we? We have returned this morning to give
glory to God for saving us in His Son, for cleansing us by
His blood, for covering us in His righteousness. We have returned
this morning. That's what worship is. It's
returning to God the glory that's due unto His name. That's true
worship. That's what it is. And only sinners saved by grace
will do that. And He said to him, verse 19, Arise, go thy
way, thy faith hath made thee whole. I thought this was interesting. He said, go thy way. You know
the Lord can tell everyone whom he saves, go your way. Go your way. Just go your way. Because your way now is Christ.
Your way is Christ. He said, go thy way. Thy faith. Thy faith. Faith is the gift of God. It's the gift of God. But I tell
you this, when He gives it to you by the work of His Spirit,
it's yours. If I give you, if I have a gift
and I give you that gift, I give it to you, it's yours. It's yours. And He said to me, thy faith. And you and I know by the Word
of God, we have to interpret Scripture with Scripture, not
with what we think it is, Scripture interprets Scripture, so we know
by the Word of God that faith is a gift of God. And here He
gives us this gift of faith. But it's yours. It's mine. It's
mine. Thy faith hath made thee whole. True faith. True faith. And Christ cannot be separated. It cannot be separated. If you
truly have Christ, you truly have true faith. And he said,
thy faith hath made thee whole. The object, Christ. There's the connection, faith.
He's given it to us, and it's connected to Christ. It's not
apart from him. You didn't have it until he gave
it to you. You weren't born with it, not in this world. You come
into this world believing God. Henry said one time, if so, you've
believed too long. I've believed God all my life.
No, you haven't. That's too long. That's just too long. You believe when God saved you. When God called you by His grace
and revealed His Son in you, that's when you believe God. My faith has made the oath. Now, Lord willing, let's return
Wednesday and glorify Him one more time. One more time. And Wednesday, I want to take
the Lord's table. I want us to take the Lord's
table Wednesday night. Okay, Mike.