And I looked at this portion
of scripture and I looked at it and I looked at it. And I wrote down nine questions. It doesn't take long to go through
them either. But I wrote down nine questions
before I started working on the outline. And the first one I asked who
came? The second one is to whom did
he come? Third is, why did he come to
Christ? Fourth, what did this leper do
when he came to Christ? Fifthly, how did he worship him?
Sixthly, what did this leper know? What did he know? Seventhly, what did our Lord
do? What did he do? And eighth, the
result of Christ touching and speaking to this leper. And then
last, Christ's final instructions to him. That's the way I'm going
to proceed with this outline. It'll take about 30 minutes. When the Lord healed the blind,
the deaf, and the dumb, the leper, when he raised the dead, He was
demonstrating his power, not just over our bodies, not just
his ability to heal these bodies, but our soul. Our soul, that's
what's going on here. What's being demonstrated is
his ability to heal our spiritual blindness, our spiritual deafness,
our spiritual deadness. That's what's being taught here.
That's what's being taught. In one place, our Lord said,
it were better for a person to be haunted or maimed and enter
into glory than to be made whole and go straight to hell. That's
what he said. What I need, I need spiritual
eyes to see God. I need God to give me eyes to
see who this man is. I need God to give me spiritual
ears to hear him, not just hear me or just hear someone who stands
here, not just hear Frank this morning, but to hear God Almighty
speak. I need to hear from God. That's
what I need to do. I need to hear from Him. I need
legs to follow Him, spiritual legs. I need hands employed in
His service. That's what I need for the Lord
to do for me. If it were physical healing only,
He would not have needed to come. If you read the rest of this
chapter, there's a centurion who comes and he says, I had
a servant of a slave boy at home who was grievously ill. He said,
would you heal him? And the Lord said, I will, I'll
come. He said, don't come. He said, I'm not worthy for you
to come under my roof. He said, all you need do is speak
the word. He said, I'm a man under authority.
I say go, and he goes. I say come, and he comes. So
if all it were physical healing, he wouldn't have had to come.
But it's much more than that. He had to come to save my soul,
which took his life, took his blood, took his righteousness
to do that. I know it's good to have health,
but it's better, it's much better to have spiritual health in the
inner man. That's what I need. I like to
have, I want and I enjoy having some health, physical health,
but my greatest need is that inner man. The health of that
man, that's what I need. Paul said, though our outward
man perish. Vicki said, coming down here,
she said, boy, we're starting to look old. She was looking
in the mirror of the car, she said, we're starting to look
old. Our outward man is perishing. But listen, our inner man is
renewed, refreshed day by day. There's not a wrinkle on the
brow of that inner man. Not a wrinkle. Curiosity. Now, listen. Curiosity
brings crowds, but need brings sinners. Need brings sinners. All right. It says, there came
a leper. Who came? A leper. A leper. The multitudes followed him because
of his miracles. And because he did not speak
as the scribes, if you'll notice back in chapter 7, in verse 29,
it says, For he taught them as one, having authority, and not
as the scribes. I hope the Lord gives us the
ability to do that when we stand here, preach with authority,
preach with power, and not stand up here and sound like a commentary.
I fear that as much as anything, just sounding like a commentary.
But they followed him not just because of miracles, or because
of miracles, and also because of the authority that he spoke
with. But this one, this leper, who it says was full of leprosy,
he came to him out of a great, great need. I mean, it was a
great need. That crowd followed him out of
curiosity. The leper came to him out of a great need. Now,
let me describe this man. In my readings yesterday, let
me give you what I gleaned from this man who was full of leprosy. They said this man would have
been at this point in his leprosy. His voice would have been hoarse. His flesh is rotten. The eyes are red and inflamed. Ears are swollen and red and
eaten with ulcers. The nose is sunk in because of
the rotting of the cartilage. The tongue is dry and black,
swollen and ulcerated. Skin's covered over with ulcers
and looks like the scales of a fish. The body becomes insensitive
to pain. He could cut himself at this
point and not even feel it. And I thought when I read that,
the sinner cuts himself every day with sin. And he never feels
it. Eventually, it says, the nose
and the fingers and the toes fall off completely. This is
what happened. This is the point he was at.
This is the one who came to Christ. This is the one who needs a real
Savior. This is the one who needs a real
physician that can do something for him. His disease was incurable. That's why he was sent to the
priest and not to the doctor. Doctors couldn't do anything
for him. And the priest, the priest could only pronounce him
clean or unclean. The priest could only pronounce
what he saw. He couldn't do anything for him. He couldn't make him
clean. The law cannot make us clean. The law can't make us clean.
The law can only pronounce things as they are, clean, or unclean,
that's all it can do. It can pronounce you as you are,
clean or unclean. And when he was pronounced unclean,
he was put without the camp. He was run out of town. When
this happened, when the priest said he's unclean, he was run
out of town. He was not allowed in the city anymore for he was
utterly, utterly, Unclaimed look over in Leviticus chapter 13.
Let me show you a little bit of this over in Leviticus Chapter 13 Look in verse 44 This whole chapter has to deal
with leprosy It says in verse This is in verse 43. Then the priest shall look upon
it, and behold, if the rising of the sword be white, reddish
in his bald head, or in his bald forehead, as a leprosy appeareth
in the skin of the flesh, he is a leprous man. He is unclean. The priest shall pronounce him
utterly, utterly unclean. His plague is in his head. Oh,
I thought that's us. Our plague was in Adam. It began
in my head. It came all the way to me. The
plague is in his head. And the leper in whom the plague
is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall
put a covering upon his upper lip, and he 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. He's got to go and dwell alone.
I thought, when I read this, I thought, I bet there was a
time that this man was healthy. There was a time that he probably
went to work and took care of his family. Probably a healthy
man. And then this plague come upon him. This plague of leprosy.
This sin shows up. Sin shows up. And now he's got
to dwell alone, without the camp, shall his habitation be. That
was this man. He had to go about crying. How
would you like to do that every day? How would you like it? If
you had to come into town, into Ashland, and you're living without
the camp, you're living outside of town. When you come into town,
you've got to come in crying, unclean, unclean. Everybody gets
out of the way. Nobody wants to even step where
you stepped. If anybody touched him, they were unclean. He knew his wretchedness. He
was constantly aware of it. You know, it says that even his
clothes on over there, if you read on further, his clothes
had to be burned. They had to burn his clothes,
everything about him. And I'm telling you, and I'm
not exaggerating this, by nature this describes us before God.
This is not an exaggeration. This is so. This describes us
before God. We are nothing but a putrefying
sore in God's sight. That's what he says in Isaiah
1. Look over in Ezekiel 16. Here's another picture of us.
Ezekiel 16. He says in verse 4 of Ezekiel
16, And as for thy nativity in the day thou wast born, thy navel
was not cut, neither was Thou washed in water to supple thee,
thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all. None eye
pitied thee to do any of these things unto thee, to have compassion
upon thee, but thou wast cast out in the open field to," what? "...the loathing of thy person
in the day that thou wast born. And when I passed by thee," here's
how I saw thee, this is the way you look, this is the way I look,
I saw you polluted, trodden underfoot in your own blood. And that's
when I said unto thee, I said unto thee, when thou wast in
thy blood, live. Yea, I said unto thee, when thou
wast in thy blood. He says it twice to get the point
across. When I saved you, this is your
condition. I saw you in your blood. You
were polluted. You were loathed. You were cast out to the loathing
of your person. That was us. This was our condition
when God saved us. Loathes them in ourselves and
polluted in sin like a pig wallowing in the mire. And this leprosy
that he had permeated his whole being. I mean his whole being. Every part, every part of me
is sin. Every part of my nature is sin. Sin is not something I contracted
when I got older like a virus. David said, I was born in sin
and shaped in iniquity. It starts inwardly and it comes
outwardly. That's what happens. And there's
nothing anyone can do for me but Christ. Christ, the Savior
of sinners. Now, to whom did the leper come?
It says, the Lord. He didn't come to a little Jesus. This man came to the Lord of
heaven and earth. He said, Lord, if you will, you
can make me clean. The one to whom he came to is
indeed the Lord of glory. This is the Lord of glory. He
came to the one who possessed the power to save him and cleanse
him from his leprosy. And he knew it. He knew it. He believed that this one can
cleanse me. I had no doubt that he heard
about it, his miracles. He heard about this one. And
when he came, he came with no doubts. He said, I know you can
cleanse me. I know you can. We come to the
Lord Jesus Christ for cleansing and healing. That's who we come
to. He's the only one who has the power to save me from sin
and cleanse me from all unrighteousness. He's the only one that can do
it. Because He's God. He is God Almighty. He's God
manifest in the flesh. And He's a real man whose blood
It cleanses us from all sin. That's what it says over in 1
John 1. We confess our sins. He's faithful and just to forgive
us our sins. And it cleanses us from all unrighteousness. If you ever know something about
sin, sin, I tell you, those verses are beautiful. They're beautiful. Now, why did He come to Christ?
Because He knew. No doubt by hearing of Him, but
He knew. that he could save him from his leprosy. That's when
a sinner will come to Christ, when he's convinced that this
man can save me, this one can save me. A sinner will come to
Christ when he really needs to be saved, listen, from sin. That's
when we really come to Christ, when we need to be saved from
sin. Need is what brings us to Christ. Need does. And when he came to Christ, what
did our Lord, what did he do? What did he do? What did this
leper do? Well, first he says here he worshipped him. He worshipped
him. He didn't look upon him as someone
who might be able to help him. You might as well go on back,
leper, because you're not going to get anything out of this.
He came to him as someone who was able to save him from his
leprosy. He recognized him for who he
is, Lord, Lord of heaven and earth, Lord over this leprosy,
Lord over all things. Everybody wants a Savior. Nobody
wants a Lord. No God for me. I tell you what,
this old leper was glad to have a God for him. Glad to have a
God who is able to conquer all my sins. Glad to have a God who
is able to conquer me. That's what I need. That's the
kind of God and Lord I need. We are not coming to someone
who makes salvation possible, but to one who saves because
he's Lord. He's Lord. He has the ability
to do it. He's Lord. He has the power to
save. or that God would enable us to
worship Him who is Lord. God hath made that same Jesus
both Lord and Christ. And I don't think a man is saved
at all who does not worship Christ as Lord. Oh, he's represented
every day as a Savior, but he's Lord. God's put everything, invested
everything into him. He's Lord. He's Lord over all. Now, how did he worship him?
It says in Luke 5, it says he fell down on his face. He fell
down, this leper, I have no doubt, fell down right with his face
in the dust, prostrate on the ground, lying in the dust where
he belonged. That's where we belong. And it'll
take God to convince you of that. It'll take God to convince you
that. We spend our lifetime building each other up and God has to
break us down. God has to bring us into the dust. Has to, because
that's where we are anyway. We just have to recognize it.
And then he says he fell on his face. He worshiped him in humility.
Oh, I tell you, you know the humility of this man. You know,
here's all this good-looking crowd, just like this good-looking
crowd, all dressed up. You know, I don't know if they
were all dressed up, but it was a good-looking crowd compared
to what he looked like. I guarantee you that. And he, no doubt, was
just probably embarrassed to even be there. But he knew. That leper knew that he had no
right to stand up and look him in the face or even be there,
but he knew. He knew the Lord could save him.
He knew that. And notice what he says here.
Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. Clean. Sin is so defiling. Doesn't it feel good after a
long day of work and you're hot and sweaty, and you take a bath
and you're clean? He's saying, Lord, you can make
me clean from this filthy, wretched disease I've got. You can make
me clean. I know this. Lord, you can make
me clean from sin. You can do that. He recognized,
listen, he recognized his sovereign right to do with him as he will. I'll never forget that. That is one of the first things
that hit me when I heard the gospel, when I heard Henry preach
on TV. The sovereign right of God to
do with me as he will. I'd always heard people saying,
God wants to save you, God wants to, will you accept Him as, and
then one day I heard it, He might save you and He might not. That
was a different God. That was a different one than
I've been hearing. He recognized this wretched leper,
recognized that the Lord had the sovereign right to run him
off. He could have said to, you know when a leper came into a
town, if he came into a walled city, he was beaten. They would
beat him. If he came into a city that had
no walls, he was made to sit alone and away from the people.
And he knew, when he came into that town, that the Lord had
the right to run him off. He had the right to beat him,
to beat him with many stripes. That's like those three lepers.
Remember, they were sitting outside the gate, and they said, why
sit we here till we die? If we go in the city, they'll
kill us, but if we sit here, we're going to die anyway. They know if they
went in that city, they're going to get beat to death. He said,
Lord, if you will, you have the sovereign right to heal me, and
you have the sovereign right to send me to hell. That's right. It's not a matter of your power,
Lord. I'm not even questioning that.
It's a matter of your will. What are you going to do with
me?" I tell you what now, that's the gospel. God could have saved
the angels and not men, others and not me. He could have done that. Christ
is sovereign in salvation. Look over in John chapter 5.
Here in John chapter 5, In John 5.21, "...for as the
Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them, even so the
Son quickeneth whom He will." You'll never worship God. You'll
never worship Christ until you come to that point. He quickens
whom He will. Whom He will. Now, what did this
leper know? What did he know? Thou canst
make me clean." How much does a sinner need to
know to be saved? It's not how much. It's who you
need to know. I'm telling you, there's a lot
said in that statement. It's who you need to know. It's
not how much. It's who. Paul said, I know whom
I have believed. He knew that the Lord Jesus Christ
could make him clean. He was not a theologian. He was
a sinner. Now, you listen. Theologians
do not come to Christ. Sinners do. Theologians don't
come to Christ. Sinners do. When Paul came to
Christ, when God broke him, he came to him as a sinner. As a
sinner in need of mercy. And I know by the Word of God
and the Spirit of God that Christ can save my soul and make me
clean. He can do that. Through his blood
and righteousness, he can do that. I know my need of him and
his ability to save from sin, and that's what brings me. That's
what brings sinners. And that's what keeps sinners
there. That'll keep a sinner there. Now what did our Lord do? What
did He do? It says that He put forth His
hand and touched him. There's not a person in that
crowd or in this crowd that would have touched that putrefying
flesh. He wouldn't have done it, that
putrefying stinking, smelling flesh, you wouldn't have touched
him. I wouldn't have. I wouldn't have. But the Lord
put forth his hand and touched him. The Lord is not afraid to touch
sinners. He's not afraid to be touched
by sinners. That woman with the issue of blood, she touched him. He loves sinners. He embraces
sinners. Those Pharisees said over in
chapter 9 and verse 11, and when the Pharisees saw it, they said
unto his disciples, Why eateth your master with publicans and
sinners? Why does he eat with them? Why
does he associate and fellowship and embrace sinners, these publicans
and sinners? And when Jesus heard that, he
said, They that behold need not a physician, but they that are
sick. This leper needs me. Sinners need me. You Pharisees,
you self-righteous people, he said, you don't need me. But
these publicans and sinners do. They need me. They need me. Something else you'll notice
if you go back and read the law and Leviticus and this situation,
if anyone touched that leper, they were unclean. They were
unclean. I can imagine when this leper
was coming to Christ, I have no doubt he was probably coming
to him with his mouth covered because it says that he had to
have a covering over his upper lip, and he's crying unclean. I bet it looked like the Red
Sea Party. I bet that crowd just went, phew, and there he stood
alone. Even the disciples, I guarantee
you, they all just backed off. He's crying unclean as he keeps
coming to Christ. As he keeps coming, he keeps
crying unclean. That whole crowd just separates.
They don't want to touch him. If anyone touches that leopard,
then they'll be unclean. But our Lord was able to touch
him and yet remain clean. Here's a mystery. If you figure
it out, you can talk to me. Even though he was actually made
to be sin, yet he knew no sin. He said, but how'd that happen?
Get in the back of the line. We all figured that would tell
you. But that's so. He was actually made to be sin,
and yet he knew no sin because it had to be perfect to be accepted.
Only God can do that. Only God can do that. He touched
him. He never turned away sinners
in need of him, ever. He touched him. But the one thing
our Lord didn't do, when that crowd backed away, they backed
off, they all separated, our Lord didn't back off. He reached
down. As you know, in Luke it said
he fell down on his face. I bet he stayed there. Even as
he made this request, I bet he stayed in the dust. Our Lord
reaches down and he touched him. He didn't back off at all. That's
the reason I asked Mike to sing that song. When he reached down
for me, that's what he's doing. When he reached down, he spoke
to him. As he touched him, he spoke to him. I tell you what,
if the Lord ever speaks to you, He'll be touching you at the
same time. And he said, I will, be thou
clean. Like I said, he's never said to a sinner, I will not.
It's always, I will. Be thou clean. Where the Word
of a King is, there's power. There's power. I tell you, He
touches us with His Spirit and cleanses us with His Word all
the time. Power. Power went forth with
His spoken Word. Power, I tell you, we have the
Word of God here. If the Lord Jesus takes His Word
and speaks in power, things are going to happen. Life's going
to be given. sinners are going to be cleansed.
That's right. And if he speaks the Word of
the Gospel in power to our hearts, we'll be clean. We'll be made
whole. And then look at the result of
him speaking and touching him. It says immediately, Immediately,
his leprosy was cleansed. And Lucas says it departed from
him. Christ does not put us on probation.
He saves us immediately. Immediately. Salvation from sin
and cleansing from sin is something we possess now. Now. Listen, he was not only pronounced
clean, he was made clean. He was not pronounced clean until
he was made clean. And I noticed this too, that
leper didn't say, Lord, would you pronounce me clean? He said,
would you make me clean? That's what I want. Make me clean,
because you can't pronounce me clean until you make me clean.
Salvation is more than Christ pronouncing you clean, it's Christ
making you clean. It's making you clean. And note
what he tells him. Note what he tells him. Tell
no man. Tell no man. And here's the reason
why. Because first of all, he made
himself of no reputation. He was not trying to get a reputation
here. He was not trying to get a following here from this crowd
because of his miracles. He healed him because he loved
him, not to try to get a following. It says in the Scriptures, as
many as needed healing, he healed. As many as needed it, I promise
you, as many as needed, he'll heal, he'll save. And then he
says, and I'll close, show thyself to the priest and offer the gift
that Moses commanded for testimony unto them. First, the law was
still in effect. That's why he told them to do
it. And he would not break the law. He had not died yet, and
it was still in effect, and he would not break the law. He always
honored the law of God. And then he says, show yourself
to the priest. If Christ, I thought this, if
Christ has made us clean, we don't have to be afraid of the
law examining us. He said, go show yourself. This man was full of leprosy.
He didn't have it on his arm. I mean, it was from head to toe.
Go show yourself to the priest. He would have this leper going
before the priest. Here's what had to happen. He
would go before the priest and he would strip down naked. And the priest would have to
examine him from head to toe to see if there was a spot of
leprosy still in him. And when he didn't detect any
of it, he said, you're clean. We don't have to be afraid of
the law of God. stripping us down and searching us. What is it that David said? Search
me and know me. Could you say that? He said,
I don't know if I want to say that or not. I tell you what,
in Christ you can say that. Not to say that is having no
confidence in Christ. And he pronounced him clean who
was unclean. Who can bring a clean thing out
of an unclean? He says, I believe it's over
in Job, and he says, no, not one. None of us can, but God
can. God can bring a clean thing out
of an unclean thing. He does it when he saves sinners. And listen, nothing that Christ
does in saving a sinner is contrary to the law. Go show yourself
to the priest. Go present yourself to that law
that God established. Go do it. Nothing I've done is
contrary to it. Nothing. He was not afraid of
that leper showing himself to the priest, for just as that priest would
pronounce him clean, even so God's law pronounces us clean
in Christ. Through his blood and his righteousness,
his person, we're clean. And then he says, and last of
all, offer the gift as a testimony, not as a cause, but as a testimony for your cleanness. I'll tell you this, the gift
that we offer now as a testimony to what God has done for us in
Christ is praise and thanksgiving. That's what we offer now. Praise
and thanksgiving. Under the law, it was blood. It was a blood sacrifice. They
had to offer, he'd have to offer a pigeon. I think there was two
pigeons that they had to offer. Blood, but now it's praise and
thanksgiving. Unto him who loved us and gave
himself for us. Lord, if you will, if you will,
you have the sovereign right, you can make me clean. You can
take this away. Okay, Mike.