Luke chapter 5, and last time
we were here, we left off at verse 12. So I'm going to read
a portion of these to us before we get started. And before that,
Drew, could you open us in prayer? Father, as we gather together,
we pray that you would meet with us as you have promised, where
two or three are gathered in your name. that you would be
with us. Father, we desire to be among
your folks, among your people, that we would indeed be gathered
under the banner in the name of Christ, who is love for us
and to us and ever gracious. And for that, we're thankful.
Father, may we hear of the redemptive glory of Christ this day and
this night. Give Nathan the words if he needs
to speak. So we'll be starting in verse
12 here. We're going to see two instances
of a healing. So starting verse, chapter 5,
verse 12, it says, and it happened, when he, that is Jesus, was in
a certain city that behold, a man who was full of leprosy saw Jesus
and he fell on his face and implored him saying, Lord, if you are
willing, you can make me clean. And then he put out his hand
and touched him saying, I am willing, be cleansed. And immediately
the leprosy left him and he charged him to tell no one but to go
show yourself to the priest and make an offering for your cleansing
as a testimony to them just as Moses commanded. However, the
report went around concerning him all the more and great multitudes
came together to hear and to be healed by him of their infirmities. So he himself often withdrew
into the wilderness and prayed." Now we're gonna pause there and
go over these verses. Now in verse 12 it says, And
it happened when he was in a certain city that behold, a man who was
full of leprosy saw Jesus. And he fell on his face and implored
him saying, if you are willing, you can make me clean. And it
says that he put out his hand and touched him saying, I am
willing and be cleansed. And immediately that leprosy
left him. And there's a detail here that perfectly illustrates
to me what the prophets in the Old Testament said about the
Savior to come. And to understand it, we need
to know what the law says about leprosy. And if you could join
me, turn to Leviticus chapter 13. This is where they speak
of what it means if someone is declared to have leprosy. Leviticus 13, And we'll read
four verses starting in verse seven. It says, but if the scab, should
it all spread over the skin after he has been seen by the priest
for his cleansing, he shall be seen by the priest again. And
if the priest sees that the scab has indeed spread on the skin,
then the priest shall pronounce him unclean. It is leprosy. and then jump ahead to verse
45. It says now the leper on whom the
sore is his clothes shall be torn and his head bare and he
shall cover his mustache and cry unclean unclean and he shall
be unclean all the days he has the sore he shall be unclean
he is unclean and he shall dwell alone his dwelling shall be outside
the camp. Now, it says here, if the priest
declares that a man is a leper, that that man doesn't go home. He must stay away from everyone
else. The unclean must not go near
the clean, must stay separated. And they must dwell outside the
camp. until their leprosy is gone.
And God told Moses that the leper must remain outside the camp
until he is clean. Well, how does he know that?
Well, the only person who can declare that someone is clean
is the priest, just the priest. Now that priest is within the
camp. So the only way for a leper to be declared clean and to be
welcomed back into the camp is for the priest to go outside
the camp. The one inside must go outside. Cause that's where the leper
is. Now that leper is completely at the mercy of that priest.
The priest alone is the only one who goes out to the leper.
And he must ensure that he does not have contact with the leper,
lest he himself contracts leprosy or is declared unclean. You cannot
touch the unclean. Now keep these facts in mind.
We're gonna read the first half of Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53. Keep thinking about what you
just heard. First half of Isaiah 53, verse
four. It says, surely he, that is Jesus,
our savior, has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Now that word griefs literally
means sicknesses, diseases, or maladies. In other words, the
Lord Jesus Christ bore our disease. And he didn't take half of our
disease or three quarters of our disease, he took 100%. He
was touched by all of our disease. All of it. He was touched by
it. That disease that we carry that's
called sin. Now did the Old Testament priests
bear the sorrows and the illnesses of anyone? Not one, even though
they lived among the people. How then was our sin laid on
Jesus since he is so high up in heaven? Our savior came from
heaven. That's where he dwelled. We'll
look at our passage back in Luke 5, verse 13. says it right in the first phrase.
It says, then Jesus put out his hand and touched him. He touched
him. That's something the priests
could not do to a leper. He reached out and touched him.
That little detail makes all the difference. All the difference.
Jesus does not stand afar off from the leper and just shout,
stay where you are. I can see you've got a disease.
I can see it from here. Be cleansed, go about your business.
He doesn't do that. Likewise, he does not stand afar
off from his sheep, but he came down to be among them. He didn't stay away. And unlike the priests in the
Old Testament, Jesus touches the leper and takes the leprosy
away. He says, I am willing, be cleansed. Now he's our high priest, much
better than Aaron and his lineage. For he has reached out and touched
you while you were sick. And he voluntarily did that,
knowing what it would do. But he was not ultimately defiled
by it. Now verses 14 and 15, so he charges
the man, the leper, who used to be a leper, to tell no one. He says, but go and show yourself
to the priest and make an offering for your cleansing as a testimony
to them, just as Moses commanded. However, the report went out
concerning him all the more. Great multitudes came together
to hear and to be healed by him of their infirmities. Now the
Lord gives that healed man two directives. First one is don't
tell anyone about this. And second, show yourself to
the priest and make an offering just as Moses commanded. Now
I admit I had to look that up, that first directive. I don't
get it. That understanding didn't come
to me. Because why would you want to
conceal a miracle like this, right? At least to our human
minds, you know, why would you want to tell people? So I looked
it up, John Gill says this, and he's probably got it here, he
says, not to conceal that this fact, I'm sorry, I read this
out of order, not that this fact could be concealed if it was
done publicly, before the multitude, nor was it Christ's design that
it should be, only it was his counsel to this man, that while
he was on the road to Jerusalem, and when he had come there, that
he would speak of it to no man before he came to the priest
or priests, lest out of ill will to Christ, they should refuse
to pronounce him clean. I guess speculation, but to make
sure that the priests treated him as a man who had been healed
and not by their enemy. So Jesus is aware that the priests
don't agree with him. And so he did not want this man
to suffer rebuke by them since he was associated with Jesus. The second directive though follows
what is written in the Leviticus 14. To anyone who had been afflicted
with leprosy and was later declared to be clean, two ceremonies must
be performed. So right after he's cleaned,
there's an offering of two birds, right? One of which is killed
while the second bird and a piece of cedar, a piece of scarlet,
and hyssop would be dipped in the blood of the first bird and
sprinkled on the man who was a leper. This signified the cleansing. The man then washes and shaves
all the hair on his head from the top all the way to the bottom
of the neck. This is the beard, the eyebrows,
the hair. And then the second ceremony
occurs on the eighth day. And if he can't afford it, he
takes two male lambs and one ewe lamb without blemish and
the priest that had declared him clean. It has to be that
same priest. that he was cleansed, he sacrifices
one lamb in the same place as he would the sin offering. There
is then a very specific placement of blood to put on the man's
body along with oil, and I think it is this ceremony that Jesus
was telling the man to observe, although you can't tell from
there. But again, I looked it up, and
John Gill, he says, to the purpose of this direction that the priests
being satisfied of the healing and cleansing of this man and
accordingly pronouncing him clean and accepting his offerings,
this might be either a convincing testimony to them that Jesus
was the Son of God and true Messiah and that he did not deny or oppose
the law as he was accused given by Moses or might be a standing
testimony against them should they continue in their unbelief,
which some did. Now in verse 16 it says, so he
himself, that is Jesus, often withdrew into the wilderness
and prayed. This is after it said the multitudes
came to hear and be healed by him. Now after reading this,
it's kind of natural to wonder a few things. Like what did Jesus
pray for? What does he say? What were his
words? Prayers for whom if he was praying about people? The word wilderness here implies
it is uninhabited. Could be a wasteland, could be
full of plants. They use that word to just mean
nobody lives there. So why does he remove himself
to a lonesome place? What is he praying about that
he needs to do it in seclusion? So when God behaves or Jesus
behaves in mysterious ways or says mysterious things and then
does not explain his purpose, it sparks that inquisitive nature
in us. So we loathe an unsolved mystery. And those numerous questions
that flare in our minds are all natural questions, but if they
are not explained, they're all irrelevant. They're all irrelevant
questions, or at least the answers would be. Because we know this
to be true, if it matters for our salvation and our growth
in grace, God will reveal it. This is to me when I was younger,
This was a very difficult lesson to learn. That something that
I think would help me has been withheld. Withheld. And it doesn't cost God anything
to say it, right? It wouldn't cost anybody anything
to write it down. But it's not there. And I want
it to be. But no, it is within his right
to withhold. And of course, we know this also
to be true, just as we heard last Sunday. Everything he does
is for our good, even withholding. Now there are many other examples
in the Bible that reveal God's purpose exactly. There's no vagueness
about it. But others he leaves shrouded
in Imprecision, for lack of a better
word. For example, God let the seven
thunders speak to John in a vision, to speak words that may have
revealed something very mysterious to us, something we would love
to know, may have explained something in the future, but he concealed
those words to every other son and daughter of Adam. Nobody
else got to hear them. Like I said, that made me mad.
But of course, as you grow older, as you grow in faith, you later
realize the father's not going to reveal something that would
be for your ill. And if it was for your good,
he would have revealed it. So we do know this. Jesus often
withdrew to pray and it was to pray to his father, his God,
that's what he called him. and it was to glorify the father
so that the father might then glorify the son. We have, and
this I'm speaking to everybody, we have the scriptures and these
are they which testify of Christ and that's enough. If he says
that's all we need, then it is our responsibility to just be
content. Now verse 17. It happened on
a certain day as he was teaching that there were Pharisees and
teachers of the law sitting by who had come out of every town
of Galilee, Judea and Jerusalem and the power of the Lord was
present to heal them. And this is worded to me a little
bit confusingly and I could not find an explanation. That last
word of the verse is them. And the power of the Lord was
present to heal them. It seems to refer to the Pharisees
and teachers of the law who are also called lawyers and scribes. But other commenters say that
the Pharisees are not there to be healed by Christ but to catch
him breaking the law of the Old Testament and to trick him into
blasphemy. I go back to John Gill. I do
that when I'm confused. He writes this about that last
phrase in verse 17. It says, not the Pharisees and
doctors of the law who did not come to be healed, either in
body or mind, but the multitude, the multitude, some of whom came
to hear his doctrine, others to be healed of their infirmities.
The Persiac version reads the words thus, and from all the
villages of Galilee and from Judea and from Jerusalem, multitudes
came. and the power of God was present
to heal them. And in the margins in my Bible,
it says, with him to heal. Instead of to heal them, the
power was present with him to heal. So it is a multitude consisting
of not only Christ's enemies, but also of those who want to
hear Christ's message, who want to be healed of their infirmities.
The crowd fills this house that he's in. So there's no room inside,
not even room at the door, and the outside wall is just surrounded. But Matthew Henry, he found a
pearl in this verse that I would like to share, and I'll end with
this. It is about the phrase, there were Pharisees and teachers
of the law sitting by. He says, how many are there in
our assemblies where the gospel is preached who do not sit under
the word, but just sit by? Who do not sit under the word,
but just sit by? It is to them as a tale that
is told them, not as a message that is sent to them. Or in other words, they never
hear his doctrine. They never hear it. For his doctrine
declares free salvation apart from the law. They never pursue
the Messiah to be healed like the rest of them did, these masses
from the surrounding regions. And they never pursue the Messiah
to be healed because they don't believe they are sick. They never
listen when he speaks of his father, for they believe in a
different God, a different God, one who looks on the outside
only, who considers a man's station, who respects man's works and
gives a small amount of glory to the man for a job well done. That's the God they believe in.
They will not sit under his word, but will only sit by God's wrath
is approaching, are you content to just sit by, knowing that? Don't be the ones who just sit
by. Be the ones who seek. Be the ones who are hungry. Be the ones who yearn to go see
Him. Because in Him is life everlasting. Bruce, would you close this please?